| dc.description.abstract | Equality is a multidimensional concept. As regards economic aspects, there is a trend towards more inequality in most countries. Italy and Spain perform worse than the other countries, while France and Germany do better. Poland shows a trend towards more equality since early on in this century. Expenditures on health and education decrease in Italy and Spain with the onset of the crisis. The United Kingdom shows a sharply declining trend in education, a more moderate but still declining expenditure on social protection and more recent decline in health as well, which once was the pride of that system. Thus, overall it is becoming slightly more unequal over time. The economic crisis has been bringing about changes regarding equality in some countries, but less in others. Under conditions of economic recession in the advanced economies, social rights are partially protected through ‘automated stabilisers’. Moreover, when measures of social protection were intensified, this sometimes also entailed a reduction in expenditures for ‘softer’ aspects, such as health and education. As for ethnic aspects, immigration has remained stable over time. Consequently, ethnic equality has not changed seriously. Poland is an exception: especially after 2012 the acceptance of immigration sharply declined. When matching the six countries on the three kinds of inequality, the results are mixed. There is some inconsistency between a form of equality and another one within the same country. | en |
