Normative and Descriptive Inequalities (NIAS Working Paper No.: WP8-2017)

The study of inequality, particularly since the second half of the twentieth century, has been marked by a considerable degree of fragmentation. The diverse concerns of economic, social, political, ecological and several other inequalities are usually addressed with the skills of very different disciplines. A significant portion of the work of economists has been on the measurement of poverty while political scientists may be more interested in the politics of redistribution These divergent interests influence the choice of indicators of inequality: economists have tended to focus almost entirely on income or wealth,2 even as the study of affirmative action has concentrated on representation in educational and political institutions, and those looking at social deprivation have considered the exclusion of particular social groups. These indicators are typically not comparable, and need not even move in the same direction. A Gini coefficient of income inequality is not quite comparable to a measure that estimates inter-racial violence. This divergence in indicators is not entirely unrelated to reality. Inequalities do take very diverse and inconsistent forms. A tribal leader in a remote forest would usually earn far less than the lowest paid government worker, but she may well have an overwhelming advantage over the government worker in terms of status in the local community. In the midst of a reality marked by inherent and sharp differences it is usually convenient to deal with each form of inequality separatel