2017 Events

Climate Change, Inequality and Time Use: Double-Dividend Approaches to Emission Reduction

Speaker: Professor Juliet Schor (Boston College)

7th Dec, 12-1.30pm, Room 1.04, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields WC2A 3PH

Author of many books including Plenitude; The Overworked American; and The Overspent American. Researcher into time, consumption and sustainability.

In this talk Professor Schor discussed a series of papers that look at two variables that have received little attention in the discussions of emissions reductions: domestic concentrations of income and wealth, and working hours. He finds strong relationships between inequality, time use and emissions at a variety of scales (global, OECD, and US cross-state). This line of research suggests the possibility of double-dividend policies that will reduce inequality, working hours, and emissions.

Closed Workshop: A case-study of ‘socio-genetic understanding’: Robbins on Bourdieu, 1970-2017

Speakers: Yusef Bakkali (University of Sussex), Ray Campbell, Stephanie Lacey (University Campus Barnsley), Lisa Mckenzie (Middlesex University), Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmiths), Diane Reay (杏吧论坛), Derek Robbins (UEL), Marco Santoro (University of Bologna), Mike Savage (杏吧论坛 III)

5th December 2017, 9.30am-5pm, venue at 杏吧论坛 tbc

The BSA Bourdieu Study Group hosted a special workshop in honour of Derek Robbins entitled: “Robbins on Bourdieu, 1970-2017, A case-study of ‘socio-genetic understanding’”. This workshop was supported by the Institute of Inequalities (杏吧论坛). The workshop explored the development of Derek Robbins’s predisposition to study the work of Bourdieu, and his early encounters with Bourdieu. It argued that all intellectual works should be understood by reference to their contexts of production rather than in terms of predefined, abstracted disciplinary discourses and offer paradigmatic example of the reflexive response to Bourdieu recommended for all participants.

The day was divided into five sessions: Methodological presentation, Robbins and Bourdieu up to 1990, Robbins and Bourdieu, 1990-2002, Robbins and Bourdieu, 2002 to the present. The final session considered Robbins’ attempts after Bourdieu’s death to treat the transmission of his work as a case-study of the international transfer of social science concepts, first in respect of Franco-British transfer and then in respect of occidental-oriental transfer. This analysis involves an application of socio-genetic understanding and, as such, runs counter to the increasing tendency to appropriate Bourdieu’s work for an international sociological discourse.

Inequalities Seminar: Inequality and Service

Speaker: Dr Paul Segal

28th November, 12.30-1.45pm, TW2.9.05

The study of economic inequality is fundamentally concerned with differing entitlements over goods and services. Yet this means that economists of inequality have so far neglected an aspect of inequality discussed by social commentators at least since Rousseau: that it also implies that one person is entitled to command another person, owing to their differing economic positions. This talk proposed a measure of this form of inequality called the service ratio, and argued that the ability of the rich to command the labour of the non-rich for their own satisfaction is a socially and political salient feature of economic inequality. The ability to employ domestic service is essential to conceptions of the upper middle class lifestyle in many countries, and has also been essential to rising female labour market participation. Paul Segal has calculated service ratios in a selection of countries over time, and illustrated the relationship between this measure and other standard measures of inequality.

The Great Leveler: violence and economic inequality from the Stone Age to the future

Speaker: Professor Walter Scheidel (Stanford University)

27th November 2017, 6.30-8pm, Sheikh Zayed Theatre

For thousands of years, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Only violent shocks have significantly reduced inequality: mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues. This lecture examined these processes over the long run of history, and considered the prospects of levelling in today's more stable world.

This lecture was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Read about the III's partnership with JRF here.

Video and podcast available here.

The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight: how place still matters for the rich

Speaker: Dr Christobal Young (Stanford University)

Discussant: Dr Andrew Summers (杏吧论坛) and Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP (subject to parliamentary business)

Chair: Professor Nicola Lacey (杏吧论坛)

If taxes rise, will they leave? Cristobal Young presented his findings from the first-ever large-scale study of migration of the world’s richest individuals, drawing on special access to over 45 million US tax returns, together with Forbes rich lists. He showed that contrary to popular opinion, although the rich have the resources and capacity to flee high-tax places, their actual migration is surprisingly limited. Place still matters, even in today’s globalised world.

