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Sources of inequality across the globe: Introduction
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
Sources of inequality across the globe: Introduction Anastasia Gorodzeisky a,b,∗ , Moshe Semyonov c,d,∗ b
a Juan March Institute,Spain Ben Gurion University of the Negev,Israel c Tel Aviv University,Israel d University of Illinois at Chicago,USA
Received 8 January 2012; accepted 8 January 2012
On October 20011 the Center for Advanced Study in the Social Science at Juan March Institute in Madrid hosted an international workshop entitled “Sources of Inequality across the Globe”. Researchers from a variety of countries were invited to present and discuss original research papers on the issue. All papers focused on sources of socioeconomic inequality in an attempt to delineate and better understand social mechanisms underlying emergence of stratification systems and socioeconomic disparities both within and across societies. The papers presented in the workshop underscored the roles played by family socioeconomic origin and parental resources, gender, ethnicity and immigrant status as well as structural features of society and social policy in generating social and economic disparities between groups in the labor market, in the educational system, in urban centers and in the marriage market. By doing so, the research papers uncover and reveal social mechanisms underlying the ways through which ascription and membership in status groups affect access to social and economic opportunities, social goods, educational attainment, occupational status, earnings, as well as access to wealth, health and standard of living in a variety of countries and over time. Indeed, the papers included in the special volume provide insights into processes of inequality across space and time. They
∗
Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Gorodzeisky), [email protected] (M. Semyonov).
shed light on the ways through which characteristics of societies and attributes of individuals affect differential access to positions, rewards and outcomes both in the system of production and the system of consumption of contemporary society. The nine studies selected for the volume cover a wide range of countries. Some countries (e.g. US, Australia) had been extensively investigated over a long period of time. On others (e.g. Russia, China) we know relatively little because only recently social researchers have begun exploring their patterns of social and economic inequality. Although most papers (six) focus on data from a single country, they are all cast and discussed within a comparative framework. That is, the findings presented by each of the six country-specific research papers are evaluated from a comparative perspective and discussed within a general theoretical framework hence, enabling comparisons with other societies. The three studies that provide a direct cross-national comparative analysis examine not only whether social processes differ across societies but also the extent to which social processes and class identification are affected by societal features, by social policies and by the stratification system. The number of countries included in the comparative analyses ranges from two immigrant societies (the US and Australia) to forty-four countries across the globe. Half of the articles included in this volume rely on cross-sectional analysis to detect the ways that structural characteristics of societies and social policies affect and shape patterns of inequality; half of the papers examine
0276-5624/$ – see front matter © 2012 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2012.01.001
2
A. Gorodzeisky, M. Semyonov / Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
temporal changes and over-time trends, thus, providing dynamic models for understanding sources of change in levels and patterns of social and economic inequality and sources of change in differential access of population groups to opportunities and rewards. Hence, when put together these papers not only provide a better insights into the mechanisms underlying emergence of socioeconomic inequalities within societies but also a broad comparative perspective for understanding sources of social and economic inequalities and perceptions about inequality across the globe. The first two articles of the special issue are devoted to the study of change in labor market inequality. The research focuses on over time trends and processes in the labor market of two distinct societies and two distinct economic systems – the US and Russia. The research conducted by Hadas Mandel examines trends in women’s occupational mobility between 1980 and 2007 in the USA labor market. The trends are linked to two main sources: compositional change (i.e. change in gender composition of occupations) and structural change (i.e. change in the relative standing of occupations on the wage hierarchy). The data for the analysis were obtained from the five percent samples of the U.S. census and the American Community Survey. The findings suggest that over the period studied, and especially between 1980 and 1990, US women increased their relative representation in highly rewarded lucrative occupations (particularly in the top two wage deciles), and reduced their representation in low wage occupations (below the median). Parallel to this process, the typical occupational profiles of women have benefitted from higher wage premiums than men’s. The study underscores the importance of occupational labor markets for understanding change in gender-linked economic inequality. Theodore Gerber’s study focuses on change in job loss risk in post-socialist Russia between 1985 and 2001. The study seeks to develop a structural approach to understanding patterns of inequality in post-socialist economies. The empirical analysis is based on data from the Survey on Stratification and Migration Dynamics in Russia. The findings presented by the analysis suggest that changes in structural positions (firm characteristics such as sector, industry, and size) influenced Russian workers’ exposure to job loss both independently of and in combination with the effects of individual characteristics. When put within a comparative framework, the market reforms in Russia produced specific and theoretically coherent changes in structural positions that were considerably more sweeping than the changes typically observed in analyses of the labor markets of stable developed capitalist societies. The findings presented by
