Danny-dorling
Danny Dorling

Seven Children: Inequality and Britain’s Next Generation

Danny Dorling

Sunday, 6 April 2025

2:00pm

1 hour

Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room

£8 - £15

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Social scientist Professor Danny Dorling imagines the lives of seven typical five-year-olds across different income brackets in the UK and finds that even the best-off of the seven is disadvantaged today.

Dorling’s children are born in 2018, when the UK faced its worst inequality since the Great Depression, and they all reach five in 2023, at the height of the cost-of-living crisis.  Dorling asks what we are missing when we focus only on the superrich and the most deprived and looks at what kinds of lives most children are living between the two extremes. He questions why most British parents are on below-average incomes and looks at how we can reverse the trend that is leaving most children worse off than their parents.

‘This searing book spells out British children’s lives, divided by the deepest inequality since the 1930s. Read it and pass it to anyone who doesn’t know how we live now.’ Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist

Dorling is Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. His previous books include Inequality and the 1% and All That Is Solid.

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The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Cultural Relations Platform Supporter of the festival's Voices of Europe programme Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Pusey House Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine