1

Social Stratification

Social Class

And

Social Mobility

2

Social stratification describes the structured ranking of individuals and groups and their grading into horizontal layers or strata.

• Social stratification depends upon social differentiation – the process by which a society becomes increasingly specialized over time.

• Where people can change their status with relative ease, sociologists refer to the arrangement as an open system.

• Where people can not change their status with relative ease, sociologists refer to the arrangement as a closed system.

Characteristics of Stratification Systems

3

• Social stratification is a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy.

• There are four basic principles of stratification:

• Social stratification is a feature of society, not simply a function of individual differences.

• Social stratification persists over generations.

– However, most societies allow some social mobility or changes in people’s position in a system of social stratification.

• Social mobility may be upward, downward, or horizontal.

• Social stratification is universal but variable.

• Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs.

Characteristics of Stratification Systems

4

Stratification and Inequality• Social inequality: condition in which

members of society have different amounts of wealth, prestige, or power

• Stratification: structured ranking of entire groups of people that effects unequal economic rewards and power in a society

• Four major stratification systems: slavery, caste, estate, and class

5

Caste Systems

A caste system is social stratification based on ascription (social status by birth) or birth.

Caste systems are typical of agrarian (rural) societies because the lifelong routines of agriculture depend on a rigid sense of duty and discipline

6

Characteristics of A Caste System

• Caste systems shape people’s lives in four crucial ways:– Caste largely determines occupation.– Illustrations: India and South Africa.– Systems generally mandate endogamy. – Caste systems limit outgroup social contacts.– Powerful cultural beliefs underlie caste systems..

7

Caste in JapanFeudal Japan was divided into several castes:

Nobility. Samurai or warriors. Commoners. The burakumin or outcasts.

Japan today consists of “upper,” “upper-middle,” “lower-middle,” and “lower” classes, and people move between classes over time. But they may still size up one’s social standing through the lens of caste.

8

Characteristics of Class Systems

• In a class system, social stratification is based on both birth and individual achievement.– Industrial societies move towards

meritocracy, social stratification based on personal merit.• In class systems, status consistency, the

degree of consistency of a person’s social standing across various dimensions of social inequality, is lower than in caste systems.

9

The Soviet System

• The former Soviet Union.– Although the former Soviet Union claimed to be classless, the jobs

people held actually fell into four unequal categories:• Apparatchiks or high government officials.• Soviet intelligentsia.• Manual workers.• Rural peasantry

• The second Russian Revolution.• Gorbachev introduced perestroika, and in 1991, the Soviet Union

collapsed.• Social mobility is relatively common in the Soviet Union,

especially structural social mobility, a shift in the social position of large numbers of people due more to changes in society itself than to individual efforts.

10

Chinese Stratification

• Sweeping political and economic changes are taking place in

the People’s Republic of China. • A new class system is emerging with a mix of the old

political hierarchy and a new business hierarchy.

11

• Stratification persists across generations because it is backed up by an ideology, a set of cultural beliefs that justify social stratification and inequality .

• Plato explained that every culture considers some type of inequality “fair.”

• Marx understood this fact, although he was far more critical of inequality than Plato.

The Persistence of Stratification

12

Characteristics of Estate Systems

• Estate stratification systems were agrarian and peasants were required to work land leased to them by nobles in exchange for military

protection and other services.• During the feudal era, British society was divided

into three estates:• The first estate was the hereditary nobility. (elite)

• The second estate was the clergy.(priesthood)

• The third estate was the commoners. (Bourgeois)

• The United Kingdom today is a class society, but it retains important elements of its former caste system

13

The American Class System

Social class largely determines people’s life chances and style of life.

Children and the elderly account for nearly half of all Americans living in poverty.

Three theories predominate regarding poverty: The culture of poverty theory, poverty as situationalpoverty as a structural feature of capitalist societies

14

• Three primary methods are employed by sociologists in identifying social classes:

• the objective method,

• the self-placement method,

• the reputational method.

15

• The Davis-Moore thesis is the assertion that social stratification has beneficial consequences for the operations of a society.

• It is difficult to specify the functional importance of a given occupation; some are clearly over- or under-rewarded.

• Davis-Moore ignores how social stratification can prevent the development of individual talents.

• The theory also ignores how social inequality may promote conflict and revolution.

Functional Analysis of Stratification

16

• Marx saw classes as defined by people’s relationship to the means of production.– Capitalists (or the bourgeoisie) are people who own factories and other

productive businesses.– The proletarians sell their productive labor to the capitalists.– Big Bucks: Are the Rich Worth What They Earn? Equating

income with social worth is risky business.• Critiques

– Marxism is revolutionary and highly controversial.– Marxism fails to recognize that a system of unequal rewards

may be necessary to motivate people to perform their social roles effectively.

