Conclusion

This free course, Understanding economic inequality, gave you a flavour of one of the most pressing challenges of our times – inequality. You reflected on your personal experiences of inequality and looked at how it is approached in economics.

You explored the different meanings of inequality, and learned how income inequality can be measured using population shares. You then looked at how income inequality has changed in recent decades, looking at the distribution of income between workers, between countries, and between labour and capital.

You looked at some of the causes of economic inequality in modern times and its consequences for success and wellbeing of the economy and society. You even put yourself in the shoes of a prime minister, and explored what can be done to make economies less unequal.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course DD126 Economics in context. You might also be interested to look at another OpenLearn course adapted from this OU course: Understanding economics: the secret life of t-shirts.