ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the impact on the distribution of resources of the changes which are associated with the growth of an 'Enterprise Culture'. It explores a relatively little used source, the National Labour Force Survey, to estimate changing income distribution over the period from 1979 to 1985. The chapter arises out of research being carried out which compares processes of economic change and social polarization in London and New York. Various hypotheses are outlined to explain the changing distribution of household income. The chapter also discusses the methods used in the analysis and the nature of the data. It presents the main results for the nation as a whole, discusses the city-specific findings. The analysis was based on imputing labour market earnings and welfare benefits for each household on the Labour Force Survey data tape, making use of information about the household structure, labour market participation and job characteristics of each individual.