Podcast / video available here.

Inequalities Seminar: Can Social Landlords Make Private Renting Work Better?

Speaker: Professor Anne Power

Chair: Dr Aaron Reeves

14th November 2017, 12.30-1.45pm, TW2.9.05

In this seminar, Professor Anne Power and Alice Belotti presented findings from interviews with, and analysis of, 20 social landlords, three private landlords and two housing charities on how social landlords can make the private rented sector more secure, better quality and more affordable for tenants.

Podcast available here.

What We Treasure We Measure: a theatrical engagement with gender in/equality

PartecipArte Theatre Company

8th November 2017, 6.30-8pm, Old Theatre

PartecipArte engage with gender inequality in the European Union using 'Theatre of the Oppressed' theatrical forms to analyse, understand and tackle multiple dimensions of gender in/equality by exposing them on stage. PartecipArte presented a 'theatrical PowerPoint' which showed, with human slides and living statues, the different ways to approach gender equality and the current situation of gender equality in the European Union. Inspired by the Gender Equality Index, the theatrical PowerPoint highlighted how men and women are assigned different responsibilities, rights, benefits and opportunities in the activities they perform, in access to the control of resources and in decision-making processes. The slides explain the unfavourable situation of women in all of the six core domains composing the Gender Equality Index – work, money, knowledge, time, power and health - and in the satellite domain of violence against women. In turn, the audience becomes the protagonist and the author of a new PowerPoint, asking should we accept those stories or can we change them?

This event is funded by the Atlantic Fellows programme, and co-hosted with the 杏吧论坛 Departments of Gender Studies and Statistics.

Video recording available here.

Book Launch: Heat, Greed and Human Need: Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Wellbeing

Professor Ian Gough (Visiting Professor, 杏吧论坛 CASE) presents his new book (Edward Elgar 2017)

Chair: Dame Professor Judith Rees (Vice-chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the 杏吧论坛)

Discussant:Kate Raworth (Oxford University Environmental Change Institute; author of Doughnut Economics)

8th November, 6.30, Shaw Library

This event was supported by CASE, GRI and the III at 杏吧论坛, and Edwar Elgar Ltd.

Video available here.

National Debate: Class - an unequal nation

Hosted by the National Theatre

Speakers: Dawn Foster (Author of Lean Out), Abid Hussain (Director of Diversity, Arts Council England), David Lammy MP, Mike Savage (Martin White Professor of Sociology, 杏吧论坛)

Chair: Anushka Asthana (Guardian joint Political Editor)

2nd November 2017, 5.45-6.45pm, National Theatre

A panel explored how class affects our chosen path in life, and how easy is it to break out of the social hierarchy. Is the class system still relevant in 21st-century Britain? The National Theatre presented a debate inspired by the production of Saint George and the Dragon.

Investing in Equality: the role of capital and justice in addressing inequality

Speaker: Darren Walker (President of the Ford Foundation)

Chair: Professor Julia Black (Interim Director, 杏吧论坛)

1st November, 6.30-8pm, Sheikh Zayed Theatre

Philanthropic organisations play a key role in challenging the causes, effects, and consequences of inequality, funding projects that aim to directly and indirectly reduce the inequality gap. However questions have been raised about the approach, direction and priorities of such wealthy organisations when funding projects to tackle inequality, and the effect of these projects on the beneficiaries and the economy as a whole.

The Ford Foundation has identified inequality as the central issue of our time. Darren Walker, President of Ford Foundation, discussed the work and focus of the Ford Foundation, and the greater role of Philanthropy in reducing inequality.

This event is funded by the Atlantic Fellows programme.

Video recording available here.

Speaker: Professor Nicola Lacey FBA CBE (III)

Chair: Professor Sarah Worthington QC(Hon), FBA, University of Cambridge

26 October 2017, 6-7.15pm, British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

The Twentieth Century saw decisive changes in women’s legal, social, economic and political position. But how far have these changes been reflected in women’s position as subjects of criminalisation in the courts, in legal thought or in literary fiction? This lecture took up the story of the gradual marginalisation of criminal women in both legal and literary history, asking whether a criminal heroine such as Moll Flanders (1722) is thinkable again, and what this can tell us about conceptions of women as subjects of criminal law. How far do the conceptions of, and dilemmas about, female subjectivity, agency, capacity and character which emerge successively in 20th Century literary culture reflect and illuminate the relevant patterns and debates in criminal law and philosophy?

