Working paper
Socio-Economic Factors for Reading Performance in PIRLS: Income Inequality and Segregation by Achievements
Everything connected with the issue of economic and social inequality is very urgent and rather debating in many countries. It has reached its bolding point. Why?
Global warming is arguably the most critical and controversial issue facing the world in the twenty-first century, one that will affect every living creature on the planet. It is also an extraordinarily complex problem, which everyone needs to understand as clearly and completely as possible. This book provides a concise and accessible explanation of the key aspects of global warming. It discusses how and why changes are occurring, sets current warming trends in the context of past climate change, examines the predicted impact of global warming, as well as the political controversies of recent years and the many proposed solutions.
In this paper we use the rich set of unit-level data from the most recent Egyptian household surveys (1995 – 1996 and 1999 – 2000) to assess changes in poverty and inequality between 1995 and 2000. The study analysis is based on the new methodology of constructing household-specific poverty lines that account for the differences in regional prices, as well as differences in the consumption preferences and size and age composition of poor households. The results show that average household expenditures rose in the second half of the 1990s and the poverty rate fell from 20% to less than 17%. In addition to the ongoing divide in the urban-rural standard of living, a new geographical/regional divide emerged in the late 1990s. Poverty was found predominantly among less-educated individuals, particularly those working in agriculture and construction, and among seasonal and occasional workers. These groups could suffer the most from the slowing economic growth evident after 1999 – 2000.
This chapter addresses major dimensions of Internet-related inequalities in contemporary Russia including relevant regional, urban/rural, income, gender, occupation and age-related predictive variables commonly used in order to operationalize differences in socioeconomic positions of individuals and families and, correspondingly, in their access to the Internet. The analysis is based on multiple data sources – from 2007-2010 Russian Federal State Statistics Service Household Budget Survey data to Public Opinion Research Foundation (FOM) Internet Use Survey (2002-2011) and other opinion and market research agencies’ data on Internet coverage among different population groups. In addition to examining causes of a gap in access to Internet using computers and mobile phones, current policies aimed at closing the digital divide as well as prospects and possibilities of convergence between different groups of population in patterns of information technologies usage will be briefly analyzed.
This book provides an in-depth comparative analysis of inequality and the stratification of the digital sphere.
Grounded in classical sociological theories of inequality, as well as empirical evidence, this book defines ‘the digital divide’ as the unequal access and utility of internet communications technologies and explores how it has the potential to replicate existing social inequalities, as well as create new forms of stratification. The Digital Divide examines how various demographic and socio-economic factors including income, education, age and gender, as well as infrastructure, products and services affect how the internet is used and accessed. Comprised of six parts, the first section examines theories of the digital divide, and then looks in turn at:
Highly developed nations and regions (including the USA, the EU and Japan); Emerging large powers (Brazil, China, India, Russia); Eastern European countries (Estonia, Romania, Serbia); Arab and Middle Eastern nations (Egypt, Iran, Israel); Under-studied areas (East and Central Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa).Providing an interwoven analysis of the international inequalities in internet usage and access, this important work offers a comprehensive approach to studying the digital divide around the globe. It is an important resource for academic and students in sociology, social policy, communication studies, media studies and all those interested in the questions and issues around social inequality.
This is the second volume in a series of five books bringing together the results of intensive research on the national systems of innovation (NSI) in the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. This book analyses the co-evolution of inequality and NSI across the BRICS economies. Inequality and Development Challenges argues that inequalities (assets, access to basic services, infrastructure, knowledge, race, gender, ethnicity, and geographic location) that go beyond the aspects of income, must be factored into development strategies since the benefits of innovation are not distributed equally. It combines original and detailed data, making this book an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars in economics, development studies and political science, as well as policymakers and development practitioners interested in the BRICS countries.
The chapter analyzes the impact of various socio -demographic characteristics of the individual to the risk of poverty. It is demostrated that the certain features are not just factors of poverty, along with the structural characteristics of individuals, but their role is great. Still, they are mostly complementary and corrective, rather than the main causes of poverty/ and the last is mostly determined by position in the labor market . Exceptions are the cases of very high dependency load and belonging to single-parent or multi-children families .