ABSTRACT The COVID‐19 pandemic not only cost the United States more than a million lives, but it also led to seismic labor market shifts and significant wealth changes. Previous literature has found that various factors such as government shutdown policies, business layoffs, and portfolio heterogeneity have increased wealth inequality during the pandemic. This article examines the impact of the pandemic on wealth inequality for population groups broken down by religion and race. Using 2019 and 2021 data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find that wealth differentials by religious denominations and race existed before and during the pandemic at the mean and along the wealth distribution, and the pandemic somewhat diminished wealth inequality in many of those groups. Our analysis helps create a more holistic understanding of wealth inequality before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic, thus leading to better‐informed research and government policies in the future.

Wealth status plays a crucial role in shaping contraceptive choices among women in India. This study aims to investigate the impact of wealth quintiles on current contraceptive use and identify the factors contributing to differentials in contraceptive choices. Using data from National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021), current contraceptive use was categorised into non-users, traditional method users, permanent method users, and reversible modern method users. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was applied to investigate the association between wealth status and contraceptive method use while controlling for potential socio-economic factors. In addition, Wagstaff's concentration index was used to assess wealth inequality in each contraceptive method. The results indicate that 37.8% of women from the poorest quintiles do not use contraceptives, compared to 30.6% in the richest quintile. The use of reversible modern methods increases from 15.9% among the poorest to 25.0% among the richest. Women in the richest wealth quintiles were significantly more likely to use reversible modern methods (RRR = 1.61; 95% CI: 1.55-1.68) than in the poorest quintiles. Permanent method uses peaks in the middle wealth quintile (42.6%) and decreases in the richest quintile (33.7%). Regional disparities also exist, with higher use of permanent methods in southern and western India, while reversible methods were more common in northeastern and northern regions. The concentration index revealed a pro-rich pattern for reversible methods (CI = 0.092), while traditional and non-use were concentrated among poorer women. The findings suggested that wealth status significantly influenced contraceptive method use among currently married women in India. Reversible modern methods were more commonly used by wealthier women, whereas poorer women were more likely to rely on permanent methods or remain non-users. These differentials indicated persistent inequities in access to a diverse contraceptive method mix. These findings highlighted the need for targeted policy measures to improve availability of reversible methods in underserved areas, strengthening provider training to support informed choice, and addressing demand-side barriers through community support were essential to advanced reproductive health equity and help to meet the SDG 3.7 target in India.

This review explores research on the sources of Black and White wealth and debt differentials and how these differentials recreate inequalities in both wealth and nonwealth outcomes. We discuss how the relationship between wealth and life outcomes is bidirectional, yet studies of racial wealth inequality overwhelmingly focus on wealth as an outcome. We suggest that studies that examine the relationship from wealth to life outcomes are necessary to enable full understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the production and reproduction of racial wealth inequality and to identify policies in the United States to reduce racial inequality. We highlight research on entrepreneurship, race, and wealth to illustrate these dynamics. We conclude with a call for scholars to focus on community-level wealth, given scholarly and policy interests in closing the racial wealth gap.

Humans often live in neighborhoods, nested socio-spatial clusters within settlements of varying size and population density. In today's cities, neighborhoods are often characterized as relatively homogenous and may exhibit segregation along various socioeconomic dimensions. However, even within neighborhoods of similar social or economic status, there is often residential disparity, which in turn impacts perceived inequality. Drawing on the Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI) project database, we study housing inequality within a sample of neighborhoods using the Gini coefficient of residential unit area and related measures of inequality. We examine patterns of intracommunity inequality within more than 80 settlements from diverse spatiotemporal contexts including some of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia, the Roman Empire, the Classic Maya region, the Central Andes, and the Indus River Basin. Residential disparity differs within and among sectors of these settlements; some neighborhoods exhibit more similarity in residence size, resulting in lower degrees of housing inequality, while other sectors display greater variations in residence size with higher degrees of housing inequality. We observe a meaningful relationship between neighborhood inequality and population size, but not date of foundation or longevity of occupation. The macro-level structural processes associated with varying forms of governance seem to trickle down to the scale of the neighborhood. These findings may help explain why more unequal systems are not necessarily more unstable, as the inequality people experienced in their neighborhoods may generally have been less than that present in the overall settlement.

