The aim of this project

The aim of this project is to understand the impact of the new work-family equilibria, the changes in the distribution of household types and employment forms on the inequalities structure of European societies, such as the life time inequalities and the risk concentration on specific subgroups.

Studying inequalities income or economic wellbeing obviously play an important role, but the economic dimension is not the only relevant one. We thus include domains typically excluded from conventional discussion about the distribution of economic resources among individuals and households, as the subjective satisfaction and social integration aspects.

Beyond the descriptive approach towards inequality, the project investigates the structural base of different inequalities, implying processes of social stratification (that is inequality of a structured kind), since inequality (for instance understood as the access to more favourable situation) is inherent in prevailing forms of social relations that have some degree of institutional base. We look at specific inequalities like gender or cohorts, and “overarching” inequalities like education or class that are those most crucially limiting individual’s ability to realize their full human potential. 

A specific contribution of this project lies in the systematic integration of topics often studied separately, concentrating especially on the intersection between welfare, work and family and the impact on social and economic inequality. Important here is the systematic consideration of the family/household as decision context. Although it is true that the underlying processes have to be understood at the individual level, it is equally true that individuals cannot be conceptualized as isolated actors, but are in fact embedded in a social context, most importantly their family in which resources are bundled and reallocated. The project follows this line of reasoning and studies stratification processes (also) on an household/family level.

The amount and stratification of inequality in a society strongly depends on state intervention. The project therefore addresses micro and macro processes generating and shaping the (old and new) forms of social inequality focusing precisely on Market, State and Family. A more consistent international comparative prospective over time allows to centre on institutional and social policy differences between countries. Cross national variation helps to identify the nationally rooted role of institutions for the inequality; the comparison over time accounts for developments and its consequences in these institutions over time. 

Methodologically, this research proposes a systematic Micro-Meso-Macro link, taking into account individuals aggregated in families within specific institutional settings, i.e. nations. The fundamental role of both social structure and institutions (macro level) and the socio-economic situation of the family (meso level) to understand life chances and overall socio-economic inequality in societies has been underlined - an argumentation well founded in the theoretical work. The research design (ideally) plans an international comparison covering all western European Countries over a time span from the 1980s onwards combining individual level data with partner information and household level data. Given that the availability and comparability of data do not correspond to the ideal, the project will provide large country comparisons based on EU comparative databases but also investigate detailed research questions for single countries or in specific country comparisons, concentrating on few country cases.