The lives of wealthy people have long held an allure to many, but the lives of wealthy Russians pose a particular fascination. Having achieved their riches over the course of a single generation, the top 0.1 percent of Russian society have become known for ostentatious lifestyles and tastes. Nevertheless, as Elisabeth Schimpfoessl shows in this book, their stories reveal a bourgeois existence that is distinct in its circumstances and self-definition, and far more complex than the caricatures suggest. Rich Russians takes a deep and unprecedented look at this group: their personal stories, trajectories, ideas about life and how they see their role and position both on top of Russian society as well as globally. These people grew up and lived through a historically unique period of economic turmoil and social change following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But when taken in a wider historical context, their lives follow a familiar path, from new money to respectable money; parvenus becoming part of Society. Based on interviews with millionaires, billionaires, their spouses and children, Rich Russians concludes that, as a class, they have acquired all sorts of cultural and social resources which help consolidate their personal power. They have developed distinguished and refined tastes, rediscovered their family history, and begun actively engaging in philanthropy. Most importantly, they have worked out a narrative to justify why they deserve their elitist position in society - because of who they are and their superior qualities - and why they should be treated as equals by the West. This is a group whose social, cultural and political influence is likely to outlast any regime change. As the first book to examine the transformation of Russia's former "robber barons" into a new social class, Rich Russians provides insight into how this nation's newly wealthy tick.

In this book, part of the 21st Century Standpoints series published in association with the British Sociological Association, Diane Reay, herself working class turned Cambridge professor, brings Brian Jackson and Dennis Marsden's pioneering Education and the Working Class from 1962 up to date for the 21st century. The book addresses the urgent question of why the working classes are still faring so much worse than the upper and middle classes in education, and vitally - what we can do to achieve a fairer system.

India remains a country mired in poverty, with two-thirds of its 1.2 billion people living on little more than a few dollars day. Just as telling, the country's informal working population numbers nearly 500 million, or approximately 80 percent of the entire labor force. Despite these figures and the related structural disadvantages that imperil the lives of so many, the Indian elite hold fast to the idea that the poor need only work harder and show some discipline and they, too, can become rich. The results of this ambitious ten-year ethnography at exclusive golf clubs in Bangalore shatter such self-serving illusions. In Narrow Fairways, Patrick Inglis combines participant observation, interviews, and archival research to show how social mobility among the poor lower-caste golf caddies who carry the golf sets of wealthy upper-caste members at these clubs is ultimately constrained and narrowed. The book highlights how elites secure and extend class and caste privileges, while also delivering a necessary rebuke to India's present development strategy, which pays far too little attention to promoting quality health care, education, and other basic social services that would deliver real opportunities to the poor.

An accessible overview of the power of women in the economy and the obstacles they face Women are joining the workforce in increasing numbers, making inroads as entrepreneurs and leaders, acquiring more education, marrying later, and having fewer children - all trends consistent with spending a far greater fraction of their adult lives in the labor force. And yet, even as women break the glass ceiling and challenge gender and sexual norms, they are told they need to "lean in" and powerful movements like #TimesUP and #MeToo are still necessary to expose and overcome endemic discrimination, exploitation, harassment, and worse. Women in the Workforce: What Everyone Needs to Know (R) provides an essential and accessible introduction to the significance of women in the economy and the obstacles they face in claiming equal status. Economists Laura M. Argys and Susan L. Averett tackle timely topics like the wage gap, "women's work," and gendered workplace interactions in an easy-to-read question and answer format. The book focuses on the choices people make and how these are framed by institutional impediments that create inequalities in the options available to men and women. Argys and Averett highlight how the experience of being a woman in the labor market varies, sometimes dramatically, by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. They also explore how living in cities, towns, and rural areas influence choices and outcomes. Covering a range of topics, from breastfeeding and work, earnings penalties for women who have taken time away from work, and childcare while women work, to the gender pay gap and the distinctive challenges women face as they age and transition to retirement, this book answers the essential questions surrounding women in the workforce.

