WINEQ is a project led by Diederik Boertien, a sociologist based at the Centro de Estudios Demográficos in Barcelona working on issues of families and inequality. A summary of the project's aims can be found below as well as the detailed proposal in PDF format.


Any comments or questions are welcome: dboertien@ced.uab.cat

 

Project Description


Housing, savings, investments, and other forms of wealth have a huge impact on people’s lives. Wealth is an important financial resource, provides social status, and serves as a safety net in difficult times. Wealth takes on an ever-larger share of societies’ economic resources and has become more unequally distributed across households in Spain; in particular since the financial crisis. Even though these developments have alarmed academics and policymakers alike, we know very little about the sources of wealth inequality, about who encounters obstacles toward accumulating wealth and about how wealth inequality intersects with other inequalities such as those based on social background and gender in Spain. This project aims to answer questions such as: Are changes in wealth inequality driven by changes in homeownership rates, housing values, or the value and distribution of other types of wealth? Who accumulates wealth and who enters into debt? Answering these questions is an essential first step toward understanding and addressing rising wealth inequality.

 

Detailed Proposal