Class and Social Stratification
Social stratification
• It refers to the division of society into a pattern of layers
of strata made up hierarchy of unequal social group. It is
not primarily system of stratification dealing with social
and economic position but also social divisions
organised through gender, ethnicity and age....
Basic principles of social stratification are;
• It is a characteristic of society, not simply a reflection of
individual differences.
• It persist over generations.
• It is universal but variable. In technologically simple
societies, social differentiation is minimal.
• It involves not just inequalitites but also beliefs.
Four Basic Systems of
Stratification
– Slavery
• Extreme system of inequality.
• Slaves had different rights in different
societies like Greek or Roman time.
• Slavery still persists in a form of forced
labour or child prostitution.
Four Basic System of Stratification
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Caste
Is an ascribed social status.
Indian system of stratification based on Hindu beliefs.
Four castes: Brahmin: Religious people; Kshatriya:
Warriors; Vaishya: merchants and peasants; Shudra:
slaves and unskilled labour. Untouchables: subcaste
group.
Caste members are performing the same jobs, their
everday life is guided with caste rules, members have
strong beliefs on caste rules, main activities of castes
are typical agrarian routines.
Four Basic System of Stratification
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Estate
Part of European Feudalism
Each estate has duties to others.
Certain degree of relations between estates.
Three Estates: Aristocracy and Gentry:
Knights, barons and earls. Clergy: Bishops,
abbots, religious people. Commoners: Serfs,
free peasant and artisans.
Four Basic System of Stratification
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Class
Class is not based on religion or law but
economic differences between groups and
individual.
Level of social hierarchy is not clear between
or within classes.
Class system provides upward and downward
social mobility.
It is not completely ascribed status. There is
no legal or religious restriction to mobility.
Intermarriage between the classes is possible.
Class system is meritocratic.
Three Main Classes:
• Upper Class: Wealthy people, employers
and industrialists;
• Middle Class: white-collar workers and
professionals;
• Working Class: Blue-collar workers and
those who perform manual jobs;
• Peasants: Those who perform traditional
agricultural productions and etc..
Theories of Class Stratification
From Functionalist Perspective
• Social inequalities created by stratification have
beneficial consequences for the operation of
society.
• By distributing resources inequally, a society
motivates each individual to work better and
harder.
• Social stratification creates more reproductive
society or meritocratic society which is based on
personal merit.
Theories of Class Stratification
Conflict theories
• Social stratification functions to develop some people’s abilities to
the fullest while barring the others.
• Some people benefit from social stratification to discriminate others.
• According to Karl Marx, capitalist society reproduces the class
structure in each new generation.
• There is an exploitative relationship between the class.
• Class is a group of people who have common interests and
relationship to the means of production.
• Two major social classes with two basic relationship to the means of
production: -those who own property (bourgeoisie, capitalists),
• -those who offers their labour for others (proletariat, working class).
• There is an exploitative relationship between the classes. In new
capitalist societies exploitation is not noticable.
• Surplus value turns capitalist as a profit which is always more than
they need to pay workers’ salary.
Max Weber’s Theory of Class
• Weber mentioned that there are some other dimensions
which influence people’s class positions and social
stratification.Social stratification is not just a matter of
class but also status and party.
• Status: Differences between social groups in the social
honour or prestige which are accorded by other.
• Party: defines a group of people who work together
because they have common backgrounds aims and
interests.
• Economic differences that make class divided are not
just properties but also skills, credentials and
qualifications.
• Managerial and professional workers get more money
and have better life conditions because of their skills.
Eric Olin Wright’s Theory Of Class
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Wright combines Marx’ and Weber’s theory
defines three dimensions of control over economic resources in modern
societies that makes class differentiation.
-control over investment and money.
-control over the physical means of production (land, factory and offices)
-control over labour power.
• Capitalists have control over all of them. Member of working class have
control over non of them. Middle class between them has contradictory
class locations. Because they can influence some part of production. They
cannot control capital and labour power. They are neither capitalists nor
manual workers.
• Class location of middle class depends on two factors such as ‘the
relationship to authority’ and ‘possession of skills or expertise’.
• Most of middle class people have privileges than of the working class.
• They have skills demanded by labour market.
Measuring Class
• Occupation is the most useful factor in
individual’s class standing in terms of life
chances and material comfort. People in
the same occupation have more or less
similar experiences, advantages and
disadvantages.
John Goldthorpe: Class and
Occupation
• This neo-Weberian class scheme is based on two main
factors which are ‘market situation’ and ‘work situation’ of
individuals.
• Market Situation concerns individual’s payment level,
job security and advancement (material reward).
• Work Situation concerns individual’s power of control,
power of authority, autonomy in the workplace and
overall relations of control. Goldthorpe developed three
main classes according to occupation which are service
class, intermediate class and working class.(Table 10.1
p: 289).
Social Class Divisions in Western
Society Today
The Question of Upper Class
• Their power comes from control of capital
and leading political, educational and
cultural life of societies.
• Affluent people do not announce their
wealth openly.We know more about the
poor compare to the rich.
• Some affluent people have old money and
some of them made their own wealth.
The Middle Class
-Made up white-collar workers, professionals and small scale self-employed people.
