The Development of Research in Socioeconomic Inequalities and Social Stratification A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Today, one can observe the socioeconomic inequalities in all kinds throughout the world. Many international organizations are dealing with this topic from a broad perspective, analyzing almost every issue within the specific frame of socioeconomic inequalities. Some assume that socioeconomic inequalities and social stratification receive insufficient attention; others think that socioeconomic inequalities, which affect social and economic structures from a multidimensional perspective, both among and within countries, have not been adequately studied. Therefore, we conducted a detailed bibliometric analysis of publications on socioeconomic inequalities and social stratification in the Scopus database. This paper deals first with the numbers and percentages of such publications over time, and then as with their distribution according to the academic discipline. Their changes in number and percentages social stratification the relevant disciplines are also analyzed, along with the universities, research institutions and funding relationships. Finally, the number of citations and citation relationships within the field are discussed. Thus, the research frame of socioeconomic inequalities is analyzed within the framework of a bibliometric analysis, after which the results are discussed with quantitative data. As a result of these analyses, we conclude that there has been an increasing interest in socioeconomic inequalities since the 1970s, an interest that, for the last ten years, has been directed toward the systematic and theoretical analysis of this extremely complex issue.