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The inequality of security: Winners and losers in the risk society

Department of Sociology of the University of California, Berkeley, coops{at}berkeley.edu

Current analyses of the changing nature of risk provide a`top-down' perspective that fails to consider variation among the individuals that these changes act upon. Drawing on a qualitative study of 89 workers who are members of 50 socioeconomically diverse families in Silicon Valley, California, this article explores the variability among workers by examining how an individual's social class background influences both their level of exposure to risk and their ability to navigate through the `risk society'. By employing Bourdieu's framework, the study finds that the attributes now expected of the ideal risk society subject are in actuality reflective of economic, social and cultural capitals most commonly held by the highly educated, middle and upper-middle classes. Consequently, in the current political environment where individuals are viewed as enterprising consumers responsible for their own welfare, those who possess the `right' capitals are advantaged, while those who do not are disadvantaged. This article employs life history case studies of two workers in different structural locations to highlight the different `capitals' workers have at their disposal, and shows how structural positions and cultural dispositions interact over time influencing future levels of inequality. In doing so, the article illustrates how the removal of public safety nets exacerbates existing disparities and causes the disadvantaged to fall even further behind. These disparities among workers constitute an inequality of security that engenders winners and losers in the risk society.

Key Words: cultural capital • economic capital • increasing inequality • new economy • risk • social capital

Human Relations, Vol. 61, No. 9, 1229-1258 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726708094911


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