ABSTRACT
As scholars across the social sciences have become interested again in the problem of inequality, research on the issue has become increasingly wide-ranging. At first the primary concern was with income inequality, which declined in the first few decades of strong economic growth following World War II and then reversed course in the late 1960s, to nearly everyone’s surprise. Then economists-and it has been primarily economists working on the issue of rising inequality-tried to understand this new trend through the lens of another startling trend: the decline in wages among non-college-educated men that was fueling the dramatic increase in male wage inequality. Since racial disparities also began to rise after nearly two decades of steady progress, race has figured prominently in discussions of the new social inequality as well. As for gender, many scholars have at least called attention to the recent and significant closing of the gender wage gap, which stemmed in part from men’s deteriorating wages.1