-Middle class has a broad spectrum of people from many different occupations.
-Proportion of white-collar jobs increased and this development gave rise to the
enlargement of middle class.
-Upper middle class, (named ‘service class’ by Goldthrope) is having the skills they have
privilege to get higher income.
-They take their power from their having credential but not from land.
-They have more secure positions compare to blue-collar workers.
-They have good educational background and technical skills.
-They are selling their mental power not the manual one.
-Middle class has loose composition compare to working class.
-Social mobility and occupational opportunities are so wide that it’s difficult to define the
borders of middle class.
Lower middle class heterogeneous is a category including people working as office staff,
sales representative: Government officers, nurses and teachers. This group has
lower salary and different social and political expectations than lower class.
The Changing Nature of Working
Class
• Working class occupies manual and unskilled or semi-skilled jobs.
• They have different level of job security, income and working
conditions.
• Karl Marx predicted that they were going to become larger but in fact
they get smaller. They are getting middle class wages and becoming
more middle class (embourgeisement).
• In terms of payment, some groups in this class reached to middle
class level.
• They still have a low chance of promotion.
• They have a low-level job satisfaction because of repetitive and
uninteresting jobs.
• Since they have been socialized as working class person their
chance of adoption to middle class value and life style is lower.
Class and Lifestyle by Pierre
Bourdieu, 1986
• Bourdieu sees class groups as identifiable
according to their varying level of cultural and
economic capital.
• Individuals divide themselves according to
cultural tastes in addition to economic and
occupational standings.
• They need merchants, advertisers, marketers,
fashion designers, therapists and web page
designers whose job influences people’s cultural
tastes and promoting a certain lifestyle.
• Class division can be linked to distinctive
lifestyle and consumption patterns.
Grouping in Middle Class
by Savage et al. 1992
Professionals in Public Service: They have high cultural capital but low
economic capital and healthy life style. They participate in cultural
and community activities.
Managers and Bureaucrats: Indistinctive patterns of consumption.
Average low-level exercise. Little engagement with cultural
activities. Preference for traditional home furnishing style and
dressing.
Postmoderns: Non traditional interests like horse-riding or extreme
sports.
• Consumption and lifestyle are becoming new indicators for class
standing stratification within or between classes. Modern societies
are consumer societies and acquisition of material goods seen as
more important than it used to be. On the other hand, people from
different classes are watching TV commercials and shopping from
the same shops. Despite these commonalities among people, class
differences can also become intensified through variations in life
style and taste.
The Underclass
• They work under the worst working conditions.
• They are more likely to become unemployed
because of insecure jobs.
• Their life standards are extremely lower than
rest of the society.
• They are long term unemployed, dependent on
state welfare benefits, marginalized and socially
excluded.
Gender and Class Structure
• In every society men have more wealth, status and influence than
women.
• Gender inequalities is more historical than class inequalities. Since
hunter and gatherer societies men have superiority over women.
• Women are dependent of their fathers, husbands etc. and their
wealth, status and life conditions are bounded with men. Women’s
class position is governed by their husband’s class position.
• In daily life women are kept by private area, home, domestic duties
children and family members. Sexual division of labour in job market
defines both men’s and women’s jobs.
• These divisions in the labour market bring about the inequalities
which women face in a number of areas of social life as a result of
gender socialization.
• More types of jobs are seen as suitable for women today and many
more women are going out of work in paid jobs.
Gender and Class Structure
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When talking about women at work, many people assume this refers to paid
employment, However there is one job which is performed by women which
is unpaid housework. This work is not recognised as real work at all. It’s
thought as little status job compared to paid employment.
In the job market, women workers perform many of non-manual and routine
tasks. This fact can be defined as feminization of routine white-collar jobs.
Working conditions in these tasks have changed and lowered their status.
Women are always large group in clerical occupations because deskilling
and feminization have close connections. Women are mostly performing
routine tasks without any initiative.
Women have less chance of promotion and of entering skilled and
managerial of technical, professional occupations. Therefore women are
thought that they deserve lower-status jobs, they can break working life to
care for their children.
Many women experience downward social mobility as they abandon
careers with bright futures to take care of children, only to return to work at
a lower status.
Goldthrope’s critics about women’s
class standing
• In some families women’s income is more important and
prestigious than men.
• Wives’ occupations may be more influencing factor on
husband’s class standing.
• There are single mother families in which women are the
only breadwinners in the household.
• Instead of using `breadwinner husband` as a concept it
may be easier and explanatory to use the concept of
dominant breadwinner.
• In the case of cross-class household it may be more
convincing to take wife and husband’s class positions
separately.
SOCIAL MOBILITY
• Social mobility refers to movement from one class level to another
up or down the social hierarchy.
• Intra-generational social mobility compares a person’s present and
previous occupation to measure how much mobility the person has
achieved in lifetime.
• Intergenerational social mobility compares an adult’s present
occupation with that of the family s/he was born into.
The amount of social mobility in a society is major indicator of the
degree of its openness.
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Upward mobility is more possible for middle class person than
lower class people. Social mobility has increased in the middle class
level because white-collar job opportunities increased recently, after
2nd world War. The reason is not the occupational system which
became more egalitarian.