Gerber’s research are evaluated and discussed within a comparative perspective. The three following articles underscore the impact that immigrant status exerts on access to social and economic goods and on patterns of marriage. Immigration is often associated with social and economic gains and losses. Immigrants usually move from places with depressed opportunities to more prosperous places in order to improve social and economic well-being of their families. While doing so immigrants usually lose social standing but with the passage of time experience upward economic mobility. Donald Treiman’s research focuses on urban–rural social and economic disparities as related to rural–urban migration in China. Urban–rural disparities in China are exacerbated by institutional arrangements that have created a two-class society based on registration status with sharp rural–urban distinctions in access to public goods (e.g. schooling, health care, housing, and retirement benefits). Using data from two national probability sample surveys, one carried out in 1996 and one in 2008, the research describes trends in various aspects of inequality for three groups identified at age 14: those with rural registration and rural residence; those with rural registration and urban residence (rural–urban migrants); and those with urban registration. The specific outcomes considered are education, occupational position, earnings, family income, material well-being, and perceptions regarding whether life has improved. The data show that, in general, rural–urban migrants are better positioned in the social and economic hierarchy than rural residents; over time they had improved their position in society; yet they have not closed all gaps with urban residents. The data also show across-the-board improvement in almost all aspects of life in China. Yet, for most outcomes, the size of the rural–urban gap has remained relatively constant over a 60-year period. Kate H. Choi, Marta Tienda, Deborah Cobb-Clark, and Mathias Sinning’s research paper evaluates ‘the status exchange hypothesis’, suggesting that native born will share their nativity status in exchange for an immigrant’s higher achieved socio-economic status. The study focuses on the comparison between Australia and the United States. For Australia, the study utilizes the entire 2001 Census of Population and Housing and for the United States the study uses the five percent Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample of the 2000 U.S. Census. The findings demonstrate that foreignborn-spouses are likely to trade educational credentials via marriage with natives in both Australian and U.S. and that nativity is a more salient marriage barrier for men than for women. With some exceptions, immigrant
A. Gorodzeisky, M. Semyonov / Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
spouses in ‘mixed nativity’ couples are better-educated as compared to native spouses in ‘same nativity’ couples, but status exchange is more prevalent among the lesseducated spouses in both countries. Support for the status exchange hypothesis is somewhat weaker in Australia partly because of lower average levels of education compared with the United States. The authors conclude that growing socioeconomic differentials in propensity to wed along with increases in hypogamy may alter the salience of nativity as a social boundary in marriage. The research conducted by Katharine Donato and Blake Sisk seeks to find whether and how recent employment conditions of Mexican immigrants to the United States (between 1976 and 2009) differ from those observed in the past and to what extent they reflect the consequences of exogenous policy shifts since 1986. In particular, the research explores the impact of policy shifts and enforcement strategies on changes in employment conditions of Mexican immigrants. The study relies on data from Mexican Migration Project, which offers retrospective migration and employment histories collected from more than 100,000 Mexicans in 128 communities. The data were supplemented with non-random surveys of out migrants located in the United States. The findings show worsening conditions for both unauthorized and legal Mexican migrants in the period that followed the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Although the workplace conditions of legal immigrants are less unfavorable than those of unauthorized immigrants, the findings also show that during the first decade of 21st century employment conditions of unauthorized immigrants more closely resemble those of legal immigrants. The shift toward convergence in workplace conditions between legal and unauthorized Mexican migrants can be understood as resulting from employers’ reaction to federal policies and practices related to workplace enforcement. The following two articles highlight the role played by family and parental resources in producing social and economic disparities among individuals. The article by Florencia Torche and Carlos Costa-Ribeiro examines the influence of parental wealth on adult children’s schooling, school quality, occupational status, consumption level, and wealth holdings in Brazil. Using data from the Brazilian Survey of Social Dimensions of Inequality carried out in 2008, the study finds a substantial effect of parental wealth on all aforementioned outcomes. Children of wealthy parents are more likely to be socio-economically successful than others. The effect of parental wealth on occupational status is largely mediated by parental investment in children education. The effect of parental wealth on children’s consumption and
3
