Income Inequality: Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries - Hardcover

by Janet C. Gornick (Editor), Markus Jäntti (Editor)

This state-of-the-art volume presents comparative, empirical research on a topic that has long preoccupied scholars, politicians, and everyday citizens: economic inequality. While income and wealth inequality across all populations is the primary focus, the contributions to this book pay special attention to the middle class, a segment often not addressed in inequality literature.

Written by leading scholars in the field of economic inequality, all 17 chapters draw on microdata from the databases of LIS, an esteemed cross-national data center based in Luxembourg. Using LIS data to structure a comparative approach, the contributors paint a complex portrait of inequality across affluent countries at the beginning of the 21st century. The volume also trail-blazes new research into inequality in countries newly entering the LIS databases, including Japan, Iceland, India, and South Africa.

Author Biography

Janet C. Gornick is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Director of LIS. Markus Jäntti is Professor of Economics at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, and Research Director of LIS.