There has been a remarkable upsurge of debate about increasing inequalities and their societal implications, reinforced by the economic crisis but bubbling to the surface before it. This has been seen in popular discourse, media coverage, political debate, and research in the social sciences. The central questions addressed by this book, and the major research project GINI on which it is based, are: - Have inequalities in income, wealth and education increased over the past 30 years or so across the rich countries, and if so why? - What are the social, cultural and political impacts of increasing inequalities in income, wealth and education? - What are the implications for policy and for the future development of welfare states? In seeking to answer these questions, this book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws on economics, sociology, and political science, and applies this approach to learning from the experiences over the last three decades of European countries together with the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, and South Korea. It combines comparative research with lessons from specific country experiences, and highlights the challenges in seeking to adequately assess the factors underpinning increasing inequalities and in identify the channels through which these may impact on key social and political outcomes, as well as the importance of framing inequality trends and impacts in the institutional and policy context of the country in question.

This book examines key issues connected with the distribution of personal wealth in the UK. It examines why wealth is now such an important factor in social differences and public policy. It presents the most recent information on current wealth inequalities and a detailed discussion of trends in the distribution of wealth. It uses newly available data to compare wealth inequalities in the UK with the USA, Canada and Sweden. It uses longitudinal data, which track the same people over time, to examine trajectories in wealth accumulation over the decade to 2005 and inequalities in inheritances over the same period. It looks at how parental wealth levels and people's asset-holdings early in adulthood affect outcomes later in their lives. The final part looks at the way in which policies towards wealth-holding developed historically, and the contradictory ways in which a wide range of public policies relate to people's wealth levels, including through taxation, means-testing, and the encouragement of saving, and discusses what the key issues for policy towards wealth and wealth inequalities now are. Personal wealth in the UK totalled GBP5.5 trillion by 2010 (GBP9-10 trillion if occupational pension rights are included). Inheritance flows are now equivalent to 4 per cent of national income each year. All households in the wealthiest tenth have more than 75 times the wealth of any of those in the bottom tenth. Absolute differences in wealth levels have increased substantially over the last 15 years, so wealth differences represent many more years of income than in the past. This makes them of great importance to life chances. This makes the book highly relevant for public policy, but also for academic and student understanding of a crucial dimension of social difference. As well as bringing together existing information on the area, the book contains considerable new analysis on wealth inequality, inheritance and their impacts, drawing on work which is at the forefront of recent research.