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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Paradoxes of wealth and class: historical conditions and contemporary configurations

Alternative title: Paradokser med rikdom og klasse: historiske forutsetninger og nåtidige konfigurasjoner

Awarded: NOK 10.5 mill.

The HISTCLASS project raises a number of issues that can be summarized as: To what extent and through what mechanisms do inequalities in wealth persist over time, and to what extent are dynastic tendencies also found in families with top positions in other sectors? To what extent does marriage contribute to uniform environments that help reinforce class differences? Findings are summarized here in three sections. Economic power and economic elites The Norwegian or Nordic "model" is characterized, among other things, by generous welfare schemes and small wage differences. Knowledge about earnings differences are used in organized pay negotiations. The development of wealth accumulation has to a large extent occurred outside the public spotlight, for example the Norwegian investigations into power rarely addressed questions about the consequences of wealth disparities for power and democracy. Results from HISTCLASS on income and occupational affiliation indicate that the richest are mainly part of an economic upper class that exercises power both through holding leading positions in business and as owners. The very richest constitute a rentier class in the sense that capital income constitutes their main income. HISTCLASS research both on similarities between siblings and parents and children shows that there is a strong tendency for children born into rich families in the economic upper class to reach high levels of wealth and income themselves. Those with an upper-class financial background achieve the highest incomes in the Norwegian upper class, and the results also indicate that "the bank of mom and dad" explains these income differences to the greatest extent. The association between class origin and wealth is strenthened over time and is, for example, far stronger around 2020 than it was in the early 1990s. To explain these tendencies, HISTCLASS points to changes in the economy that have provided new opportunities for the accumulation of wealth. We also show that acquiring debt is a strategy that has become increasingly important for accumulating wealth. The transfer of wealth is also an important reason for persistent inequalities in wealth over the generations. The fortunes of many young rich are the result of such inter vivos transfers, which over time generate income and wealth. Cultural capital and the education system While it is young people from families with the most economic capital who most often achieve financial success, academic success is most strongly linked to families with more cultural capital, such as academics, higher civil servants, and professionals such as doctors and lawyers. There has been a large degree of stability in class inequalities in recruitment to higher education over four decades - the level of education has risen, but inequalities remain. In addition, there are social biases in the recruitment to research fellow positions, which open up careers within academia. There is a tendency for young people from families with the most cultural capital to achieve the highest grades, also when students with the same grade from upper secondary school are compared. These differences vary between institutions and are strongest within the research universities. They vary between educational fields and are smaller in more practical courses than in fields with a stronger theoretical orientation. One HISTCLASS study shows that class differences in grades have increased in the long term. Before 1900, there were small class differences in grades achieved in the field of law, which leads to elite positions in society if one has good grades. Class differences in grades increase throughout the 20th century and up to 2015. According to the classical understanding of cultural capital, evaluations of students are not exclusively a result of the quality of the performance in an objective sense, but are influenced by conditions such as appearance, speech and writing style. The variation in the impact of class background is in several ways consistent with such a classical understanding. Thus, cultural capital obtained through the family can increasingly be a source of sustained power as an alternative to economic power. Family as a basis for class formation The strong associations between the resources of parents and children raises the question of whether marriage contributes to the development of uniform social environments. A number of studies have described how marriage within elite groups serves to maintain social distances to other groups and functions as a means of conserving resources over time in privileged families. HISTCLASS researchers have studied couple formation and divorces in the present day and couple formation in a long historical perspective in professional elites, which are groups characterized by a strong degree of intermarriage. Our results indicate that couple formation contributes to strengthening the development of class inequalities.

Samfunnsmessige virkninger: Temaer som prosjektets problemstillinger omfatter har blitt langt mer sentrale i samfunnsdebatten enn tidligere. Dette gjelder blant annet temaer som økonomiske ulikhet og på økende rikdom blant formuende nordmenn, betydningen av familiebakgrunn for å bli rik, og spesielt på hvordan formue overføres til unge arvinger. Når det gjelder akademisk suksess, er det langt sterkere fokus på at situasjonen til studenter som er de første i sin familie som studerer, hva det kan bety for oppnå suksess. Det er selvsagt vanskelig å spore virkninger presist, men det er i hvert fall grunn til å tro at prosjektdeltakernes formidling av forskningsresultater har bidratt til den økende interessen for temaene. Når det gjelder virkninger for prosjektets deltagere, har to deltakere, Øyvind Wiborg og Magne Flemmen, oppnådd professorkompetanse i løpet av prosjektperioden. Den som ble ansatt som postdoktor, Maren Toft, har kvalifisert seg til førstekompetanse og har oppnådd fast stilling som førsteamanuensis ved UIO. Deltakerne har også økt internasjonalt samarbeid gjennom forskningsopphold i Berlin og København, og sampublisering med utenlandske forskere.

While Scandinavan societies are widely recognized as egalitarian societies with low inequalities of income, the level of wealth inequality is found to be very high. This paradox of Scandinavian egalitarianism forms the point of departure of this project. However, the accumulation of wealth and its effects are blind spots in the sociology of stratification, which is more preoccupied with the equalizing or stratifying the impact of education. Why is this so, and what does it mean for the understanding of Scandinavian egalitarianism? This project will fill the gap in knowledge through embedding the study of wealth accumulation within the framework of a more broadly oriented sociology of stratification. By drawing on a combination of novel and recently available data sources, as well as data from contemporary administrative registers, we will unpack how structures of stratification have endured or changed during the past two hundred years, with special attention to the accumulation of wealth, the transmission of wealth across generations and the production and reproduction of ?dynasties? at the apex of the social structure. We will accomplish this through four work packages focusing on: 1) how the class structure itself changes, through the changing relations between positions and emergence of new ones; 2) changes in the accumulation and reproduction of wealth through the last decades; 3) the degree to which elites become more open over time by drawing on a Norwegian equivalent of the Who's who and other data sources providing historical and contemporary information; and 4) the changing contours of homogamy, and class endogamy, as a way to gauge the relative permeability of class boundaries over time.

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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam