This paper seeks to test empirically whether claims by Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) (W&P) on the pervasive negative effects of income inequality on social conditions in rich countries are borne out in the case of the family. It first examines correlations between 13 family indicators and income...

The paper focuses on the expansion of participation to education and on its drivers separately for each level (lower secondary, upper secondary, tertiary). In doing this, we build a bridge between economic research, who typically focuses on years of education, and sociological research, who...

Despite high general level of school enrolment and attendance in high-income countries a substantial gap is often seen between schooling outcomes of children from high-income and low-income families or between majority and minority ethnic groups. As a policy solution to this problem several...

As part of its 2020 Strategy adopted, the EU has set a number of headline targets including one for poverty and social exclusion reduction. Our analysis in this paper suggests that, in focusing on the union of the three chosen component indicators, cross-nationally we are not comparing like with...

In this paper we explore the patterns of the division of inter-vivos financial transfers from parents to adult children in a sample of 12 European countries. We exploit two waves of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for 50+. Contrary to previous studies, we find a...

Educational systems differ on at least three dimensions: the timing and form of tracking of students, the extent to which a system provides vocationally specific skills, and the extent to which an educational system is standardized nationwide. Existing conceptualizations of these three...

In contrast with many other European and OECD countries, Spain’s income inequality has decreased over the last 30 years. Nevertheless, Spain is still among the most unequal countries in the EU15, as it started from a fairly disadvantaged situation. Spain’s inequality indices are typically...

This paper gives an account of economic inequality in Denmark from the 1980s until 2010. It is based on register data for the whole population and enables us to map the entire Danish income distribution year by year for all sorts of sub groups. The Danish income distribution has for very long...

his report deals with various inequalities and their correlates, effects and causes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia over the recent decades, focusing mainly on the 1990s and 2000s. Its main objective is to provide a comprehensive account of changing inequalities in income, wealth and...

The aim of this country report for Greece is to present and examine key patterns and trends in the inequality ‘drivers’, highlight their potential impacts in the social, political and cultural spheres and the available evidence in that regard, and point to the role that various interest...