Richard T. Schaefer
Sociology Matters
Fourth Edition
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 2
Stratification in the United States
and Global Inequality
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Understanding Stratification
Stratification by Social Class
Social Mobility
The Global Divide
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Slide 3
Stratification and Social Mobility
in the United States
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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
– Income: salaries and wages
– Wealth: encompasses all of a person’s
material assets
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Slide 4
Systems of Stratification
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Ascribed status: social position “assigned” to
a person by society without regard for that
person’s unique talents or characteristics
Achieved status: social position attained by a
person largely through his or her own efforts
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Slide 5
Systems of Stratification
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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
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Slide 6
Social Classes
Class system: social ranking based primarily
on economic position in which achieved
characteristics can influence social mobility
█ Rossides (1997) uses five-class model to
describe U.S. class system:
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– Upper class
– Upper-middle class
– Lower-middle class
– Working class
– Lower class
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Slide 7
Sociological Perspectives
on Stratification
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Sociologists have debated stratification
and social inequality and reached
varying conclusions
Marx: plight of working class made him feel
it was imperative to strive for changes in
social class structure
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Slide 8
Karl Marx’s View of
Class Differentiation
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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
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Slide 9
Karl Marx’s View of
Class Differentiation
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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
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Slide 10
Max Weber’s View
of Stratification
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No single characteristic totally
defines person’s position within
the 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
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Slide 11
Interactionist View
of Stratification
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Interactionists interested in
importance of social class in
shaping person’s lifestyle
Veblen: those at top of social hierarchy
typically convert pat of wealth into
conspicuous consumption or leisure
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Slide 12
Is Stratification Universal?
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Functionalist view: social inequality
necessary so people will be motivated
to fill functionally important positions
Does not explain the wide disparity between
the rich and the poor
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Slide 13
Is Stratification Universal?
█
Conflict view: human beings prone to conflict
over scarce resources such as wealth, status,
and power
– Stratification major source of societal tension
– Leads to instability and social change
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Slide 14
Is Stratification Universal?
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Lenski’s view: as a society advances
technologically, it becomes capable of
producing surplus of goods
– Emergence of surplus resources expands
possibilities for inequality
– Allocation of surplus goods and services
reinforces social inequality
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Slide 15
Table 5-1: Three Major
Perspectives on Social Stratification
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Slide 16
Measuring Social Class
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Objective Method
– Class largely viewed as a statistical category
• Education
• Occupation
• Income
• Place
of residence
Prestige: respect and
admiration an occupation
holds in society
Esteem: reputation specific
person has earned within
an occupation
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Slide 17
Measuring Social Class
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Multiple Measures
– Socioeconomic status
(SES): measure of
social class based
on income, education,
and occupation
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Slide 18
Wealth and Income
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Income in U.S. distributed unevenly
– Wealth in the U.S. is much more unevenly
distributed than income
– Americans do not appear to be seriously
concerned about income and wealth
inequality in the U.S.
In 2001, the richest fifth of the population
held 84.5% of nation’s wealth
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Slide 19
Table 5-2: Prestige Rankings
of Occupations
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Slide 20
Figure 5-3: Distribution of Wealth
in the United States
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Slide 21
Poverty
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Absolute poverty: minimum
level of subsistence that
no family should live below
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
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Slide 22
Poverty
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Who Are the Poor?
– Sizable number of poor live in urban slums, but
majority live outside those areas
– Feminization of poverty: trend since World War II
of women constituting increasing proportion of
poor people of U.S.
– Not a static social class
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Slide 23
Poverty
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Who Are the Poor?
– In Gans’s view, poverty and poor satisfy positive
functions for many non-poor groups
•
•
•
•
•
Society’s dirty work performed at low cost
Creates jobs that serve the poor
Upholds conventional social norms
Guarantees higher status of more affluent
Absorb costs of social change
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Slide 24
Table 5-3: Who Are the Poor
in the United States?
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Slide 25
Social Mobility
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Social mobility: movement or individuals or
groups from one position in a society’s
stratification system to another
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Slide 26
Open versus
Closed Stratification Systems
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Open system: position of each
individual influenced by the
person’s achieved position
Closed system: allows little or no
possibility of moving up
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Slide 27
Types of Social Mobility
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
█
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Slide 28
Social Mobility
in the United States
Occupational Mobility
█ The Impact
of Education
█ The Impact
of Race and Ethnicity
█ The Impact
of Gender
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Slide 29
The Global Divide
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Inequality significant determinant
of human behavior
Divides in global wealth emerged as
result of Industrial Revolution and
rising agricultural productivity
Sharp divide between industrial
and developing nations
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Slide 30
Legacy of Colonialism
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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
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Slide 31
The Legacy of Colonialism
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Wallerstein’s World Systems Analysis
– 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
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Slide 32
The Legacy of Colonialism
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Globalization: worldwide integration of
government policies, cultures, social
movements, and financial markets through
trade and exchange of ideas
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Slide 33
Multinational corporations
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Multinational corporations: commercial
organizations headquartered in one
country but doing business throughout
the world
– Total revenue of multinational businesses
on par with total value of goods and
services exchanged in entire nations
– Over one-fourth of U.S. goods and services
has to do export or import of goods
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Slide 34
Functionalist View
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Multinational corporations help
developing nations of the world
– Bring jobs and industry
– Take maximum advantage
of technology while reducing
costs and boosting profits
– Make nations more
interdependent and less
likely to enter conflicts
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Slide 35
Conflict View
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Multinational corporations exploit local
workers to maximize profits
– Investment by multinationals
initially contributes to host
nation’s wealth
– Eventually increases
economic inequality within
developing nations
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Slide 36
Modernization
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Modernization: process by which peripheral
nations move from traditional institutions to
those characteristic of more developed
societies
– Modernization theory: functionalist view that
modernization and development will gradually
improve lives of people in developing nations
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 37
Table 5-5: Sociological Perspectives
on Global Inequality
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.