abstract: 'What becomes of class when residential property prices in major cities

  around the world accrue more income in a year than the average wage

  worker? This paper investigates the dynamic of combined wage

  disinflation and asset price inflation as a key to understanding the

  growth of inequality in recent decades. Taking the city of Sydney,

  Australia, as exemplary of a dynamic that has unfolded across the

  Anglo-American economies, it explains how residential property was

  constructed as a financial asset and how government policies helped to

  generate the phenomenal house price inflation and unequal capital gains

  of recent years. Proceeding in close conversation with Thomas Piketty''s

  work on inequality and recent sociological contributions to the question

  of class, we argue that employment and wage-based taxonomies of class

  are no longer adequate for understanding a process of stratification in

  which capital gains, capital income and intergenerational transfers are

  preeminent. We conclude the paper by outlining a new asset-based class

  taxonomy which we intend to specify further in subsequent work.'
affiliation: 'Cooper, M (Corresponding Author), Univ Sydney, Fac Arts \& Social Sci,
  Sch Social \& Polit Sci, Dept Sociol \& Social Policy, Rm 348 Social Sci Bldg A02,
  Sydney, NSW, Australia.

  Adkins, Lisa; Cooper, Melinda; Konings, Martijn, Univ Sydney, Fac Arts \& Social
  Sci, Sch Social \& Polit Sci, Sydney, NSW, Australia.'
article-number: 0308518X19873673
author: Adkins, Lisa and Cooper, Melinda and Konings, Martijn
author-email: melinda.cooper@sydney.edu.au
author_list:
- family: Adkins
  given: Lisa
- family: Cooper
  given: Melinda
- family: Konings
  given: Martijn
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1177/0308518X19873673
earlyaccessdate: SEP 2019
eissn: 1472-3409
files: []
issn: 0308-518X
journal: ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING A-ECONOMY AND SPACE
keywords: 'House price inflation; asset inequality; capital gains; class;

  intergenerational transfers'
keywords-plus: SOCIAL-CLASS; ACCUMULATION; LABOR; FALL; RISE
language: English
month: MAY
number: '3'
number-of-cited-references: '104'
pages: 548-572
papis_id: 6108bdd3e9ce2efe4b7ca6ed1789fc00
ref: Adkins2021class21st
times-cited: '84'
title: 'Class in the 21st century: Asset inflation and the new logic of inequality'
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000486879600001
usage-count-last-180-days: '2'
usage-count-since-2013: '17'
volume: '53'
web-of-science-categories: Environmental Studies; Geography
year: '2021'