European Research Council: £1,200,000

Elites reveal the nature of inequality, allowing us to see the underlying structure of society. But, elites can also be the engines of inequality, driving forward changes ensuring the accumulation of power. So, when the people occupying elite positions change it says something about how the production of inequalities may have changed too. Most would agree (despite the paucity of data) that elites are different today than they were; but, what is contested is whether such changes signal a radical restructuring of the processes of elite formation. Two questions remain unresolved: 1) how has the composition of elites changed over time? and 2) did the major social, political, and economic upheavals of the last 200 years reconfigure elites through altering processes of elite formation? It has been difficult to answer these questions because of limited longitudinal data on elites. CHANGINGELITES will address these questions by creating a catalogue of the elite that is without equal in its empirical and temporal scope. This data set will combine information on education (schools and universities), club membership, parental wealth, economic capital, and family structure for around 120,000 people born since 1800. Alongside this data, we will also conduct 100 interviews with elites born in different periods, illuminating the varied trajectories that underpin this huge historical database. CHANGINGELITES will both shed light on the social composition of elites over time and seek to explain the changes and continuities within elites by exploring how institutional and policy shifts constrain and enable processes of elite reproduction. This ambitious, interdisciplinary study will radically alter our understanding of elite reproduction but, more than this, it will speak to a contradiction seen in many countries recently between the opening up of elite institutions and the massive accumulation of wealth, and in so doing will seek new ways to understand how inequalities are produced.

Wellcome Trust - £200,000

Do political institutions influence the health of populations? Political institutions once seemed fixed and stable, but now appear to be flexible and open to change. This project seeks to uncover whether changing political institutions could affect health. Political institutions are the rules that govern who participates and how they participate in decision-making processes within societies; for example, they dictate who gets to vote and how votes are counted. Political institutions potentially affect health because they make governments more (less) responsive to what citizens want. However, this straightforward view of how political institutions affect health overlooks how democracies can privilege some voices over others – e.g., party donors may matter more than voters – and so universal suffrage may not necessarily deliver better health. This project will shed light on these questions through a series of empirical case studies. For example, I propose to examine whether political incorporation improves the health of formerly excluded groups, and whether their influence on policy decisions is weaker in majoritarian political systems than proportional representation systems because votes are counted differently. This project speaks to the sustainable development agenda by illuminating whether inclusive and representative decision-making institutions may accelerate progress toward ensuring healthy lives for all.

Nuffield Foundation - £360,000 : With Ruth Patrick (York) and Kitty Stewart (LSE) - Project website.

Larger families have always faced a disproportionate risk of poverty. Two recent welfare reforms (the household benefit cap, which limits the benefit income a household can receive, and the two-child limit, which restricts eligibility for child-benefits to two children) are expected to exacerbate this risk even further. These reforms also break with precedent in the social security system by severing the link between assessed need and entitlement to support. Despite the significance of these changes, there are important gaps in our understanding of i) how the reforms are affecting patterns of poverty; ii) how families themselves are responding to the changes, and iii) whether they are affecting wider well-being. There is some early analysis of these policies but the available evidence is small-scale and incomplete. To address these gaps, we will begin by looking at large-scale datasets to examine how poverty risks have changed as a result of the two-child limit and benefits cap. We will then track how larger families are coping, following 44 families across two locations, documenting experiences and responses to the changed policy landscape. Finally, we will return to large data to explore impacts on wider well-being, including mental health, building on the insights generated from speaking to larger families. The project’s timing is critical because the reforms are affecting increasing numbers of families, but have yet to be formally evaluated. Our findings will inform future policy interventions and enable a better understanding of welfare reform’s impact on larger families.