Social Inequality Across the Generations : The Role of Compensation and Multiplication in Resource Accumulation

Social Inequality Across the Generations provides an innovative perspective on social stratification studies by advancing the theoretical and empirical case for the influence of resource compensation. It examines whether resource compensation is a successful mechanism for social mobility, contrasting it against competing types of resource accumulation such as multiplication. This book is the first to cover extensively the role of compensation in intergenerational attainment - a new and rapidly spreading concept in stratification research. The editors bring together research on different types of resources contributing to social mobility from the nuclear family, extended family and society, including in-depth analysis of the influence of wider family members in three different contexts and specific empirical chapters covering European and US societies. The authors cover a variety of institutional systems that achieve similar results through contrasting methods. Through this conceptual framework, they reveal which policies have the biggest effect on social mobility. The book offers original insight into intergenerational inequality and mobility for researchers and students of social stratification and social mobility, particularly within sociology, social policy and economics.