Bibliographic record
Abstract
So far, our discussion has been almost exclusively about inequality in the United States. Although inequality and stratification in the United States are clearly complex enough to warrant the space given them, it is important to remember that patterns of stratification and the processes leading to them are different in other countries. It also is informative to consider where the United States falls in the larger picture. There are no contemporary societies in which resources are equally distributed, but the degree of inequality varies dramatically among countries. In particular, the disparity between the very rich and the very poor often differs notably across countries. This is especially true when comparing developed countries (e.g., Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom) with those that are still developing (e.g., Brazil, China, Hungary, India, and Mexico). Understanding how the United States compares to other countries puts in perspective the processes we encounter close to home. This chapter explores how the United States compares to other countries in terms of inequality and stratification. We consider various dimensions of inequality starting with a comparison of the United States to other developed countries. We explore cross-national patterns of income, poverty, work, mobility, and other indicators of well-being, such as the nature of the welfare state and the ownership of housing and other forms of wealth. We then compare developed countries to countries that are still developing. We explore multiple dimensions of inequality to provide as complete a picture as possible. We conclude with a discussion of inequality in transition economies – those that have undergone a transformation in recent decades from socialism to more market-oriented economic systems. As we consider inequality in comparative perspective, a special caveat is in order: The data used to compare countries can vary in subtle but important ways. As we discuss how the United States compares, remember that minor differences in data collection and analysis can have significant implications for interpretation. As with all data, read with a critical eye and an understanding that no empirical evidence is perfect.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.026 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".