Wealth Accumulation and Opportunity Hoarding: Class-Origin Wealth Gaps over a Quarter of a Century in a Scandinavian Country

2021 ◽  
pp. 000312242110200
Author(s):  
Marianne Nordli Hansen ◽  
Maren Toft
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Net Worth ◽  
Income Differences ◽  
The Past ◽  
Class Origin ◽  
Wealth Inequalities ◽  
New Instruments

Although the Scandinavian countries are often considered to epitomize social democratic governance, Scandinavia’s profound wealth inequalities, seen in relation to the more modest income differences, constitutes a fascinating paradox. Drawing on class theoretical concerns with strategies for reproduction and a Bourdieusian emphasis on class fractions, we explore how class-origin wealth gaps evolved over the past 25 years in Norway, and how they compare to class-origin income gaps. First, we find that class-origin wealth gaps have increased in recent years, whereas income inequalities are fairly persistent among men, and increasing among women. We find that educational attainment is important for channeling income inequality, but that education is less important for understanding wealth gaps. Second, we document differences between people whose family contexts were most highly endowed with economic capital and those who grew up in families that were engaged in cultural fields or the professions. Finally, we highlight how analyses based solely on net worth neglect important ways class origin perpetuates and accelerates wealth inequalities via the acquisition of debt. We argue that recent decades have fostered new instruments for opportunity hoarding that are most successfully used by the sons and daughters of the economic upper class.

The Accumulation and Transfers of Wealth: Variations by Social Class

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Nordli Hansen ◽  
Øyvind Nicolay Wiborg
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Reproduction Strategy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Origin ◽  
To Receive

Abstract The purpose of our study is to investigate the role of wealth in broader stratification processes. Based on unique data from Norwegian tax registers, we address questions about the association between class origin, wealth transfers, and wealth accumulation among young adults. We show that is more common to receive transfers in the higher than in the lower social classes, and that those originating in the economic upper class, i.e. large proprietors, owners, of single enterprises as well as investors with diversified portfolios, and top managers and directors, are especially likely to receive transfers, as well as especially large inter vivos gifts. As young adults, those with upper-class origins, and especially origins in the economic upper class, accumulate more wealth than those with origins in classes lower in the social hierarchy. In all social classes, those who have received wealth transfers accumulate most wealth. We argue that transferring wealth indeed appears as robust and efficient mobility or reproduction strategy.

Transition and the Pitfalls of Nondemocratic Institutions: A review of Constitutionality in Ethiopia

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-87
Author(s):  
Tadesse Melaku
Keyword(s):  
Case Analysis ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Constitutional Review ◽  
The Past ◽  
Government Power ◽  
Review Mechanism ◽  
And Control ◽  
Regional Elections ◽  
Do So

Ethiopia has undertaken important political reforms after the fall of authoritarianism in 2018. This article examines the performance of Ethiopia’s constitutional review mechanism amid the ongoing political and institutional reforms in the country. The study focuses on the process and merit of the constitutional ruling to delay the 2020 national and regional elections because of the coronavirus pandemic, thereby extending the government’s tenure. It further unravels the challenges posed by nondemocratic institutions of the past regime in navigating the transition. In doing so, this study draws on legal, documentary and case analysis, and a literature review. While the mandate extension comes as no surprise, the reasoning of the decision to do so was disappointing for many, dashing the hope and sense of a constitutional moment that accompanied the highly publicised constitutional hearing process in June 2020. The judgment reveals an endemic deficiency of the institutional system. Thus, it is imperative for Ethiopia to establish an independent constitutional umpire to check and control the exercise of government power and support the transition to multiparty democratic governance in the country.

