Nora Waitkus
Biographic Data
| ID | 84518 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nora Waitkus |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nora |
| FAMILY NAME | Waitkus |
| SIGNATURE | WAITKUS N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tilburg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6905-3360 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Communication about economic inequality
What do we know about representations of economic inequality in media, and how well does this account for media transformations like hybridization? This article uses a systematic review of academic literature on mediated communication about economic inequality, in order to assess the current state of research around salience, framing, explanatory factors and effects of this kind of inequality discourse. We find an overwhelming focus on legacy new…
Undeserving heirs
Inherited wealth has often been accumulated under circumstances seen as undeserving by present-day standards. However, there is surprisingly little knowledge about the political consequences of wealth’s history. We argue that illegitimate accumulation nurtures opposition and calls for redistribution, even after multiple generations. To test our theory, we conduct a survey in Germany, where many wealthy business owners inherited companies that mad…
A New Housing Class
This comment argues that the concept of the “zone of precarity” offers a valuable lens for rethinking recent housing class dynamics. Smith and Wood propose that individuals striving to own or fearing they will lose ownership might share common concerns around housing affordability and security—forming a fringe space that reveals complex interactions within contemporary housing classes. While compelling, this space is difficult to empirically loca…
Wealth and Class Analysis
Wealth inequalities are increasingly prominent in contemporary societies but they have not been systematically addressed by sociological class analysis. However, class analysis should have a lot to offer: in the literature on wealth inequality, wealth is often approached as a unidimensional distribution - a quantity one can possess more or less of, crystallized in notions of the Top 1%. In this theoretical intervention, we discuss ways in which c…
Where Income Becomes Wealth
The authors study the role of redistributive policy in comparative research on the determinants of wealth. The authors argue that public redistribution affects the level of net wealth by moderating the household-level association of income and wealth. Drawing on microdata for 14 countries from the Luxembourg Wealth Study, and spending and revenue data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the authors use ordinary least …
Ungleicher Besitz. Perspektiven einer klassensoziologischen Untersuchung von Vermögen
Das Schisma zwischen Eigentum und Nicht-Eigentum an Produktivvermögen galt einst als der zentrale Klassengegensatz in kapitalistischen Gesellschaften. In den klassensoziologischen Debatten der letzten Dekaden wurde die Vermögensungleichheit dagegen eher randständig behandelt. In Deutschland besitzt das reichste Prozent der Bevölkerung rund 35 Prozent des gesamten Vermögens, und bis weit in die Mittelschichten hinein haben Wohneigentum und Finanzv…
Introduction
Legitimate Wealth? How Wealthy Business Owners are Portrayed in the Press
Germany has one of the highest levels of wealth concentration of any Western capitalist country. Research on the legitimization of economic inequality highlights that wealth elites tend to stress meritocratic arguments for legitimizing elite positions and wealth accumulation. However, whether this is also the case for wealthy business owners and how the media tends to portray those remains largely unknown. Drawing on a unique sample of 899 press …
Comparing Child Wealth Inequality Across Countries
Fabian T. Pfeffer a, Nora Waitkus b, Comparing Child Wealth Inequality Across Countries, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 3, Wealth Inequality and Child Development: Implications for Policy and Practice (August 2021), pp. 28-49
Investigating the Gender Wealth Gap Across Occupational Classes
This study examines the role of occupational class in the Gender Wealth Gap (GWG). Despite rising interest in gender differences in wealth, the central role of occupations in restricting and enabling its accumulation has received less scrutiny thus far. Drawing on the German Socio-economic Panel, we employ quantile regressions and decomposition techniques. We find explanatory power of occupational class for the gender wealth gap, which operates d…
Property, wealth, and social change
This paper applauds the vision and originality of Piketty's Capital and Ideology. We draw attention to the distinctive methodological perspective which he adopts, which we liken to call "social science engineering." This allows a problem oriented perspective on long-term global social change which sidesteps siloed disciplinary debates in social science and history about the meaning of modernity, the rise of capitalism, the formation of social gro…
The Wealth Inequality of Nations
