Paradox Of Inequality Research Articles

Meritocracy and Inequality in South Africa: Understanding Changes in Beliefs and their Influence on Demand for Redistribution

In light of rising global inequality, public concerns for inequality have been declining. This paradox of inequality has been explained by the rise in meritocratic beliefs in some developed countries. Untested in South Africa, the most unequal society, this study aims to report on these issues by investigating the impact of meritocratic and nonmeritocratic beliefs on redistribution preferences in South Africa. Using the International Social Survey Programme data for 2009 and 2019, we find that contrary to some developed countries, meritocratic beliefs have declined despite persistent high inequality. Nonmeritocratic factors like sex and race are perceived as less critical for personal success, while bribery and political connections gain prominence. Results reveal that stronger meritocratic beliefs correlate positively with redistribution preferences, whereas nonmeritocratic beliefs have minimal impact. This challenges the notion that high inequality intensifies meritocratic beliefs and reduces demand for redistribution, suggesting the need to consider South Africa's unique historical and socioeconomic context.

Mapping language literacy at scale: a case study on Facebook

Literacy is one of the most fundamental skills for people to access and navigate today’s digital environment. This work systematically studies the language literacy skills of online populations for more than 160 countries and regions across the world, including many low-resourced countries where official literacy data are particularly sparse. Leveraging public data on Facebook, we develop a population-level literacy estimate for the online population that is based on aggregated and de-identified public posts written by adult Facebook users globally, significantly improving both the coverage and resolution of existing literacy tracking data. We found that, on Facebook, women collectively show higher language literacy than men in many countries, but substantial gaps remain in Africa and Asia. Further, our analysis reveals a considerable regional gap within a country that is associated with multiple socio-technical inequalities, suggesting an “inequality paradox” – where the online language skill disparity interacts with offline socioeconomic inequalities in complex ways. These findings have implications for global women’s empowerment and socioeconomic inequalities.

Study of Uncertainty and Inaccuracies of the Income for Inequality Paradox through Fuzzy Logic for Sustainable Development

The sustainable goal can also be the global goal of preserving nature and green resources and taking precautionary measures to safeguard the planet and its prosperity. Green technology depicts, as the name signifies, eco-friendly, energy-efficient, and reusable safety concerns. Fundamentally, renewable resources are to be reiterative and available to retain nature's natural core of existence. The proposed study is destined to discuss one of the sustainable goals defined in 2015 by the United Nations: reduced inequality (SDG: Goal 10). The study is inclined to find uncertainty and a degree of inaccuracy in the inequality paradox with respect to differences in earnings between male and female workers based on their educational attainment in EU countries. The indicators of statistics are observed and monitor variations of below-upper secondary education, upper secondary and post-non-territory education, and, very importantly, the overall income with respect to all levels of education, which can alert policymakers to impending problems. On the other hand, quantify the impact of the difference in earnings between male and female workers and encourage an education system to improve by comparing it, or parts of it, with other countries or systems.Inequality defines the occurrence of an unequal administration of resources and opportunities among the members of the given clusters. There are different dimensions of the inequality paradox, such as wage inequality, homelessness, racial gaps in education, child poverty, residential separation, and health insurance. There is a need to quantify the degree of each entity, and every real-world data set has a degree of randomness that cascades to uncertainty and is technically called "statistical uncertainty". In other words, estimating the uncertainty is another dimension of measuring the entity itself. While measuring, there is also risk embedded; hence, we do not have an appropriate probability model, and fuzzy logic took its existence to serve the purpose. Fuzzy logic is a modus operandi in accordance with convolutional and imprecise systems. By applying the principles of fuzzy logic, arithmetic, and substandard data can be studied in an instinctive and viable manner. With the support of fuzzy logic, the uncertainty of the data can be measured meticulously by measuring the possibilities. This article facilitates quantifying the degree of inaccuracy and uncertainty of the income paradox from the primary data, which has been derived from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Statistics, and the main data repository, "Differences in earnings between female and male workers, by educational attainment" for respective countries for the reference year 2020.

