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The most widely used measure for studying social, economic, and health inequality is the Gini index/ratio. Whereas other measures of inequality possess certain useful characteristics, such as the straightforward decomposability of the generalized entropy measures, the Gini index has remained the most popular, at least in part due to its ease of interpretation. However, the Gini index has a limitation in measuring inequality. It is less sensitive to how the population is stratified than how individual values differ. The twin purposes of this paper are to explain the limitation and to propose a model-based method—latent class/clustering analysis for understanding and measuring inequality. The latent cluster approach has the major advantage of being able to identify potential “classes” of individuals who share similar levels of income or one or more other attributes and to assess the fit of the model-based classes to the empirical data, based on different cluster distributional assumptions and the number of latent classes. This paper distinguishes class inequality from individual inequality, the type that is better captured by the Gini. Once the classes are estimated, the membership of estimated classes obtained from the best fitting model facilitates the decomposition of the Gini index into individual and class inequality. Class inequality is then measured by two relative stratification indices based on either the relative size of the Gini between-class components or the relative number of stratified individuals. Therefore, the Gini index is extended and assisted by model-based clustering to measure class inequality, thereby realizing its great potential for studying inequality. Income data from France and Hungary are used to illustrate the application of the method. INSETS: Figure 1. Gini indices and Lorenz curves for income data...;Figure 2. Empirical income distribution of France in 1990...;Figure 3. Income clustering in France, 1990.;Figure 4. Income clustering in Hungary, 1992. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes several ways in which the transformation of Hungarian social structure between 1938 and 1973 constrained changes in rates of Intergenerational social mobility. Three concepts of ways in which shifts in the distributions of social origins and destinations can result in changes. in the total rate of mobility-"discrepancy effects," "concentration effects," and "composition effects" -are discussed and shown to be represented in a multiplicative model commonly applied to mobility tables. By observing the changes in the expected percentage mobile when various constraints are added to this multiplicative model, the relative impact of each aspect of structural change becomes more apparent Most of the change in Hungary, particularly between 1953 and 1973, is attributable to changes in structural constraints. Most of the change in mobility across economic classes was associated with changing origin-destination discrepancy effects, as were large portions of the changes in mobility across socioeconomic status levels and broad social strata. Changing concentration effects were less important, and mostly affected mobility across SES levels. Detailed composition effects were most important in conjunction with monotonic increases in mobility across SES levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard of the intellectual antecedents of Hungarian sport sociology and their importance seem to correspond to those of other nations. However, for political reasons the period in which sport sociology developed into an autonomous discipline in the Western world did not favour the rising of sociology in the socialist states of Eastern Europe. This paper attempts to show when and in what way sport sociology evolved in Hungary, as well as what social and theoretical factors influenced, promoted or impeded its development. Furthermore, the present situation of sport sociology in Hungary is outlined: its main fields of research, its major publications as well as its institutions, organizations, and international connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]