Search results for ""Author Karin Kurz""

Although a strong indicator of social status, home ownership has rarely emerged as a topic in social inequality research. This book compares twelve countries—the United States, Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Israel—to determine the interdependence of social inequality and homeownership attainment over the life course. Examining countries that are similar with respect to socioeconomic development, but different in regard to their housing policies, the authors show that housing policies matter and are largely consistent with a country’s general approach in the provision of welfare. This book presents a valuable contribution to the social stratification literature, which traditionally has neglected the dimension of home ownership. It goes beyond most housing studies by adopting a life-course framework and longitudinal approach. The empirical findings provide evidence that in all countries under study—even those of the social democratic welfare regime type—labor market position matters in one’s chances to become a homeowner.

Read more less

This topical and timely analysis of late career and retirement within nine European societies and the USA examines how social inequality structures have developed in an era of globalization and aging populations. For several decades, many European societies relied on pushing and luring older workers out of employment by using generous early retirement programs in order to relieve national labor markets in times of globalization. However, as this book argues, one of the major challenges facing European and Northern American societies today is their severe demographic aging, which in turn places pension systems under substantial pressure due to the rising imbalance between those claiming pensions and those contributing to the pension system. Indeed, it is observed herein that in the recent past, governments have tried to increase the labor market attachment of older employees by retrenching early retirement benefits. This study investigates how these developments have impacted on the situation of older workers and retirees in nine European societies and the USA. In particular, the book looks at how social inequalities in later life have developed in the light of recent pension reforms.This informative book will appeal to sociologists, demographers, political scientists and economists interested in many different aspects of research including: international comparative research, globalization, labor market, welfare state, social inequality and research on aging. Researchers in the field of retirement and globalization studies will also find this book helpful, as will academics in labor market research and comparative political studies.

Read more less