Stephen P. Jenkins

Accounting for Inequality Trends: Decomposition Analyses for the UK, 1971-86

Eight explanations for U.K. income inequality trends between 1971 and 1986 are assessed by pooling evidence from inequality index decompositions by population sub-group and by income source. The principal causes of the aggregate trends were a mixture of changes in earnings inequality, employment structure and unemployment, but this mixture changed over time. The impact of wage inequality changes on income inequality changes fell during the 1970s and 1980s, reflecting the secular decline in the importance of employment earnings for household income packages. Unemployment changes had their largest impact at the start of the 1980s. Between 1981 and 1986 self-employment income changes appear to have had the largest influence. Copyright 1995 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.

The Great Recession and the distribution of household income

The ‘Great Recession’ was the worst macroeconomic downturn since the 1930s in most OECD countries. In many economies, subsequent recovery has been sluggish, and has sometimes turned into a new recession. The paper in vestigates the effects of the Great Recession on the distribution of household incomes. It shows that the changes between 2007 and 2009 in household incomes in total and on avera ge, in income inequality, and in poverty rates, were modest in most of the countries studied , in spite of the depth of the recession in most countries. This outcome is remarkably differen t from the far more dramatic experience of the Great Depression, although not so different from some recent recessions such as the Nordic crisis of the early 1990s. During the GR, th e household sector was protected from the impact of the downturn by both automatic stabiliser s and additional support of governments through the tax and benefit system. The post-2009 d istributional impacts of the GR are likely to have been considerably larger however, with grea ter differences across countries emerging.

Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data

Although the majority of research on US income inequality trends is based on public-use March CPS data, a new wave of research using IRS tax return data reports substantially higher levels of inequality and faster growing trends. We show that these apparently inconsistent estimates are largely reconciled if the inequality measure and the income distribution are defined in the same way. Using internal CPS data for 1967-2006, we closely match IRS data-based estimates of top income shares reported by Piketty and Saez (2003). Our results imply that any inequality increases since 1993 are concentrated among the top 1 percent of the distribution.

To what extent do fiscal regimes equalize opportunities for income acquisition among citizens

This project employs the theory of equality of opportunity, described in Roemers book (Equality of Opportunity, Harvard University Press, 1998), to compute the extent to which tax-and-transfer regimes in ten countries equalize opportunities among citizens for income acquisition. Roughly speaking, equality of opportunity for incomes has been achieved in a country when it is the case that the distributions of post-fisc income are the same for different types of citizen, where a citizens type is defined by the socioeconomic status of his parents. Intuitively, a country will have equalized opportunity if the chances of earning high (or low) income are equal for citizens from all family backgrounds. Of course, pre-fisc income distributions, by type, will not be identical, as long as the educational system does not entirely make up for the disadvantage that children, who come from poor families face, but the tax-and-transfer system can play a role in rectifying that inequality. We include, in our computation, two numbers that summarize the extent to which each countrys current fiscal regime achieves equalization of opportunities for income, and the deadweight loss that would be incurred by moving to the regime that does.

Parametric Equivalence Scales and Scale Relativities

The authors respond to J. Banks and P. Johnsons (1994) comment on Coulter et al. (1992) drawing on a more general discussion of parametric equivalence scale and scale relativity issues and new empirical results. The authors show that criticisms of their earlier work are unfounded. When the McClements scale is properly characterized, the scale does indeed provide lower estimates of poverty and inequality levels than most other scales. The authors reiterate their conclusion that relationships between scale relativities and inequality and poverty indices may be index-specific. Moreover, the picture about distributional trends may differ from that about levels. Copyright 1994 by Royal Economic Society.

Social Segregation in Secondary Schools: How Does England Compare with Other Countries? *

New evidence is provided about the degree of social segregation in England’s secondary schools, employing a cross‐national perspective. Analysis is based on data for 27 industrialised countries from the 2000 and 2003 rounds of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). We allow for sampling variation in the estimates. England is shown to be a middle‐ranking country, as is the USA. High segregation countries include Austria, Belgium, Germany and Hungary. Low segregation countries include the four Nordic countries and Scotland. In explaining England’s position, we argue that its segregation is mostly accounted for by unevenness in social background in the state school sector. Cross‐country differences in segregation are associated with the prevalence of selective choice of pupils by schools.

Poverty Measurement and the Within-Household Distribution: Agenda for Action *

Mainsteam poverty analysis is deficient because it ignores important within-household aspects. This point has been made by many, and stressed by feminists especially, yet mainstream poverty measurement practice remains unchanged. Why is this? What should we be doing? This paper examines anew the case for taking within-household factors into account in poverty measurement. The analysis reveals a number of unresolved issues including some problems with recent feminist arguments, but concludes that there is a good case for changing current practice. To demonstrate that this is feasible, four research projects are described. These are my agenda for action.

Nobody to Play With? The Implications of Leisure Coordination

The core hypothesis of this paper is that an individuals time use choices may be contingent on the time use choices of others, because the utility derived from leisure time often benefits from the presence of companionable others inside and outside the household. We develop this idea using a model of time use, and demonstrate that it is consistent with the behaviour of British working couples in the 1990s. We show, first, that there is clear evidence of the synchronisation of working hours by spouses. Second, we report estimates indicating that propensities to engage in associative activity depend not only on spousal activity, but also on the availability of Suitable Leisure Companions outside the household.

Earnings discrimination measurement: A distributional approach

Abstract The measurement and analysis of earnings discrimination should take into account the complete distribution of discrimination experienced. The paper criticizes the almost universal practice of relying on the average differential, and develops new distributional approaches to supplement those currently used. These approaches are illustrated with a re-analysis of Wright and Ermischs (1991) study of earnings discrimination by gender based on the 1980 UK Women and Employment Survey.

The Dynamics of Child Poverty in Industrialised Countries

A child poverty rate of ten percent could mean that every tenth child is always poor, or that all children are in poverty for one month in every ten. Knowing where reality lies between these extremes is vital to understanding the problem facing many countries of poverty among the young. This unique study goes beyond the standard analysis of child poverty based on poverty rates at one point in time and documents how much movement into and out of poverty by children there actually is, covering a range of industrialised countries - the USA, UK, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Hungary and Russia. Five main topics are addressed: conceptual and measurement issues associated with a dynamic view of child poverty; cross-national comparisons of child poverty rates and trends; cross-national comparisons of childrens movements into and out of poverty; country-specific studies of child poverty dynamics; and the policy implications of taking a dynamic perspective.