wealth, however, is largely unmediated by labor market resources, outcomes and rewards; a pattern that is more pronounced for sons than for daughters. The findings reveal that intergenerational transmission of wealth is highly consequential throughout the life cycle. The authors argue that in Brazil wealth is a central component of the household permanent income. On basis of the findings the authors conclude that an omission of parental wealth from stratification models routinely results in overestimating the influence of other sources of inequality in Brazil. These findings, indeed, have general implications not only to the Brazilian society but to other societies as well. The article by Adam Gamoran, Ruth N. Lopez Turley, Alyn Turner, and Rachel Fish focuses on the role played by parents’ social capital in child development. The researchers examine whether an implementation of a designed intervention program – ‘manipulating parental social capital’ (Families and Schools Together (FAST) – a multi-family after-school program) enhances relations among families, between parents and schools, and between parents and children. The study compares Hispanic and Non-Hispanic families in two USA cities utilizing data collected in 2008–2009. The research finds that in one of the two research sites (Phoenix, Arizona), the program introduced to schools randomly led to higher levels of social capital among parents and child behavior outcomes. In the other site (San Antonio, Texas), the authors found no consistent effects on either parental social capital or child behavior outcomes. The researchers also report possible evidence of differential treatment effects across ethnic groups. In particular, the benefits of FAST in Phoenix, where the effects were largest, appear more pronounced for whites than for Hispanics. The possibility of differential effects by ethnic groups has profound general implications. On the one hand, an intervention that boosts social capital may benefit Hispanic children. On the other hand, if the benefits are greater for whites than for other groups, then the socialcapital-building intervention would do little to reduce inequality between Hispanic and white children in the U.S. The special issue is sealed by two cross-national comparative research papers. The first (co-authored by Joya Misra, Stephanie Moller, Eiko Strader and Elizabeth Wemlinger) explores the impact of family policies on reduction of poverty among partnered and single mothers. Specifically, the authors try to figure out which family-policies are most effective in directly reducing poverty among mothers, and whether the policies indirectly reduce poverty through supporting mothers’ employment. Nineteen countries are selected for the
4
A. Gorodzeisky, M. Semyonov / Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
study, including wealthy western European and North American nations, Australia, Israel and several former socialist nations in Eastern Europe. The analysis combines micro income data collected by the Luxembourg Income Study around 2000 with the Work-Family Policy Indicators dataset. The findings show significant effects of family allowances, generous parental leaves and childcare provisions on poverty, net of individual-level factors. Parental leave and childcare facilities operate through boosting mothers’ employment; employment, in turn, is likely to reduce poverty. The findings, thus, lend support to the view that work-family policies that enhance mother’s employment can be useful tools for reducing poverty. Based on the analyses, the authors argue that poverty among mothers and their children can be substantially limited through the right mix of social policies. The paper that concludes the volume (co-authored by Robert Andersen and Josh Curtis) examines perceptions about class structure and class positions among individuals across a wide range of societies. Specifically, the study explores the impact of economic conditions – both at the individual-level and the national-level – on social class identification. The analysis is conducted on data from 44 countries collected by the World Values Survey in 2005. The analysis reveals that household income tends to increase levels of class identification, at the same time however, country’s level of economic development has almost no impact on class identity. The most important finding of this paper demonstrates that the effect of household income on class identification tends to be more pronounced in societies with a high level of income
inequality (as compared to egalitarian societies). In egalitarian societies, the poor are less likely to see themselves as having a low position in the class hierarchy than the poor in countries characterized by high levels of national income inequality. The papers included in this special volume reveal that social and economic inequalities are evident in the educational system, in the labor market, in the consumption system and in the marriage market. Social and economic inequalities can be observed in terms of wealth, standard of living, earnings, occupational status, employment status and labor force position, social capital, poverty and in class self-identification. Furthermore, the studies demonstrate that social and economic advantages or disadvantages can be transmitted across generations through family and parental resources, through educational achievements and through labor market activities but they are also influenced by immigrant status, gender and ethnic origin. Differential access to social and economic rewards is not only dependent on the relative position of a sub-population in society but is also dependent on characteristics of society and upon its social policies. Indeed, the papers presented in the volume illustrate that access to opportunities takes place in a variety of social domains and through a variety of avenues and is ever changing across space and time. Over all, the studies underscore the complex and multi-dimensional nature of inequality in society and the impact of structural-level and individual-level attributes on emergence of social and economic inequalities across individuals and across the globe.
