About

Arne L. Kalleberg is a Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds Adjunct Professorships in the Department of Public Policy, Curriculum in Global Studies, and the Kenan-Flagler Business School. In addition to his academic roles, he serves as the Editor of Social Forces, an International Journal of Social Research. His work and expertise are centered around social stratification, mobility, and labor markets, with a focus on issues related to precarious lives and work, inequality, and policy responses to these challenges. His contact information includes an email at arne_kalleberg@unc.edu, a phone number (919) 962-0630, and an office address at 261 Hamilton Hall, Department of Sociology (CB # 3210).

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economics
• Sociology
• Labour economics
• Anthropology
• Political economy
• Gender studies
• Market economy
• Geography
• Law
• Development economics

Selected publications

• Career types and labor market structure: Intragenerational mobility in the United States

  Social Science Research · 2025-03-10 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Corporate Governance in U.S. Capitalism

  2025-10-22

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Corporations have an outsized influence on economic growth, inequality, and democracy, and so how they are governed is important for understanding these features of contemporary capitalism. There have been two main types of corporate governance models in the United States: stakeholder and shareholder models; the relative emphasis on these modes of capitalism has ebbed and flowed over the past two centuries. Economic, social, cultural, and political forces at different periods in American history shaped the dominant ideologies and practices of how corporations operate in markets and who should benefit from corporations’ activities: finance capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; managerial capitalism (“managerialism”) during the 1930s to 1970s; shareholder capitalism (“financialization”) in the 1980s; and the recent emphasis on stakeholder capitalism by corporations seeking to act in socially responsible ways. I argue that stakeholder models of governance provide essential guidance for corporations in the 21st century; they present both opportunities and challenges for corporations that will help shape the future of capitalism in the United States.

  PublisherDOI

• Challenging Capitalism

  2025-10-22

  bookSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Conceptualizing Capitalism

  2025-10-22

  book-chapterSenior author

  In recent years, more and more scholars, journalists, and policymakers have come to believe that we are at an inflection point in the history of capitalism. This belief is predicated in large part on the proposition that this economic system in its long-regnant neoliberal form—privileging free and open international trade, promoting the transnational movement of capital and labor, and advocating a limited role for the state—has faltered, if not failed, and needs to be superseded by new economic architecture, the specifics of which are still to be determined. This is not to say that today neoliberalism is bereft of institutional support—important think tanks such as the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, and Timbro in Stockholm, for example—or without impressive and influential defenders such as Johan Norberg (2023). Moreover, it should be noted that opponents of neoliberalism and, more specifically, neoliberal globalization vary in their critiques, with some more willing than others to acknowledge the economic achievements of the neoliberal era, particularly in emerging economies and less developed countries (LDCs).

  PublisherDOI

• “Stepping-Stone” versus “Dead-End” Jobs: Occupational Structure, Work Experience, and Mobility Out of Low-Wage Jobs

  American Sociological Review · 2024-03-22 · 15 citations

  articleOpen access

  Does working in a low-wage job lead to increased opportunities for upward mobility, or is it a dead-end that traps workers? In this article, we examine whether low-wage jobs are “stepping-stones” that enable workers to move to higher-paid jobs that are linked by institutional mobility ladders and skill transferability. To identify occupational linkages, we create two measures of occupational similarity using data on occupational mobility from matched samples of the Current Population Survey (CPS) and data on multiple dimensions of job skills from the O*NET. We test whether work experience in low-wage occupations increases mobility between linked occupations that results in upward wage mobility. Our analysis uses longitudinal data on low-wage workers from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) and the 1996 to 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). We test the stepping-stone perspective using multinomial conditional logit (MCL) models, which allow us to analyze the joint effects of work experience and occupational linkages on achieving upward wage mobility. We find evidence for stepping-stone mobility in certain areas of the low-wage occupational structure. In these occupations, low-wage workers can acquire skills through work experience that facilitate upward mobility through occupational changes to skill and institutionally linked occupations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “Stepping-Stone” versus “Dead-End” Jobs: Occupational Structure, Work Experience, and Mobility Out of Low-Wage Jobs

  UNC Libraries · 2024-09-27 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Does working in a low-wage job lead to increased opportunities for upward mobility, or is it a dead-end that traps workers? In this article, we examine whether low-wage jobs are “stepping-stones” that enable workers to move to higher-paid jobs that are linked by institutional mobility ladders and skill transferability. To identify occupational linkages, we create two measures of occupational similarity using data on occupational mobility from matched samples of the Current Population Survey (CPS) and data on multiple dimensions of job skills from the O*NET. We test whether work experience in low-wage occupations increases mobility between linked occupations that results in upward wage mobility. Our analysis uses longitudinal data on low-wage workers from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) and the 1996 to 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). We test the stepping-stone perspective using multinomial conditional logit (MCL) models, which allow us to analyze the joint effects of work experience and occupational linkages on achieving upward wage mobility. We find evidence for stepping-stone mobility in certain areas of the low-wage occupational structure. In these occupations, low-wage workers can acquire skills through work experience that facilitate upward mobility through occupational changes to skill and institutionally linked occupations.

  PublisherDOI

• Labour market inequality: a comparative political economy perspective

  Oxford Open Economics · 2024 · 14 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Economics
  • Labour economics

  Abstract Large and rising earnings and employment inequalities in countries such as the USA and the UK pose fundamental questions for social scientists and challenges for policymakers. Mainstream economists have explained these outcomes mainly in terms of competitive market forces, particularly the mismatch between technology-driven demands for skills and those supplied by workers. In contrast, political economy perspectives focus on employer–employee bargaining power, driven by the monopsony power of firms and declining institutional and policy protections for workers. We critically assess the evidence on the education wage premium and employment polarization used to support the competitive market explanation for US wage inequality. We then show that the incidence of decent pay for young less-educated workers varies sharply across similarly rich countries and that new indices of institutional bargaining power closely correspond to differences in pay distributions but are uncorrelated with conventional measures of employment performance. We conclude that well-designed institutional and policy changes can substantially promote shared growth and the well-being of working families.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Transformation of Modern Work, Rise of Atypical Employment, and Health

  Handbook series in occupational health sciences · 2023-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Landing a Middle-Class Position: College Degree, Occupational Status and Income of Young Adults in Taiwan

  2023-01-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Precarious work: A global perspective

  Sociology Compass · 2023 · 46 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  Abstract Precarious work is universal, though its forms and consequences vary across countries due to institutional, cultural, and historical differences. This article reviews recent research on precarious work from a global perspective, emphasizing the comparative and interdisciplinary research needed for a comprehensive understanding of the structural transformations in contemporary capitalism that promote precarious work. The article has three foci. First, research that details the diverse forms of precarious work, which have become increasingly heterogeneous as national labor markets have been interwoven with global production networks. Second, research on precarious work that emphasizes its disparate impacts for women, youth, the elderly, racial and ethnic minority groups, and migrants, revealing an articulation of precarity and social cleavages. Third, research on the politics associated with precarious work and how some precarious workers have successfully organized and mobilized their interests, such as by unionizing and becoming involved in electoral politics. Still, questions remain regarding precarious work: how precarious workers differ from regular workers in representing their interests and demands and whether precarious workers are a new, independent social class or remain part of a changing working class. Finally, topics for future research on the global dimensions of precarious work are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ivar Berg

  25 shared

• Peter V. Marsden

  24 shared

• Kevin Hewison

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  18 shared

• Eileen Appelbaum

  16 shared

• Kwang‐Yeong Shin

  14 shared

• Peter Berg

  13 shared

• David Knoke

  12 shared

• Susan N. Houseman

  12 shared