In Art Work, Katja Praznik counters the Western understanding of art - as a passion for self-expression and an activity done out of love, without any concern for its financial aspects - and instead builds a case for understanding art as a form of invisible labour. Focusing on the experiences of art workers and the history of labour regulation in the arts in socialist Yugoslavia, Praznik helps elucidate the contradiction at the heart of artistic production and the origins of the mystification of art as labour. This profoundly interdisciplinary book highlights the Yugoslav socialist model of culture as the blueprint for uncovering the interconnected aesthetic and economic mechanisms at work in the exploitation of artistic labour. It also shows the historical trajectory of how policies toward art and artistic labour changed by the end of the 1980s. Calling for a fundamental rethinking of the assumptions behind Western art and exploitative labour practices across the world, Art Work will be of interest to scholars in East European studies, art theory, and cultural policy, as well as to practicing artists.

The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them for a hefty check come tax time a combination of the earned income tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months' wages as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It's Not Like I'm Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life.

Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility-especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative, conceptual, and methodological advances. If forms of mobility have slowed in the West, then we might be entering an age of rigid stratification with defined boundaries between the always-haves and the never-haves-which does not augur well for social stability. Social mobility research is ongoing, with substantive findings in different disciplines-typically with researchers in isolation from each other. A key contribution of this book is the pulling together of the emerging streams of knowledge. Generating policy-relevant knowledge is a principal concern. Three basic questions frame the study of diverse aspects of social mobility in the book. How to assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets by conventional measurement techniques are unavailable? How to identify drivers and inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts? How to acquire the knowledge required to design interventions to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?

Migration has always been a fundamental human activity, yet little collaboration exists between scientists and social scientists examining how it has shaped past and contemporary societies. This innovative volume brings together sociocultural anthropologists, archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, ethnographers, paleopathologists, and others to develop a unifying theory of migration. The contributors relate past movements, including the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Islamic conquest of Andalucia, to present-day events, such as those in northern Ethiopia or at the U.S.-Mexico border. They examine the extent to which environmental and social disruptions have been a cause of migration over time and how these migratory flows have in turn led to disruptive consequences for the receiving societies. The observed cycles of social disruption, resettlement, and its consequences offer a new perspective on how human migration has shaped the social, economic, political, and environmental landscapes of societies from prehistory to today.

The rise of suburbs and disinvestment from cities have been defining features of life in many countries over the course of the twentieth century. In Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia, Nathaniel Walker asks: why did we abandon our dense, complex urban places and seek to find "the best of the city and the country" in the flowery suburbs? While looking back at the architecture and urban design of the 1800s offers some answers, Walker argues that a great missing piece of the story can be found in Victorian utopian literature. The replacement of cities with high-tech suburbs was repeatedly imagined and breathlessly described in the socialist dreams and science-fiction fantasies of dozens of British and American authors. Some of these visionaries - such as Robert Owen, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, and H. G. Wells - are enduringly famous, while others were street vendors or amateur chemists who have been all but forgotten. Together, they fashioned strange and beautiful imaginary worlds built of synthetic gemstones, lacy metal colonnades, and unbreakable glass, staffed by robotic servants and teeming with flying carriages. As varied as their futuristic visions could be, Walker reveals how most of them were unified by a single, desperate plea: for humanity to have a future worth living, we must abandon our smoky, poor, chaotic Babylonian cities for a life in shimmering gardens.

'This book flips your world upside down. Daniel Markovits argues that meritocracy isn't a virtuous, efficient system that rewards the best and brightest. Instead it rewards middle-class families who can afford huge investments in their children's education ... Frightening, eye-opening stuff' The Times, Books of the Year Even in the midst of runaway economic inequality and dangerous social division, it remains an axiom of modern life that meritocracy reigns supreme and promises to open opportunity to all. The idea that reward should follow ability and effort is so entrenched in our psyche that, even as society divides itself at almost every turn, all sides can be heard repeating meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we think we are. But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy's successes. This is the radical argument that The Meritocracy Trap prosecutes with rare force, comprehensive research, and devastating persuasion. Daniel Markovits, a law professor trained in philosophy and economics, is better placed than most to puncture one of the dominant ideas of our age. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within, as well as how we can take the first steps towards a world that might afford us both prosperity and dignity.

