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This paper compares recent developments in income inequality in Canada, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to describing cross-national variation in changes in income inequality, the paper examines different explanatory factors for these recent developments. The findings reported indicate that there is substantial cross-national variation, not only with regard to the level of inequality, but furthermore with regard to changes in inequality. The results indicate that the equalizing effect of welfare state redistribution did not decrease in all countries. By contrast, in all countries there was a universal tendency towards increased inequality in the pre-tax and transfer distribution, although the magnitude of the change differs from country to country. Even though a polarization of the earnings distribution is reported, the results still give no support to cross-national convergence with regard to income inequality during the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the reduction of income inequality in Sweden and the United Kingdom over the periods of 1920-1969 and 1880-1969 respectively. The independent variables used by Cutright were reduced by factor analysis to two dimensions. The first measures the availability of an economic surplus and the second measures concentration of power in the hands of an elite. Each was found to have significant effects on the level of income inequality in the two countries. The power factor was more important in explaining inequality in both countries for the total time period, as might be expected from Lenski's discussion of stratification. A division of the United Kingdom sample into equal halves showed a pattern of transformation with the power factor being important in the first half and the economic surplus factor in the second. From this, inferences concerning the nature of inequality in post-industrial societies are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]