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
Sources of inequality across the globe: Introduction Anastasia Gorodzeisky a,b,∗ , Moshe Semyonov c,d,∗ b
a Juan March Institute,Spain Ben Gurion University of the Negev,Israel c Tel Aviv University,Israel d University of Illinois at Chicago,USA
Received 8 January 2012; accepted 8 January 2012
On October 20011 the Center for Advanced Study in the Social Science at Juan March Institute in Madrid hosted an international workshop entitled “Sources of Inequality across the Globe”. Researchers from a variety of countries were invited to present and discuss original research papers on the issue. All papers focused on sources of socioeconomic inequality in an attempt to delineate and better understand social mechanisms underlying emergence of stratification systems and socioeconomic disparities both within and across societies. The papers presented in the workshop underscored the roles played by family socioeconomic origin and parental resources, gender, ethnicity and immigrant status as well as structural features of society and social policy in generating social and economic disparities between groups in the labor market, in the educational system, in urban centers and in the marriage market. By doing so, the research papers uncover and reveal social mechanisms underlying the ways through which ascription and membership in status groups affect access to social and economic opportunities, social goods, educational attainment, occupational status, earnings, as well as access to wealth, health and standard of living in a variety of countries and over time. Indeed, the papers included in the special volume provide insights into processes of inequality across space and time. They
∗
Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Gorodzeisky), [email protected] (M. Semyonov).
shed light on the ways through which characteristics of societies and attributes of individuals affect differential access to positions, rewards and outcomes both in the system of production and the system of consumption of contemporary society. The nine studies selected for the volume cover a wide range of countries. Some countries (e.g. US, Australia) had been extensively investigated over a long period of time. On others (e.g. Russia, China) we know relatively little because only recently social researchers have begun exploring their patterns of social and economic inequality. Although most papers (six) focus on data from a single country, they are all cast and discussed within a comparative framework. That is, the findings presented by each of the six country-specific research papers are evaluated from a comparative perspective and discussed within a general theoretical framework hence, enabling comparisons with other societies. The three studies that provide a direct cross-national comparative analysis examine not only whether social processes differ across societies but also the extent to which social processes and class identification are affected by societal features, by social policies and by the stratification system. The number of countries included in the comparative analyses ranges from two immigrant societies (the US and Australia) to forty-four countries across the globe. Half of the articles included in this volume rely on cross-sectional analysis to detect the ways that structural characteristics of societies and social policies affect and shape patterns of inequality; half of the papers examine
0276-5624/$ – see front matter © 2012 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2012.01.001
2
A. Gorodzeisky, M. Semyonov / Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
temporal changes and over-time trends, thus, providing dynamic models for understanding sources of change in levels and patterns of social and economic inequality and sources of change in differential access of population groups to opportunities and rewards. Hence, when put together these papers not only provide a better insights into the mechanisms underlying emergence of socioeconomic inequalities within societies but also a broad comparative perspective for understanding sources of social and economic inequalities and perceptions about inequality across the globe. The first two articles of the special issue are devoted to the study of change in labor market inequality. The research focuses on over time trends and processes in the labor market of two distinct societies and two distinct economic systems – the US and Russia. The research conducted by Hadas Mandel examines trends in women’s occupational mobility between 1980 and 2007 in the USA labor market. The trends are linked to two main sources: compositional change (i.e. change in gender composition of occupations) and structural change (i.e. change in the relative standing of occupations on the wage hierarchy). The data for the analysis were obtained from the five percent samples of the U.S. census and the American Community Survey. The findings suggest that over the period studied, and especially between 1980 and 1990, US women increased their relative representation in highly rewarded lucrative occupations (particularly in the top two wage deciles), and reduced their representation in low wage occupations (below the median). Parallel to this process, the typical occupational profiles of women have benefitted from higher wage premiums than men’s. The study underscores the importance of occupational labor markets for understanding change in gender-linked economic inequality. Theodore Gerber’s study focuses on change in job loss risk in post-socialist Russia between 1985 and 2001. The study seeks to develop a structural approach to understanding patterns of inequality in post-socialist economies. The empirical analysis is based on data from the Survey on Stratification and Migration Dynamics in Russia. The findings presented by the analysis suggest that changes in structural positions (firm characteristics such as sector, industry, and size) influenced Russian workers’ exposure to job loss both independently of and in combination with the effects of individual characteristics. When put within a comparative framework, the market reforms in Russia produced specific and theoretically coherent changes in structural positions that were considerably more sweeping than the changes typically observed in analyses of the labor markets of stable developed capitalist societies. The findings presented by
