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Religion is an important determinant of social and economic inequality, but the mechanisms that underlie this relationship are not well-understood. Early scholars recognized this connection, but their ideas do not adequately explain contemporary stratification patterns. Recent research documents robust empirical relationships between religion and material outcomes but has not yet begun to identify causes of these patterns. We fill this gap by providing a theoretical explanation of the religion-inequality link that synthesizes ideas from early and recent sociology. We propose that the process is inherently multilevel. We draw on ideas from status attainment theory to develop a micro-model and ideas from social balance theory to aggregate the model's outcomes. The synthesis of ideas from these theoretical traditions provides a unique, and potentially useful way to understand the relationship between cultural orientation and material resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent protest movements brought attention to the one percent, a segment of the population that is critical to understanding inequality and social mobility but that attracts relatively little research attention. In this article, I survey current research on the one percent in the United States. I distinguish income from wealth and show that both are very concentrated but that the concentration of wealth, particularly financial wealth, is extremely high. I describe the demographic traits and finances of households who are in the one percent and discuss how these have changed in the past decade. I review literature that explains rising top incomes, and I propose that future research will usefully concentrate more on top wealth owners and on the demographic and life course processes that underlie income and wealth concentration. I conclude by speculating about why Americans are so tolerant of resource concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wealth inequality is among tile most extreme forms of stratification in the United States, and upward wealth mobility is not common. Yet mobility is possible, and this paper takes advantage of trends among a unique group to explore the processes that generate mobility. I show that non-Hispanic whites raised in Roman Catholic families have been upwardly mobile in the wealth distribution in recent decades, and I find that unique fertility, marriage and education patterns contributed to this change. I also show that Catholic values related to work and money contributed to relatively high saving and portfolio behavior that facilitated mobility. The results provide important insight into the process by which childhood experiences shape adult well-being, particularly adult wealth ownership. The findings also contribute to understanding of social inequality by identifying important behaviors and processes that facilitate mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on changes in firm labor practices and policies and discuss how these are likely to impact the nature of social stratification in China. The study emphasizes differences between state-owned enterprises (SOE) and non-SOEs in order to highlight the role that firm ownership structure is likely to play in defining future stratification systems. The article further draws on recently-collected longitudinal (1994-1999) quantitative survey data on 800 Chinese SOEs and non-SOEs, including 433 SOEs and 367 firms with other ownership structures. In the next section, I provide a brief synopsis of the nature of enterprises prior to reform and describe the way labor reform affected firms. An overview of the survey is then presented by discussing how information from this survey informs understanding of the relationship between changing labor practices and stratification. The article also explores current labor conditions in Chinese firms, characteristics of workers, and the nature of current hiring and termination practices. The objective of the author is to provide a snapshot of the nature of labor conditions in China at the turn of the millennium and to discuss the potential for these conditions to shape the future of social stratification in that country.