Understanding Inequalities

Bringing together the most recent empirical evidence and the latest theoretical debates, this fully revised new edition gets to grips with a broad range of inequalities in people’s lives. Examining social class, gender, ethnicity, disability and migration status, it demonstrates how these play out in relation to education, health, poverty, neighbourhood and housing and how they cumulate across the life course. Richly illustrated with figures and concrete examples showing the distribution of life chances across social groups, the book demonstrates how people’s lives are structured by inequalities across multiple dimensions.

Comprehensive topical chapters are framed by an exploration of the meaning and interpretation of inequalities and a discussion highlighting the important intersections between them. With new chapters on disability and international migration, this updated edition continues to provide a wide-ranging but detailed and theoretically sophisticated account of contemporary inequalities that will be invaluable to undergraduate and masters students alike.

Review

‘Platt’s brilliant razor-sharp forensic analysis not only reveals the shocking disparities between rich and poor but uniquely shows how social class and the inequalities of ethnicity, gender, migration and disability intersect and affect people’s intimate and lived lives.

’Heidi Mirza, Emeritus Professor, UCL Institute of Education‘With inequality now at the forefront of political debate, this outstanding book provides a clear, comprehensive and nuanced overview of what is known about the extent and nature of inequalities on key dimensions and the linkages across them.

’Brian Nolan, University of Oxford