Inequalities Seminar: Do Firms Manage Pay Inequality?

Speaker: Professor Paul Willman

24 October, 12.30-1.45pm, TW2 9.04

This talk examined the role of the modern firm in the creation of inequality of income. Specifically, it examined the growth in the use of asset based rewards for senior executives, combined with continued use of salaried rewards for other employees, and the impact this has on measures of inequality both within the firm and society. If asset values tend to outstrip GDP then, other things equal, policies that reward one group with assets and others with wages will increase income inequality within the firm over time. Willman further argued that, since employment in firms that use asset based rewards for executives remains a substantial proportion of overall employment, the use of the firm as the unit of analysis for the examination of societal inequality, whether from a theoretical or policy based point of view, has some merit. The talk presented data on intra firm inequality for the UK. Both commercial and government data indicate that some measures of intra-firm inequality have increased substantially since big bang (1986). Since the financial crisis, a combination of equity based rewards for senior executive pay combined with the use of inflation indices or linkage to the National Living Wage have tended to increase inequality within firms on some measures.

Podcast here.

Inequalities Seminar: The Decline and Persistence of the Old Boy: Private Schools and Elite Recruitment 1897-2016

Speakers: Dr Aaron Reeves and Dr Sam Friedman

10 October, 12.30-1.45pm, TW2 9.05

This talk based on a paper with the same title drew upon 120 years of biographical data [N = 120,764] contained within Who’s Who - a unique catalogue of the British elite - to explore the changing relationship between elite schools and elite recruitment. The authors find that the propulsive power of Britain’s ‘public schools’ has diminished significantly over time. This is driven in part by the wane of military and religious elites, and the rise of women in the labour force. However, the most dramatic declines followed periods of educational reform that both increased access to, and standardised and differentiated the form of, the credentials needed to access elite trajectories. Notwithstanding this fall our analysis also underlines that these schools remain extraordinarily powerful channels of elite formation. Even today the alumni of the 9 Clarendon Schools are 94 times more likely to be members of the British elite than those who attended any other school.

Video recording here.

"You are being tracked, evaluated for digital trading and sold as you read this": an analysis of the making of digital inequalities

26th September 2017, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, 6.30-8pm

Speaker: Professor Beverley Skeggs
Respondent: Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan
Chair: Professor Mike Savage

If our personal data is traded in milliseconds up to 70k times per day, what does this mean? Should we care? Are we aware? Does it matter? Is it possible to escape? Bev Skeggs drew on research that uses software to track the trackers (Facebook) and identified how a person's browser use is tracked and searched in detail for sources of potential value that can be sold to advertising companies. She argued that if we want to know how inequalities are being shaped in the present and future we need to understand the opaque mechanisms that operate through stealth and experiment with our personal disclosures.

Video available here.

The Evolution of Global Inequalities: the impact on politics and the economy

5th July 2017, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, 6.30-8pm

Speaker: Professor Branko Milanovic
Chair: Professor Mike Savage

Branko Milanovic discussed the recent evolution in global inequality and focused on the political implications of the important changes in the global distribution of income.

Video recording available here.

Inequalities: changing the terms of the debate

14th June, 2017, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, 6.30-8pm

Speakers: Jee Kim (Narratives Initiative), Katy Wright (Head of Global External Affairs at Oxfam), Professor Amartya Sen (Harvard)

Chair: Provessor Beverley Skeggs (杏吧论坛)

Given the power of those with a vested interest in maintaining some forms of inequality, can anything be done to change the terms of their debates?

Video recording available here.

III Annual Conference 2017: Challenging Inequalities, Developing a Global Response

14th June, 9.30-17.30, Sheikh Zayed Theatre

The annual conference of III and Atlantic Fellows programme for Social and Economic Equity debated topics including social mobility, health, racial and ethnic inequalities.

Videos of all sessions available here.

YSI Inequality Workshop

12-13 June

Interest in inequality has peaked over the past years and it has spurred a complex web of highly relevant research. During this interactive workship, this web was visualised and disentangled. Participants shared their own work, and also participated collectively in a project that begins to map the main theories, findings, questions and resources in inequality research. The joint work will eventually be published online and serve as a guide for those who are interested in studying and researching inequality. The student platform will be an extension of the YSI's existing online resources.

