This book provides up to date discussion and evidence about inequalities, social divisions and stratification. Its innovative style engages readers and encourages them to reflect upon the many dimensions of social inequality. This updated third edition contains: Three new chapters on employment, sexualities and migration Updated coverage of intersectionality throughout Thirteen new in-depth case studies (one per chapter) This is a must read as a key introductory companion for students who wish to understand the dynamics of contemporary social inequality. Louise Warwick-Booth is a Reader at the School of Health, Leeds Beckett University

While Asia's growth record in recent decades is remarkable, it has been marred by rising inequalities. This book looks at recent trends of income and non-income inequalities in developing Asian countries, discusses their underlying driving forces, and examines key policy issues that need to be addressed to ensure that the benefits of growth will be more equitably shared in Asia. The book also presents a set of country studies that provide rich information on growth, poverty and inequality dynamics and the policy challenges that arise in marching toward inclusive growth.

The issues surrounding poverty and inequality continue to be of central concern to academics, politicians and policy makers but the ways in which we seek to study and understand them continue to change over time. This accessible book seeks to provide a guide to some of the new approaches that have been developed in the light of international initiatives to reduce poverty and the notable changes in income inequality and poverty that have occurred across many western countries in recent years. These new approaches have to some degree been facilitated by the emergence of new techniques and a growing availability of data that enable cross national comparisons not only of income but also of measures of welfare such as educational achievement, nutritional status in developing countries and wealth and deprivation indicators in the developed world. Including specially commissioned research from a distinguished list of international authors, this volume makes a real contribution to the public debate surrounding inequality and poverty as well as providing new empirical information about them from around the world.

Originally published in 1984, this study explores multiple theoretical perspectives as well as critically analysing the most recent evidence at the time to try and find a full explanation for inequality in the United States. Arguments of neoclassical economists and Marxist and institutional structuralists are considered by Osberg as well as putting forward his own model. Osberg uses his findings to attempt a complete explanation of the issue and advises on policies which could be undertaken by the government to try and lessen the gap. This title will be of interest to students of Economics.

This collection from an international set of contributors explores the relationship between migration and inequality in Africa, Asia and Latin America, assessing the impact of migration on structures of caste, gender and class, and offering both empirical evidence and theoretical understandings on the relationship between migration and inequality.

Japan was the first Asian country to become a mature industrial society, and throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, was viewed as an ‘all-middle-class society’. However since the 1990s there have been growing doubts as to the real degree of social equality in Japan, particularly in the context of dramatic demographic shifts as the population ages whilst fertility levels continue to fall. This book compares Japan with America, Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden and Taiwan in order to determine whether inequality really is a social problem in Japan. With a focus on impact demographic shifts, Sawako Shirahase examines female labour market participation, income inequality among households with children, the state of the family, generational change, single person households and income distribution among the aged, and asks whether increasing inequality and is uniquely Japanese, or if it is a social problem common across all of the societies included in this study. Crucially, this book shows that Japan is distinctive not in terms of the degree of inequality in the society, but rather, in how acutely inequality is perceived. Further, the data shows that Japan differs from the other countries examined in terms of the gender gap in both the labour market and the family, and in inequality among single-person households – single men and women, including lifelong bachelors and spinsters – and also among single parent households, who pay a heavy price for having deviated from the expected pattern of life in Japan. Drawing on extensive empirical data, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in Japanese culture and society, Japanese studies and social policy more generally.

The subject of this book is discussing the income inequality of Chinese residents, its change and the factors that impact it. In this book all kinds of quantitative methods, including decomposing Gini Coefficients method, Fei-Ranis method, two-sectors model and other econometric models. Some special features are that in this book, a two-sectors model was set up to analyze the impact of population migration from urban areas to rural areas on income inequality of total residents, and the inverted U hypothesis was tested by time-series regression model. The inverted U hypothesis is supported by the change of income inequality of Chinese total residents which is different from the conclusion of present reaches. In additional, the impact of rent-seeking income on inequality was discussed, an economic mode was founded to explain the causes of rent-seeking activities in China’s present stage.