IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/127479.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wealth and income stratification by social class in five European countries

Author

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

Abstract

Wealth is a central determinant of life chances and intergenerational status persistence in modern societies. Despite increasing attention, sociologists traditionally overlooked its role in class-based economic disparities, while most economists focused on the elites’ accumulation. This article combines sociological and economic perspectives to test whether big occupational classes, the most standardised and operationalisable approach, depict the wealth distribution. Drawing from the Luxembourg Wealth Study (2002–2018) in five European countries, we explore (1) how wealth is distributed and stratified by big occupational classes over time and cross-nationally and (2) to what extent classes account for aggregate wealth inequality trends compared with income. Unlike bold claims on class 'death' or 'decomposition', inequality of outcomes in wealth accumulation is firmly rooted across big occupational classes in contemporary capitalism, potentially harming social mobility in future generations. Still, occupational classes better capture between-group income inequality and stratification than wealth, emphasising the importance of economic resources beyond labour market attachment. Against the backdrop of previous research and our findings, we discuss the role of wealth in contemporary class analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:127479
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/127479/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income inequality; Luxembourg Wealth Study; occupations; scial class; social stratification; wealth inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    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:ehl:lserod:127479. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.