Glossary

Gender is a concept that describes cultural differences between men and women. Unlike the notion of sex, which relies mainly on biological features, gender involves primarily social expectations, attitudes and practices that are considered more appropriate or suited for one group over another. Recently, the notion that there are gender identities beyond the binary of male and female has gained strength. An example of gender is what is expected of gender roles in paid work. Women are expected to work in occupations related to care giving and domestic housework; and men are expected to work in occupations associated with production and manual labour.

Refers to how unevenly people are treated due to their gender. In most societies, men tend to enjoy more opportunities, advantages and rights than women and people identifying as non-binary. Gender inequality unfolds over time and is manifested in diverse settings, such as educational institutions, in the workplace, and in access to financial loans or property ownership. In most societies, for example, women are expected and tend to assume more unpaid work, such as domestic work, care and support activities for other households, community and voluntary work.

Is a process of neighborhood change that includes economic change in a historically disinvested neighborhood —by means of real estate investment and new higher-income residents moving in - as well as demographic change - not only in terms of income level, but also in terms of changes in the education level or racial make-up of residents.  Often, the process ends up making housing and lifestyle in the neighborhood not affordable for low-income households who used to live in the area.

Is the change of residence of people between countries, cities or regions regardless of their legal status, the reason for the movement or the duration and permanence of their stay. An example of this phenomenon is the geographical movement that occurred in most countries where people from rural areas moved to urban areas in search of better professional and educational opportunities.

Refers to the barriers faced by women in their jobs due to their gender in different occupational fields (e.g., culture, politics, and business). These barriers can adopt two main forms. The first is a pay gap negatively affecting women in top income occupations, such as law, medicine, and finance. The second concerns the low representation of women in senior positions in most organisations, positions typically held by men.

Is a metaphor used to explain gender segregation, specifically the structural advantage that males possess in female-dominated occupations that tend to help them move up the ladders in the workplace and advance their careers (the opposite of the glass ceiling). Some examples of this condition may be found in healthcare work or school teaching. Indeed, men tend to be perceived as possessing more desirable qualities for leadership roles than women, and, as a consequence, they are fast-tracked into supervisor roles.

Besides the geographical division between the north and south hemisphere, the term Global North refers to a group of countries located in North America, Europe, and the United Kingdom, characterised by their wealth, technological advancement, and geopolitical power. This does not imply that everyone in the Global North is wealthy and powerful There are significant inequalities both within and between the Global North countries.

Besides the geographical division between the south and north hemisphere, the term Global South is employed to describe a group of countries located in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania, which are characterised by their low income, large inequalities, and geopolitical marginalisation. Another meaning refers to a space of resistance to the effects of power concentration and colonisation in the Global North, for example by highlighting other types of knowledge, such as indigenous and tribal knowledge.

Refers to the unequal distribution of health outcomes and access to healthcare among different social groups within a society. Health inequality is rooted in structural inequalities, such as wealth inequality and social stratification that exist within societies. Socially disadvantaged groups, such as those with lower socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic minorities, and marginalised populations, often experience higher rates of health problems and poorer health outcomes compared to more advantaged groups. This can involve differences in morbidity (the prevalence of diseases and illnesses), mortality rates, life expectancy, disability rates, and overall well-being.

Refers to the informal and unspoken norms, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours transmitted by the different actors that make up a specific educational setting. These cultural elements are implicitly conveyed within teaching and learning scenarios and they respond to the dominant values within a certain society or community. Thus, the hidden curriculum may repress children’s and young people's identity, culture, and knowledge they bring from their own social background. A hidden curriculum reinforces and reproduces uneven social relations and may hinder social mobility.

The knowledge, skills, abilities, and social attributes that individuals possess and can utilise in the pursuit of economic and social opportunities. It is a concept that recognizes the value of individual capabilities as a form of capital that can contribute to individual and collective well-being, productivity, and social mobility. Human capital is seen as a form of capital that individuals can accumulate and leverage to improve their life chances and social standing.

Identities configure fundamental features of a person or a collective. Rather than being inherently fixed, natural expressions, they are sociocultural constructs. They emerge while interacting with others. Identities may be related to ethnic, religious, class, gender, sexual or other social categories. Identities are crucial to comprehend different forms of social inequalities that affect disadvantaged and stigmatised groups.

Is the process of growing participation and recognition of people in society. It involves enhancing people’s opportunities and access to resources, ensuring their rights, dignity and identities are respected, and improving the terms of participation in society for people who are disadvantaged on the basis of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion, economic or any other status through enhanced opportunities. An example of inclusion is inclusive education, where all students are welcomed and included at the educational institution and in the classroom, so everyone (e.g., students with disabilities or pupils from minority ethnic groups), regardless of their differences, takes part in the educational process as an equal.