This article explores the impact of security factors on the balance of justice within the market transformation of contemporary Ukrainian society. The author analyzes theoretical approaches to the category of “justice” as a fundamental criterion for economic system stability and identifies the key drivers of social inequality arising during reform processes. The study demonstrates that economic efficiency is inextricably linked to moral, ethical, and social norms, as the level of justice determines the degree of public trust in state institutions. Furthermore, the research substantiates that market transformations frequently trigger social disproportions that threaten humanitarian security. The author contends that justice within a market system must encompass not only formal equality of opportunity but also the creation of conditions for human self-actualization and equitable access to resources and social goods. Conversely, corrupt practices and excessive wealth differentiation erode social capital and hinder national development. The article establishes a conceptual dependence between the level of social justice and the resilience of national security, arguing that amidst market reforms, justice serves not only as a moral category but as a strategic tool for minimizing socio-political and economic risks. Finally, the study proves the necessity of integrating humanitarian criteria into state regulatory policy to ensure a balance between economic expediency and the sustainable development of society.

Background & objectives Under-five mortality is high among the Scheduled Tribes (ST) in India compared with the general population. This study examined the association of different maternal, child, socio demographic, and household factors associated with under-five mortality among Scheduled Tribes in India. Methods Data from the National Family and Health Survey (NFHS)-5 (2019-2021) for the ST, across all Indian States and Union Territories were used for analyses. Binary and multivariate logistic regression were performed to identify the association of maternal, child, socio-demographic, and household factors with under-five mortality among the ST population. Results Different maternal, child, socio demographic, and household factors were significantly associated with under-five mortality. The odds of under-five mortality were highest among women who gave birth to their children at home [Adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 1.42; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.268-1.59] as compared with women who gave birth at institution. Literate women have lesser odds of under-five mortality than women with no formal education (AOR: 0.666; 95% CI: 0.501-0.885). The risk of under-five mortality was higher among four or more birth order children (AOR: 1.422; 95% CI: 1.246-1.624) compared with the first to third birth order children. The odds of under-five mortality decreased among children with a rich wealth index (AOR: 0.742; 95% CI: 0.592-0.93) compared to children with a poor wealth index. Interpretation & conclusions Analyses of under-five mortality among ST in India showed a significant association between different maternal, child, sociodemographic, and household factors. Grass-roots-level interventions such as promoting female education, addressing vast wealth differentials, and providing family planning services with a focus on reducing under-five mortality are essential in improving the survival of under-five children among the ST population in India.

BackgroundGhana was one of the few countries commended to have halved extreme poverty after the MDG era yet the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) was dire. Ghana’s U5MR is still above the national and global SDG target. As a result, the government has over the years implemented other complementary social and policy interventions to improve the socioeconomic status of households to ensure better child health outcomes. Yet key gaps exist and threaten child health outcome sustainability, and child health-related SDG targets. In this regard, we hypothesize that household wealth should therefore not influence under-five child deaths significantly.MethodsThe paper first reports the under-five mortality trend over the past 30 years in Ghana. It uniquely analyses the levels and trends in wealth as measured by the Gross National Income per capita at purchasing power parity (ln GNI/p, ppp) as a proxy of the mean Comparative Wealth Index (CWI) against under-five child deaths in Ghana. Using data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey and employing the logistic regression estimation technique, the paper further estimates the effect of household wealth and other key covariates on under-five child deaths. Implemented government poverty-alleviating policies and intervention programs to reduce childhood mortality in Ghana were reviewed to identify risk gaps to child deaths.ResultsThe 30 year trend analysis from 1990 to 2020 shows that the under-five mortality rate in Ghana is still high, falling short of the rate of decline that is expected toward achieving the 2030 SDG target for U5MR of 25 deaths per 1000 live births. Our empirical estimations show that household wealth still has a negative and significant relationship with under-five child deaths despite the government’s existing poverty-alleviating and pro-poor health policies. In addition, the results show that regional differences, maternal age, the number of children alive, and attendance to postnatal healthcare services are crucial for child survival.ConclusionThe results imply that the government should consolidate universal programmes with intensified targeted interventions toward improving household wealth, especially in the Northern Savannah regions. A new and dynamic child health policy is imminent to reflect strategies towards achieving the SDG target on U5MR. Additionally, intensive education on active maternal participation in postnatal care should be given critical consideration to improve child survival.

ABSTRACT To what extent can citizens’ attitudes to municipal mergers be explained by costs and benefits incurred by merging with a specific consortium of neighbouring units? To answer this question, we analyse data taken from a survey to citizens of 119 Norwegian local governments in the fall of 2019, merely a few months before the merger of their own unit with one or more neighbouring units was to be implemented as the result of a national local government reform decided over two years in advance. In line with previous studies, we find that citizens tend to prefer merging with wealthier neighbours rather than poorer ones. Moreover, we find that this preference is only observable among respondents in smaller units merging with one or more larger units. Furthermore, differentials in private wealth among the merging units appear to affect preferences more than public wealth. However, we did not find support for the theoretical assumption that citizens prefer mergers with units that are similar in terms of political and societal characteristics. Overall, our study suggests that concerns over local redistributive losses may impede support for mergers and, hence, increase the political costs of implementing comprehensive structural reforms.

