Social polarization refers to the measurement of the distance between different social groups, defined on the basis of variables such as race, religion, or ethnicity. We propose two approaches to measuring social polarization in the case where the distance between groups is based on an ordinal...

The parameterization of income distributions using Lorenz Curves is a useful technique to analyze the characteristics of income inequality within a given population. It provides a way of describing how data are generated, why the level of inequality is what it is, and how these factors impact...

We propose a framework for the measurement of income mobility over several time periods, based on the notion that multi-period mobility amounts to measuring the degree of association between the individuals and the time periods in a contingency table. We provide both indices and a pre-ordering...

This paper proposes two new indices of relative deprivation, derived from an extension of the concept of the generalized Gini for the measurement of distributional change. Population- and income-weighted relative deprivation indices are then defined and, using panel data from the Consortium of...

Traditional indices of bi-dimensional inequality and polarization were developed for cardinal variables and cannot be used to quantify dispersion in ordinal measures of socioeconomic status and health. This paper develops two approaches to the measurement of inequality and bi-polarization using...

Using data on food insecurity in Israel, this chapter suggests borrowing techniques from the literature on multidimensional poverty to measure food insecurity, a distinction being made between “nominal” and “real” food insecurity. Various counting techniques are then implemented,...

This chapter shows that the algorithm recently proposed to decompose the Foster and Wolfson bipolarization index by income sources (see Bárcena-Martin, Deutsch, & Silber, forthcoming ) may be extended to break down wage bipolarization by its determinants. The chapter gives an empirical...

Purpose – We propose applying Reardon's approach to the measurement of ordinal segregation to the study of inequality in life chances in the case of ordinal variables. We also propose additional measures of inequality in life chances in such a case. Methodology – We state the desirable...