The Oxford Handbook of Social Stratification brings together leading experts to demonstrate the value of stratification research for sociology's past and future as a population science. In an era of profound transformation, characterized by growing inequalities, political unrest, technological disruption, demographic changes, and global crises, the need for rigorous scholarship on social stratification is crucial. This Handbook provides a forward-looking overview, illustrating how the field remains grounded in its scholarly roots while expanding to address contemporary social inequality dynamics.With historical insights, analytical precision, and methodological rigor, the Handbook serves as both a comprehensive field assessment and a roadmap for future research. Part I covers core concepts such as social class, gender, race, education, and life course analysis. Part II offers state-of-the-art research insights on social mobility, family dynamics, education and labor markets, migration, discrimination, and policy, connecting these to classical sociological questions. Part III explores future research directions, incorporating innovations from behavioral and cognitive sciences, sociogenomics, cultural analysis, and responses to global crises. Broad, cohesive, and accessible, the volume is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in understanding the construction, maintenance, and challenge of social hierarchies and their impact on shaping 21st-century societies.

European unification represents major challenges to national institutional frameworks as well as significant pressures for institutional convergence. So far, labour markets have actually seen relatively little convergence, and national institutions have remained highly distinct. Against this background, the book provides an encompassing comparative analysis of school-to-work transitions in EU member states. It shows how differences in both European education and training systems, as well as labour market institutions, generated significant variation in the experiences of young people entering European labour markets during the 1990s. This book compiles an integrated series of comparative empirical analyses of education-to-work transitions across the EU by drawing on the European Labour Force Surveys. Individual chapters describe the educational background of young people entering the labour market, address the scope of educational expansion in recent decades, and chart basic structures of transition processes in European labour markets. Chapters not only examine the role of education for successful labour market integration, but also the impact of macroeconomic, structural, and institutional factors on young people's chances of avoiding unemployment and attaining employment in occupations appropriate to their education and training. From these analyses it becomes apparent that the structure of education and training systems is the key institutional factor behind successful youth labour market integration. At the level of intermediate skills, dual systems of training have retained their advantages in terms of reduced youth unemployment. High levels of education still constitute a key asset, for, despite significant educational expansion in recent decades, devaluation trends have been limited. As youth labour markets are found to be particularly responsive to macroeconomic conditions, however, macroeconomic stability turns out to be an equally important predicament to successful youth labour market integration, in particular among those with low levels of education.

In writing this book, I increasingly became aware of the extent to which much of the finest social science research has been devoted to the issue of unemployment. Unemployment rightly is a key issue in the social sciences for search of social and political answers to the economic, social and psychological distress caused by un­ certainty and macroeconomic change. I was glad to find my own worries shared by eminent and respected scholars: George Akerlof once confessed to pursue the study of unemployment ultimately because of his father''s distress from fear of un­ employment, and Wout Ultee started research on unemployment from the consid­ eration that parents'' talk about unemployment risks should not come to dominate marriage parties or other family occasions. The problem of unemployment is thus hardly confmed to actual loss of income, but one where economic insecurity be­ gins to undermine the very fabric of society. In consequence, to combat unem­ ployment should indeed be a foremost issue in societies striving for freedom and justice for their citizenry, yet to succeed obviously requires an understanding of the underlying economic realities. If this study could contribute to this endeavor, all the time spent in writing would seem well spent indeed. Against the significant body of existing social science research on unemploy­ ment, it seems appropriate to be clear about the scope and limitations of the cur­ rent study, however.

In writing this book, I increasingly became aware of the extent to which much of the finest social science research has been devoted to the issue of unemployment. Unemployment rightly is a key issue in the social sciences for search of social and political answers to the economic, social and psychological distress caused by un­ certainty and macroeconomic change. I was glad to find my own worries shared by eminent and respected scholars: George Akerlof once confessed to pursue the study of unemployment ultimately because of his father's distress from fear of un­ employment, and Wout Ultee started research on unemployment from the consid­ eration that parents' talk about unemployment risks should not come to dominate marriage parties or other family occasions. The problem of unemployment is thus hardly confmed to actual loss of income, but one where economic insecurity be­ gins to undermine the very fabric of society. In consequence, to combat unem­ ployment should indeed be a foremost issue in societies striving for freedom and justice for their citizenry, yet to succeed obviously requires an understanding of the underlying economic realities. If this study could contribute to this endeavor, all the time spent in writing would seem well spent indeed. Against the significant body of existing social science research on unemploy­ ment, it seems appropriate to be clear about the scope and limitations of the cur­ rent study, however.

