Housing asset ownership now structures class and inequality more than occupation does.

Evidence

A recent paper by Adkins et al. (2019) underscores the importance of the relatively widespread and uneven distribution of asset wealth for understanding the intensification of inequalities during the decade since the global financial crisis. Indeed, given that the ownership of housing is the single greatest source of wealth across populations in Anglo-America, Adkins et al. (2019) argue nothing short of the rethinking of ‘contemporary theories of class and stratification’ is now required to ‘incorporate the reality of twenty first century capital’ (p. 4). To capture the stratifications that arise from the impact of the distribution of asset wealth on the structure of inequality, traditional approaches to class based on the division of labour and occupation are inadequate. Recent interventions in class theory, grounded in concerns with social and cultural capital, are equally unhelpful. Furthermore, contemporary stratifications are particularly pernicious in generational terms, as compounding wealth inequalities between the asset-poor and asset-rich are likely to be inherited by future generations through familial intergenerational transfers. — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 39

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Piketty’s capital-returns-inequality thesis and the generational wealth-transfer literature (e.g. Chetty on intergenerational mobility). — connects to: Financialization of households is stratified by class, not uniform — Neil Fligstein & Adam Goldstein, The Emergence of a Finance Culture in…, 21; Upper-middle households increasingly treated homes as leverage assets. — Neil Fligstein & Adam Goldstein, The Emergence of a Finance Culture in…, 66; Financialized ownership of housing and land degrades living conditions and inflates asset prices — Gerald F. Davis & Suntae Kim, Financialization of the Economy, 87 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Articulates the core thesis that asset wealth, not labour/occupation, is the primary axis of stratification in contemporary capitalism.

Related

• Inequality stems significantly from uneven asset ownership, not only elite speculation and household debt (similarity 0.88)
• Asset distribution drives wealth inequality and social stratification. (similarity 0.87)
• Upper-middle households increasingly treated homes as leverage assets. (similarity 0.83)
• Financialization of households is stratified by class, not uniform (similarity 0.81)
• Home ownership dissolved spatial working-class solidarity and tethered workers to markets. (similarity 0.81)
• Private equity firms have remade family rental homes into portfolios of financialized asset classes (similarity 0.80)
• Financialized ownership of housing and land degrades living conditions and inflates asset prices (similarity 0.80)
• Racial wealth inequality stems from dispossession of means of production (similarity 0.80)
• Top-end wealth concentration intensifies pressure on lower households to maintain relative lifestyles. (similarity 0.79)
• The finance culture took root in the upper-middle class. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Inequality stems significantly from uneven asset ownership, not only elite speculation and household debt #corroborates (0.88) — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 46
• Residential segregation is central to reproducing social inequality #expands (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2433