The unit’s research program focuses on the causes and consequences of poverty/inequality and social policy, and the relationships between poverty/inequality and social policy. The unit studies how poverty and inequality are shaped by work, labor markets, politics, policies, institutions, power relations, and collective actors. The unit also investigates the sources, politics and political economy of social policy.
In terms of inequality, the unit is interested in a host of inequalities and their intersections (e.g. class, gender, and race). Much of the unit’s research is comparative across affluent democracies, with substantial attention to Western Europe, the U.S. and developing countries. The unit utilizes a wide variety of quantitative approaches, and includes studies at the macro-level, individual-level, and multiple levels of analysis.