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GINI - Growing Inequalities' Impacts
TÁRKI participates in major inequality research in Europe: GINI - Growing Inequalities' Impacts (FP7, DG Research, Contract no. SSH-CT-2010-244592). The core objective of GINI is to deliver what are the social, cultural and political impacts that increasing inequalities in income, wealth and education may have? For the answers, GINI combines an interdisciplinary analysis that draws on economics, sociology, political science and health studies, with improved methodologies, uniform measurement, wide country coverage, a clear policy dimension and broad dissemination. The project operates in a framework of policy-oriented debate and international comparisons across all EU countries (except Cyprus and Malta), the USA, Japan, Canada and Australia.In the project TÁRKI coordinates the working group for the Political and Cultural Impacts (coordinators: Herman van de Werfhorst and István György Tóth. The working group addresses the question to study the impacts of inequalities in education and income/wealth on political and cultural outcomes. Rising income/wealth inequalities, and stable or declining educational inequalities, may have severe repercussions on outcomes in the sphere of politics and values. Topics to be addressed by this research group are: (1) understand the impact of changing educational and income/wealth inequalities on various forms of political and social participation; (2) understanding the relationship between changes in inequality and legitimacy, and (3) examine the impact of inequality and values studied under (1) and (2) on macroeconomic performance.
Click here for the project website.
Partner Institutes in the projects besides TÁRKI
- Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam
- London School of Economics / CASE
- University College Dublin
- University of Milan
- Antwerp University, CBS
Lectures and presentations
| Date and place | The name of the event | First author | Coauthors | Title of product | More |
| 19-20 March, 2010, London | Kick-off conference | István György Tóth | Márton Medgyesi, Tamás Keller | Income inequality measured and perceived: European comparisons | http://www.gini-research.org/articles/past_meetings_2 |
| 19-20 March, 2010, London | Kick-off conference | András Gábos | Successful policy mixes to tackle the impact of rising inequality on children - an EU-wide comparison | ||
| 22. October 2010, Amsterdam | Methods and Measurement Workshop | István György Tóth | Effects of the crisis on the income distribution in Hungary (some initial results) | http://www.gini-research.org/articles/meetings | |
| 22. October 2010, Amsterdam | CoCoCo Meeting | István György Tóth | Food for thoughts on prepaing the country reports in Gini |
Working papers
Papers understanding the impact of inequality on political preferences, Workpackage 5: Political and Cultural Impacts
TÁRKI staff contributes to the GINI Working Paper Series in the Work Package 5 (Political and Cultural Impacts) and Work Package 6 (Policy Analysis). This later Work Package is coordinated by Ive Marx, University of Antwerp, Department of Sociology.| Work package | First author | Coauthors | Title of product |
| 5.1.1 | Herman van de Werfhorst | Bram Lancee, Dániel Horn | Economic Polarization and generalised social trust |
Abstract
The aim of this paper to analyse what interrelationships are there between increased polarization and generalised social trust. Data on social trust are to be collected from a variety of sources and various dates. Also, country level data on economic polarisation are to be integrated into the database. An analysis on micro and macro level, the relationship between levels and change in levels of economic polarisation on one hand and levels and change of general social trust on the other will be carried out and reported. Data sources for attitudes and trust include: WVS, EVS, ESS, ISSP, EB. Data for polarization: EU-SILC, LIS Unit of analysis: country/contextual and individual).
| Work package | First author | Coauthors | Title of product |
| 5.1.2 | Dániel Horn | Inequality and political participation |
Abstract
Using the different inequality measures prepared by WP3, this paper analyzes the impact of different aspects of inequality on voter turnout. The link between inequality and political participation is far from being obvious: on the one hand inequality is argued to depress civic participation through decreased participation of the poor (feeling of powerlessness, decreased resources), on the other hand homogeneous micro level groups are shown to increase voter turnout, and homogeneous local groups (e.g. spatially segregated local communities) might add up to a heterogeneous nation. Using the ESS/Piredeu individual level dataset complemented with mezzo (i.e. group level) and macro level inequality measures (from e.g. EU-SILC) this paper shows some multi-level models assessing the potential link between inequality broadly construed and voter turnout.
| Work package | First author | Coauthors | Title of product |
| 5.1.8 | Márton Medgyesi | Péter Róbert | Inequality tolerance: how does it relate to measured inequality levels? |
Abstract
This paper aims to assess how the experience of increasing inequalities affect opinions towards inequalities. Specifically, we aim to contrast the experience of post-communist countries and "old" market economies. Cross-sectional comparisons show stronger preference for inequality in post-communist countries, which authors interpret as a lasting effect of egalitarian communist ideology. Authors examining change of inequality attitudes, like Gijsberts (2002), Kelley and Zagorski (2004) or Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007) suggest however a convergence between Western countries and countries of the former Eastern bloc. According to them there is a general move towards acceptance of higher level of inequalities especially in the case of younger cohorts who were not socialized during the era of communism. This paper investigates this convergence hypothesis by analysing change in opinions towards inequalities of different cohorts using data from International Social Survey Project and the Eurobarometer.