BOREDOM

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-454
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Social Trends ◽  
The Past ◽  
Admission Test ◽  
The One ◽  
Teenage Suicide ◽  
Drug And Alcohol ◽  
Unrealistic Expectations

Boredom kills, and those it does not kill, it cripples, and those it does not cripple, it bleeds like a leech, leaving its victims pale, insipid and brooding. Examples abound... Television, the one-eyed beast blamed for scourges ranging from immorality to declining college-admission test scores, has probably helped bring home boredom to America. It has done so by offering us a splendidly wrongheaded view of how one goes about living the good life... Boredom, at the very least, helps breed some of America's uglier social trends. The rate of teenage suicide has more than tripled in the United States since 1955, and psychiatrists across the country lay part of the blame to boredom born of unrealistic expectations and frustration. Divorce condemns nearly half of all marriages, and marriage counselors report boredom as a major cause. Drug and alcohol abuse—which has increased more rapidly in the past decade among middle and upper-class teenagers than among the less wealthy—is caused, in part, by the need to kill time.

That Must Not Be True of Tomorrow

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Myers Asch ◽  
George Derek Musgrove
Keyword(s):  
Langston Hughes ◽  
First Century ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The One

The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow. —LANGSTON HUGHES, “History,” 1934 The original Busboys and Poets sits at the corner of Fourteenth and V Streets NW, just a block north of the epicenter of the 1968 riots. A combination restaurant, bookstore, lounge, and theater, Busboys took its name from Langston Hughes, the one-time busboy at D.C.’s Wardman Hotel who gained international renown as a poet (albeit one who denounced the snobbery of D.C.’s black upper class). After it opened in 2005, it became an immediate commercial and cultural success, attracting young, hip Washingtonians who swarmed the surrounding Shaw neighborhood in the twenty-first century....

scholarly journals Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions in Global Benefit-Cost Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (S1) ◽  
pp. 15-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Robinson ◽  
James K. Hammitt ◽  
Lucy O’Keeffe
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Risk ◽  
Income Elasticity ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Income Differences ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Statistical Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Benefit Cost

The estimates used to value mortality risk reductions are a major determinant of the benefits of many public health and environmental policies. These estimates (typically expressed as the value per statistical life, VSL) describe the willingness of those affected by a policy to exchange their own income for the risk reductions they experience. While these values are relatively well studied in high-income countries, less is known about the values held by lower-income populations. We identify 26 studies conducted in the 172 countries considered low- or middle-income in any of the past 20 years; several have significant limitations. Thus there are few or no direct estimates of VSL for most such countries. Instead, analysts typically extrapolate values from wealthier countries, adjusting only for income differences. This extrapolation requires selecting a base value and an income elasticity that summarizes the rate at which VSL changes with income. Because any such approach depends on assumptions of uncertain validity, we recommend that analysts conduct a standardized sensitivity analysis to assess the extent to which their conclusions change depending on these estimates. In the longer term, more research on the value of mortality risk reductions in low- and middle-income countries is essential.

Public Support for Increasing Women and Minority MPs

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Catherine Bolzendahl ◽  
Hilde Coffé
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Income Differences ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi ◽  
Using Data

AbstractMost democracies fail to provide equal representation and tend to have an overrepresentation of men from the upper class and the majority racial or ethnic group. We investigate public support for increasing the number of women and indigenous Māori members of parliament (MPs) in the New Zealand Parliament, both in general and through specific mechanisms such as quotas and reserved seats. We offer three explanations: descriptive (group identity), substantive (issue alignment), and symbolic (socioeconomic and political equity concerns). Using data from the 2014 New Zealand Election Study, we found that shared identity (descriptive) matters for all measures of increased representation, but especially for Māori respondent support of increased Māori MPs. Support for increasing the proportion of Māori MPs is also strongly driven by substantive concerns, as measured by support for keeping the Treaty of Waitangi in law. Support for increasing the number of women MPs is driven most strongly by symbolic concerns (measured as increased government social spending and efforts to reduce income differences). Overall, respondents favor retaining the current number of reserved seats for Māori MP representation, whereas informal efforts (rather than quotas) are strongly preferred for increasing the number of women MPs.

