Abstract

On the background of a review of the different levels of and pathways into inequality, the article addresses the increase in economic inequality in the developed countries. Based on the most recent analyses of the phenomenon, it points out that the weakening of the welfare state and f its redistributive efficacy is only one, although important, causes of this increase. Other, possibly more important, causes must be found at the distributive level. The Italian case offers a good example not only of the welfare state inadequacy, but of the interplay of different causes in the persistence and increase of economic and social inequality and its intergenerational reproduction.