The Paradox of Inequality: Factors Influencing Income Inequality in the Philippine Setting

In the Philippines, income inequality is one of the country's most serious issues. This study aims to look at some of the factors that influence income inequality in the Philippines; Educational spending, GDP per Capita, and tax revenue. These are the Philippine elements that have a significant impact on this study; On how citizens pay their taxes, the state of the country's GDP, and its educational priorities. The importance of these elements will be discussed in this study to eliminate income inequality in the Philippines and for every Filipino citizen to develop in their lives. Secondary data will be used ranging from 2000-2019. The results show that all independent variables are significant to each other, with an R-squared of 0.988. The results also show that GDP had the most significant relationship with Income inequality compared with the other variables.

COVID-19 and the Nordic Paradox: a call to measure the inequality reducing benefits of welfare systems in the wake of the pandemic

The Nordic Paradox of inequality describes how the Nordic countries have puzzlingly high levels of relative health inequalities compared to other nations, despite extensive universal welfare systems and progressive tax regimes that redistribute income. However, the veracity and origins of this paradox have been contested across decades of literature, as many scholars argue it relates to measurement issues or historical coincidences. Disentangling between potential explanations is crucial to determine if widespread adoption of the Nordic model could represent a sufficient panacea for lowering health inequalities, or if new approaches must be pioneered. As newfound challenges to welfare systems continue to emerge, evidence describing the benefits of welfare systems is becoming ever more important. Preliminary evidence indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic is drastically exacerbating social inequalities in health across the world, via direct and indirect effects. We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic therefore represents a unique opportunity to measure the value of welfare systems in insulating their populations from rising social inequalities in health. However, COVID-19 has also created new measurement challenges and interrupted data collection mechanisms. Robust academic studies will therefore be needed—drawing on novel data collection methods—to measure increasing social inequalities in health in a timely fashion. In order to assure that policies implemented to reduce inequalities can be guided by accurate and updated information, policymakers, academics, and the international community must work together to ensure streamlined data collection, reporting, analysis, and evidence-based decision-making. In this way, the pandemic may offer the opportunity to finally clarify some of the mechanisms underpinning the Nordic Paradox, and potentially more firmly establish the merits of the Nordic model as a global example for reducing social inequalities in health.

An inequality paradox: relative versus absolute indices?

This paper identifies a paradox for inequality indices which is similar to the well known Simpson paradox in statistics. For the Gini and Bonferroni indices, concrete examples of the paradox are provided and general methods are described for obtaining examples of the paradox for arbitrary size population. Sufficient conditions for the paradox not to hold are developed. The paradox, however, vanishes if we measure inequality by the absolute Gini and Bonferroni indices of inequality.

Paradoxical Impact of a Patient-Handling Intervention on Injury Rate Disparity Among Hospital Workers.

To test whether a comprehensive safe patient-handling intervention, which successfully reduced overall injury rates among hospital workers in a prior study, was differentially effective for higher-wage workers (nurses) versus low-wage workers (patient care associates [PCAs]). Data were from a cohort of nurses and PCAs at 2 large hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts. One hospital received the intervention in 2013; the other did not. Using longitudinal survey data from 2012 and 2014 plus longitudinal administrative injury and payroll data, we tested for socioeconomic differences in changes in self-reported safe patient-handling practices, and for socioeconomic differences in changes in injury rates using administrative data. After the intervention, improvements in self-reported patient-handling practices were equivalent for PCAs and for nurses. However, in administrative data, lifting and exertion injuries decreased among nurses (rate ratio [RR] = 0.64; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.41, 1.00) but not PCAs (RR = 1.10; 95% CI = 0.74,1.63; P for occupation × intervention interaction = 0.02). Although the population-level injury rate decreased after the intervention, most improvements were among higher-wage workers, widening the socioeconomic gap in injury and exemplifying the inequality paradox. Results have implications for public health intervention development, implementation, and analysis.

The paradox of inequality: income inequality and belief in meritocracy go hand in hand

AbstractInequality is on the rise: gains have been concentrated with a small elite, while most have seen their fortunes stagnate or fall. Despite what scholars and journalists consider a worrying trend, there is no evidence of growing popular concern about inequality. In fact, research suggests that citizens in unequal societies are less concerned than those in more egalitarian societies. How to make sense of this paradox? I argue that citizens’ consent to inequality is explained by their growing conviction that societal success is reflective of a meritocratic process. Drawing on 25 years of International Social Survey Program data, I show that rising inequality is legitimated by the popular belief that the income gap is meritocratically deserved: the more unequal a society, the more likely its citizens are to explain success in meritocratic terms, and the less important they deem nonmeritocratic factors such as a person’s family wealth and connections.