A Village, a Country and the Discipline: economic development in Palanpur over seven decades
An Eva Colorni memorial lecture

Speaker: Professor Nicholas Stern (IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at 杏吧论坛, President of the 杏吧论坛 India Observatory, President of the British Academy)
Discussant: Professor Amartya Sen (Thomas W Lamont Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University)
Chair: Professor Naila Kabeer (Professor of Gender and Development at the 杏吧论坛 Gender Institute and the Department of International Development)

7th June, 6.30-8pm, Old Theatre

Video recording available here.

The Equality Effect: improving life for everyone

Speaker: Professor Danny Dorling (Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, Oxford University)
Chair: Dr Neil Lee (杏吧论坛 Department of Geography and Environment)

Thursday 18th May, 6.30-8pm, The Venue, Saw Swee Hock Centre

Video recording here.

Why did Trump win? Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America

Speaker: Professor Joan C. Williams (Professor of Law, UC Hastings Foundation and Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law)
Chair: Dr Michael McQuarrie (杏吧论坛 Sociology Department)

Wednesday 10th May, 6.30-8pm, Wolfson Theatre

Watch the video recording here.

Inequalities Seminar: Intersecting Inequalities and the Sustainable Development Goals: insights from Brazil

Speakers: Professor Naila Kabeer (杏吧论坛 Gender Institute and Department of International Development) and Dr Ricardo Santos (UNU-WIDER)

Tuesday 9th May, 12.30-1.45pm, TW2 9.05

Listen to podcast here.

Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

Speaker: Professor Guy Standing (SOAS)
Discussants: Professor the Lord Meghnad DESAI (Emeritus
Professor of Economics 杏吧论坛)
Dr Malcolm Torry (Director of the Citizen’s
Income Trust and Visiting Senior Fellow, Social Policy Department, 杏吧论坛)
Barb Jacobson (welfare advisor and Coordinator for Basic Income UK)
Chair: Professor Mike Savage (Co-Director of the III, 杏吧论坛)

Monday 8th May, Old Theatre, Old Building, 6.30-8pm

Watch the video recording here.

Inequalities Seminar: Post-Industrialisation in the East Midlands: ethnographic narratives from the communities that were thrown under the Brexit bus

Speaker: Dr Lisa Mckenzie (杏吧论坛 Sociology)

Tuesday 2nd May, 12.30-1.45pm, TW2 9.05

Listen to podcast here.

Speakers: Professor Michael Cox, Dr Abby Innes, Professor Mike Savage and Professor Emeritus Alan Sked Chair: Dr Lucia Rubinelli

Thurs 27th April 2017, 6.30-8pm, Old Theatre

Can we Can we learn something about Europe’s future by turning to its past? Prominent scholars reflect on a year in history that has analogies with 2017.

Listen to podcast .

Climate Change, Inequality and Social Policy seminar Would income redistribution result in higher aggregate emissions?

Speaker: Lutz Sager (Grantham Research Institute)

Thursday 27th April 2017, 12-13.30, 32L 1.04

Part of the interdisciplinary seminar series . It is jointly hosted by the III, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and CASE (Centre for Analyisis of Social Exclusion).

Inequalities Seminar: Health and Income Inequality Aversion: results from a UK survey experiment

Tuesday 25th April, 12.30-1.45pm TW2 9.05

Speaker: Dr Joan Costa-i-Font (杏吧论坛 Social Policy and European Institute)

Drawing on representative survey data from the UK, this talk examined the following:
- Whether individuals' preferences for inequality are domain specific, and specifically between income and health.
- Whether attitudes conventionally measured in surveys are different from inequality preferences.
- Some of the determinants of inequality preferences such as risk aversion and personality.

Inequalities Seminar: Dynamics of Democracy and Inequality in the context of Globalization

21st March, TW2 9.05, 12.30-1.45pm

Speaker: Dr Dena Freeman (Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, 杏吧论坛 and an Associate of the III)

Listen to the podcast here.