– The revolutionary developments Marx considered inevitable within capitalist societies have failed to happen.

Conflict Analysis of Stratification

17

Defense of Conflict theory of Stratification

Wealth remains highly concentrated.

• White-collar jobs offer no more income, security, or satisfaction than blue-collar jobs did a century ago.

• Class conflict continues between workers and management.

• The laws still protect the private property of the rich.

18

Sociologists typically take a multidimensional view of stratification, identifying three components:

• economic standing (wealth and income)

• prestige

• Power

Sociological Study of Stratification Systems

19

Sociological Study of Stratification Systems

• Questions Sociologists Ask about Stratification– What type of system is it

– How much social mobility is there

– How much inequality is there and what is the basis for inequality

– Why is there stratification

The founders of Sociology had several set of answers

20

Many sociologists use the term socioeconomic status, a composite ranking based on various dimensions of social inequality (Income, Occupation, Power)

• Inequality in history: Weber’s view. Weber noted that each of his three dimensions of social inequality stands out at different points in the evolution of human societies.

• Although social class boundaries may have blurred, all industrial nations still show striking patterns of social inequality.

• Income inequality has increased in recent years. Because of this trend, some think Marx’s view of the rich versus the poor is correct.

Sociological Study of Stratification Systems

21

Social Inequality in the US

• U.S. society is highly stratified, but many people underestimate the extent of structured inequality in U.S. society for the following reasons:

• In principle, the law gives equal standing to all.

• Their culture celebrates individual autonomy and achievement. We tend to interact with people like ourselves

22

The United States is an affluent society.

• Income consists of wages or salaries from work and earnings from investments. U.S. society has more income inequality than most other industrial societies.

• Wealth consists of the total amount of money and other assets, minus outstanding debts. It is distributed even less equally than income.

Social Inequality in the US

23

Income and Wealth

• Income: wages and salaries measured over some period, such as per hour or per year

• Wealth: total of a person’s material assets, including savings, land, stocks, and other types of property, minus his or her debts at a single point in time

24

• Power is also unequally distributed.• Occupational prestige. Occupation serves as a

key source of social prestige since we commonly evaluate each other according to what we do.

• Schooling affects both occupation and income.• .Social Stratification and Birth.

• Ancestry. Family is our point of entry into the social system.

• Gender. On average, women have less income, wealth, and occupational prestige than men.

• Race and ethnicity. Race is closely linked to social position in the United States.

25

Why Stratification ?

• Explanations of social stratification involve value judgments.

• The Bell Curve Debate: Are Rich People Really Smarter?: • A series of claims made in The Bell Curve (Murray, Charles and

Hernstein, Richard J., Free Press, 1994) that Race and class are related to intelligence.

Historical patterns of ideology. Ideology changes as a society’s economy and technology change.

• Is Getting Rich "The Survival of the Fittest"? • Spencer’s view that people get more or less what they deserve in life

remains part of our individualistic culture.• Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic

26

Social MobilityThe process of moving from one stratification level to another

takes a number of forms:vertical horizontal intergenerational (between generations)

intragenerational. (within generations)

Intragenerational social mobility is a change in social position occurring during a person’s lifetime; intergenerational social mobility is upward or downward social mobility of children in relation to their parents.

27

• When sociologists speak of social mobility, they usually mean intergenerational occupational mobility.

• More Americans are upwardly mobile than downwardly mobile across generations.

• Sociologists study the course of an individual’s occupational status over the life cycle by looking at the socioeconomic life cycle.

• The processes of status attainment are different for women and blacks than for white males.

• Critics of status attainment research contend that it has a functionalist bias and that the dual labor market operates to sort people into core or periphery sector jobs.

• There is ongoing controversy about whether the American middle class is “shrinking” and whether the American Dream is history.

Social Mobility

28

• Social Classes in the United States.• The upper class. Historically, though less so today, the

upper class has been composed of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

• The upper-upper class includes less than 1 percent of the U.S. population.

• The lower-upper class are the “working rich”; earnings rather than inherited wealth are the primary source of their income.

• Color of Money: Being Rich in Black and White. The number of affluent African Americans has increased markedly in recent years, but well-to-do blacks differ from their white counterparts in significant ways.

Social Mobility

29

Social Mobility

• Religion.• Historically, people of English ancestry have enjoyed the most

wealth and wielded the greatest power in the United States.

• Throughout our history, upward mobility has sometimes meant converting to a higher-ranking religion

30

Social Mobility

• Education– Impact of formal schooling is even greater

than that of family background– Important means of intergenerational

mobility– Critical factor in development of cultural

capital

31

• Income and Wealth– Mobility occurs, but most do not move very far– Likelihood of ending up in same position as

one’s parents has been rising since 1980

Social Mobility• Occupational Mobility

– Common among males– Most mobility is minor

32

The Shrinking Middle Class

• Contributing factors:– Disappearing opportunities for those with little

education– Global competition and rapid advances in

technology– Growing dependence on temporary

workforce– Rise of new-growth industries and nonunion

workplaces

33

What Difference Does Class Make• Health: Richer people live, on average, seven years longer

because they eat more nutritious food, live in safer and less stressful environments, and receive better medical care.

