Inequality in The 21st Century – Session 2 of 4

Inequality in The 21st Century: A Day Long Engagement with Thomas Piketty – 11.45am Session 2 (Gender and Everyday Life)

Speaker(s) : David Soskice, Wendy Carlin, Bob Rowthorn, Diane Perrons, Stephanie Seguino, Lisa McKenzie, Naila Kabeer, Dr. Laura Bear, Gareth Jones, Mike Savage, Sir John Hills, Sir Tony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty

Recorded on 11 May 2015 at Old Theatre, Old Building

A day-long conference with Thomas Piketty, whose Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been of global significance in shaping debates about inequality across the globe. The workshop will be hosted by LSE’s new International Inequalities Institute with the Department of Sociology at LSE and the British Journal of Sociology, which ran a special issue of reviews on Piketty’s book, several of the contributors to which will be involved in these discussions.

Thomas Piketty is a professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics, an alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEIII

Session 2, 11.45am to 1.00pm, Gender and Everyday Life

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st century highlights the magnitude of contemporary inequality, how it has come about, why it matters, and what might be done about it. Introducing a feminist perspective enhances his analysis by not only pointing to the gendered composition of contemporary inequality but by introducing an inter-disciplinary perspective capable of examining the multiple ways in which inequalities are naturalised, legitimated and experienced in everyday life. The fact that the different rewards associated with different forms of work are so heavily laden with gendered, not to mention racialized social constructions also indicates that Piketty’s persuasive argument for ex poste redistributive taxes needs to be supplemented with an analysis and a politics capable of contesting the ex-ante processes through which inequalities are reproduced.

This session contributes to this end by analysing how contemporary economic inequality in the period pre and post the financial crisis was experienced differently by different social groups with the how different forms of inequality intersect and multiple ways that inequality in with reference to particular communities in the global north and global south.

Chair and Introduction Diane Perrons

Speakers: Stephanie Seguino, Lisa McKenzie, Naila Kabeer