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We explore the differential permeability of three class boundaries--the boundaries determined by property, authority and expertise--to intergenerational mobility among men in four developed capitalist economies: the United States, Canada, Norway and Sweden. We conclude: (1) In all four countries, the authority boundary is the most permeable to intergenerational mobility; (2) in the two North American countries, the patterns of permeability of class boundaries are broadly consistent with the expectations of neo-Marxist conceptualizations of class--the property boundary is the least permeable, followed by the expertise boundary, and then the authority boundary; (3) in the two Scandinavian countries, especially in Sweden, the property and expertise boundaries do not differ significantly in their degree of permeability; (4) the class boundary between workers and capitalists is less permeable than would be predicted from a strictly additive model of the permeability of the three dimensions of the class structure (property + authority + expertise); and (5) in the United States and Canada, the patterns of class boundary permeability to mobility are similar to the patterns of permeability to friendship and cross-class marriages, while mobility patterns in Norway and Sweden differ from friendship and marriage patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine gender differences in the relative poverty of men and women in eight industrialized countries. The analyses are based on data from the Luxembourg Income Study, which includes data from the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Sweden, Italy, and the Netherlands. We examine the importance of the gender-specific demographic compositions of marriage, parenthood, and employment in accounting for differences in men's and women's poverty rates, both within and across countries. The cross-national comparisons suggest that the relative importance of demographic characteristics differs by country and that factors such as religion, culture, and government policies also help determine the gap between women's and men's poverty rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural analysis of classes can be divided into the analysis of class locations and the analysis of permeability of boundaries separating those locations. Marxist analysis of class structure has been primarily concerned with the first of these while Weberian class analysis has focused on the second. We attempt to combine a Marxist structural class concept, which views class locations in capitalist societies as structured by exploitation based on property relations, authority relations and expertise, with the Weberian concern with the ways lives of individuals traverse the boundaries of that structure. We examine patterns of friendship ties across class boundaries in four contemporary capitalist societies: the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Norway. Three empirical conclusions stand out: (1) The property-based class boundary is the least permeable of the three exploitation dimensions; (2) the authority-based class boundary is significantly more permeable than the expertise-based boundary; and (3)patterns of inter-class friendships are largely invariant across these four countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]