This article reviews research on inequality and social stratification in China since the mid-1990s. Going beyond the theoretical framework of the market transition debate, research in the field has been advanced by paying more attention to the roles of the institutions of Chinese state...

After the fierce class struggles in the first postwar years, a societal model describing Japan as a general middle-class society with outstanding equality in opportunities and outcome became dominant. In recent years, a new societal model of Japan as a divided society has replaced this general...

Since 1950 the sources of the gains from marriage have changed radically. As the educational attainment of women overtook and surpassed that of men and the ratio of men's to women's wage rates fell, traditional patterns of gender specialization in work weakened. The primary source of the gains...

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order of society whereby the landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linked this transformation to the contrast in values...

Klassen und Schichten wurden in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Debatte angezweifelt. Hier wird die aktuelle Debatte über soziale Ungleichheit referiert, der Gegensatz zwischen Arm und Reich und die prekären Verhältnisse für viele untersucht und aktuelle Entwicklungen bewertet. (2)

"This volume offers insights into ongoing, global socio-economic transformations by directing attention to the significance of labour, work, craft, community, social institutions, social movements and, emergent subjectivities in different parts of the world. This is in contrast to theories that...