20 February, 2013

This Saturday, a hundred experts will come to York to discuss and debate issues of inequality and poverty in the world today – and yesterday. For over a century, York has been at the centre of this debate, since Seebohm Rowntree completed his pathbreaking poverty survey in 1900.

Rowntree’s story will be addressed by Professor Jonathan Bradshaw from York University in the first session at this weekend’s event, which is at the Priory Street Centre in central York. This session is also co-sponsored by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, and will  provide a launch for the new book on the Rowntree family by local author Paul Chrystal (to be confirmed).

Another York speaker is Professor Richard Wilkinson, whose celebrated book ‘The Spirit Level’ argued why greater equality is better for everyone. The conference organiser, John Bibby, said, “This will be an argument accepted by most of the attendees at this conference, which is organised by Radical Statistics, a group of left-wingers interested in applications of statistical data”.

Other sessions will discuss inequality in India, the 2011 population census in the UK and will debate whether the 2021 census should be cancelled.The theme of the final speaker, Stewart Lansley, will be  “The Costs of Inequality”, on which he has written a very well-received book.

You can follow the conference live on Twitter, hashtag #radstats. For full information see https://www.radstats.org.uk/conference/york2013/

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