Position and Possessions: Stratification Economics and Intergroup Inequality
Journal of Economic Literature
vol. 60,
no. 2, June 2022
(pp. 400-426)
Abstract
This article provides an overview of the origins and development of stratification economics as a subfield that centers the importance of identity, social ranking, and relative group position. Stratification economics developed in response to explanations for interracial/ethnic/gender inequality that invoked group-based dysfunction on the part of the subordinate community. Influences, detailed here, include the works of W. E. B. DuBois, Thorstein Veblen, Karl Marx, Eric Williams, Herbert Blumer, Claude Steele, Cecilia Ridgeway, Thomas Pettigrew, and Linda Tropp. The article concludes with an exploration of unique insights and extensions stratification economics affords a variety of themes: the impact of multiple identities, the determinants of individual productivity, variation in intensity of group identification, "passing," sources of inter-group differences in wealth, and social mobility and immigration.Citation
Darity, William A Jr. 2022. "Position and Possessions: Stratification Economics and Intergroup Inequality." Journal of Economic Literature, 60 (2): 400-426. DOI: 10.1257/jel.20211690Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- I31 General Welfare; Well-Being
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification