Introduction

Abstract

The objective in this article is to present a set of data and commentaries which may allow us to visualize specific aspects of social inequality in the context of the present economic crisis. It is also its goal to become an invitation to reflect on the subject and highlight the urgent need to carry out extended research on it. Thus, we point out some of the complexities of the global social changes surrounding the phenomenon. Moreover, we present some data showing that the situations created by the economic crisis are following diverse, even opposed, trajectories in different parts of the world and, in particular, in the studied cases of Spain and Chile. The article points out, too, that the political reading of the crisis is currently manifesting itself through policies of budget cuts and economic austerity and, as a consequence, in increased difficulties to cope with persistently high levels of unemployment, as well as in an appreciated negative evolution of educational and healthcare levels. In order to highlight this latter aspect, some of the available data for the various districts in Barcelona are analysed.