Drawing upon perspectives from across the globe and employing an interdisciplinary life course approach, this handbook explores the production and reproduction of different types of inequality, such as economic, gender, racial and ethnic inequalities, across a variety of social contexts, including health, education and the family.

Section 1– Inequality as process

Introduction - Doing Inequalities over the life course

Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

2. Inequality across time: social change, biography and the life course

3. Dale Dannefer, Chengming Han, and Jiao Yu

4. Poverty and economic insecurity in the life course

5. Leen Vandecasteele, Dario Spini, Nicolas Sommet, and Felix Bühlmann

6. Inequality as process

7. Elisabetta Ruspini

8. Life course inequality and policy: a focus on child well-being

9. Gary Pollock, Jessica Ozan, and Haridhan Goswami

   Section 2– Assessing inequalities: complementary methods

   Introduction - Imagining the understanding of inequalities

   Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

10. Studying social inequality over the life course in modern societies. The methodological importance of life course studies

11. Gwendolin J. Blossfeld and Hans-Peter Blossfeld

12. The analysis of inequality in life trajectories: an integration of two approaches

13. Danilo Bolano and André Berchtold

14. Evolution of COVID-19 lethality and geographically contrasting socio-economic factors in Brazil: a multilevel perspective

15. Joseph F. Hair, Jr, Luiz Paulo Fávero, and Rafael de Freitas Souza

16. Health inequalities across the life course: theories, statistical pitfalls, and the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

17. Fabian Kratz

    Section 3 – The social stratification of health

    Introduction - The inherent longitudinality of health inequalities

    Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

18. Mental health inequalities

19. Jane D. McLeod and Max E. Coleman

20. How an analysis of lifespan inequality can contribute to our understanding of life course inequalities

21. Alyson van Raalte

22. Two centuries of inequalities: disability and partnership in Sweden

23. Lotta Vikström, Kateryna Karhina, and Johan Junkka

24. The Covid-19 pandemic: inequalities and the life course

25. Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Laura Bernardi, Juho Härkönen, Toni C. Antonucci, Pearl A. Dykstra, Jutta Heckhausen, Diana Kuh, Karl Ulrich Mayer, Phyllis Moen, Jeylan T. Mortimer, Clara H. Mulder, Timothy M. Smeeding, Tanja Van Der Lippe, Gunhild O. Hagestad, Martin Kohli, René Levy, Ingrid Schoon, and Elizabeth Thomson

    Section 4 – Economic and wealth inequalities

    Introduction - The challenge of complexity in the analysis of economic inequalities

    Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

26. Concepts of social stratification—static and dynamic perspectives

27. Steffen Hillmert

28. Optimising the use of measures of social stratification in research with intersectional and longitudinal analytical priorities

29. Paul Lambert and Camilla Barnett

30. Stagnation and inequality in a historical view: a comment on Piketty's analysis of capitalism and the Portuguese case

31. Francisco Louçã

32. Things can’t only get better: inequality and democracy over a life-span

33. Kevin Albertson and Richard Whittle

    Section 5 – Youth, education and transition to adulthood

    Introduction - Half way down the stairs – somewhere else instead

    Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

34. Expansion and improved permeability of post-secondary education in Germany: consequences for social inequalities in educational attainment

35. Nicole Tieben and Daniela Rohrbach-Schmidt

36. Educational expansion across cohorts and over the life course: an international comparison of (rapid) educational expansion and the consequences of the differentiation of tertiary education

37. Pia Blossfeld, Gwendolin J. Blossfeld, and Hans-Peter Blossfeld

38. Class in successive life courses in Britain since 1945

39. Ken Roberts

40. Mapping young Norwegians’ self-projects and future orientations

41. Ingunn Marie Eriksen and Kari Stefansen

    Section 6 – Family and linked lives

    Introduction - Families at the heart of linked (lives and) inequalities

    Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

42. Care inequality in later life in ageing societies: the unequal distribution of the intensity of informal support in Europe

43. Marco Albertini and Riccardo Prandini

44. The apple, the tree and the forest: family histories as radars of social mobility and inequalities

45. Magda Nico and Maria Gilvania Valdivino Silva

46. Family formation and social inequalities. A life course perspective

47. Stefano Cantalini

48. Farewell’s children: using the life course perspective to understand female late fertility Rosalina Pisco Costa

49. Section 7 – Gender inequalities

    Introduction - Gender inequalities: time-varying and trajectories

    Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

50. The mutual constitution of gendered and sexualised inequalities in life courses

51. José Fernando Serrano-Amaya

52. Gender trajectories and the production of inequalities from a life course perspective

53. Sofia Aboim and Pedro Vasconcelos

54. Inequalities in work and the intersectional life course

55. Phyllis Moen and Mahala Miller

56. LGBTIQ+ life course inequalities and queer temporalities

57. Maria do Mar Varela and Yener Bayramoğlu

    Section 8 – Racial and ethnic inequalities

    Introduction - The weight of structure on the skin

    Magda Nico and Gary Pollock

58. The centrality of race to inequality across the world-system

59. Manuela Boatca

60. A life course approach to understanding ethnic health inequalities in later life: an example using the United Kingdom as national context

61. Sarah Stopforth, Laia Bécares, James Nazroo, and Dharmi Kapadia

62. The inequalities of empire: comparative perspectives

63. Cátia Antunes and Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo

64. How the COVID-19 pandemic is shifting the migrant-inequality narrative

Ferdinand C. Mukumbang