ABSTRACT
Rising height across an entire population therefore provides one of our clearest signs that the well-being of that population is increasing, and marked adult height differentials by social category within the male or female population provide a strong indicator of durable inequality. Bounded categories deserve special attention because they provide clearer evidence for the operation of durable inequality, because their boundaries do crucial organizational work, and because categorical differences actually account for much of what ordinary observers take to be results of variation in individual talent or effort. Durable inequality among categories arises because people who control access to value-producing resources solve pressing organizational problems by means of categorical distinctions. Durable inequality depends heavily on the institutionalization of categorical pairs. The basic mechanisms that generate inequality operate in a similar fashion over a wide variety of organizational settings as well as over a great range of unequal outcomes: income, wealth, power, deference, fame, privilege, and more.
