IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/lwswps/43.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wealth Inequality and Stratification by Social Classes in 21st-Century Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Carlos J. Gil-Hernández
  • Pedro Salas-Rojo
  • Guillem Vidal-Lorda
  • Davide Villani

Abstract

Wealth is a central determinant of life chances and intergenerational status persistence in modern societies. Yet, sociologists traditionally overlooked its role in class measurement and inequality, while most economists focused on the elites. This article reconciles sociological and economic perspectives on class analysis by examining the relationship between classes and wealth inequality versus income. Drawing from the Luxembourg Wealth Study (2002-2018) in five European countries, we test whether occupational classes, based on the entire division of labour, keep up with rising economic inequality trends. In contrast to bold claims on class death or decomposition, inequality of outcomes in wealth accumulation is firmly rooted across occupational classes in contemporary capitalism, potentially harming future equal opportunity and social mobility. Still, occupational classes better capture between-group income inequality and stratification than wealth, emphasising the importance of economic resources beyond labour market attachment that spark advances in social class theory and measurement.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos J. Gil-Hernández & Pedro Salas-Rojo & Guillem Vidal-Lorda & Davide Villani, 2024. "Wealth Inequality and Stratification by Social Classes in 21st-Century Europe," LWS Working papers 43, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:lwswps:43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/lwswps/43.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mariacristina De Nardi & Giulio Fella, 2017. "Saving and Wealth Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 280-300, October.
    2. Henry S. Farber & Daniel Herbst & ilyana Kuziemko & Suresh Naidu, 2018. "Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data," Working Papers 620, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    3. John E. Roemer, 1982. "New Directions in the Marxian Theory of Exploitation and Class," Politics & Society, , vol. 11(3), pages 253-287, September.
    4. Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1255-1310.
    5. Edward Wolff & Ajit Zacharias, 2009. "Household wealth and the measurement of economic well-being in the United States," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(2), pages 83-115, June.
    6. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00879814 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Douglas Gollin, 2002. "Getting Income Shares Right," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 458-474, April.
    8. Henry S Farber & Daniel Herbst & Ilyana Kuziemko & Suresh Naidu, 2021. "Unions and Inequality over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1325-1385.
    9. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "Top Incomes and the Great Recession: Recent Evolutions and Policy Implications," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(3), pages 456-478, August.
    10. Edward N. Wolff & Ajit Zacharias, 2013. "Class structure and economic inequality," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(6), pages 1381-1406.
    11. Simon Mohun, 2006. "Distributive shares in the US economy, 1964--2001," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 30(3), pages 347-370, May.
    12. Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Global Wealth Inequality," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 109-138, August.
    13. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005, Decembrie.
    14. Thomas Piketty, 2014. "Capital in the Twenty-First Century: a multidimensional approach to the history of capital and social classes," Post-Print halshs-01157491, HAL.
    15. Jaanika Meriküll & Tairi Rõõm, 2022. "Are survey data underestimating the inequality of wealth?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 339-374, February.
    16. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01109372 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Yonatan Berman & Eshel Ben-Jacob & Yoash Shapira, 2016. "The Dynamics of Wealth Inequality and the Effect of Income Distribution," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, April.
    18. Antonio Estache & D. Leipziger, 2009. "Stuck in the Middle: Is Fiscal Policy Failing the Middle Class?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/44102, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    19. Julia Hofmann & Miriam Rehm & Syed Ali Asjad Naqvi & Julia Hofmann & Miriam Rehm & Syed Ali Asjad Naqvi, 2016. "Different but Equal? Classes, Wealth, and Perceptions in Europe," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 160, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gil-Hernández, Carlos J. & Salas Rojo, Pedro & Vidal-Lorda, Guillem & Villani, Davide, 2024. "Wealth inequality and stratification by social classes in 21st-century Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122125, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Gil-Hernández, Carlos J. & Salas-Rojo, Pedro & Vidal, Guillem & Villani, Davide, 2025. "Wealth and income stratification by social class in five European countries," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 127479, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Luca Giangregorio & Davide Villani, 2023. "Income inequality, top shares of income and social classes in the 21st century," Working Papers 646, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Hasan, Iftekhar & Horvath, Roman & Mares, Jan, 2020. "Finance and wealth inequality," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret & Thomas Piketty, 2021. "Accounting for Wealth-Inequality Dynamics: Methods, Estimates, and Simulations for France," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 620-663.
    6. Vlieghe, Gertjan, 2022. "Demographics and other constraints on future monetary policy," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    7. Federico Riccio & Lorenzo Cresti & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2022. "The labour share along global value chains. Perspectives and evidence from sectoral interdependence," LEM Papers Series 2022/11, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    8. Roya Taherifar & Mark J. Holmes & Gazi M. Hassan, 2023. "The drivers of labour share and impact on pay inequality: A firm-level investigation," Working Papers in Economics 23/03, University of Waikato.
    9. Mark Setterfield & Yun K. Kim & Jeremy Rees, 2016. "Inequality, Debt Servicing and the Sustainability of Steady State Growth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 45-63, January.
    10. Giovanni Federico & Alessandro Nuvolari & Michelangelo Vasta, 2023. "Inequality in Pre‐Industrial Europe (1260–1850): New Evidence From the Labor Share," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(2), pages 347-375, June.
    11. Juan E. Jacobo, 2022. "Back to the Surplus: An Unorthodox Neoclassical Model of Growth, Distribution and Unemployment with Technical Change," Papers 2211.14978, arXiv.org.
    12. Ismail M. Cole, 2023. "The political economy triangle of government spending, interest‐group influence, and income inequality: Evidence and implications from the US states," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 1122-1176, November.
    13. repec:hal:journl:halshs-03231244 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Antonelli, Cristiano & Feder, Christophe, 2020. "The new direction of technological change in the global economy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1-12.
    15. Setterfield, Mark & Kim, Yun K., 2016. "Debt servicing, aggregate consumption, and growth," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 22-33.
    16. Carlos Gayán-Navarro & Marcos Sanso-Navarro, 2024. "Long-run inequality persistence in the U.S., 1870–2019," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 261-281, March.
    17. repec:hal:pseptp:halshs-03231244 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Madsen, Jakob & Minniti, Antonio & Venturini, Francesco, 2024. "Declining research productivity and income inequality: A centenary perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    19. Ben Tippet & Özlem Onaran & Rafael Wildauer, 2024. "The Effect of Labor's Bargaining Power on Wealth Inequality in the UK, USA, And France," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 70(1), pages 102-128, March.
    20. Bartels, Charlotte & Kersting, Felix & Wolf, Nikolaus, 2021. "Testing Marx. Income Inequality, Concentration, and Socialism in Late 19th Century Germany," SocArXiv 5y9wf, Center for Open Science.
    21. E. Mark Curtis & Daniel G. Garrett & Eric C. Ohrn & Kevin A. Roberts & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato, 2021. "Capital Investment and Labor Demand," NBER Working Papers 29485, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Frank A. Cowell & Philippe Kerm, 2015. "Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 671-710, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:lwswps:43. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.