How fair is the UK?
We all feel strongly about fairness. But people have different views about what fairness means.
We have developed a five-pronged definition of fairness that brings together the different components of fairness, the Fair Necessities: essentials, opportunities, rewards, exchange and treatment. Our polling shows that this has strong public support.
Now we are looking at whether these five ‘fair necessities’ have been realised in the UK, to answer the question: do we live in a fair society?
What is the Fairness Index?
The Fairness Index is an online resource that aims to collate and explain the key data about how fair British society is today.
It examines five key gaps in British society, linked to the ‘fair necessities’: essentials, opportunities, rewards, exchange and treatment. For each, it looks at the gaps between rich and poor and between different groups, and the gaps between reality and public perceptions and preferences.
It puts the statistics into context and explains why the gaps are unfair, how they reinforce each other, and what can be done about them.
How can I use it?
The Fairness Index is aimed at a general audience, but is also designed to help social change organisations to build support for their goals by explaining how and why the problems that they seek to address are unfair.
It is based around fifteen indicators, three for each of the five ‘fair necessities’.
As well as the headline indicators, the index contains detailed context in five areas: additional statistics (such as regional and group breakdowns), the substance of the issues (causes and consequences), real-life stories, survey data on public attitudes, and the solutions to build a fairer society.
Choose how to browse the index
- Browse the content by section (statistics, substance, stories, surveys and solutions), filtering by fair necessity
- Browse the indicators, key messages and context by fair necessity
- Browse the indicators or the context alone, or alongside the relevant arguments (substance articles)
- Start with the foreword to get some perspective
- Dive into one section of the index, looking across all five fair necessities: statistics, substance, stories, surveys, and solutions
- View all relevant content filtered by thematic issue (education, health, taxation and so on)
- Read the appendices