Today we publish a series of reports on the evolution of inequalities in 17 countries in Europe and North America. These are published as part of the Country Studies project – a parallel project to the IFS Deaton Review.
The aim of this work has been to examine a broad set of inequalities in a coherent framework across the major economies of Europe and North America and how they have changed in recent decades, including through the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim for this to provide a major source of comparative international research on economic inequality and they will be launched at a public conference at the British Academy on the 1st December.
Each country has written a comprehensive report into the evolution of labour market and income inequalities, and their interactions with education and gender in particular. We examine how social changes – such as the labour market position of women, higher levels of formal education, rising levels of immigration – have affected different countries and different forms of inequalities. And how the changes to the tax and benefit system have acted to dampen, or increase, household income inequalities.
During 2024, we will publish further material from this project, including short summary papers on key trends and lessons from each country and comprehensive synthesis papers.