ABSTRACT
Inequality is an issue which has always fascinated and energized human beings, in their roles of citizens as well as of social scientists. As Norberto Bobbio (1996) has pointed out, in Western societies views on inequality can serve as a prism separating the political left and the political right. Social scientists have traditionally studied inequality in terms of the distribution of material and other advantages among socio-economic classes or strata. In these distributive conflicts, issues related to the relative roles to be played by markets and democratic politics have been in the forefront. Here social scientists have seen political measures, especially those associated with the welfare state, as being of major relevance for the patterning and degree of inequality. While the mainstream focus in politics as well as in research thus has been on inequality in terms of class, there have long been undercurrents focusing on inequality in terms of gender. A couple of decades ago, these undercurrents came to the surface in the social sciences, where they generated considerable turbulence. Also in the context of gender inequality, however, the role of welfare states has been a central issue.
