Fourth Edition
ANTHONY GIDDENS ● MITCHELL DUNEIER ● RICHARD P.APPELBAUM ● DEBORAH CARR
Chapter 7: Stratification, Class, and Inequality
Homeless to Harvard
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Social stratification
• Social stratification is structured
inequality between groups.
• This inequality may be based on
economics, gender, race, religion,
age, or another factor.
• Three key aspects:
Class, status, and power—from Max
Weber
• What is at stake is power.
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Characteristics of stratification systems
Three primary characteristics:
•Systems of inequality are organized
around groups with a shared characteristic.
•The social location of a group is
significant in terms of the life chances of
members.
•Rankings of groups change only very
slowly.
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Three basic models
• Slavery—ownership of certain
people
• Caste—status for life
• Class—positions based on
economics
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Class systems
• In modern societies, class systems
dominate.
• While class systems do allow for social
mobility, opportunities are not evenly
distributed across social groups.
• Class has a significant impact on many
aspects of life, including education,
occupation, place of residence,
marriage partner, and more.
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Questions about class systems
• Two important debates today:
1. Will caste systems develop into
class systems as we observe global
structural change?
2. Is inequality declining in class
systems as a result of expanded
social programs, e.g., education?
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Figure 7.1 The Kuznets Curve
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How do stratification systems look
today?
• In modern, industrialized societies,
there is little overt support for rigid
systems of inequality.
• Remaining caste systems appear to be
transitioning into class systems.
• From the time of World War II to the
1970s, class boundaries appeared to
soften, but they have been hardening
since the 1970s.
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Marx and class conflict
• Karl Marx was very interested in class
relations in capitalist societies.
• Class was determined solely by one’s
relation to the means of production.
– Proletariat and bourgeoisie
– Group membership utterly determined
life chances.
• Ultimately, the proletariat would
overthrow the bourgeoisie, ending the
reign of capitalism.
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Weber: Class and status
• For Max Weber, position in a
stratification system was not based
on economics alone: social status
was also significant.
• Weber’s multidimensional approach
is attractive to those who believe that
social prestige and power can be
independent of economics.
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Functionalist approaches
• Functionalist theorists attempt to
understand what role inequality plays
in keeping society at equilibrium.
• Davis and Moore (1945) argued that
stratification benefited society by
ensuring that the most important
roles would be filled by the most
talented and worthy people.
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What is social class?
• Social class is some mixture of:
– Wealth
– Income
– Education
– Occupation
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Race and wealth
• Though race is not an actual
component of class, there is a clear
intersection.
• Research shows that nonwhites
generally have less wealth and
education than other social groups.
• Nonwhites are also much more likely
to experience discrimination when
buying homes.
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Social Inequality in the U.S.
Median net worth of American families
based on various social factors
Source: U.S. Federal Reserve Board 2009.
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Social Inequality in the U.S.
Median net worth of American families based on various social factors
EDUCATION
$300,000
No high school
High school
Some college
College degree
$225,000
AGE
0
55
35
65
45
75
$150,000
RACE OR ETHNICITY
Nonwhite or Hispanic
White, non-Hispanic
HOME OWNERSHIP
$75,000
Renter
Owner
$0
SOURCE: U.S. Federal Reserve Board 2011.
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Social Inequality in the U.S.
Median net worth by percentile
$2m
$1m
$0
0%
25%
50%
75%
90%
100%
PERCENTILE OF NET WORTH
SOURCE: U.S. Federal Reserve Board 2011.
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Income distribution
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census 2010b.
Figure 7.2 Distribution of Income in the United States, 1967–2010
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The recession
• The increase in subprime lending to minority
communities led to disproportionate rates of
default and foreclosure among those same
groups, beginning in 2006.
• Following this, the real estate bubble burst,
and recession set in.
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Higher education
• College graduates earn approximately $20,000
more per year, $650,000 more over a 40-year
work life, than nongrads.
• There is also stratification within college
graduates:
 Degrees emphasizing numerical competency
 higher incomes
• Finishing high school is still critical
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Occupational prestige
Occupation
Accountant
Cab driver
Carpenter
Classical musician
Electrical engineer
Garbage collector
Journalist
Physician
Police officer
Real estate agent
Registered nurse
Secretary
Shoe shiner
Social worker
Sociologist
Waiter or waitress
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Rank (1 = most prestigious; 16 = least
prestigious)
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The rankings
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Physician
Electrical engineer
Sociologist
Accountant
Registered nurse
Classical musician
Police officer
Journalist
Social worker
Secretary
Real estate agent
Carpenter
Cab driver
Waiter or waitress
Garbage collector
Shoe shiner
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The American middle class
• The United States understands itself
as a middle-class society.
