Exploring the Inequality Discourse: Insights for Understanding the Inequality and Sustainable Development Nexus

Rising inequality is a defining challenge of the 21st century and while the 2030 agenda for sustainable development is far from perfect, its commitment to tackling inequalities is praiseworthy. To this end, an understanding of how the inequality discourse has evolved can help rethink sustainable development policies going forward.In this review, we examined how the inequality discourse has evolved and what this evolution means for addressing sustainable development issues. Specifically, we explored the prominent philosophical views and measurement approaches on inequality, we examined the contentions surrounding the causes and consequences of inequality and we highlighted three important channels through which inequality affects sustainable development.Philosophically, we began examining the inequality discourse with Locke (1690) and end with Milanovic (2016). In this regard, the paper revealed that the discourse on inequality has shifted from its early focus on the measurement of conditions defined as the unequal distribution of income or material goods, towards a more holistic approach of measuring unequal opportunities such as unequal distribution of life chances across individuals. We also observed that there is a constant revision of the measures of inequality, and they are beginning to account for the multidimensional way in which individuals and society experience inequality. In relation to sustainable development, our paper revealed that inequality negatively affects sustainable development by hindering economic growth, contributing positively to environmental degradation and causing health and social problems in society. With this information, we constructedthe Armstrong-Chhetri Inequality and Sustainable DevelopmentFramework for understanding the nexus between inequality and sustainable development.This framework thereforeisuseful for guiding sustainable development policies especially in highly unequal societies.