Comparative research on income inequality has produced several frameworks to study the institutional determinants of income stratification. In contrast, no such framework and much less empirical evidence exist to explain cross-national differences in wealth inequality. This situation is particularly lamentable as cross-national patterns of inequality in wealth diverge sharply from those in income. We seek to pave the way for new explanations of c…
Statuskonkurrenzen und soziale Spaltungen. Zur Dynamik sozialer Ungleichheiten
In view of increased economic inequalities, modernisation theory fails to account for contemporary dynamics of social inequality. Based on an alternative narrative of marketisation, this article outlines how inequality dynamics evolve in “high inequality regimes”. The authors propose an analytical distinction between the dynamics of social segregation, leading to socio-economic as well as cultural and political closure of social class milieus, an…
The Wealth Inequality of Nations
Comparative research on income inequality has produced several frameworks to study the institutional determinants of income stratification. In contrast, no such framework and much less empirical evidence exist to explain cross-national differences in wealth inequality. This situation is particularly lamentable as cross-national patterns of inequality in wealth diverge sharply from those in income. We seek to pave the way for new explanations of c…
Investigating the Gender Wealth Gap Across Occupational Classes
This study examines the role of occupational class in the Gender Wealth Gap (GWG). Despite rising interest in gender differences in wealth, the central role of occupations in restricting and enabling its accumulation has received less scrutiny thus far. Drawing on the German Socio-economic Panel, we employ quantile regressions and decomposition techniques. We find explanatory power of occupational class for the gender wealth gap, which operates d…
Legitimate Wealth? How Wealthy Business Owners are Portrayed in the Press
Germany has one of the highest levels of wealth concentration of any Western capitalist country. Research on the legitimization of economic inequality highlights that wealth elites tend to stress meritocratic arguments for legitimizing elite positions and wealth accumulation. However, whether this is also the case for wealthy business owners and how the media tends to portray those remains largely unknown. Drawing on a unique sample of 899 press …
Wealth and Class Analysis
Wealth inequalities are increasingly prominent in contemporary societies but they have not been systematically addressed by sociological class analysis. However, class analysis should have a lot to offer: in the literature on wealth inequality, wealth is often approached as a unidimensional distribution - a quantity one can possess more or less of, crystallized in notions of the Top 1%. In this theoretical intervention, we discuss ways in which c…
Comparing Child Wealth Inequality Across Countries
Fabian T. Pfeffer a, Nora Waitkus b, Comparing Child Wealth Inequality Across Countries, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 3, Wealth Inequality and Child Development: Implications for Policy and Practice (August 2021), pp. 28-49
Property, wealth, and social change
This paper applauds the vision and originality of Piketty's Capital and Ideology. We draw attention to the distinctive methodological perspective which he adopts, which we liken to call "social science engineering." This allows a problem oriented perspective on long-term global social change which sidesteps siloed disciplinary debates in social science and history about the meaning of modernity, the rise of capitalism, the formation of social gro…
Ungleicher Besitz. Perspektiven einer klassensoziologischen Untersuchung von Vermögen
Das Schisma zwischen Eigentum und Nicht-Eigentum an Produktivvermögen galt einst als der zentrale Klassengegensatz in kapitalistischen Gesellschaften. In den klassensoziologischen Debatten der letzten Dekaden wurde die Vermögensungleichheit dagegen eher randständig behandelt. In Deutschland besitzt das reichste Prozent der Bevölkerung rund 35 Prozent des gesamten Vermögens, und bis weit in die Mittelschichten hinein haben Wohneigentum und Finanzv…
Introduction
Statuskonkurrenzen und soziale Spaltungen. Zur Dynamik sozialer Ungleichheiten
In view of increased economic inequalities, modernisation theory fails to account for contemporary dynamics of social inequality. Based on an alternative narrative of marketisation, this article outlines how inequality dynamics evolve in “high inequality regimes”. The authors propose an analytical distinction between the dynamics of social segregation, leading to socio-economic as well as cultural and political closure of social class milieus, an…
Comparing Child Wealth Inequality Across Countries
Fabian T. Pfeffer a, Nora Waitkus b, Comparing Child Wealth Inequality Across Countries, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 3, Wealth Inequality and Child Development: Implications for Policy and Practice (August 2021), pp. 28-49
Investigating the Gender Wealth Gap Across Occupational Classes