The paradox of inequality in South Africa: a challenge from the workplace

The paradox of inequality in South Africa: a challenge from the workplace

Connecting qualitative research on exercise and environment to public health agendas requires an equity lens

In this commentary, I respond to the special section in Health & Place (vol. 46) on “Exercise and environment: new qualitative work to link popular practice and public health” edited by Hitchings and Latham. I argue that if qualitative research is to effectively inform public health policy and practice it cannot ignore the fact that physical activity participation is inequitable. Without building in a critical equity lens, geographers risk perpetuating the “inequality paradox”—that is, the potential for population health interventions to inadvertently exacerbate health inequalities. Related to this, I challenge the editors’ assumption that geographers’ critiques of public health approaches to physical activity and our applied efforts to foster physical activity participation are mutually exclusive endeavours. Rather, I argue they are mutually necessary within a social justice agenda. Finally, I close this commentary by offering ways forward for qualitative research on exercise and environment to connect with public health agendas and inform interventions.

The Paradox of Inequality in South Korea: Minsaeng Kyǒngje and Reinvigorated Developmentalism

The Paradox of Inequality in South Korea: Minsaeng Kyǒngje and Reinvigorated Developmentalism

Household borrowing and the possibility of ‘consumption-driven, profit-led growth’*

We first show that, with a Kaleckian structure that is consistent with Pasinetti (1962), the relationship between distribution and growth is more robust than conventional wisdom suggests. Next, we extend our model by incorporating borrowing and emulation effects into workers’ consumption behavior, under different assumptions about how debt is serviced. Our results demonstrate that borrowing and emulation transform the relationship between distribution and growth, giving rise to the possibility of a ‘consumption-driven, profit-led’ growth regime (Kapeller and Schütz 2015) and what we call the ‘paradox of inequality.’ A key conclusion is that the wage- or profit-led characteristics of the growth process, rather than being invariant, can be altered by social constructs such as borrowing and consumption norms that change over time.

Household Borrowing and the Possibility of 'Consumption-Driven, Profit-Led Growth'

We first show that, with a Kaleckian structure that is consistent with Pasinetti (1962), the relationship between distribution and growth is more robust than conventional wisdom suggests. Next, we extend our model by incorporating borrowing and emulation effects into workers' consumption behavior, under different assumptions about how debt is serviced. Our results demonstrate that borrowing and emulation transform the relationship between distribution and growth, giving rise to the possibility of a consumption-driven, growth regime (Kapeller and Schutz, 2015) and what we call the paradox of inequality. A key conclusion is that the wage- or profit-led characteristics of the growth process, rather than being invariant, can be altered by social constructs such as borrowing and consumption norms that change over time.

The interplay of structure and agency in health promotion: Integrating a concept of structural change and the policy dimension into a multi-level model and applying it to health promotion principles and practice

The recent debate in public health about the “inequality paradox” mirrors a long-standing dispute between proponents of structuralist approaches and advocates of action theory. Both views are genuine perspectives of health promotion, but so far they have not been adequately linked by health promotion theory. Using Anthony Giddens's concepts of structure and agency seems promising, but his theory has a number of shortcomings that need to be amended if it is to be applied successfully to health promotion. After briefly assessing Giddens’s theory of structuration, this paper proposes to add to it both the concept of structural change as proposed by William Sewell and the policy dimension as described by Elinor Ostrom in her distinction between “operational” and “collective choice” level. On this basis, a multi-level model of the interaction of structure and agency in health promotion is proposed. This model is then connected to central claims of the Ottawa Charter, i.e. “build healthy public policy”, “create supportive environments”, “strengthen community actions”, and “develop personal skills”. A case study from a local-level health promotion project in Germany is used to illustrate the explanatory power of the model, showing how interaction between structure and agency on the operational and on the collective choice level led to the establishment of women-only hours at the municipal indoor swimming pool as well as to increased physical activity levels and improved general self-efficacy among members of the target group.

