Aage B. Sorensen; Sociologist Studied Inequality Issues

Aage B. Sorensen, 59, a Harvard sociologist who theorized that social and economic inequality results more from unequal opportunities than from differences in training and education, died April 18 in Boston of complications from a fall on ice.

Studying everything from rates of elementary pupils’ learning to promotion patterns in large companies, Sorensen demonstrated that the differences could depend on limits placed on access to education, jobs or advancement. Income disparities of various levels of workers, he showed, resulted from such factors as growing shareholder demand for higher profits and profit-sharing plans that were available to managers but not workers.

Born in Silkeborg, Denmark, Sorensen earned degrees from the University of Copenhagen and Johns Hopkins University. He headed the sociology department at the University of Wisconsin from 1979 to 1982 and came to Harvard in 1984. Most recently, he headed its joint doctoral program in organizational behavior.