The Volkswagen Foundation is funding a research project that investigates the distribution of wealth in society and its effects.

LMU sociologist Professor Fabian Pfeffer has been awarded a research grant by the Volkswagen Foundation. Within its “Repercussions of Wealth” program, the foundation has backed the project “Wealth and Social Cohesion from a Relational Perspective” with a grant of around 1.6 million euros. Founding director of the Munich International Stone Center for Inequality Research (ISI), Pfeffer will be supported by a team of international project partners.

“We’re investigating whether the gulf between the wealthy and the general population undermines the social cohesion of society,” says Pfeffer. “Rich elites are drifting ever further apart from the rest of society in terms lifestyles, networks, opportunities, and worldviews.” This could lead citizens to question their faith in equality of opportunity, their trust in the state, and their civic engagement.

In their project, the researchers plan to develop new statistical measures of relative wealth differences. The goal is to measure by how much the wealthy have distanced themselves from the rest of the population. Using a broad-ranging research approach, the project partners also intend to identify the main factors determining how the distribution of wealth affects social cohesion. To this end, the team will consider the international dimension, by comparing various countries, as well as the respective national levels. “We want to understand whether and how differences in wealth affect the foundations of democratic societies. Only when we capture these dynamics better can we find effective ways of strengthening social cohesion,” emphasizes the sociologist.

In addition to LMU, researchers from the following institutions are involved in the project as cooperation partners: the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne (Dr. Daria Tisch), the University of Oxford (Dr. Nhat An Tran), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Dr. Manuel Schechtl), and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Dr. Rafael Carranza).