Papers understanding the relationship between inequality and legitimacy, Workpackage 5: Political and Cultural Impacts
| Work package | First author | Coauthors | Title of product |
| 5.2.3 | István György Tóth | Tamás Keller | Income distribution, inequality perception and redistributive claims in European societies |
Abstract
In this paper we analyse how redistributive preference relates to actual income and to its distribution. For measuring the relationship on macro level, we define distance based measures of income inequality (P-ratios, based on data from LIS) and test them for their direct and for their contextual effects on aggregate (country level) and on individual redistributive claims. For measuring redistributive preference we develop a composite index using available public opinion (Eurobarometer) data for the European Union member states. On macro level there is a continued and high support of state redistribution in many European countries but the cross country variance is also high. Preferences for redistribution correspond to various aspects of inequality (most notably, to the extent and depth of relative poverty). On micro level the redistributive preference, while mostly derived from rational self interest (material position, labour market status, expected mobility), is also driven by general attitudes about the role of personal responsibility in one's own fate and by general beliefs about causes of poverty and the like. We find that there is an interaction between the shape and structure of overall income distribution on the one hand and redistributive preferences of various societal groups on the other hand. While the affluent, the middle and the poor have different appetite for redistribution everywhere, the distance between their attitudes also seems to be determined by the distance between their relative positions (ranks in the distribution). In countries having larger level of aggregate inequalities the general redistributive preference (of the rich, of the middle and of the poor) is higher. The slope of this socio-economic gradient seems, however, steeper in countries with middle inequality levels. The results of the paper can contribute to a refinement of the predictions developed in the frame of the median voter theorem and, via this, to a better understanding of political processes.
Constraints imposed by rising economic inequality, Workpackage 6 Policy Analysis
| Work package | First author | Coauthors | Title of product |
| 6.3.1 | András Gábos | Successful policy mixes to tackle the impact of rising inequality on children: an EU-wide comparison |
Abstract
The development of presently young generations and their coming performances as adults strongly determine the future outcomes of the societies: socially and financially sustainable economic growth, quality and quantity of employment, social cohesion and maintainable welfare systems. It reinforces the EU objective of promoting sustainable development by combining economic growth and more and better jobs with a strong emphasis on social cohesion. Poverty and social exclusion can be seen as an obstacle for children in achieving their full potential, over which they do not have any control. Therefore, societies would clearly benefit as a whole by investing public resources to alleviate child poverty, to promote the social inclusion of children and to foster their human capital. One of the most striking challenges of the present economic crisis is the expected increase in child poverty and therefore in income and social inequalities due to decreasing public and private investments in children. Parents with weak labour market attachment are especially vulnerable to economic and labour market shocks.
Member States of the European Union show a great variation in terms of both poverty risk of children, its main factors and the performance of policies aimed at reduce child poverty and improving child well-being among children. This allows us to comparatively evaluate the performance of countries and their outcomes in terms of child poverty and well-being. We suggest forming a country typology based on the following dimensions: income poverty risk outomes, main factors lying behind the poverty of children (mostly household composition and labour market participation of parents) and performance of related policies. As a result of the analysis, successful policy combinations will be identified. EU-SILC will be used as a main data source for the analytical assessment.
| Work package | First author | Coauthors | Title of product |
| 6.1.4 | Róbert Iván Gál | The cohort impact and policy consequences of rising inequalities |
Income, wealth and educational inequalities have a cohort aspect. Policies with redistributive impact tend to reallocate resources not only from one income group to the other but also between cohorts. The former centrally planned economies offer a particularly attractive field for the analysis of inequalities and cohort effects. These economies generated low levels of inequalities of income and wealth. However, as a consequence, middle-aged cohorts had strictly limited chances to accumulate savings while they were active. This led to a comparatively high dependence on public transfers in old age in these countries. Similarly, the rapid skill-biased technological change of the early and mid-1990s in these countries flattened the age-earnings profiles, affecting income inequalities as well. The suggested task would offer indicators for the measurement of the intergenerational component of policies affecting inequalities, more specifically the separation of intra-generational and intergenerational redistribution of these policies. These indicators will be calculated on Hungarian data of the TARGEN database (TARKI Intergenerational Resource Reallocation and Life-cycle Finances Database). Attempts will be made in order to extend the country coverage to other European and non-European countries participating in the National Transfers Accounts project.