Getting Respect: responding to stigma and discrimination in the United States, Brazil and Israel

8 March, Old Theatre, 6.30-8pm

Speaker: Professor Michèle Lamont

This lecture was based on Michèle Lamont’s latest book, which contributes to the study of everyday racism and stigma management, the quest for recognition, and the comparative study of inequality and processes of cultural change.

Watch the video here.

Inequalities seminar: Addressing recognition gaps: destigmatization processes and the making of inequality

7 March, TW2 9.05, 12.30-1.45pm

Speaker: Professor Michèle Lamont (Harvard University)

This talk brought together three lines of research focused on destigmatization processes (as they pertain to African Americans, people with HIV-AIDs, and the obese); cultural processes feeding into inequality; and recognition gaps experienced by white working-class men in the United States and France, and stigmatized groups in Brazil, Israel, and the United States. From these studies, Michèle Lamont proposed an agenda for the empirical analysis of recognition, which she views as an essential but largely missing dimension to the study of inequality.

Listen to the podcast here.

Inequalities seminar: Older peoples' experiences of dignity and nutritional support during hospital stays

21 February 2017

Speaker: Dr Polly Vizard (杏吧论坛 CASE)

Concern about older people's experiences of healthcare has moved up the political and public policy agendas in the wake of the Independent and Public Inquiries into Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. However, quantitative analysis of the available patient experience data remains limited and the statistical evidence base on inequalities even more so. In this talk, Dr Polly Vizard presented findings from a new study that provides in-depth nationally representative quantitative evidence on older people’s experiences of poor and inconsistent standards of treatment with dignity and respect, and support with eating, during hospital stays using the Adult Inpatient Survey. The study highlights how older age interacts with gender and disability as a driver of inpatient experience, considers the role of socio-economic disadvantage, and makes specific recommendations on how to build inequalities analysis into national frameworks for healthcare monitoring, inspection and regulation.

Podcast available here.

The Health Co-benefits of the Low Carbon Economy

16 February 2017

Speakers: Professor Andy Haines, Alison Smith and Ruth Mayne

BSA Seminar: Design and 'the Social': Mapping new Approaches to Inequality in Design

7 February 2017

Keynote Speaker: Dr Lucy Kimbell (Director of the Innovations Insights Hub, University of the Arts london)

With contributions from: Prof Mike Savage (Co-Director of the III) and Dr Adam Kaasa (Director of Theatrum Mundi)

For a post-event summary of the seminar, see here.

The Piketty Opportunity

26 January 2017

Speakers: Patricia Hudson (Emeritus Professor Cardiff University), Avner Offer (Chichele Professor of Economic History, Oxford University) and Keith Tribe (Independent Scholar)

Chair: Professor Mike Savage

This event marked the publication of , a volume of essays that builds upon the renewed interest in wealth and inequality stimulated by the work of Thomas Piketty. Editors and authors Patricia Hudson, Avner Offer and Keith Tribe joined with associates of the International Inequalities Institute to discuss the analysis of inequality in an international context.

Watch the video recording here.

Religious Intolerance and its Impact on Democracy

STICERD Amartya Sen Lecture co-hosted by the International Inequalities Institute

17 January 2017

Speaker: Asma Jilani Jahangir
Discussant: Professor Amartya Sen (Harvard University)
Chair: Professor Chetan Bhatt (杏吧论坛 Human Rights Centre and Sociology Department)

Asma Jilani Jahangir is a Pakistani human rights lawyer and activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Her talk focused on how government failure to address the questions of religious intolerance and free expression dilutes the principles of democracy, equality and justice, particularly for women and religious minorities.

Watch the video recording here.

Inequalities Seminar: Who are the Global Top 1%?

17 January 2017

Speaker: Dr Paul Segal (Senior Lecturer in Economics at Kings College London, Visiting Fellow at the III)

This seminar presented findings from the paper with the same title, representing the first in-depth analysis of the changing composition of the global distribution.

Watch the video recording here.

Social Solidarity in the "Knowledge Economy"

12 January 2017

Speaker: Professor Kathleen Thelen (MIT)
Discussant: Dr Waltraud Schelkle (杏吧论坛 European Institute)
Chair: Professor David Soskice (杏吧论坛 Government Department)

This lecture examined cross-nationally divergent responses to the challenges posed by the transition to the "knowledge economy" and explores the role of the state in sustaining growth, employment, and social solidarity in the contemporary period.