Thursday, June 11, 2020
Government must act to prevent worsening inequality
The Guardian reports on a study by the respect Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank suggesting Britain risks entrenching deep class, ethnic, gender, educational, generational and geographical divides unless the government acts to tackle inequality. They believe that the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to make life worse for the most vulnerable groups:
The IFS said it was not inevitable the crisis would exacerbate inequality but said that would be the outcome in the absence of better education and training, moves to ensure the survival of small businesses and the provision of catch-up lessons for children from poorer households.
The Covid-19 report – part of a five-year IFS project on inequality – found that:
Ministers should be laying the foundations for a strong and inclusive recovery as well as dealing with the immediate crisis, Joyce added.
“If, for example, we can limit now the severity of career disruption, the widening of health and educational inequalities, or the extent to which small firms that had a productive future are squeezed out by larger established competitors, policy’s job in years to come will be much less difficult than if it is trying to limit or undo the damage.”
Over to you, Prime Minister.
The IFS said it was not inevitable the crisis would exacerbate inequality but said that would be the outcome in the absence of better education and training, moves to ensure the survival of small businesses and the provision of catch-up lessons for children from poorer households.
The Covid-19 report – part of a five-year IFS project on inequality – found that:
- Low earners were most likely to work in shut-down sectors, to have been furloughed or be at risk of unemployment.
- A gap in death rates between better-off and less affluent neighbourhoods, as well as between some ethnic minorities and the white majority, had widened further.
- Some minority ethnic groups, especially those of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, were much more likely to work in shut-down sectors. Black groups were disproportionately represented in key worker occupations and had been contracting Covid-19 at far higher rates than the white majority.
- Workers under 25 were twice as likely as those over 25 to work in a locked-down sector.
- Mothers were more likely than fathers to take on the additional childcare and housework duties caused by the lockdown.
- Private schools were almost twice as likely to be providing online teaching as the state schools attended by children from the fifth most deprived families.
Ministers should be laying the foundations for a strong and inclusive recovery as well as dealing with the immediate crisis, Joyce added.
“If, for example, we can limit now the severity of career disruption, the widening of health and educational inequalities, or the extent to which small firms that had a productive future are squeezed out by larger established competitors, policy’s job in years to come will be much less difficult than if it is trying to limit or undo the damage.”
Over to you, Prime Minister.
