Inequality In Today Research Articles

Transport Inequality in Today’s Cities at the Intersection of Mobility and Inequality

One aspect of social inequality in today’s cities concerns transport inequality. This simply refers to the transport advantages of the rich compared to the poor (Gebresselassie & Sanchez, 2019). The transport inequality intersects with other forms of marginalization as well, based on gender, age, disability, and ethnicity. Yet for the mobile or kinetic elite (Andreotti, Le Gallès, & Moreno-Fuentes, 2013), all places and transport means are readily available. Furthermore, transport-related mega-projects accentuate the existing social inequalities of the neoliberal city. However, urban policy makers have begun to realize the importance of transport inequality and develop inclusive policies, such as “accessibility planning” in the UK (Lucas, 2012). Urban citizens are also forming mobility justice movements to protest against the increasing transport costs, as in Latin America (Díaz Pabón & Palacio Ludeña, 2021) and France. The encompassing mobility research is largely connected to social and environmental sustainability ideals. Hence, this paper will study the relationship between mobility and inequality through a thematic analysis of approximately 100 publications that were selected with certain keywords from the results of Web of Science searches, a few books, institutional reports and other sources. This literature review shows that transport inequalities are a reflection of the capitalist system and one of the main sources of social conflict in contemporary societies. Against the solution suggestions that range from rehabilitating the system to revolution as a process in the related literature, formation of place-based solutions that take into consideration both universal and local conditions is suggested in this study.

Rural China under the COVID‐19 pandemic: Differentiated impacts, rural–urban inequality and agro‐industrialization

AbstractWe use field data collected in a village in northern China to examine the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on rural economy and livelihoods. The lockdown effectively protected the village from the pandemic, resulting in zero infection. The economic impacts were mostly negative but differentiated across economic sectors and livelihood strategies; some gained from the business opportunities arising from the pandemic. Wage loss for migrant workers was the most common negative impact but lasted less than 2 months. Overall, rural China has escaped the worst impacts of the pandemic found in other developing countries. We argue that the structure of inequalities in today's China, now primarily based on market differentiations, has become far more complex than the simplistic rural–urban dichotomy based on the household registration (hukou) status can possibly explain. Rather than exacerbating the hukou‐based rural–urban inequality, the true impacts of the pandemic on rural China are more likely to result from the reforms of the agri‐food system. The suspected link between the new pathogen and the food system has created a misinformed urgency for the government to accelerate the industrialization of the food system, which we think can backfire and increase the likelihood of the next outbreak.

Marriage Market and Labor Market Sorting

We build a novel equilibrium model in which households' labor supply choices form the link between sorting on the marriage market and sorting on the labor market. We first show that in theory, the nature of home production – whether partners' hours are complements or substitutes – shapes marriage market sorting, labor market sorting and labor supply choices in equilibrium. We then estimate our model on German data to assess the nature of home production in the data, and find that spouses' home hours are complements. We investigate to what extent complementarity in home hours drives sorting and inequality. We find that the home production complementarity – by strengthening positive marriage sorting and reducing the gender gap in hours and labor sorting – puts significant downward pressure on the gender wage gap and within-household income inequality, but it fuels between-household inequality. Our estimated model sheds new light on the sources of inequality in today's Germany and – by identifying important shifts in home production technology towards more complementarity – on the evolution of inequality over time.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer: Country- and state-level income inequality moderates the job insecurity-burnout relationship.

Despite the prevalence of income inequality in today's society, research on the implications of income inequality for organizational research is scant. This study takes the first step to explore the contextual role of national- and state- level income inequality as a moderator in the relationship between individual-level job insecurity (JI) and burnout. Drawing from conservation of resource (COR) theory, we argue that income inequality at the country-level and state-level threatens one's obtainment of object (i.e., material coping) and condition (i.e., nonmaterial coping) resources, thus serving as an environmental stressor exacerbating one's burnout reactions to JI. The predicted cross-level interaction effect of income inequality was tested in 2 studies. Study 1 consisting of 23,778 individuals nested in 30 countries explored the moderating effect of country-level income inequality on the relationship between individual JI and exhaustion. Study 2 collected data from 402 employees residing in 48 states in the United States, and tested the moderating effect of state-level income inequality on the relationship between JI and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion and cynicism). Results of both studies converge to support the exacerbating role of higher-level income inequality on the JI -burnout relationship. Our findings contribute to the literature on psychological health disparities by exploring the contextual role of income inequality as a predictor of differential reactions to JI. (PsycINFO Database Record

Income inequality in today's China.