Social mobility research has held a central place in the sociological analysis of industrialized countries of the west, particularly with regard to the study of stratification systems, their forms, and processes. The research on India has however been mostly scattered. The lack of systematic research in this area implies that we do not have a sense of the precise amount of social mobility in contemporary India, and the changes such mobility has had on social structures over time and across demographics. This book draws on national level datasets and quantitative methods to understand the multiple strands of social mobility or the lack of it, by focusing on the overlapping identities of social class, caste, and gender in both rural and urban context. It investigates the contemporary processes and drivers of mobility, and appraises the role of education in supporting or preventing increased upward social mobility by concentrating on those groups that are disadvantaged from this very opportunity. It also takes into account the impact of liberalization on social mobility and argues that mobility today is differentially patterned on the basis of local and global identities.

An intimate, first-hand account of the emotional and physical experience of doing time in jail and the strategies for enduring it. Jails are the principal people-processing machines of the criminal justice system. Mostly they hold persons awaiting trial who cannot afford or have been denied bail. Although jail sentences max out at a year, some spend years awaiting trial in jail-especially in counties where courts are jammed with cases. City and county jails, detention centers, police lockups, and other temporary holding facilities are regularly overcrowded, poorly funded, and the buildings are often in disrepair. American jails admit over ten million people every year, but very little is known about what happens to them while they're locked away. Indefinite is an ethnographic study of a California county jail that reflects on what it means to do jail time and what it does to men. Michael L. Walker spent several extended spells in jail, having been arrested while trying to pay parking tickets in graduate school. This book is an intimate account of his experience and in it he shares the routines, rhythms, and subtle meanings that come with being incarcerated. Walker shows how punishment in jail is much more than the deprivation of liberties. It is, he argues, purposefully degrading. Jail creates a racial politics that organizes daily life, moves men from clock time to event time, normalizes trauma, and imbues residents with substantial measures of vulnerability. Deputies used self-centered management styles to address the problems associated with running a jail, some that magnified individual conflicts to potential group conflicts and others that created divisions between residents for the sake of control. And though not every deputy indulged, many gave themselves over to the pleasures of punishment.

Eurostars and Eurocities: Free Movement and Mobility in an Integrating Europe examines intra-European Union migration in the cities of Amsterdam, London and Brussels.* Based on sixty in-depth interviews of free moving European citizens, and more than five years of ethnographic and documentary research, it uncovers the rarely studied human dimension of European integration* Examines the mobility, lifestyle and career opportunities created by the borderless society of the European Union, as well as the barriers that still persist* Analyses the new migration trends, challenges to the welfare state, and forms of urban cosmopolitanism linked to processes of European integration

The lives of wealthy people have long held an allure to many, but the lives of wealthy Russians pose a particular fascination. Having achieved their riches over the course of a single generation, the top 0.1 percent of Russian society have become known for ostentatious lifestyles and tastes. Nevertheless, as Elisabeth Schimpfoessl shows in this book, their stories reveal a bourgeois existence that is distinct in its circumstances and self-definition, and far more complex than the caricatures suggest. Rich Russians takes a deep and unprecedented look at this group: their personal stories, trajectories, ideas about life, and how they see their role and position both on top of Russian society as well as globally. These people grew up and lived through a historically unique period of economic turmoil and social change following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But when taken in a wider historical context, their lives follow a familiar path, from new money to respectable money; parvenus becoming part of Society. Based on interviews with millionaires, billionaires, their spouses and children, Rich Russians concludes that, as a class, they have acquired all sorts of cultural and social resources which help consolidate their personal power. They have developed distinguished and refined tastes, rediscovered their family history, and begun actively engaging in philanthropy. Most importantly, they have worked out a narrative to justify why they deserve their elitist position in society-because of who they are and their superior qualities-and why they should be treated as equals by the West. This is a group whose social, cultural, and political influence is likely to outlast any regime change. As the first book to examine the transformation of Russia's former "robber barons" into a new social class, Rich Russians provides insight into how this nation's newly wealthy tick.

