The living conditions and well-being of the middle class are traditionally considered an expression of how society is progressing. Yet growing inequality and the polarization of incomes observed in Western countries due to globalization, the recession and rapid technological change, is leading...

The article examines how the labour market value of education has changed in the context of the expansion of higher education. However, one drawback is to understand how it generates differences between high and low skilled labour markets, particularly in contexts of high inequality and...

For the last fifty years, the American system of social stratification has known a great turn: after the equalisation and social interventionism of the prosperity 1950-1970, a reversion appears. Since 1970, a superclass has been concentrating the outcome of the growth, the middle class is...

The French society have faced thirty years of economic stagnation and of new intercohort socioeconomic inequalities that are challenging the young generations that experience a strong backlash in the dynamics of social upward mobility that characterized the previous period. After their entry on...

For many sociologists, the death of class is an obvious process: the question of classes has almost disappeared from contemporary social sciences for the last two decades, particularly in France. The aim of this paper is reassess the empirical aspects of this problem. Two different periods...

The global analysis of the educational, social and wage inequalities between women and men shows a progressive and regular convergence: the women?'s level of education reached men?'s one in 1990, women are close to equality in terms of occupational prestige (they could catch up men in 2020, even...

[eng] Is there a common model of social structure in Europe? Louis Chauvel This paper evaluates the link between the professional structure and the inequalities in terms of education and income in Europe. The comparison reveals three models: the less developed European countries are the most...

[fre] La réflexion sur l'évolution de la structure de la société française a été au centre de la campagne présidentielle. La contestation des élites et l'importance accordée par les médias à la pauvreté relèvent de la même inquiétude : la société française est-elle en train de...

[fre] Des siècles après les débuts du processus d'alphabétisation de masse en Europe, un clivage Nord-Sud marque encore fortement le continent. D'un côté, des nations septentrionales, protestantes, où la lecture de la presse, est presque unanime, où l'intérêt pour les enjeux et les...

[fre] Cette chronique présente trois approches contrastées de l'évolution de la structure sociale française : — l'étude des revenus des ménages montre qu'après une période où l'éventail des revenus se réduisait, il est en train de se rouvrir : les déciles supérieurs des ménages...