Commentary: Structure or agency? The importance of both for addressing social inequalities in health

In their paper entitled ‘Rose’s population strategy of prevention need not increase social inequalities in health’, McLaren et al. offer a cogent response to our earlier paper ‘The inequality paradox: the population approach and vulnerable populations’. It is a pleasure, and was indeed our goal, to see a lively debate sparked by our initial musings. It is therefore an equal pleasure to respond to their paper as part of a further debate. McLaren et al.’s argument rests in part on the idea that not all population prevention interventions influence social inequalities in health to the same extent. They argue that their influence depends on whether the strategy is what they call structural or agentic; the former targets the conditions in which behaviours occur, the latter, behaviour change among individuals. They conclude that structural interventions are less likely to worsen social inequalities in health than agentic strategies. While this distinction is interesting it may be somewhat distracting given that social inequalities in health, we have argued in the past, arise due to the interplay of ‘both’ structure and agency. While McLaren et al. rightly cite Anthony Giddens as an important 20th century thinker with respect to the structure/agency debate, they fail to mention that among Giddens’ most important contributions to sociology has been his structuration theory. Structuration theory is based on the idea that both agency, defined as the ability to deploy a range of causal powers, and structure, objectified as the rules and resources in society, give rise to people’s social practices, which are the activities that make and transform the world we live in (referred to by people in public health as behaviours). Using the heuristic of collective lifestyles, it has been argued that an adequate tackling of inequalities in health should address all three aspects of structuration theory (agency, social structure and social practices) rather than structure or agency alone. Indeed, we thank the authors for bringing us back to some of our earlier reflections with regard to the structure/agency relationship as it plays a crucial role in our new argument regarding vulnerable populations. By using the term vulnerable populations, we sought to move away from risk factor epidemiological thought, which tends to focus largely on behaviour alone, and suggest that some groups are vulnerable with regard to their agency, their position with regard to the social structure and their social practices. It is only by focusing on all three that one would be able to reduce social inequalities in health, as all three are at the base of these inequalities. However, we agree with McLaren et al. that the use of the term vulnerable populations is not without problems, including potential stigmatization. One might consider instead the concept of exclusionary process developed by the Social Exclusion Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. Their critique of the notion of vulnerability is that it emphasizes a state without identifying causes, and that it becomes a characteristic of people and not the result of a process. On the contrary, an exclusionary process originates in the unequal distribution of four types of resources: material, cultural, social and political. It is the unequal distribution of these resources that reproduces health inequalities. This notion of exclusionary processes points to the importance of working upstream in order to address some of the original causes that led to the unequal distribution of these resources. A final note is warranted regarding our perspective on participation. The authors suggest that participatory strategies may ultimately be agentic if structural conditions are not addressed. It is true that the public health literature tends to be ideological and offers little theoretical breadth with regard to the conditions required in the participatory process. In our view participatory planning is a political process. This process Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association

The prevention paradox or the inequality paradox?

In February this year, a new edition of Geoffrey Rose's classical book Strategy of Preventive Medicine was published, with a commentary by Kay-Tee Khaw and Michael Marmot.1 The commentary summarizes the life and work of Geoffrey Rose, explains the main content and impact of the classical book and gives plenty of examples that illustrate the validity of Rose's theses. Coincidentally, in the February issue of the American Journal of Public Health , Frolich and Potvin published an article pointing out that interventions based on the population-based approach, advocated by Rose, may increase inequality in health. They give three examples on this and propose a strategy to mitigate such effects.2 The key messages of Geoffrey Rose may be summarized as follows: the distribution of risk levels for major determinants of disease follows a continuum in which the high-risk persons are at the extreme … Correspondence: Peter Allebeck, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, e-mail: Peter.Allebeck{at}ki.se

Women and the Paradox of Economic Inequality in the Twentieth-Century

This article uses the history of women in twentieth-century United States to explore the paradox of inequality in American history: the coexistence of durable inequality with immense individual and group mobility. Using census data, the article traces inequality along four dimensions: participation, distribution, rewards, and differentiation. Differentiation, the article argues, resolves the paradox of inequality by showing how mobility reinforces rather than challenges existing social structures. The analysis highlights differences in women's experiences by cohort and race and emphasizes the role of education, technological change, and, especially, government's impact on labor markets. The article concludes by evaluating and extending Charles Tilly's theory of durable inequality in light of the trends in women's experience.

Reflection as an explanation of Bell's inequality paradox

This paper develops a quantitative model version of Mugur-Schachter's “reflection” model of Bell's experiment. We show that his nonlocal, but Einstein-separable, model leads to violations of Bell's inequality similar to those predicted by quantum mechanics.