Gerber’s research are evaluated and discussed within a comparative perspective. The three following articles underscore the impact that immigrant status exerts on access to social and economic goods and on patterns of marriage. Immigration is often associated with social and economic gains and losses. Immigrants usually move from places with depressed opportunities to more prosperous places in order to improve social and economic well-being of their families. While doing so immigrants usually lose social standing but with the passage of time experience upward economic mobility. Donald Treiman’s research focuses on urban–rural social and economic disparities as related to rural–urban migration in China. Urban–rural disparities in China are exacerbated by institutional arrangements that have created a two-class society based on registration status with sharp rural–urban distinctions in access to public goods (e.g. schooling, health care, housing, and retirement benefits). Using data from two national probability sample surveys, one carried out in 1996 and one in 2008, the research describes trends in various aspects of inequality for three groups identified at age 14: those with rural registration and rural residence; those with rural registration and urban residence (rural–urban migrants); and those with urban registration. The specific outcomes considered are education, occupational position, earnings, family income, material well-being, and perceptions regarding whether life has improved. The data show that, in general, rural–urban migrants are better positioned in the social and economic hierarchy than rural residents; over time they had improved their position in society; yet they have not closed all gaps with urban residents. The data also show across-the-board improvement in almost all aspects of life in China. Yet, for most outcomes, the size of the rural–urban gap has remained relatively constant over a 60-year period. Kate H. Choi, Marta Tienda, Deborah Cobb-Clark, and Mathias Sinning’s research paper evaluates ‘the status exchange hypothesis’, suggesting that native born will share their nativity status in exchange for an immigrant’s higher achieved socio-economic status. The study focuses on the comparison between Australia and the United States. For Australia, the study utilizes the entire 2001 Census of Population and Housing and for the United States the study uses the five percent Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample of the 2000 U.S. Census. The findings demonstrate that foreignborn-spouses are likely to trade educational credentials via marriage with natives in both Australian and U.S. and that nativity is a more salient marriage barrier for men than for women. With some exceptions, immigrant
A. Gorodzeisky, M. Semyonov / Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
spouses in ‘mixed nativity’ couples are better-educated as compared to native spouses in ‘same nativity’ couples, but status exchange is more prevalent among the lesseducated spouses in both countries. Support for the status exchange hypothesis is somewhat weaker in Australia partly because of lower average levels of education compared with the United States. The authors conclude that growing socioeconomic differentials in propensity to wed along with increases in hypogamy may alter the salience of nativity as a social boundary in marriage. The research conducted by Katharine Donato and Blake Sisk seeks to find whether and how recent employment conditions of Mexican immigrants to the United States (between 1976 and 2009) differ from those observed in the past and to what extent they reflect the consequences of exogenous policy shifts since 1986. In particular, the research explores the impact of policy shifts and enforcement strategies on changes in employment conditions of Mexican immigrants. The study relies on data from Mexican Migration Project, which offers retrospective migration and employment histories collected from more than 100,000 Mexicans in 128 communities. The data were supplemented with non-random surveys of out migrants located in the United States. The findings show worsening conditions for both unauthorized and legal Mexican migrants in the period that followed the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Although the workplace conditions of legal immigrants are less unfavorable than those of unauthorized immigrants, the findings also show that during the first decade of 21st century employment conditions of unauthorized immigrants more closely resemble those of legal immigrants. The shift toward convergence in workplace conditions between legal and unauthorized Mexican migrants can be understood as resulting from employers’ reaction to federal policies and practices related to workplace enforcement. The following two articles highlight the role played by family and parental resources in producing social and economic disparities among individuals. The article by Florencia Torche and Carlos Costa-Ribeiro examines the influence of parental wealth on adult children’s schooling, school quality, occupational status, consumption level, and wealth holdings in Brazil. Using data from the Brazilian Survey of Social Dimensions of Inequality carried out in 2008, the study finds a substantial effect of parental wealth on all aforementioned outcomes. Children of wealthy parents are more likely to be socio-economically successful than others. The effect of parental wealth on occupational status is largely mediated by parental investment in children education. The effect of parental wealth on children’s consumption and
3