Abstract We investigate theoretically and empirically how urban residence contributes to interpersonal differentials in wealth accumulation trajectories through its interrelated influences on labour and housing market outcomes. On the basis of Norwegian register data, we estimate models of one's position in various national wealth distributions over the 2010–2018 period, employing fixed‐effects to reduce geographic selection bias and obtain plausibly causal estimates of the impact of moving between levels of the rural–urban hierarchy. We find that residing in a more urbanized area for a longer duration is strongly related to one's rank in the net wealth, housing wealth and financial wealth distributions. Differentials in net wealth growth among levels of urbanization are most dramatic for younger and higher‐educated individuals, with further advantages for those who settle in Oslo. Structural equation modelling reveals that these plausibly causal effects arise primarily through gains in housing equity and (to a lesser degree) in earnings and capital incomes, confirming our conceptual model.

The article analyzes the measures of the State policy aimed at overcoming the problem of income inequality, the main directions of the influence of education on inequality. The main determinants and principles of inequality and approaches to its reduction are visualized. It is determined that the main criteria for assessing economic inequality are the level of income, differentiation of wealth, percentage of accumulation, availability of property, share of small and medium-sized businesses, level of employment, education. Generalization of the achievements of domestic and foreign scholars allowed to allocate priority measures to reduce income inequality, namely: the introduction of a progressive rate of personal income tax for a group of the population with incomes of more than UAH 80 thousand per month and simultaneous exemption from taxation of persons whose income does not exceed the subsistence level; raising the minimum wage in certain sectors of the economy; development of labor market institutions; reduction of precarious employment; increase in the tax rate on dividends; providing targeted assistance to low-income groups of the population and overcoming poverty. A model for reducing inequality in Ukraine has been proposed, which reflects the paradigm of the study in the form of a comparative analysis of postulates and theories that are the quintessence of the generalized contextual concepts of «inequality», «economic inequality», «social inequality», «socioeconomic inequality» which reflect the results of long-term socioeconomic, political and other processes in our country. Institutional mechanisms ensure the support and regulation of a model that has the ability to cycle reproduction and modification, which is a fundamental condition for the existence of socium and society and the basis for their inclusive development. The article also defines the main goals and objectives that must be fulfilled to achieve the goal defined in the model (reducing the level of socioeconomic inequality, increasing the general welfare of the population and balancing the development of the State).

Nowadays the issue of economic inequality has become extremely important after a series of socio-economic upheavals in the XNUMXst century. Such inequality affects a variety of aspects of life: from differentiation of income and wealth to the availability of goods and services, education, etc. In our case we are considering that these factors are an integral part of regional disparity, the basis of which lies in different levels of socio-economic development. This article examines the problem of regional disparity in the European Union. The methods used by the EU to measure and overcome it can also be useful for our country, because this problem is very relevant for the Russian Federation, which regions also suffer from socio-economic differentiation and disproportion.

Background Ghana was one of the few countries commended to have halved extreme poverty after the MDG era yet the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) was dire. Ghana's U5MR is still above the national and global SDG target. As a result, the government has over the years implemented other complementary social and policy interventions to improve the socioeconomic status of households to ensure better child health outcomes. Yet key gaps exist and threaten child health outcome sustainability, and child health-related SDG targets. In this regard, we hypothesize that household wealth should therefore not influence under-five child deaths significantly. Methods The paper first reports the under-five mortality trend over the past 30 years in Ghana. It uniquely analyses the levels and trends in wealth as measured by the Gross National Income per capita at purchasing power parity (ln GNI/p, ppp) as a proxy of the mean Comparative Wealth Index (CWI) against under-five child deaths in Ghana. Using data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey and employing the logistic regression estimation technique, the paper further estimates the effect of household wealth and other key covariates on under-five child deaths. Implemented government poverty-alleviating policies and intervention programs to reduce childhood mortality in Ghana were reviewed to identify risk gaps to child deaths. Results The 30 year trend analysis from 1990 to 2020 shows that the under-five mortality rate in Ghana is still high, falling short of the rate of decline that is expected toward achieving the 2030 SDG target for U5MR of 25 deaths per 1000 live births. Our empirical estimations show that household wealth still has a negative and significant relationship with under-five child deaths despite the government's existing poverty-alleviating and pro-poor health policies. In addition, the results show that regional differences, maternal age, the number of children alive, and attendance to postnatal healthcare services are crucial for child survival. The results imply that the government should consolidate universal programmes with intensified targeted interventions toward improving household wealth, especially in the Northern Savannah regions. A new and dynamic child health policy is imminent to reflect strategies towards achieving the SDG target on U5MR. Additionally, intensive education on active maternal participation in postnatal care should be given critical consideration to improve child survival.