Using multiple data sources, we establish that China's income inequality since 2005 has reached very high levels, with the Gini coefficient in the range of 0.53-0.55. Analyzing comparable survey data collected in 2010 in China and the United States, we examine social determinants that help explain China's high income inequality. Our results indicate that a substantial part of China's high income inequality is due to regional disparities and the rural-urban gap. The contributions of these two structural forces are particularly strong in China, but they play a negligible role in generating the overall income inequality in the United States, where individual-level and family-level income determinants, such as family structure and race/ethnicity, play a much larger role.

Work and career experiences of ethnic minority men and women

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce the contexts in which this special issue developed, along with the wider context in which research such as that included is conducted. It is believed that without the persistence of researchers in this field, the situation would be even worse.Design/methodology/approachPapers were selected from those submitted following a call for papers which went out after the Inaugural Equal Opportunities International Conference held at the University of East Anglia in July 2008. Two of the selected papers use qualitative, and two use quantitative, methodologies. The research was conducted in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Each seeks to develop theory based upon fresh empirical work.FindingsCompelling evidence provides insight to ways in which majority and minority ethnic employees experience organizations differently, along with the resultant differential outcomes, including career paths, quality and opportunities.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper maintains that each paper in this special issue (within its own context and as it currently stands) represents a robust example of qualitative or quantitative research in the field.Practical implicationsFrom the evidence of each paper published here, it is clear that academics and practitioners alike will gain insights to employer and employee behaviours at the level of the labour market and within the workplace itself. Such insights should encourage further action on the part of both. Employers should be prompted to review their polices and practices in the light of anti‐discriminatory legislation in such a way as to minimize discrimination therein.Social implicationsThis paper draws attention to matters of persistent inequality which remain so even in enlightened times wherein quite extensive legislation is in place to outlaw such inequality. As such, the guest editors would like to see, as a result of both academics and practitioners reading the work within this, and all other, editions of the journal, concerted efforts, in the case of the former, to continue to conduct and disseminate high‐profile research in the area of discrimination and equal opportunity, and, in the latter, to address their policies and practices. In the latter context, the guest editors would like to see an impact on public and private employment policies and the seriousness with which corporate social responsibility is undertaken. In that respect, public attitudes might eventually be seen to be changing for the more equitable.Originality/valueThe paper brings together the findings of four different pieces of original research in such a way as to demonstrate the commitment of researchers to addressing inequality in today's workplaces, which themselves continue to be inequitable.

From Nationally Bounded to Pan-European Inequalities? On the Importance of Foreign Countries as Reference Groups

In sociology, the appropriateness of national approaches for understanding social inequality in today's societies is being increasingly questioned, and EU-wide approaches are advocated instead. In this paper, we link the growing debate about national or EU-wide approaches to reference group theory, investigating whether comparisons with foreign countries influence levels of individual life satisfaction. Our results indicate that, on the one hand, more people can be assumed to have a national frame of reference than a broader international one; on the other hand, among those who do have an idea of how average people in other countries live, cross-border comparisons certainly influence people's satisfaction with life. Upward comparisons in particular are important: the more people feel personally deprived, relative to other countries, the less satisfied they are with their lives. In contrast, the feeling of relative gratification has a much smaller impact on life satisfaction, and often no impact at all. This leads us to conclude that EU-wide approaches to inequality do make sense, but that there is also no need to jettison national approaches completely.

The limits of Rawlsian justice

The idea of fairness lies at the heart of the concept of justice proposed by political philosopher John Rawls, a concept that liberals have often invoked to defend the welfare state. In The Limits of Rawlsian Justice political theorist Roberto Alejandro challenges the assumptions that Rawls set out to defend his position. While other opponents of Rawls have attempted to offer an alternative to his concept of justice as fairness, Alejandro instead examines Rawls from within his own writings, testing Rawls's assumptions on the basis of those assumptions themselves. As a result, Alejandro shows that Rawls's idea of justice as fairness is fraught with inner tensions, exposed to utilitarian dangers, and far from being the coherent model Rawls promised. Alejandro concludes that Rawls's notion of justice-as-fairness preserves the status quo, overlooks the realities of inequalities in today's society, and is inherently conservative. As a theoretical paradigm, it is exhausted. He urges that we acknowledge the limits of Rawlsian justice both as a defense of the welfare state and as the basis of a just society.