Contemporary inequality and her multiple, hybrid generative factors: an European comparison

Post-modernity and her categories have definitely re-developed the contemporary concept of inequality, shifting more and more from a stratification model based on class structure, like in the traditional Marxist approach, toward a de-structured representation, where, for instance, the class belonging itself, such an influent identity factor for many of the past generations, seems nowadays to decline, partially almost disembedded (Giddens, 1990) and mostly blended in with the “non sticking” sense of fluidity that characterizes the complexity of contemporary identities coping with the explicative categories of liquid society, like individualization, fragmentation and risk (Bauman, 2000, 2001; Beck, 1992). At the same time contemporary inequality dimensions rely on multiple hybrid and cross-cutting generators (Pakulsky and Waters, 1996; Olin Wright, 2005, Pakulsky, 2007) leading toward “classless” inequality categories. Such elements can be find in different access to education and knowledge, combining the effects of credentialism and weberian social closure in monopolizing opportunities and leading to exclusion and usurpation processes (Parkin, 1979; Murphy, 1988). Similarly, the arising demand for new forms of citizenship and democracy, as a side effect behind the aim of social leveling, enlarges the gap with those which are excluded by such rights (immigrants, under-classes of non-citizens). In the same way, genderization and racialization, particularly in occupations and market segmentation, often playing a key-role as culturally latent factors defining whether a job, a role, a mansion or a position are attributed by gender or ethnicity. Lastly, it can be taken into account also the implicit inequality effects played by age: for younger generations, trying to settle their lives through the difficult paths of the post-fordist job market, as well for older people, especially the socially weakest, compelled to survive and cope with a suffering welfare system and an increasing social complexity. Such multiple-crossing-generative factors confirm the “departure from the industrial class society” toward “hybridized forms of inequality” (Pakulsky, 2007) and will be described in the paper through the analysis of the datasets available in the latest editions of the ESS European Social Survey, in order to combine the exploration of their consequences and effects with their comparison between different European national contexts.