ABSTRACT
The impact of globalization on inequality across and within countries is still very controversial. There are many contending diagnoses, explanations, and predictions. Scholars have presented contradictory opinions about whether the inequality within countries and the North–South discrepancy on the globe have been widened or narrowed in the course of globalization. Despite the disagreements there seems to be a consensus that intra-national inequalities in income, asset, and quality of life have been increasing in economically developed countries where the problem of inequality was believed to have been already largely solved (Mills 2009). A series of globalization-related factors like deindustrialization of employment structure, growing foreign direct investments, the intensification of international competition, and increased North–South trade contributed to the rise of inequality in those countries. No less important in explaining the increasing inequality are institutional factors such as the fall of union density rate, weakening power of labor, and increasing restrictions on regulatory and redistributive capacities of the state. All these processes have to do with economic globalization (Alderson and Nielsen 2002; Beck 2002; Gustafsson and Johansson 1999; Streeck 1998).