Wealth differentials in archaeological sites are a frequently studied topic, but social differentiation approaches are rarely applied to different contexts within a wider territory, especially in Portugal. In this article, the authors discuss the differences in wealth and inequality through the consumption of tablewares from fifteen sites across Portugal dated from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries ad. The archaeological evidence derives from two types of contexts: secular (houses and dumps) and religious (female and male religious institutions). Using a statistical similarity method to compare different consumption patterns in each context, the authors discuss how this can help us understand wealth differences in distinct social environments.

Abstract During the Late Classic period (a.d. 550–900), ancient Maya settlement spread throughout western Belize, including the Vaca Plateau, a rugged karstic region with high densities of ritually utilized cave systems. Within the past decade, archaeologists have increasingly drawn on LiDAR technology to document the extent of such settlement at local and regional scales. Combined with traditional pedestrian survey, we have begun to amass substantial data on variation within household groups, disparities which may indicate inequality within these communities. Here, we use settlement data generated from the Las Cuevas region to quantify residential variation through Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves. Special attention is given to areal and volumetric deviation of identified households within three samples: (1) the complete 95.25 km2 study area; (2) a 12.25 km2 zone of higher population between the primary centers of Las Cuevas and Monkey Tail; and (3) households situated within 500 m of ritually utilized caves within the study area. Results indicate some degree of variation within household area and volume for all samples, suggestive of unequal access to labor within the region. This research adds to the growing database of Gini-based analyses to improve our understanding of wealth differentials within pre-modern populations throughout the Lowlands.

Donors have strongly advocated decentralization on the grounds that it broadens the participation of citizens in development processes, thereby increasing government responsiveness to their needs. Although there have been studies seeking to establish the veracity of this claim, they remain weak on two fronts. One, while wealth differentials affect citizen participation, these studies approach citizens as a homogenous group. Two, participation is mostly viewed narrowly—participation in elections. Drawing on empirical data from Ghana’s decentralization reform, this paper addresses these gaps by questioning how pro-poor citizen participation in decentralized development planning has been. I argue that although Ghana’s decentralization was propagated on championing pro-poor grassroots participation in governance and development, in reality, participation is elitist and has failed to reflect the voices of the poor. My findings demonstrate that the participation structures and processes used in local development planning are unfavourable to the poor in many respects. Elite and representative participation is promoted to the detriment of broad citizen participation. This exclusion is resulting in surging apathy of citizens towards the district assemblies—institutions hitherto trusted as their development champions. This paper concludes that the poor will remain voiceless despite decentralization unless the structural barriers to their participation are tackled in decentralization design and praxis.

THE BRICKMAKERS OF VILNIUS AT THE TURN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The article deals with some aspects of brickmaking in Vilnius. The research period is defined by the archival information on specific brickmakers-raw material miners, whose lists were compiled in 1795 and 1805. Forty-three craftsmen worked during this period. Using additional archival and printed sources, short biographies of these craftsmen were compiled. Based on the collected data, the localisation of brickmaking-raw material mining workshops is defined, wealth differentiation of those practising this trade is reviewed, the data on the continuity of the brickmaking trade and the turnover of brickmakers are discussed, and the economic and social relations of other craftsmen, especially potters, with brickmakers are examined. KEYWORDS: Vilnius, brickmaker, brickworks, potter, short biography.

Income rank and income concerns: What correlates with international migration intentions?

This paper investigates net wealth of the New Zealand-born (NZ-born) migrants relative to that of Australia-born, and other migrants in Australia. We consider how the free cross-border labour movement between Australia and New Zealand affects the wealth accumulating behaviour of NZ migrants. Our findings indicate that the NZ-born have lower net wealth than both the Australia-born and other migrants. The net wealth differential between the NZ- and Australia-born is mainly explained by the structure effect than from the composition effect (due to differences in observed characteristics, which are similar in both groups). In contrast, comparing with other migrants, the contribution of observed characteristics such as education, age, household composition, weekly wage, and long-term health conditions dominates the overall NZ-born’s net wealth differentials.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 cohort, the study explores the intersection of labor force attachment and economic inequality. Using a wealth-based definition of middle-class status, changes in wealth inequality among the working and managerial class are examined. Results indicate that Black and Latinx young adults are disproportionately working class and that racialized identity is a stronger predictor of wealth attainment than occupational classifications among Black young adults. Wealth differentials by race are not static; they are growing over time, with downward mobility and lower growth experienced by both Black working and managerial class young adults.

In Western economies, dualism between labor and capital artificially evolved into dualism between human data and capital: internet firms extract data from users of social media, search apps, and digital economic transactions in exchange for access. Accompanying infringements of privacy and indecent wealth differentials require an update of Commons’ reasonableness approach. An updated Third Way seems to be the way to go.