The Social Dimensions of Inequality Income inequality rose dramatically from 1979 to 1994, a trend that has been stemmed, though not reversed, by the current economic boom. But the income distribution does not tell us all we need to know about inequality in this country.
Inequality has social, as well as economic, dimensions.
Those who have fallen behind in the labor market, may have lost ground on other fronts, such as housing, health care, education, access to credit, and access to the law. Some of the social dimensions of inequality may be relatively independent of the income gap, and there may be other areas in which American society has become more equal, offsetting the widening inequality in incomes and assets over the past 25 years. The Russell Sage Foundation has launched a new research initiative to examine social inequality on a number of dimensions, including family well-being, educational opportunity, health care and coverage, legal services and criminal justice, political participation and representation, banking and credit, housing, pension provision, environmental quality, and even access to computers and the Internet. The project will consist of a cluster of working groups, each based at an individual university or research center. The groups will pursue their own portfolio of investigations into one or more of the social dimensions of inequality.