Thinking globally about inequality and stratification: Wages across the world, 1982–2009

Abstract

There are many contending paradigms in the study of inequality and stratification, with little dialogue across empirical, methodological and theoretical divides. To bridge some of these gaps, this article presents and analyzes a new dataset on urban wages across the world. The data provide compelling evidence that national residence has been a significant and stable force shaping wage distribution. But the data also indicate that some occupations (e.g. tradable-good producers in low-wage regions) have experienced significant upward mobility. These processes highlight the need to critically reassess how the categories of 'skilled' and 'unskilled' are mobilized to justify global inequality.

Global Inequality in the Current Era

“…Given the weight of China and India in the total, income convergence continued in the new millennium even though it has not always registered a downward trend at the domestic level (Rodrik, 2016). Nevertheless, future convergence is uncertain because these countries might not repeat their high growth rates of the past or because many developing countries will continue to register low rates of growth (Korzeniewicz & Albrecht, 2013).…”

Recent Trends in Global Economic Inequality

“…In separate literature, other researchers find that growing within-country inequality under globalization is prevalently expressed as growing geographical inequality between subnational regions. Urban regions, connected to the global economy by their high-tech or financial industries, have thrived, while old centers of industrial and agricultural production in the hinterland have withered (Alderson & Beckfield 2004, Brenner 2004, Castells 2000, Cornia & Court 2001, Korzeniewicz & Albrecht 2013, Sassen 2001, Smith & Timberlake 2002, Taylor 2003.…”

Redefiniendo la competitividad desde el fair play y la justicia social

“…El mercado se ha constituido simbólicamente por analogía con la selva, en la cual sobreviven aquellos ejemplares de las especies más capaces para tener "éxito" en la lucha por los recursos escasos. De este modo, pasados los llamados treinta años gloriosos del capitalismo, asistimos en los países occidentales a la tendencia al aumento de la desigualdad, que crecía mediante la difusión de procesos de acumulación derivados de una disparidad enorme entre los salarios y los beneficios (Korzeniewicz y Albrecht, 2013).…”