Classes and Castles: Impact of Social Stratification on Housing Inequality in Post-Socialist States

Abstract

Housing conditions form an important part of social stratification in many advanced industrial economies. The objective of this article is to determine the extent to which social stratification is linked to housing inequalities in the post-socialist Czech Republic; and how this relationship has evolved during the course of the economic transformation process. With the fall of socialism the country adopted a market economic system and the Czech society today has a higher level of social stratification and social stratification is similar to the patterns evident in advanced economies. Based on ‘classical social stratification perspective’ one would expect there to be a greater level of housing inequality and that changes in social stratification and housing inequality have exhibited a positive relationship. The evidence presented reveals that this relationship is too weak to fit with the main prediction of ‘classical social stratification perspective’. However, the evidence also revealed that this situation is only a temporal result of unique state interventions that cannot be repeated due to the colossal cost or their unconstitutional nature in the future.