This study examines the role of occupational class in the Gender Wealth Gap (GWG). Despite rising interest in gender differences in wealth, the central role of occupations in restricting and enabling its accumulation has received less scrutiny thus far. Drawing on the German Socio-economic Panel, we employ quantile regressions and decomposition techniques. We find explanatory power of occupational class for the gender wealth gap, which operates d…
Property, wealth, and social change
This paper applauds the vision and originality of Piketty's Capital and Ideology. We draw attention to the distinctive methodological perspective which he adopts, which we liken to call "social science engineering." This allows a problem oriented perspective on long-term global social change which sidesteps siloed disciplinary debates in social science and history about the meaning of modernity, the rise of capitalism, the formation of social gro…
The Wealth Inequality of Nations
Comparative research on income inequality has produced several frameworks to study the institutional determinants of income stratification. In contrast, no such framework and much less empirical evidence exist to explain cross-national differences in wealth inequality. This situation is particularly lamentable as cross-national patterns of inequality in wealth diverge sharply from those in income. We seek to pave the way for new explanations of c…
Introduction
Legitimate Wealth? How Wealthy Business Owners are Portrayed in the Press
Germany has one of the highest levels of wealth concentration of any Western capitalist country. Research on the legitimization of economic inequality highlights that wealth elites tend to stress meritocratic arguments for legitimizing elite positions and wealth accumulation. However, whether this is also the case for wealthy business owners and how the media tends to portray those remains largely unknown. Drawing on a unique sample of 899 press …
Ungleicher Besitz. Perspektiven einer klassensoziologischen Untersuchung von Vermögen
Das Schisma zwischen Eigentum und Nicht-Eigentum an Produktivvermögen galt einst als der zentrale Klassengegensatz in kapitalistischen Gesellschaften. In den klassensoziologischen Debatten der letzten Dekaden wurde die Vermögensungleichheit dagegen eher randständig behandelt. In Deutschland besitzt das reichste Prozent der Bevölkerung rund 35 Prozent des gesamten Vermögens, und bis weit in die Mittelschichten hinein haben Wohneigentum und Finanzv…
Where Income Becomes Wealth
The authors study the role of redistributive policy in comparative research on the determinants of wealth. The authors argue that public redistribution affects the level of net wealth by moderating the household-level association of income and wealth. Drawing on microdata for 14 countries from the Luxembourg Wealth Study, and spending and revenue data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the authors use ordinary least …
Communication about economic inequality
What do we know about representations of economic inequality in media, and how well does this account for media transformations like hybridization? This article uses a systematic review of academic literature on mediated communication about economic inequality, in order to assess the current state of research around salience, framing, explanatory factors and effects of this kind of inequality discourse. We find an overwhelming focus on legacy new…
Undeserving heirs
Inherited wealth has often been accumulated under circumstances seen as undeserving by present-day standards. However, there is surprisingly little knowledge about the political consequences of wealth’s history. We argue that illegitimate accumulation nurtures opposition and calls for redistribution, even after multiple generations. To test our theory, we conduct a survey in Germany, where many wealthy business owners inherited companies that mad…
A New Housing Class
This comment argues that the concept of the “zone of precarity” offers a valuable lens for rethinking recent housing class dynamics. Smith and Wood propose that individuals striving to own or fearing they will lose ownership might share common concerns around housing affordability and security—forming a fringe space that reveals complex interactions within contemporary housing classes. While compelling, this space is difficult to empirically loca…
Wealth and Class Analysis
Wealth inequalities are increasingly prominent in contemporary societies but they have not been systematically addressed by sociological class analysis. However, class analysis should have a lot to offer: in the literature on wealth inequality, wealth is often approached as a unidimensional distribution - a quantity one can possess more or less of, crystallized in notions of the Top 1%. In this theoretical intervention, we discuss ways in which c…
Political science (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (8 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Demographic economics (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Inequality (4 works) · Law (4 works) · National wealth (4 works) · Neoclassical economics (4 works)