Inequality

For a long time, social science publications essentially approached the question of inequalities from the all-encompassing angle of classes and social stratification before developing a more detailed approach to better characterise individual situations and the different forms of inequality. This opened up new possibilities for shedding light on collective action and social debates.

The full range of diverse inequalities is now a core subject for a great deal of work in the humanities and social sciences. The primary aim of this research is to enhance our understanding of the concept of inequality in all its many facets. Researchers in this field also work on describing, measuring and objectifying inequalities, analysing the mechanisms of inequality including their transmission and reproduction, forms of resistance and mobilisation, providing information for policy-making and evaluating policies, actions and measures to combat inequality, exclusion and the various forms of discrimination and domination. Research in this area goes well beyond income inequalities alone and shows that inequalities are multidimensional and can be assessed through the prism of intersectionality. Inequality can be on the basis of origins, social background, education, gender, sexuality, family, health, age, disability, urban segregation, territory, migration, cultural practices, digital uses, the environment, energy, justice and law or the labour market. The relationship between inequalities and the environment and fuel poverty have been the subject of growing interest in recent years while the COVID pandemic has revealed and amplified existing inequalities.

A great deal of research into inequalities is empirical but it has also led to a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches being developed. It constantly moves back and forth between the private and family spheres and the public sphere or between statistical objectification and ethnographic approaches and tends to be areal and/or comparative in nature. Such research is located on different scales, from the local to the global (North-South inequalities) and involves sociology, political science, economics, geography, anthropology, history, philosophy and legal science.

Research centers and networks