Refers to an approach that seeks to ensure that the benefits generated by growth are accessible to everyone in society, a condition that would help to combat inequality and poverty. Moreover, not only should the benefits be made inclusive, but the growth processes themselves should also be accessible to all members of society. This means that marginalised groups need to be actively involved in them too.

Refers to how unevenly income (i.e., the amount of money people are paid for the work they do) is distributed within and across societies. Scandinavian societies, for example, are much more egalitarian than African or Latin American ones in terms of their income distribution. Societies with higher income inequality tend to have poorer outcomes in wellbeing, health, and social mobility.

Refers to a mandatory contribution, often imposed by governments, on the income generated by an individual, family, or company. In most countries, income tax is a responsibility of individual taxpayers, who must file an income tax return annually to define their tax obligations. Income tax is an important source of revenue for governments and it is typically used to fund government financial obligations, sustain welfare systems, and provide public goods.

Refers to how unevenly access to resources, rights and opportunities is distributed throughout individuals, families, and societies. It can manifest through hierarchies and/or boundaries associated with class, gender, ethnic inequality, or a combination of these factors. Although in recent decades income and wealth inequality have gained increasing prominence, most societies struggle with multiple types of inequality. The persistence of these compounded inequalities - class, gender, ethnic - over time are associated with less opportunities for upward mobility, poor health conditions, and different practices of discrimination and stigmatisation.

Refers to the movement of individuals, families, or groups between generations. Traditionally, mobility research has been conducted using a two-generation (parent-to-offspring) view of social mobility in society: what social class a person ends up in at some particular point in their life compared to the social class their parents were in when they were children. The daughter of an industrial worker who now works as an engineer after attending university represents a typical example of inter-generational upward mobility. 

It is a concept addressing the multiple disadvantages experienced by some individuals, families, or groups, in society. In most nations, these experiences of exclusion or disadvantage are commonly faced by minorities. For example, a black Muslim woman experiences a triple disadvantage: one related to her gender, another related to her religion and yet another to her race. Importantly, in practice, these disadvantages work together, not in isolation. The notion of intersectionality serves to tackle the connection between these two or more forms of disadvantage that can block or hinder opportunities of upward mobility.

Refers to the movement of individuals, families, or groups over their own lifetime. It includes the possibility of moving up or down within or across societies in terms of income, occupation, status, education. A career promotion is a typical case of intra-generational mobility within an organisation: an employee advances to a position that is classified at a higher salary rank, or in certain circumstances, an acknowledgment of greater responsibilities above the rank that person was previously employed in.

Refers to how people’s work is valued and respected, and meaningfully contributes to the goals of the organisation (e.g., private sector, government, NGOs) in which they work. Job quality includes not only contractual clarity between employer and employee, but also having a voice in one’s workplace and the opportunity to shape one’s work life. Job quality is strongly related to the quality of individuals’ lives and their well-being, as well as their productivity, economic performance, and chances of occupational mobility. Stagnating economic growth can be a threat to job quality and indeed lead it to deteriorate. Such conditions may lead to a rise in job informality – a phenomenon that continues to exist in many countries.

Refers to the opportunities that individuals have to access different resources, goods, and services. Typically, life chances are defined by people’s class position and status in society. Thereby, in unequal societies, individuals have different life chances according to their specific social characteristics (e.g., class, ethnicity or gender). On the other hand, societies that offer greater life chances for their members, which includes access to quality education and employment, can also offer greater possibilities for upward social mobility.

Refers to the skills and competencies that individuals develop to read and write throughout their lives, although literacy is also related to speaking and the ability to communicate. Given that building literacy starts before schooling, children’s significant others, such as the members of their family, are particularly relevant in the first stage of the literacy process. Then, schools play a fundamental role in literacy acquisition. Education inequalities may result in uneven levels of literacy between social groups, which implies fewer life chances and possibilities for social mobility for members of excluded groups.

The guidance provided by an individual with advanced experience and knowledge in the workplace or an educational institution to younger or less experienced people. This guidance provides support and increases the possibility of mentees’ upward mobility. It has also been suggested that mentoring can have benefits regarding gender equality. For example, when women climb to senior roles, they can mentor junior women within the workplace or school, sharing leadership behaviours that are non-gender specific and how to tackle the barriers that women face at work.