Rising levels of global inequality and migrant flows are both critical global challenges. Set within the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia, Going Nowhere Fast sets out to answer a question of global importance: how does inequality persist in our increasingly mobile world? Inequality is often referred to as the greatest threat to democracy, society, and economy, and yet opportunity has apparently never been more accessible. Long and short distance transport - from motorbikes to aeroplanes - are available to more people than ever before and telecommunications have transformed our lives, ushering in an era of translocality in which the behaviour of people and communities is influenced from hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. Yet amidst these complex flows of people, ideas, and capital, persistent inequality cuts a jarringly static figure. Going Nowhere Fast brings together a decade of research to examine this uneven development in Cambodia, making a case for inequality as a 'total social fact' rather than an economic phenomenon, in which stories, stigma, obligation and assets combine to lock social structures in place. Going Nowhere Fast: Inequality in the Age of Translocality speaks from an in-depth perspective to an issue of global relevance: how inequality persists in our hypermobile world. Focusing on pressing issues in Cambodia that resonate beyond, it investigates how human movement within and across the nation's borders are intertwined with societal threats and challenges, including of precarious labour and agricultural livelihoods; climate and environmental change; the phenomenon of land grabbing; and the rise of popular nationalism.

Segregation by Design draws on more than 100 years of quantitative and qualitative data from thousands of American cities to explore how local governments generate race and class segregation. Starting in the early twentieth century, cities have used their power of land use control to determine the location and availability of housing, amenities (such as parks), and negative land uses (such as garbage dumps). The result has been segregation - first within cities and more recently between them. Documenting changing patterns of segregation and their political mechanisms, Trounstine argues that city governments have pursued these policies to enhance the wealth and resources of white property owners at the expense of people of color and the poor. Contrary to leading theories of urban politics, local democracy has not functioned to represent all residents. The result is unequal access to fundamental local services - from schools, to safe neighborhoods, to clean water.

Making Education Work for the Poor identifies wealth inequality as the gravest threat to the endangered American Dream. Though studies have clearly illustrated that education is the primary path to upward mobility, today, educational outcomes are more directly determined by wealth than innate ability and exerted effort. This accounting directly contradicts Americans' understanding of the promise the American Dream is supposed to offer: a level playing field and a path towards a more profitable future. In this book, the authors share their own stories of their journeys through the unequal U.S. education system. One started from relative privilege and had her way to prosperity paved and her individual efforts augmented by institutional and structural support. The other grew up in poverty and had to fight against currents to complete higher education, only to find his ability to profit from that degree compromised by student debt. To directly counter wealth inequality and make education the 'great equalizer' that Americans believe it to be, this book calls for a revolution in financial aid policy, from debt dependence to asset empowerment. The book examines the evidence base supporting Children's Savings Accounts, including CSAs' demonstrated potential to improve children's outcomes all along the 'opportunity pipeline': early education, school achievement, college access and completion, and post-college financial health. It then outlines a policy that builds on CSAs to incorporate a sizable, progressive wealth transfer. This new policy, Opportunity Investment Accounts, is framed as the cornerstone of the wealth-building agenda the nation needs in order to salvage the American Dream. Written by leading CSA researchers, the book includes overviews of the major children's savings legislation proposed in Congress and the key features of prominent CSA programs in operation around the country today, as well as new qualitative and quantitative CSA research. The book ultimately presents a critical development of the theories that, together, explain how universal, progressive, asset-based education financing could make education work equitably for all American children.

Honorable Mention, 2014 Distinguished Contribution to Research Award presented by the Latina/o Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association Getting Ahead tells the compelling stories of Latin-American immigrant women living in public housing in two Boston-area neighborhoods. Silvia Dominguez argues that these immigrant women parlay social ties that provide support and leverage to develop networks and achieve social positioning to get ahead. Through a rich ethnographic account and in-depth interviews, the strong voices of these women demonstratehow they successfully negotiate the world and achieve social mobility through their own individual agency, skillfullynavigating both constraints and opportunities. Dominguez makes it clear that many immigrant women are able to develop the social support needed for a rich social life, and leverage ties that open options for them to develop their social and human capital. However, she also shows that factors such as neighborhood and domestic violence and the unavailability of social services leave many women without the ability to strategize towards social mobility. Ultimately, Dominguez makes important local and international policy recommendations on issue ranging from public housing to world labor visas, demonstrating how policy can help to improve the lives of these and other low-income people.

