For richer or poorer: how income inequality impacts on worker mobility
As debate rages over the distribution of wealth across English speaking countries, researchers from the University of Melbourne are working to discover whether the richer really are getting richer.
Income inequality and mobility in Australia, Great Britain and the USA
As debate rages over the distribution of wealth across English speaking countries, researchers from the Melbourne Institute are working to discover whether the richer really are getting richer.
Funded by an Australian Research Council grant, Professor Roger Wilkins and his co-investigators are using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) Survey to investigate income mobility patterns in Australia, Great Britain and the United States of America - three countries which have all experienced a growth in income inequity over the past 40 years.
With past research based on different and often inconsistent definitions of income, this project is expected to run until 2017 and will re-evaluate tax-based evidence using a cross-national framework and reconcile it with household survey evidence to discover the true story behind income inequality and mobility patterns.
Impact
The project will provide policymakers with a more accurate and complete understanding of Australian income inequality and mobility trends, and their drivers, within an international context.
Investigators
- Professor Richard Burkhauser
- Professor Stephen Jenkins
- Dr Nicolas Herault