Comparative research on income inequality has produced several frameworks to study the institutional determinants of income stratification. In contrast, no such framework and much less empirical evidence exist to explain cross-national differences in wealth inequality. This situation is particularly lamentable as cross-national patterns of inequality in wealth diverge sharply from those in income. We seek to pave the way for new explanations of cross-national differences in wealth inequality by tracing them to the influence of different wealth components. Drawing on the literatures on financialization and housing, we argue that housing equity should be the central building block of the comparative analysis of wealth inequality. Using harmonized data on 15 countries included in the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS), we demonstrate a lack of association between national levels of income and wealth inequality and concentration. Using decomposition approaches, we then estimate the degree to which national levels of wealth inequality and concentration relate to cross-national differences in wealth portfolios and the distribution of specific asset components. Considering the role of housing equity, financial assets, non-housing real assets, and non-housing debt, we show that cross-national variation in wealth inequality and concentration is centrally determined by the distribution of housing equity.

Comparative research on income inequality has produced several coherent frameworks to study the institutional determinants of income stratification. In contrast, no such framework and much less empirical evidence exist to explain cross-national differences in wealth inequality. This situation is particularly lamentable as cross-national patterns of inequality in wealth diverge sharply from those in income. We seek to pave the way for new explanations of cross-national differences in wealth inequality by tracing them to the influence of different wealth components. Drawing on the literatures on financialization and housing, we argue that housing equity should be the central building block of the comparative analysis of wealth inequality.Using harmonized data on fifteen countries included in the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS), we first demonstrate a lack of association between national levels of income and wealth inequality and concentration. Using decomposition approaches, we then estimate the degree to which national levels of wealth inequality and concentration relate to cross-national differences in wealth portfolios and the distribution of specific asset components. Considering the role of housing equity, financial assets, non-housing real assets, and non-housing debt, we reveal that cross-national variation in wealth inequality and concentration is centrally determined by the distribution of housing equity. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper)

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and economic contexts. We demonstrate that in most of these countries, as one would expect, children experience lower levels of household wealth than the rest of the population, in particular seniors. Children also tend to experience greater wealth inequality and concentration. In many countries, their disadvantage is quite large, and nowhere more so than in the United States. Further, research that has established the shape and determinants of income inequality among children cannot provide much guidance for the assessment of the shape and determinants of wealth inequality among children because national levels of child income inequality and child wealth inequality are uncorrelated. That is, countries often differ significantly in the level of inequality among chil- Comparing Child Wealth Inequality Across CountriesFa bI a n t. pFeFFer a nd nor a wa Itk us This article compares the wealth situation of children across fourteen countries. Children experience lower levels of wealth than the rest of the population, seniors in particular. We show that, in most countries, child wealth is distributed substantially more unequally than the wealth of seniors. We also demonstrate that an international ranking of child wealth inequality diverges sharply from one based on child income inequality. The wealth situation of children in the United States is exceptional: they lag further behind seniors in terms of their wealth and face the highest levels of wealth inequality and, by far, wealth concentration.

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This paper applauds the vision and originality of Piketty's Capital and Ideology. We draw attention to the distinctive methodological perspective which he adopts, which we liken to call “social science engineering.” This allows a problem oriented perspective on long‐term global social change which sidesteps siloed disciplinary debates in social science and history about the meaning of modernity, the rise of capitalism, the formation of social groups, and the primacy of nations. We bring out how his theory of property permits him to take forward his overarching insight that economic growth leads to wealth accumulation. This, therefore, challenges long standing sociological perspectives by insisting that modernity is a conservative, rather than a revolutionary and transformative process. We build on this essential contribution by noting some areas where his work can push forward even further, notably that his focus on shifting relativities obscures qualitative historical changes, and more particularly means his analysis of the 20th century is not as provocative as that of the 19th century.

Germany has one of the highest levels of wealth concentration of any Western capitalist country. Research on the legitimization of economic inequality highlights that wealth elites tend to stress meritocratic arguments for legitimizing elite positions and wealth accumulation. However, whether this is also the case for wealthy business owners and how the media tends to portray those remains largely unknown. Drawing on a unique sample of 899 press articles from eight different media outlets between 2014 and 2018, we find a rather generous media debate. Based on descriptive evidence and a latent class analysis, we identify six latent frames illustrating how wealthy business owners are portrayed in the press. We show that the sources of wealth (inheritance, investment, entrepreneurship) are often used to highlight these owners’ deep economic relevance to the German economy, while the use of wealth is predominantly framed as a mean for profit-seeking. For wealthy business owners, moral evaluation of personal conduct is less present in the media and, when it is present, is rarely negative. Our study is the first analysis of press coverage of the wealthiest German business owners indicating a legitimizing media debate of high wealth concentration in an advanced capitalist society.

ZusammenfassungDas Schisma zwischen Eigentum und Nicht-Eigentum an Produktivvermögen galt einst als der zentrale Klassengegensatz in kapitalistischen Gesellschaften. In den klassensoziologischen Debatten der letzten Dekaden wurde die Vermögensungleichheit dagegen eher randständig behandelt. In Deutschland besitzt das reichste Prozent der Bevölkerung rund 35 Prozent des gesamten Vermögens, und bis weit in die Mittelschichten hinein haben Wohneigentum und Finanzvermögen eine wichtige Funktion für die soziale Absicherung und Statusreproduktion. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, inwiefern die empirische Klassensoziologie Vermögen als Dimension sozialer Ungleichheit untersuchen kann. Auf der Grundlage von Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) werden mit dem berufs-, eigentums- und portfoliobasierten Konzept drei Perspektiven dahingehend verglichen, inwiefern sie Vermögensungleichheiten als Klassenungleichheiten zu verstehen erlauben. Es zeigt sich, dass über den ungleichen Umfang der Vermögen hinaus die unterschiedlichen Zusammensetzungen wesentlich zur differenzierten Erfassung von Klassenunterschieden sind: Insbesondere in der oberen Mitte der Vermögensverteilung und Berufsklassenstruktur gibt es eine horizontale Differenzierung in den Vermögensportfolios, die bei einer Betrachtung nur der Nettovermögen verborgen bliebe. Der Berufsklassen- bzw. „employment-aggregate“-Ansatz bietet nur begrenzt die Möglichkeit, die sozialstrukturelle Varianz dieser Portfoliounterschiede zu veranschaulichen. Wenn es dagegen um eine vertikale Unterscheidung in Vermögende und Nicht-Vermögende in der Tradition der Besitzklassenlogik geht, stellen Eigentumsklassen eine einfach zu operationalisierende Variante dar. Das in Anlehnung an die Bourdieu’sche Kapitaltheorie gebildete Portfolioklassenmodell wird als eine mögliche Alternative daraufhin untersucht, ob es ein genaueres Bild von den Vermögenszusammensetzungen und deren sozialstruktureller Verortung zu geben vermag.