15 October (Auckland) On the numbers, there’s little dispute over who’s favourite to win on social equality here. France’s number 6 place on our rankings (just below NZ) is earned through high places on gender equality and the happy planet index, and a good showing on income equality (its Gini measure of 32.7 places it 5th among the rugby nat ...
QF 3: Australia v South Africa (Wellington) On the rugby stats, South Africa could be expected to dominate on the field, but on our social equality rankings, it comes a lowly 18th and would be out of the competition at this phase. Australia ranks 8th, aided by a much better Gini coefficient of 35 on a 0-100 scale (where 0 represents total equality ...
8 October (Auckland) Neither England nor France is a stellar performer when it comes to fairness: both are ranked mid-table in our rankings, and with middling scores in most categories. It’s France, however, who take the early lead from income and gender equality. France’s income equality in particular is stellar for what is a reasonably large, ...
1 October (Wellington) The three Pacific nations face huge battles on the rugby pitch this weekend to achieve some mighty upsets that would enable any of them to get to the quarterfinals – rather like the battles they face on the world stage. Size and isolation count against them. In both rugby and social equality, France places above Tonga. The ...
1 October (Nelson) At first glance it looks as though Australia has both competitions sewn up. The Wallabies are a force to be reckoned with on the field while the Russian Bears rank a lowly 19th in the World Cup pool. Russia is also bringing up the rear in the social equality and justice rankings at number 20 while Australia sits somewhere in the ...
30 September (North Harbour) South Africa have a perfect rugby record against Samoa, but they won’t want to rest on their laurels for this match. Even if it’s an uphill battle, Samoa will be desperate to win, and perhaps if they manage to pull it off, that could be attributed to their advantage in equality. One of the biggest issues for this ma ...
25 September (Rotorua) For this match Level With Me takes to the road with a guest post from the youth group of St. Bernard’s Catholic parish, Brooklyn, Wellington. As Ireland has got wealthier, the gap between rich and poor seems to have increased. But if that sounds bad, just think of their cousins on the other side of Europe. Food in Russi ...
24 September (Dunedin) On our rankings, England and Romania are fairly close, especially in terms of the Happy Planet Index and Global Peace Index. England appears to be a considerably nicer place to be a woman, while the wealth gap is a fair bit smaller in Romania. Or is it? England are at a considerable disadvantage in terms of income inequality, ...
20 September (Nelson) The interesting thing about this match is their social equality rankings closely match their rugby rating among the 20 countries competing. Italy ranks at 12th on our social indicators, and 11th on the IRB list, while Russia comes in at 20th and 19th respectively. Russia is brought down on social equality by bottom-of-the-tabl ...
Wednesday 14 September (Rotorua) In the third match of Pool D, Namibia face their second Pacific island nation in a row. Ranking Samoa proved even harder than ranking Fiji and Tonga – there simply isn’t enough information available to make concrete judgements about inequality in the country. Nevertheless, we’ve given Samoa a very high rankin ...
