Social polarisation, economic restructuring and welfare state regimes

Summary. The central argument of this paper is that it is misconceived to view social polaris-ation of occupational structure and incomes in global cities as either inevitab le or as a direct product of econom ic restruc turing. It is argued that this neglects the key role of differen t welfare state structures which can and do in ¯ uence both occupational and income structures indepen-dently of the processes of economic restructuring. The form and exten t of polarisat ion in different cities are likely to re ¯ ect the nature and form of welfare state regim es in differen t countries as well as the form of economic restructuring and other factors such as the scale of immigration. Evidence from London suggests that growing income polarisat ion is accompanied by a profes-sionalisatio n of the occupational structure