Did the UK Trend towards Equality really come to an end by 1957?

Abstract

In the long and endless debate on changes in the distribution of income, agreement appears to have been reached on the view that inequality decreased before and soon after World War II, but that the trend towards greater equality did not continue during the 1960s. While perhaps this inference can be supported by the income size data we have, it is worth looking more closely at the evidence which can be derived from existing statistics on income distribution. The object of this article is to review and describe the post‐war changes in the distribution of pre‐tax income in the United Kingdom. As I will show, there is room for different conclusions. However, if it is with the worse off that we should be concerned, no support comes from the data for the thesis that income inequality decreased in the 1950s but not in the 1960s. Rather, the opposite appears to be true.

Citation

Roberti, P. (1975), "Did the UK Trend towards Equality really come to an end by 1957?", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 52-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb013776