Social polarisation in Britain and Germany: the impacts of household and labour market change

While the comparative sociological and social policy literatures on income inequality and poverty have focused on the impacts of different state welfare systems in different societies, the evidence from individual countries suggests that changes in the labour market and in family structure have been at least as important in generating changes in income distributions. Moreover work such as that of Esping-Andersen emphasises the interactions between different types of welfare state regime and particular labour market structures and family roles. This paper seeks to extend these findings by exploring how differences in the labour market and in family and household structures may explain the structures of inequality in different societies.