(or how you can do better than your parents did)

 Systems of stratification
 Sociological perspectives on stratification
 Is stratification universal?
 Stratification by social class?
 Social mobility
 The global divide

 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 perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society
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Income: salaries and wages
Wealth: encompasses all of a person’s material assets
 Inequality is heavily linked to achieved and ascribed status

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Slavery: individuals owned by other people who treat them as property
Castes: hereditary ranks usually religiously dictated and tend to be fixed and immobile
Estate system (feudalism): required peasants to work land leased to them in exchange for military protection and other services
Class system: social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence social mobility
 Upper class
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Upper-middle class
Lower-middle class
Working class
Lower class

 Social relations depend on who controls the primary mode of production
 Capitalism: means of production held largely in private hands and main incentive for economic activity is accumulation of profits
 Bourgeoisie: capitalist class; owns the means of production
 Proletariat: working class

 Class consciousness: subjective awareness of common vested interests and the need for collective political action to bring about change
 False consciousness: attitude held by members of class that does not accurately reflect their objective position
 Most Americans when asked will say they belong in the middle class

 No single dimestion totally defines a society’s stratification system
 Class: group of people who have similar level of wealth and income
 Status group: people who have the same prestige or lifestyle
 Power: ability to exercise one’s will over others

 Interactionists interested in importance of social class in shaping person’s lifestyle
 Thorsten Veblen: those at top of social hierarchy typically convert part of wealth into conspicuous consumption or leisure
 Stratification also influences peer groups an individual is exposed to
 Argot

 Functionalist view: social inequality necessary so people will be motivated to fill functionally important positions
 Does not explain extreme inequality
 Conflict view: human beings are prone to conflict over scarce resources as wealth, status, and power
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Stratification major source of societal tension
Leads to instability and social change
 Lenski’s view: as a society advances technologically, it becomes capable of producing surplus of goods, thus expands the possibilities for inequality in status, influence, and power

 Objective Method
 Class largely viewed as a statistical category
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Education
Occupation
Income
Place of residence
 Prestige: respect and admiration an occupation holds in society
 Esteem: reputation specific person has earned within an occupation

 Multiple Measures
 Statistical methods and computer technology have multiplied that factors used to define class under the objective method
 Socioeconomic status (SES)
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Income
Education
Occupation
 Wealth is unevenly distributed in the US, even more than income

 Absolute poverty: Minimum level of subsistence that no family should live below
 Poverty line
 Relative poverty: Floating standard by which people at the bottom of a society are judged as being disadvantaged in comparison to the nation as a whole

 Who are the poor?
 Feminization of poverty: trend since World War II of women constituting increasing proportion of poor people of U.S.
 About half of all women in the United States who are living in poverty are “in transition”
 Drastic changes to the poverty numbers since 2008

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 Herbert Gans (1995) argues that various segments of society benefit from the existence of the poor through social, economic, and political functions
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 Society’s dirty work such as dirty, dangerous, or dirty jobs are performed
 Poverty creates jobs professions that service the poor
Punishment of the poor as deviants uphold the legitimacy of conventional social norms and mainstream values regarding hard work, thrift, and honesty
Existence of poor people guarantees the higher status of the affluent
Because of lack of political power, the poor often absorb the costs of social change

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Social mobility: movement or individuals or groups from one position in a society’s stratification system to another
Life chances: Opportunities people have to provide themselves with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences
 Housing, education, and health
Open system: implies the position of each individual is influenced by his achieved status
 Encourages competition among members of a society
Closed system: allows little or no possibility of moving up
 Slavery, caste, and estate systems

 Horizontal mobility: movement within same range of prestige
 Vertical mobility: movement from one position to another of a different rank
 Intergenerational mobility: social position changes of children relative to their parents
 Intragenerational mobility: social position changes within person’s adult life
 Mobility is influenced by race, class, gender, and education

 Divides in global wealth emerged as result of Industrial
Revolution and rising agricultural productivity
 Sharp divides between industrial and developing nations
 Legacy of colonialism
 Colonialism: foreign power maintains political, social, economic, and cultural domination for an extended period
 Neocolonialism: continued dependence on more industrialized nations for managerial and technical expertise by former colonies

 Unequal economic and political relationships in which certain industrialized nations and their global corporations dominate core of the world’s economic system
 Dependency theory: even as developing countries make economic advances, they remain weak and subservient to core nations and corporations
 Globalization: worldwide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and exchange of ideas

 Multinational corporations: commercial organizations headquartered in one country but doing business throughout the world
 Revenues of many multinational business are equivalent to the total value of goods and services exchanged in entire nations
 Functionalist view: multinational corporations help developing nations of the world
 Conflict view: Multinational corporations exploit local workers to maximize profits

 Modernization: process through which developing nations move from traditional or less developed institutions to those characteristic of more developed society
 Modernization theory: functionalist view that modernization and development will gradually improve lives of people in developing nations