ABSTRACT

Differentiation along ethnic, sociocultural, or sectoral lines is by comparison a much more important factor in the generation of social inequality in the United States. The opposite trend is observed with regard to the relevance of sectoral membership for explaining income inequality. Income is of course a fundamental dimension of social rewards and hence of the “life chances” associated with certain positions. An examination of which sectors are typically better or worse paid in the United States than in Europe shows a consistent pattern. There is a clearly lower income level in the United States than in the Federal Republic and France in agriculture, the textile industry, and in some cases the clothing industry, in lower-level personal services, in commerce, and in the administrative and professionalized services. Agriculture was excluded from the analysis because of its very lopsided positional structure.