• This fits with strongly held
ideologies, including classlessness,
meritocracy, and the work ethic.
• Middle-class ideologies tend to
promote the reproduction of
inequality.
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The American Superrich
• 1940s: 13,000 people worth > $1
million
• 2008: 6.7 million millionaire
households, 371 billionaires
• 2013: 5.22 million millionaires
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Social mobility
• Social mobility is the movement of
people up or down the stratification
system.
• Class systems allow for more
movement than slave or caste
systems.
• Even so, it remains quite difficult to
achieve upward, intergenerational
social mobility.
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Rising income inequality
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Poverty
• Despite the wealth of resources and
opportunities in the United States,
poverty remains a significant social
problem.
• Sociologists discuss two general
types of poverty: absolute poverty
and relative poverty.
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Poverty in the United States
• A full 14.3% of the population in 2009
was in poverty (44 million people); this
is the highest rate among the major
industrialized nations and the highest
here since 1994.
• 25% of these people are working.
• 19 million are living in extreme
poverty—near starvation levels.
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Measuring poverty
• Poverty is calculated using a formula
from the 1960s, whereby the poverty
line is based on an income three
times the cost of monthly groceries.
• 2013: $22,350 for a family of 4
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Why are the poor poor?
• Poverty is not simply the result of not
working hard.
• Explanations for poverty are diverse.
• What we know is that low earnings (often
based on a low minimum wage) make it
very hard to “get ahead.”
• Also, the poor have less educational
attainment, less health insurance, and,
more broadly, diminished life chances.
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Gender and poverty
• Sociologists often discuss what is called
the feminization of poverty.
• Because of social changes, including
divorce and the increasing normalization
of single parenting, there are more femaleheaded households today than throughout
modern U.S. history.
• Of these families, 29.3% were poor in
2009, compared to only 5.8% of married
households.
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Children in poverty
• In 2009:
– 15 million children lived in poor
families
– 43% lived in “economically insecure”
families
These numbers are higher for nonwhite
children
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The elderly and poverty
• Health care is the single biggest
problem for the elderly when it
comes to economics.
• Why?
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Explanations for poverty
• Sociologists have many empirical
explanations for poverty, but by and
large they all fall under one of two
themes:
– Blaming the victim (culture-of-poverty
arguments)
– Blaming the system (social exclusion,
structural arguments)
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Poverty and social problems
• Social welfare systems
• Homelessness
• Lack of basic medical care
• Educational segregation
• People turn to nonconventional means
to make money.
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This concludes the Lecture
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Chapter 7: Stratification, Class, and Inequality
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Clicker Questions
1. What is social stratification?
a. the existence of structured inequalities among individuals
and groups in a society
b. a system in which success is based on who you know
c. a system based on the simple fact that some people are lucky
and others are unlucky
d. a condition that results when people’s social mobility is
hindered, such as in caste or slavery systems
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Clicker Questions
2. If someone is poor when compared with the standard of living
for most people, he or she experiences
a. absolute poverty.
b. relative poverty.
c. downward mobility.
d. structural mobility.
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Clicker Questions
3. What is the basis of Karl Marx’s theory of class?
a. Class is a by-product of the Industrial Revolution.
b. Modern societies are divided into those who own the means of
production and those who sell their labor.
c. People with power will always use it to protect their material
interests.
d. Class is a transitory system of stratification between feudal
estates and the classlessness of communist society.
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Clicker Questions
4. What term describes the movement of individuals or groups
among different social positions?
a. social mobility
b. social exclusion
c. social structure
d. vertical advancement
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Clicker Questions
5. What did Max Weber add to Karl Marx’s theory of class?
a. Weber argued that income was more important than property in
determining class standing in modern society.
b. Weber argued that marketable skills were as important as property
in determining class standing and that status was as important as
class as a dimension of stratification in modern society.
c. Weber argued that society was much too complex for anything
remotely resembling Marx’s historical materialism (his theory of
history).
d. Weber understood the enduring significance of the middle class.
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Clicker Questions
6. Which of the following systems of stratification permit the
least amount of mobility?
a. caste
b. class
c. slavery
d. clan
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Clicker Questions
7. Since the early 1970s, inequality in the United States has
a. increased.
b. decreased.
c. remained approximately the same.
d. become more difficult to measure.
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