scholarly journals Family Wealth and the Class Ceiling: The Propulsive Power of The Bank of Mum and Dad

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 003803852092253
Author(s):  
Maren Toft ◽  
Sam Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Income Gap ◽  
Family Wealth ◽  
Class Privilege ◽  
Class Origin ◽  
Parental Wealth ◽  
Propulsive Power

In this article we demonstrate that those from working-class backgrounds face a powerful ‘class ceiling’ in elite occupations. Examining how class origin shapes economic returns in the Norwegian upper class (3.8% of the population), we first find that the income advantage enjoyed by those from privileged backgrounds increases sharply as they ascend the income distribution in both elite business and cultural fields. Second, we show that those from economically upper-class backgrounds enjoy the highest pay advantage in all upper-class destinations. Finally, we demonstrate the profound propulsive power provided by parental wealth. Our results indicate that this is the most important single driver of the class-origin income gap in virtually every area of the Norwegian upper class. These findings move forward an emerging literature on class-origin pay gaps beyond mean estimates to reveal the distinct ‘pay-off’ to class privilege in the very highest income-earning positions.

POLITICAL CAPITALISM IN THE GILDED AGE: THE TAMMANY BANK RUN OF 1871

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey D. Broxmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Economic Capital ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
Bank Run ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Catholic Charities ◽  
Financial Speculation ◽  
Direct Competition ◽  
Political Capitalism ◽  
Good Government

The Tweed Ring spawned a vibrant financial sector that was integral to its brief success but has never been previously examined. William “Boss” Tweed and his allies employed banks controlled or comanaged by Tammany politicians to embezzle funds, build political alliances, and invest in a wide array of business ventures. The capital of these savings and commercial banks—city money, deposits from Catholic charities, and the savings of immigrant laborers—was accumulated through political channels. During their operation between 1867 and 1871, politician-bankers engaged in a mix of patronage deals and profit-driven financial speculation. In effect, Tammany banks were ground zero for the Ring's conversion of political hegemony into a windfall of economic capital that fueled party activities and buoyed personal fortunes. Importantly, the anti-Ring mobilization by upper-class reformers was more than a revolt of wealthy taxpayers concerned with abstract goals of good government or rescuing city credit; it was also a reaction by old-line bankers in direct competition with Tammany upstarts. A dramatic bank run catalyzed by reformers in November 1871 drove them into bankruptcy, bringing this novel experiment in political capitalism to an end.

Morocco at the crossroads

1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-31
Author(s):  
George Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Food Staples ◽  
As If

Morocco's fragile experiment in democracy has been passing through a very rough patch over the past year. Its leaders have had to steer a tortuous path between the Charybdis of royal absolutism and the Scylla of popular frustration with harsh living conditions and the consequences of the worst drought this century. In June 1981 widespread anger at sudden increases in the price of food staples exploded in violent riots which swept through the economic capital, Casablanca, and which were accompanied by demonstrations in many other cities. This, together with King Hassan's distaste for argumentative politicians, led to extensive arrests amongst the major left-wing political party, the Union socialiste des forces populates (USFP) and the trade union linked to it, the Confederation démocratique de travail (CDT). Long prison sentences followed, and it seemed as if Moroccan democracy was about to slowly suffocate under the weight of bureaucratic repression.

scholarly journals STREET ANTHROPOLOGY – A CULTURE OF MOBILITY

space&FORM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 109-136
Author(s):  
Marek Czyński ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Balanced Approach ◽  
Spatial Policy ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Space Of Flows

The street anthropology is identical with the anthropology of urban life. In the past, a street was a place to socialize and, on equal footing with its architecture, it was part of the cultural identity of its inhabitants. The street reflects residents’ social, cultural and economic capital. Over time, mobility and communication accessibility have dominated the urban spatial policy. The contemporary street has become a "space of flows". The restoration of its original role requires a more balanced approach to cultural factors that determine the quality of life in a city. The article discusses characteristic features that determine patterns of mobility in modern streets.

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