Between-Class Earnings Inequality in 30 European Countries

Abstract

This article studies earnings inequality between social classes across 30 European countries. Class inequality in earnings is found across the board although there are some exceptions. However, the degree of class inequality varies strongly across countries being larger in Western and Southern European countries and smaller in Eastern and Northern European countries. Furthermore, we find that differences in class composition in terms of observed characteristics associated with earnings account for a substantial proportion of these between-class differences. Differences between classes in the returns to education and other characteristics play less of a role. In all these respects there is a sizeable cross-national variation. This points to important differences between countries in how earnings are structured by social class.

Technological Change, Tasks and Class Inequality in Europe

“…There is ample evidence showing that recent increases in income inequality can be explained by wage differentials between occupations—occupational-mean skills, tasks, or social classes (Albertini et al, 2020; Goedemé et al, 2021; Liu and Grusky, 2013; Williams and Bol, 2018; Zhou and Wodtke, 2019), but other authors argue that wage variation within occupations or classes better captures inequality trends (Fernández-Macías and Arranz-Muñoz, 2020). Thus, studying the employment relations and job tasks outlined by the EGP model and the RBTC theory and their potential (and shifting) links could shed new light ‘on the extent to which inequality trends may be due to shifts in the task structure related to technological change, or whether class-based changes in inequality are largely unrelated’ (Williams, 2017: 5).…”