Transmitting Inequality

Wealth and the American Family

By (author) Yuval Elmelech

Paperback - £38.00

Publication date:

21 May 2008

Length of book:

268 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742545847

While the United States is the world's richest nation, the distribution of private property and wealth among Americans is often comprised of alarmingly disparate portions. With a rapidly aging and increasingly diverse population, the interdependence between generations, institutions, and social spheres has become essential to social stratification processes in contemporary American society.. In this authoritative work, Yuval Elmelech investigates the role that family transactions of material resources play in the stratification system. Drawing on empirical evidence from a broad array of sources, Transmitting Inequality provides an interdisciplinary framework for examining the social, demographic and institutional structures that shape the distribution of property and wealth in the United States.
This book is a profound and important contribution to stratification theory. Elmelech demonstrates how inequality in family wealth cascades through the components of life chances and living standards. He convincingly argues that our formulations of social class must be broadened to include considerations of net worth and asset types.