Chapter 7: Class and
Stratification in the United
States
Objectives (slide 1 of 2)
7.1 Social Stratification Overview
• Compare and contrast the key principles of the four
stratification systems.
7.2 Social Stratification Systems
• Describe how stratification systems have changed
over time, highlighting differences between
traditional and modern stratification systems.
7.3 Sociological Perspectives on Social Stratification
• Contrast competing theories of social stratification.
7.4 Inequality in the United States: Income and Wealth
• Illustrate the amount of inequality found in various
measures of income and wealth in the United States.
Objectives (slide 2 of 2)
7.5 Social Mobility: The Myth and the Reality
• Define social mobility and identify the factors that
affect it.
7.6 Poverty in the United States
• Describe how the United States characterizes poverty.
• Explain the culture of poverty.
7.7 Why Class Matters
• Explain the consequences of stratification for health,
education, family, crime, and technology.
7.8 Summing Up: Social Stratification in the United
States Now and in the Future
• Describe social stratification trends in the United
States during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Key Principles of Social
Stratification Systems
• Social stratification system: The
structured ranking of people in a society
based upon selected social statuses
Stratification and Technology:
A Global Perspective
• The size of the surplus for any society is a
function of the society’s technological
development.
• Inequality rises in advanced horticultural
and agricultural societies, declines in
industrial societies, and rises again in
postindustrial societies.
Traditional Stratification Systems
• Caste system: A system of social
stratification based on birth
• Clan system: A stratification system in which
social standing is based on membership in
an extended network of relatives
• Estate system: A system with three strata, or
estates: the nobility, the church, and
peasants; position is determined largely by
inheritance
Modern Class Systems
• Ascribed social statuses: The categories into
which one is born
• Class system: A stratification system in
which social standing is based primarily on
individual achievement
• Achieved social statuses: Statuses earned
through individual effort facilitated by
opportunity
• Meritocracy: A system of social stratification
based entirely on personal merit
The Functional View of Social
Stratification
• Functionalist theory argues that inequality is
universal and persists because it has positive
functions for society, including:
– Ensuring that society’s dirty, dangerous, and
dead-end jobs will be performed
– Subsidizing economic activities that benefit the
affluent
– Prolonging the economic life of certain goods
– Upholding the legitimacy of conventional norms
through punishment
– Offering upward social mobility
– Assuring the status of those who are not poor
Karl Marx and Conflict Views
of Stratification
• The conflict approach argues that stratification persists
because it helps the powerful maintain the status quo.
• Means of production: The technologies and resources
required for producing goods or services in an economy, such
as factories, raw materials, and machines
• Wright’s four classes:
– Capitalists: People who own large businesses employing many
workers
– Petite bourgeoisie: People who own small businesses
– Managers: People who sell their own labor but exercise
authority over other employees
– Workers: People who sell their labor
Max Weber: Class, Status,
and Power
• Weber argued that there are three
important dimensions:
1. Social class: Ranking in a stratification system
based on either one’s level of wealth and
income or one’s relationship to the means of
production
2. Prestige: The respect and admiration accorded
a social position or occupation and people in
those positions by others
3. Power: The capacity to influence or control the
behavior of others
Socioeconomic Status
• SES (socioeconomic status): A composite
index of social status based on
occupational prestige, income, and
educational attainment
• Status consistency: The tendency for
people having high status in one area of
their lives to also have high status in
other areas
Interactionist Perspectives: The
Social Construction of Inequality
• Interactionist views look at how individuals
perceive, report, and define their own social
class.
• Cultural capital: The tastes, language,
attitudes, and general ways of thinking that
influence our interactions with one another
• Conspicuous consumption: Blatant efforts
to display status through the possession or
consumption of status symbols, such as
expensive cars or clothes
The Distribution of Income
The most commonly considered
measure of economic inequality
is income—the money people
receive as rents, royalties,
wages, or profits.
The Distribution of Wealth
• Net worth: Household wealth based on
the difference between assets and
liabilities
• Net financial assets: Household wealth
after equity in homes has been deducted
Social Mobility (slide 1 of 2)
• Social mobility: Changing one’s social status and thereby
changing one’s social ranking in the stratification system
• Vertical social mobility: A significant increase or decrease in
social standing as measured by social status, class, or power
• Intergenerational mobility: An upward or downward change
in social standing or social status of children relative to their
parents
• Intragenerational mobility: An upward or downward change
in social standing for an individual over the course of his or
her lifetime
• Structural mobility: Mobility resulting from changes in a
society’s occupational structure or stratification system
rather than from individual achievement
Social Mobility and Opportunity
• Intrageneratonal income mobility for men
and women are decidedly unequal.
Poverty in the United States
• Relative poverty: Deprivation experienced
by some people in contrast to others who
have more
• Absolute poverty: A condition of deprivation
in which people have too little money or
other resources to obtain all they need for
basic survival
• Poverty line or poverty threshold: Roughly
three times the amount of money required
for a family to spend for food
US Poverty in Historical Context
In 2009, 43.6 million people or 14.3% of the
population fell below the poverty line in the
United States. Fifty years earlier, poverty
rates in the United States were over 22%. As
can be seen in Figure 7-20, between 1959
and 1974, poverty was cut almost in half,
from 22.2% to 12.6%. But since 1975, the
poverty rate has remained between 10% and
15%, actually increasing a little to its current
rate of 14.3%.
Who Are the Poor?
• People in the United States are more likely
to be poor if they are:
– Children
– Women
• Feminization of poverty: A tendency for adult women
to be poor much more frequently than adult men
– Members of racial or ethnic minorities
– Members of single-parent households with
children
– People living in inner cities or in rural areas
The Culture of Poverty
• Working poor: Working people whose
incomes fall below the poverty line
• Culture of poverty: A subculture
associated with people in lower social
classes that is thought to encourage them
to become resigned to their fate and to
discourage personal achievement
A Permanent Underclass
• Underclass: The most impoverished
segment of American society, for whom
poverty is relatively permanent
Welfare versus Wealthfare
• Wealthfare: Government policies and
programs that primarily benefit the
wealthy and large corporations
Why Class Matters
• Life styles: Activities, behaviors,
possessions, and other, often visible
characteristics of how an individual
spends her or his time and money
• Life chances: The likelihood of realizing a
certain quality of life or the probability of
experiencing certain positive or negative
outcomes in life such as material goods
and favorable life experiences
Key Impacts
•
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Family life
Education
Crime and criminal justice
Technology
– Digital divide: Inequalities in access to
technologies such as the Internet and
computers
Inequality and Economic Growth
• Life expectancy tends to be lower in
countries with greater income inequality.