L’approccio statistico del sistema delle disuguaglianze sociali

During the 90’s different academic works have pointed to an increase of social inequalities in France. The first part of the following paper examines the question through a synthesis of the different statistical data and analysis published on the matter since the beginning of the 80’s. It also focuses on the difficulties and limits of such a statistical approach, especially according to the holistic character of social inequalities. The second part of the paper tries to throw light on three different dimensions of this holistic character: the network of interactions between the different social inequalities; the accumulation of social advantages versus the accumulation of social handicaps; and last the reproduction of inequalities through successive generations.