How is individual welfare distributed in Britain?

Abstract

An empirical exemplar of the broader German “Lebenslagen” approach (German for
life circumstances/dimensions) is applied to British survey data, basically following
the operationalisation suggested by Otto G. Schwenk, and adding a longitudinal
perspective to the original cross-sectional design. By applying K-means cluster
analysis to two waves of the British Household Panel Survey, a model of the societal
distribution of individual welfare is developed. Schwenk’s empirical approach is
found to be both methodologically applicable in the BHPS and substantively
applicable in the British social context. However, some questions remain about the
unavoidably subjective interpretation of the outcome of the classification technique
used.