Inequalities in publicly funded services have received considerable attention in recent years. On the one hand, policy-makers have placed increased emphasis on ensuring a fair distribution of public services. On the other, researchers have responded by developing new methods to measure and understand inequalities. Inequalities can exist across a number of policy-relevant dimensions. These include, but are not limited to: socio-economic status, where there are concerns that individuals with less income or access to resources may be treated differently by public services such as health and social care; age, where the concern centres around age discrimination or differential access or treatment based on age; geography, where the availability of services or quality of services for a given need vary across regions; and racial/ethnic identity, language and culture. Policy attention has targeted all of these dimensions in recent years, and, in some cases, the policies have recognised the intersections of these factors. Overall, however, the bulk of the empirical research on inequalities in service use has focused on socio-economic inequalities. This chapter pays particular attention to the factors that explain socio-economic inequalities in health and social care service use among older people, and the methodological challenges that their study presents for this segment of the population.