1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Aage Bottger Sørensen was born on May 13, 1941, in Silkeborg, Denmark, and died on April 18, 2001, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
His work offered a sociological alternative to some economic theories that see inequality as a result of differences in training and education.
Instead, he argued that the benefits of education and training depended on whether jobs were available on a freely competitive basis or whether access to them was restricted in various ways.
Persistent inequalities, he argued, occur when individuals and groups are able to limit access to jobs, education and other opportunities.
He was survived by his wife Annemette, director of the Henry A. Murray Research Center at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, his son, Jesper, and three grandchildren, Nikolaj, Benjamin, and Chloe.