This book is an ethnography of labor mobility and its challenges to the idea of the nation. Using the example of francophone Canada, it examines how social difference-race, ethnicity, language, gender-has been used to sort out who must (or can) be mobile and who must (or can) remain in place in the organization of global circulation of human and natural resources. It argues that "francophone Canada" can best be understood as an ethnoclass category that has embedded francophones into specific forms of labor mobility since the beginnings of European colonization, even as their social difference has been constructed as national in the interests of gaining political power. The result has been an erasure both of francophone mobilities and of their contribution to the rooted community that lies at the heart of the idea of the nation, and of francophone capacity to resist economic marginalization and exploitation. By following French Canadian workers back and forth between eastern and central Canada and the frontiers of the Canadian northwest, Sustaining the Nation explores how contemporary forms of labor mobility make it increasingly difficult for national structures and discourses to produce the francophone nation. By following the ideological tensions between language as a skill and language as a marker of belonging, the authors present grounded evidence of how the globalized new economy challenges the nation-state, and how mobilities and immobilities are co-constructed.

Why is it getting harder to secure a job that matches our qualifications, buy a home of our own and achieve financial stability? Underprivileged people have always faced barriers, but people from middle-income families are increasingly more likely to slide down the social scale than climb up. Duncan Exley, former Director of the Equality Trust, draws on expert research and real life experiences - including from an actor, a politician, a billionaire entrepreneur and a surgeon - to issue a wake-up call to break through segregated opportunity. He offers a manifesto to reboot our prospects and benefit all.

Did urbanization kill communities in the 19th century, or even earlier? Many historians proclaim that it did, but author Bender says otherwise. Here he argues that community survived the trials of industrialization and urbanization and remains a fundamental element of American society.

Since the Great Recession hit in 2008, the 1% has only grown richer while the rest find life increasingly tough. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has turned into a chasm. While the rich have found new ways of protecting their wealth, everyone else has suffered the penalties of austerity. But inequality is more than just economics. Being born outside the 1% has a dramatic impact on a person's potential: reducing life expectancy, limiting educational and work prospects, and even affecting mental health. What is to be done? In Inequality and the 1% leading social thinker Danny Dorling lays bare the extent and true cost of the division in our society and asks what have the super-rich ever done for us? He shows that it is the 1% that threatens us with the most harm and why we must urgently redress the balance

Weaving Transnational Solidarity from the Catskills to Chiapas and Beyond analyzes the grassroots, economic justice work of three groups-two Mexican organizations, Jolom Mayaetik, Mayan women's weaving cooperative, and K'inal Antzetik, NGO in the highlands of Chiapas, and an informal, international solidarity network. The book provides scholar-activist, ethnographic case study data which contributes to understanding collective organization, and indigenous rights.

'Pithy and provoking, spiced with the personal' Hilary Mantel Lynsey Hanley grew up part of the 'respectable working class'. At university, she discovered that social mobility is not all it seems. This book is about what it means to cross class divides, what we leave behind in order to get on, and how class affects all of us today. 'There is fury contained within the pages and between the lines of Respectable ... intelligent and important' Colin Grant, Guardian 'Honest, brave and moving' Kate Pickett, co-author of The Spirit Level 'Lynsey Hanley is such a crucial voice. When she writes about class, she is writing about lived experience' Owen Jones, New Statesman 'Hanley vividly describes the "risky, lonely journey" she undertook from one class to another ... She is tremendous at detailing her personal transition' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

A fresh take on social class from the experts behind the BBC's 'Great British Class Survey'. Why does social class matter more than ever in Britain today? How has the meaning of class changed? What does this mean for social mobility and inequality? In this book Mike Savage and the team of sociologists responsible for the Great British Class Survey look beyond the labels to explore how and why our society is changing and what this means for the people who find themselves in the margins as well as in the centre. Their new conceptualization of class is based on the distribution of three kinds of capital - economic (inequalities in income and wealth), social (the different kinds of people we know) and cultural (the ways in which our leisure and cultural preferences are exclusive) - and provides incontrovertible evidence that class is as powerful and relevant today as it's ever been.