wealth, however, is largely unmediated by labor market resources, outcomes and rewards; a pattern that is more pronounced for sons than for daughters. The findings reveal that intergenerational transmission of wealth is highly consequential throughout the life cycle. The authors argue that in Brazil wealth is a central component of the household permanent income. On basis of the findings the authors conclude that an omission of parental wealth from stratification models routinely results in overestimating the influence of other sources of inequality in Brazil. These findings, indeed, have general implications not only to the Brazilian society but to other societies as well. The article by Adam Gamoran, Ruth N. Lopez Turley, Alyn Turner, and Rachel Fish focuses on the role played by parents’ social capital in child development. The researchers examine whether an implementation of a designed intervention program – ‘manipulating parental social capital’ (Families and Schools Together (FAST) – a multi-family after-school program) enhances relations among families, between parents and schools, and between parents and children. The study compares Hispanic and Non-Hispanic families in two USA cities utilizing data collected in 2008–2009. The research finds that in one of the two research sites (Phoenix, Arizona), the program introduced to schools randomly led to higher levels of social capital among parents and child behavior outcomes. In the other site (San Antonio, Texas), the authors found no consistent effects on either parental social capital or child behavior outcomes. The researchers also report possible evidence of differential treatment effects across ethnic groups. In particular, the benefits of FAST in Phoenix, where the effects were largest, appear more pronounced for whites than for Hispanics. The possibility of differential effects by ethnic groups has profound general implications. On the one hand, an intervention that boosts social capital may benefit Hispanic children. On the other hand, if the benefits are greater for whites than for other groups, then the socialcapital-building intervention would do little to reduce inequality between Hispanic and white children in the U.S. The special issue is sealed by two cross-national comparative research papers. The first (co-authored by Joya Misra, Stephanie Moller, Eiko Strader and Elizabeth Wemlinger) explores the impact of family policies on reduction of poverty among partnered and single mothers. Specifically, the authors try to figure out which family-policies are most effective in directly reducing poverty among mothers, and whether the policies indirectly reduce poverty through supporting mothers’ employment. Nineteen countries are selected for the
4
A. Gorodzeisky, M. Semyonov / Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2012) 1–4
study, including wealthy western European and North American nations, Australia, Israel and several former socialist nations in Eastern Europe. The analysis combines micro income data collected by the Luxembourg Income Study around 2000 with the Work-Family Policy Indicators dataset. The findings show significant effects of family allowances, generous parental leaves and childcare provisions on poverty, net of individual-level factors. Parental leave and childcare facilities operate through boosting mothers’ employment; employment, in turn, is likely to reduce poverty. The findings, thus, lend support to the view that work-family policies that enhance mother’s employment can be useful tools for reducing poverty. Based on the analyses, the authors argue that poverty among mothers and their children can be substantially limited through the right mix of social policies. The paper that concludes the volume (co-authored by Robert Andersen and Josh Curtis) examines perceptions about class structure and class positions among individuals across a wide range of societies. Specifically, the study explores the impact of economic conditions – both at the individual-level and the national-level – on social class identification. The analysis is conducted on data from 44 countries collected by the World Values Survey in 2005. The analysis reveals that household income tends to increase levels of class identification, at the same time however, country’s level of economic development has almost no impact on class identity. The most important finding of this paper demonstrates that the effect of household income on class identification tends to be more pronounced in societies with a high level of income
inequality (as compared to egalitarian societies). In egalitarian societies, the poor are less likely to see themselves as having a low position in the class hierarchy than the poor in countries characterized by high levels of national income inequality. The papers included in this special volume reveal that social and economic inequalities are evident in the educational system, in the labor market, in the consumption system and in the marriage market. Social and economic inequalities can be observed in terms of wealth, standard of living, earnings, occupational status, employment status and labor force position, social capital, poverty and in class self-identification. Furthermore, the studies demonstrate that social and economic advantages or disadvantages can be transmitted across generations through family and parental resources, through educational achievements and through labor market activities but they are also influenced by immigrant status, gender and ethnic origin. Differential access to social and economic rewards is not only dependent on the relative position of a sub-population in society but is also dependent on characteristics of society and upon its social policies. Indeed, the papers presented in the volume illustrate that access to opportunities takes place in a variety of social domains and through a variety of avenues and is ever changing across space and time. Over all, the studies underscore the complex and multi-dimensional nature of inequality in society and the impact of structural-level and individual-level attributes on emergence of social and economic inequalities across individuals and across the globe.