Social, Political, and Economic Inequality

The Inequality of Troubles: A Study of the Levels of Problems Across Time, Cohorts, and Sub-Groups

Project Date:

June 2003

Award Amount:

$276,500

Summary

In 1991, the General Social Survey asked respondents 60 questions about everyday troubles, ranging across eight life domains: health, work, finance, housing, material hardship, family well-being, personal relationships, and criminal involvement and victimization. This group of questions, called the Study of Life Events (SLE) yielded a number of interesting results, most notably that poor inner-city single parents experienced far more troubles than did married, middle class suburbanites. Yet the SLE has not since been repeated. Though income inequality has not changed much over this period, changes to social programs - especially welfare reform - raise the question of whether inequality of hardships has increased over this time period.

In response to this question, the Russell Sage Foundation is funding a second wave of the SLE to be administered in the 2004 General Social Survey and overseen by Tom Smith of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. With the 1991 results as a base, the new SLE will make it possible to examine overall changes, changes within social groups, and changes in the distribution of problems. The data will also help to answer the question of whether certain troubles are associated with one another, creating a compound disadvantage for some individuals. Information from the SLE gives a clearer picture than income data about how the daily lives of the rich differ from those of the poor and therefore will be a valuable addition to research on social conditions and changes in inequality.

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