Inequality Analysis: Overview

Inequality is pervasive in the social life, and understanding it is a central task for the social sciences. This article provides an overview of inequality analysis, discussing the framework with its questions and building blocks and surveying the twin branches of theoretical inequality analysis and empirical inequality analysis, the latter only briefly given that dozens of other articles discuss empirical studies of inequality. Substantively, this article identifies two main types of inequality - inequality between persons and inequality between subgroups - and highlights the fundamental questions concerning the determinants and consequences of inequality. Methodologically, it summarizes the major tools for measuring both kinds of inequality, including both scalar measures and whole-distribution approaches. To illustrate theoretical inequality analysis, the article reviews recent examples of a priori explorations, including mechanisms for altering inequality.