![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
To understand inequality in the post-Good Friday Agreement (post-GFA) period, we must understand how inequality in Northern Ireland has been subject to stressors long acknowledged in the international literature, though seldom considered in this context. These ‘new’ stressors include destandardization, retrenchment, and financialization, which have largely replaced the class and employment differentials that characterised 20th century inequality. We explore the specific experience of inequality in Northern Ireland since Good Friday. In doing so, we contextualise its experience by detailing important structural and institutional changes over this time, explaining how they work in the unique socioeconomic context of post-GFA Northern Ireland.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2 The Claimant Count includes data counting those on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and out-of-work Universal Credit Claimants. With the rollout of Universal Credit over this time, refinement of these mixed counts is ongoing. Full data are available at the following link:
https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/labour-market-and-social-welfare/claimant-count
4 The Continuous Household Survey (CHS) contained a debt module in its 2007 edition, and is the only source of information on unsecured debt levels in Northern Ireland. The CHS is one of the largest continuous surveys carried out in Northern Ireland each year by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and has been running since 1983. The survey is a repeated annual cross-sectional study, and uses a multi-stage, stratified random sample with face-to-face interviews. Each year approximately 4,500 addresses are selected randomly from the Valuation and Lands Agency list of addresses to be contacted, and all members of the household aged 16 years and over were interviewed but only those aged 18 and over were included in the analysis.
5 and do not report partial effects. These graphs display difference in medians within and between categories and territories, as indicated by category labels.
6 A full multivariate analysis with controls for education, age, gender, and sector is needed to corroborate this.
7 Devolved wage share data for Northern Ireland is not available from AMECO. Northern Ireland’s wage share is calculated as the percentage of gross value added accruing to waged and salaried workers (compensation of employees). This underestimates the share of compensation accruing to the self-employed, and the allocation of mixed income arising from self-employment, which may be attributable either to capital or labour (Sidhu and Dunn, 2018). The Northern Irish data displayed in figure 1 should not be taken as a correct ratio, but may be used cautiously to discern and compare trends.
8 The five-class National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) scheme is used as a measure of social class, and numbers 1–5 denote the various classes. It is derived from occupation, employment status (employer, employee, self-employed), organisation size, and supervisory status. Such schemes typically focus on ‘attenuation of service relationship’ as a key dimension in distinguishing groups. Bearing in mind that Weberian class groupings such as this have been extensively critiqued, a more comprehensive analysis might focus on an inductive generation of new stratification groups using a wider range of variables. This framework does, however, permit comparison with those studies for which occupationally-derived class was salient. The five groups are categorised as follows: (1) Managerial and professional occupations, (2) Intermediate occupations, (3) Small employers and own account workers, (4) Lower supervisory and technical occupations, (5) Semi-routine and routine occupations.
10 The Debt Servicing Index (DSI) is the percentage of monthly income going to debt payments, rather than the ratio of total debt to total income. This better captures the impact of debt on daily household expenditure. Using a sliding scale accounts for the differing ability of high income groups to service greater volumes of debt, and as such, as define problem debt as a DSI of >20% for quintile 1, 25% for quintile 2, etc.
11 This column shows the average repayments for those with a DSI>25% in each category.
12 This column shows the percentage of households defined as over-indebted using the sliding scale of DSI (see footnote 7).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Eoin Flaherty
Eoin Flaherty is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Maynooth University.
Martina McAuley
Martina McAuley completed a PhD in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast on determinants of personal an household debt, and has since worked in a range of Non-Governmental Organisations based in Northern Ireland.