ABSTRACT
Social scientific analysis of labour market inequality has generated two main narratives: an efficiency-driven narrative and a socially driven narrative. The standard, efficiency-driven economic narrative of labour market inequality holds that such inequality results straightforwardly from the interplay of supply and demand in a market for individual skills. But much social science research points to a very different, socially driven account of labour market inequality. Norms and stereotypes channel action in labour markets. Power disparities and the imperatives of organizational maintenance decisively shape labour market outcomes. Labour markets are constructed not simply of striving individuals, but of pervasive networks.
