Temporal and Spatial Analysis of Social Inequalities in Belgium and Luxembourg - DESTINY
Coordinating Institution:
CEPS / INSTEAD
Contracting Partner(s):
Gédap Louvain-la-Neuve ,
University of Louvain (B)
From: 01/02/2008
To: 31/01/2012
Budget: 109,476.00€
Contact(s):
Gerber Philippe
Summary
The main objective of the DESTINY project is to analyze both longitudinally and spatially the social inequalities in Belgium and Luxembourg. This research is based on the possibility of coupling individual-level from census data for both Belgium and Luxembourg between 1991 and 2001 in order to conduct multidisciplinary analysis. The social inequalities between individuals are based on the education level, the socio-professional status, and the housing conditions and they are analyzed in relation to each census by the following characteristics: type and size of households, age, gender and nationality.
A typology of social groups can be undertaken according to the position of each individual in population within the social continuum. The originality of this research is mainly based on three key-points related to the database availability: the data are comprehensive, available at the individual level, and make possible longitudinal analysis (for Belgium only). This allowed exploring and understanding social inequalities in both their temporal and spatial dimensions. This second year of the DESTINY project has permitted closing the first phase of the project which has a total of two years. During this stage, much work has focused on completing the data settlement and methodological development as well as producing the first empirical results.
The latter have mainly focused on describing the two populations and the two territories in 1991 and in 2001. These results have been formalized in two papers presented in international scientific conferences and two methodological working papers. The first phase of the project was positively evaluated by a panel of international scientific experts which opened directly the funding of the following phase.
The objectives of the second phase of DESTINY are more comprehensive. The comparative outcomes issued from the first phase, on a theoretically perspective, will be deeply examined in broader contexts of societal changes which have been observed in the two countries by the last decades (e.g. population aging, diversification and instability of households, gender issues, multiculturalism, and social and spatial segregation). At the end of the project, the DESTINY results will be evaluated according to the Karl Polanyi theoretical model related to the economic integration. This conceptual framework will be used not only to understand both poverty and inequality but also to characterize economic and political changes in Belgium and in Luxembourg.
Refereed Scientific Publications
- Lord S. Gerber P. Immigration et intégration : Trajectoires résidentielles (inter)nationales et dynamiques ségrégatives locales au Luxembourg. Espace Populations Sociétés, 2009-1, p. 85-103.
Progamme:
- Société et Avenir
Foreign Funding Agency:
- Service Fédéral Public de Programmation Scientifique (Belgium)