Sociology and Social Theory

Every household has to perform housework. Using quantitative, nationally representative survey data this book theorizes about how power dynamics as reflected in housework performance help us understand broader family variations.

Why we can’t afford the rich exposes the unjust and dysfunctional mechanisms that allow the top 1% to siphon off wealth produced by others. With an updated Afterword, Andrew Sayer shows how the rich worldwide have increased their ability to hide their wealth, create indebtedness and expand their political influence.

Why we can’t afford the rich exposes the unjust and dysfunctional mechanisms that allow the top 1% to siphon off wealth produced by others. With an updated Afterword, Andrew Sayer shows how the rich worldwide have increased their ability to hide their wealth, create indebtedness and expand their political influence.

This insightful and progressive book proposes a new moral approach to public policy to replace Third Way governments' failed attempts to reconcile global markets with ethically-informed public policies.

Reconceiving the current housing crisis in England as a ‘wicked’ problem, this book situates the crisis in a broader range of socio-economic issues and calls for a change in how housing is produced and consumed.

Why and how do those from black and minority ethnic communities continue to be marginalised? Bhopal explores how neoliberal policy-making has increased discrimination faced by those from non-white backgrounds. This important book examines the impact of race on wider issues of inequality and difference in society.

What’s wrong with work shows that how workers are treated has wide implications beyond the lives of workers themselves.

Recognising gender, race, class and global differences, the book considers the ways formal work is often dependent on informal work and concludes by considering what might make work better.

Bringing 25 years of research and teaching in the sociology of death and dying to this important book, Tony Walter engages critically with key questions around this universal fact.

This book considers what makes us happy, using a new approach that directly addresses the circumstances under which highly subjective well-being is experienced, often with surprising results. 

Offers a rare and vivid insight into the everyday lives, attitudes and behaviours of the rich as well as the poor across the UK, demonstrating how those marginalised and validated by the existing welfare system make sense of the prevailing socio-political settlement and their own position within it.

In this original book Bill Jordan presents a new analysis of well-being in terms of its social value, and outlines ways in which this could be incorporated into public policy decisions.

Using many data sources, this timely book provides a comprehensive discussion of issues of wealth, looking at potential policy responses, including 'asset-based' welfare and taxation.