• Values: Affluent people with greater education and financial security are more tolerant of controversial behavior, while working-class people tend to be less tolerant.

• Politics:• Well-off people tend to be more conservative on

economic issues but more liberal on social issues. The reverse is true for those people of lower social standing.

• Higher-income people are more likely to vote and join political organizations than people in the lower class.

34

Family and gender.• Most lower-class families are somewhat

larger than middle-class families.• Working-class parents encourage

conventional norms and respect to authorities• whereas parents of higher social standing

transmit a different “cultural capital” to their children, stressing individuality and imagination.

What Difference Does Class Make

35

– In times of danger, affluent and powerful have a better chance of surviving than people of ordinary means

– Digital divide is recent aspect of social inequality

Life Chances

• Max Weber saw class as being closely related to people’s life chances: their opportunities to provide themselves with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences

36

The Shrinking Middle Class

• Only about 22 percent of American households qualified as middle class in 2006, compared to 28 percent in 1967– About half rose to higher ranking, and half

dropped to lower position– Suggests broadly based middle class is being

replaced by two growing groups of rich and poor

37

Poverty

• In 2006, 36.5 million people in U.S.—12.3 percent of the population—were living in poverty

• One in five households has trouble meeting basic needs

38

Defining Poverty

• Absolute poverty: minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below– Common measure is federal government’s

poverty line

• Relative poverty: floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society are judged as being disadvantaged in comparison with the nation as a whole

39

The Poverty Rate in Householdswith Children, Selected Countries

Note: Data are for 2000 except for Germany (2001) and Mexico (2002). Poverty threshold is 50 percent of nation’s median income. Source: Förster and d’Ercole 2005: 36.

40

Who Are the Poor?• Our stereotypes about poverty are flawed

• Likelihood of being in poverty is shaped by factors such as age, race, ethnicity, and family type.

• Feminization of poverty is a worldwide phenomenon

• Underclass: long-term poor who lack training and skills

41

Who Are the Poor inthe United States?

Note: Data for 2006, as reported by the Bureau of the Census in 2007.Source: DeNavas-Walt et al. 2007.

42

People Below Poverty Level

Source: 2006 census data presented in Bureauof the Census 2007d: Tables R1701, 1901.

© 2006 Alan S. Berger 43

Education Pays: Full-Time,Year-Round Workers, Ages 25–64, 2006

Source: U.S. Census 2007f.

44

• Myth versus reality.

• Four general conclusions about social mobility in the United States:

• Social mobility over the course of the last century has been fairly high.

• The long-term trend in social mobility has been upward.

• Within a single generation, social mobility is usually small.

• Social mobility since the 1970s has been uneven.

• Mobility varies by income level.

• Mobility varies by race, ethnicity and gender.

• The "American Dream:" Still a reality?

• For many workers, earnings have stalled.

• Multiple job-holding is up.

• More jobs offer little income.

• Young people are remaining at home.

45

• Who are the poor?• Age.

• 2001, 16.3 percent of people under the age of eighteen (11.7 million children) were poor.

• Race and ethnicity. African Americans are about three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be poor.

• Gender and family patterns.• The feminization of poverty is the trend by which

women represent an increasing proportion of the poor.

• Urban and rural poverty. The greatest concentration of poverty is found in central cities.

46

• Explaining poverty.• One view: The poor are mostly responsible for their own

poverty.• The poor become trapped in a culture of poverty, a

lower-class subculture that can destroy people’s ambition.

• Another view: Society is primarily responsible for poverty.• Most of the evidence suggests that society rather than

the • William Julius Wilson points out that while people

continue to talk about welfare reform, neither major political party has said anything about the lack of work in central cities.

47

Weighing the evidence. The reasons that people do not work seem consistent with the “blame society” position.

• The working poor. Three percent of full-time workers earn so little that they remain poor.

• Homelessness.

• Counting the homeless. As many as 1.5 million people are homeless at some time during the course of a year.

• Causes of homelessness:

• Personality traits.

• Societal factors.

• Welfare reform has slashed the number of people receiving welfare, but it has done far less to reduce poverty.

48

Social Mobility• Race and Ethnicity

– Class system more rigid for African Americans than for other racial groups

– Typical Hispanic has less than 10 percent of the wealth that a White person has

• Gender– Traditional mobility studies have ignored

gender– Women especially likely to be trapped in

poverty