The Oxford Handbook of Social Stratification brings together leading experts to demonstrate the value of stratification research for sociology's past and future as a population science. In an era of profound transformation, characterized by growing inequalities, political unrest, technological disruption, demographic changes, and global crises, the need for rigorous scholarship on social stratification is crucial. This Handbook provides a forward-looking overview, illustrating how the field remains grounded in its scholarly roots while expanding to address contemporary social inequality dynamics.With historical insights, analytical precision, and methodological rigor, the Handbook serves as both a comprehensive field assessment and a roadmap for future research. Part I covers core concepts such as social class, gender, race, education, and life course analysis. Part II offers state-of-the-art research insights on social mobility, family dynamics, education and labor markets, migration, discrimination, and policy, connecting these to classical sociological questions. Part III explores future research directions, incorporating innovations from behavioral and cognitive sciences, sociogenomics, cultural analysis, and responses to global crises. Broad, cohesive, and accessible, the volume is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in understanding the construction, maintenance, and challenge of social hierarchies and their impact on shaping 21st-century societies.

European unification represents major challenges to national institutional frameworks as well as significant pressures for institutional convergence. So far, labour markets have actually seen relatively little convergence, and national institutions have remained highly distinct. Against this background, the book provides an encompassing comparative analysis of school-to-work transitions in EU member states. It shows how differences in both European education and training systems, as well as labour market institutions, generated significant variation in the experiences of young people entering European labour markets during the 1990s. This book compiles an integrated series of comparative empirical analyses of education-to-work transitions across the EU by drawing on the European Labour Force Surveys. Individual chapters describe the educational background of young people entering the labour market, address the scope of educational expansion in recent decades, and chart basic structures of transition processes in European labour markets. Chapters not only examine the role of education for successful labour market integration, but also the impact of macroeconomic, structural, and institutional factors on young people's chances of avoiding unemployment and attaining employment in occupations appropriate to their education and training. From these analyses it becomes apparent that the structure of education and training systems is the key institutional factor behind successful youth labour market integration. At the level of intermediate skills, dual systems of training have retained their advantages in terms of reduced youth unemployment. High levels of education still constitute a key asset, for, despite significant educational expansion in recent decades, devaluation trends have been limited. As youth labour markets are found to be particularly responsive to macroeconomic conditions, however, macroeconomic stability turns out to be an equally important predicament to successful youth labour market integration, in particular among those with low levels of education.

In writing this book, I increasingly became aware of the extent to which much of the finest social science research has been devoted to the issue of unemployment. Unemployment rightly is a key issue in the social sciences for search of social and political answers to the economic, social and psychological distress caused by un­ certainty and macroeconomic change. I was glad to find my own worries shared by eminent and respected scholars: George Akerlof once confessed to pursue the study of unemployment ultimately because of his father''s distress from fear of un­ employment, and Wout Ultee started research on unemployment from the consid­ eration that parents'' talk about unemployment risks should not come to dominate marriage parties or other family occasions. The problem of unemployment is thus hardly confmed to actual loss of income, but one where economic insecurity be­ gins to undermine the very fabric of society. In consequence, to combat unem­ ployment should indeed be a foremost issue in societies striving for freedom and justice for their citizenry, yet to succeed obviously requires an understanding of the underlying economic realities. If this study could contribute to this endeavor, all the time spent in writing would seem well spent indeed. Against the significant body of existing social science research on unemploy­ ment, it seems appropriate to be clear about the scope and limitations of the cur­ rent study, however.

In writing this book, I increasingly became aware of the extent to which much of the finest social science research has been devoted to the issue of unemployment. Unemployment rightly is a key issue in the social sciences for search of social and political answers to the economic, social and psychological distress caused by un­ certainty and macroeconomic change. I was glad to find my own worries shared by eminent and respected scholars: George Akerlof once confessed to pursue the study of unemployment ultimately because of his father's distress from fear of un­ employment, and Wout Ultee started research on unemployment from the consid­ eration that parents' talk about unemployment risks should not come to dominate marriage parties or other family occasions. The problem of unemployment is thus hardly confmed to actual loss of income, but one where economic insecurity be­ gins to undermine the very fabric of society. In consequence, to combat unem­ ployment should indeed be a foremost issue in societies striving for freedom and justice for their citizenry, yet to succeed obviously requires an understanding of the underlying economic realities. If this study could contribute to this endeavor, all the time spent in writing would seem well spent indeed. Against the significant body of existing social science research on unemploy­ ment, it seems appropriate to be clear about the scope and limitations of the cur­ rent study, however.