Measuring Economic Inequality in Today’s World (FutureLearn)

The first step to combating economic and income inequality is collecting, examining, and interpreting data related to these issues. Only then can governments address them with changes to public policy.

This four-week course from University College London (UCL) gives you the foundations you need to begin to engage in tackling these global concerns.
Foster real change with effective data analysis

Successful measurement of inequality depends on careful data analysis using the right metrics. That’s why you’ll learn the specific skills needed to evaluate data related to wealth and income inequality.
Explore specific public policy changes to combat inequality

You’ll also get appropriate background readings explaining what economic inequality looks like in societies today, how it has changed over time, and how governments can address the issue.

With these insights, and your data-handling and statistical skills, you will gain the confidence to participate in debates on inequality and on how policies can change it.
Enjoy the support of CORE and seasoned economics experts

University College London is a proud base for CORE (Curriculum Open-access Resources in Economics), a global community dedicated to developing innovative and accessible learning materials in economics.

The course is based on CORE’s suite of ebooks created by the world’s top researchers and educators. The University’s levels of excellence are consistently maintained, and you’ll benefit from them throughout this course.

Syllabus

Week 1: Income inequality over the past millennium

Week 2: Measuring income inequality

Week 3: Inequalities in health and education

Week 4: How government policy can address inequality

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Explain how data can be used to measure inequality and document trends over time

- Produce appropriate column charts, line charts, and scatterplots to visualise data

- Calculate and interpret summary measures of a distribution

- Calculate and interpret common measures of inequality

- Explain how governments can design policies to address inequality

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for anyone interested in using statistical software for data analysis, especially to help address economic inequality. Undergraduates, postgraduates, and secondary school students (from GCSE level) will all benefit from it.

What software or tools do you need?

To complete the data exercises, you’ll need access to Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.