Refers to the principle stating that it is merit based on individual merit or effort, not social background or inherited resources, that should determine who experiences upward or downward mobility in society. This principle has gained increasing popularity across the globe in recent decades. But higher levels of inequality, particularly wealth inequality (e.g., inherited resources), threaten the successful implementation of the meritocratic principle in society. Social mobility research acts as a fundamental check on how the meritocratic principle is met in reality.

Refers to the movement of individuals, families, or groups across more than two generations. Multi-generational mobility is particularly significant to study the accumulation and transmission of wealth inequality in families and households across many generations, including the role of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. For instance, recent research reveals that in many nations there are associations between the wealth held by grandparents and that of grandchildren, independent of the wealth held by parents.

Is the movement of individuals, or groups within or across social structure in terms of their occupations, which influence the chances to achieve social mobility. For example, those who lost their jobs due to the social effects of the COVID pandemic are typical examples of how downward occupational mobility means less chances to achieve upward social mobility and wealth accumulation.

Is the active participation of parents - or legal tutors - in the children’s schooling process with the aim of improving their educational experiences and school performance. Parental involvement in schooling may also involve the cooperation between parents and the school. Middle-class and upper-middle-class families are more likely to engage intensively in these kinds of routines, which may increase the advantages of the privileged groups and reinforce social inequalities.  

Refers to each of the 100 equal groups into which a population can be divided according to the distribution of values of a particular variable (e.g., income, wealth, social mobility). Percentiles are widely used in statistics and studies of inequality, particularly over the past decade. Nowadays, the study of financial elites, global inequality and wealth management has gained importance, because through such statistics and studies, it is possible to understand the difference of income and wealth between the richest and the poorest, and how to act against social inequalities.

Refers to the recognition of the coexistence of diverse social groups, beliefs, values, and interests within a society. It emphasises the idea that society is composed of multiple social, cultural, and ideological dimensions, and that no single group or perspective should dominate or suppress others. From a wealth perspective, pluralism acknowledges the coexistence of different economic structures in societies, such as capitalism, socialism, and various hybrid models, as well as diverse views on wealth distribution and economic justice.

Is a small group of people exercising power or influence on societies either directly or indirectly, by their wealth or income. That means that wealthy people can influence the decisions or establishment of government policies that benefit the rich, often at the expense of the lower classes. The word is commonly used to complain what is considered to be an unfair system.

Is a social condition characterised by inadequate access to satisfy basic necessities, limited opportunities, and marginalisation within society. It is understood as a result of the action of social and economic structures, rather than an individual failing. It encompasses a range of deprivations, including insufficient income, lack of access to education, healthcare, housing, nutritious food, and social support networks. Overall, it is a state of material, social, and symbolic deprivation that impacts individuals' well-being and opportunities for social mobility.

Refers to certain mechanisms that contribute to the perpetuation of poverty within a given society. According to proponents of this theory, these mechanisms (e.g., unequal access to education or financial services) reinforce an uneven distribution of resources and capital, which means that disadvantaged individuals or social groups remain in poverty and cannot escape it. Thus, the initial condition of poverty can be seen as the cause of a future state of poverty. This is underpinned and reinforced by structural and institutional factors (e.g., educational segregation or financial exclusion). The notion of the poverty trap may be applied not only at the level of individuals or groups but also to countries.

Is a service transfer process from the public domain to the private sector. This entails that education, infrastructure, health, or other services previously provided by public agencies are now being supplied by private enterprises or organisations. Governments have been cautious in considering which services should be provided by public institutions and which can be transferred to the private sector to ensure that they are accessible to everyone in society. Countries around the world present different levels of privatisation of their services.

Privilege is the advantage that an individual or social group obtains based on specific social, cultural, and economic characteristics. Privilege is central to the social reproduction of inequalities because it allows advantaged individuals and groups to maintain their favoured position in society over time. Aspects such as wealth and education are essential markers of privilege today, although it also has historical roots in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and other social characteristics. The actions that different political, economic, or social institutions take are essential to open opportunities to disadvantaged people or groups, and break with discriminatory practices that perpetuate privilege in society.

Is a concept introduced by Clayton Christensen, Efosa Ojomo, and Karen Dillon, which suggests that while traditional approaches to development and poverty mitigation often focus on providing aid and resources to low-income countries or communities, these efforts can sometimes involuntarily perpetuate a cycle of dependency and hinder long-term sustainable development. It is suggested that sustainable development and poverty mitigation can be achieved by focusing on empowering local communities to generate their own economic opportunities, rather than solely relying on external aid. By encouraging innovation, investment, and the creation of new markets, countries and communities can break free from the cycle of poverty and inequality and achieve lasting prosperity.