Social Stratification
Social Class
And
Social Mobility
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Characteristics of Stratification Systems
Social stratification describes the structured ranking of
individuals and groups and their grading into horizontal
layers or strata.
• Social stratification depends upon, but is not the same thing as,
social differentiation – the process by which a society becomes
increasingly specialized over time.
• Where people can change their status with relative ease,
sociologists refer to the arrangement as an open system.
• Where people can not change their status with relative ease,
sociologists refer to the arrangement as a closed system.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Characteristics of Stratification Systems
• Social stratification is a system by which a society ranks
categories of people in a hierarchy.
• There are four basic principles of stratification:
• Social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a
function of individual differences.
• Social stratification persists over generations.
– However, most societies allow some social mobility
or changes in people’s position in a system of social
stratification.
• Social mobility may be upward, downward, or
horizontal.
• Social stratification is universal but variable.
• Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Stratification and Inequality
• 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
• Four major stratification systems: slavery,
caste, estate, and class
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Caste Systems
A caste system is social stratification based on ascription
or birth.
Caste systems are typical of agrarian societies because the
lifelong routines of agriculture depend on a rigid sense
of duty and discipline
• Caste systems shape people’s lives in four crucial
ways:
• Caste largely determines occupation.
• Caste systems generally mandate endogamy.
• Caste systems limit outgroup social contacts.
• Powerful cultural beliefs underlie caste systems.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Characteristics of A Caste System
• Caste systems shape people’s lives in four
crucial ways:
–
–
–
–
–
Caste largely determines occupation.
Illustrations: India and South Africa.
systems generally mandate endogamy.
Caste systems limit outgroup social contacts.
Powerful cultural beliefs underlie caste systems.
Caste systems are typical of agrarian societies
because the lifelong routines of agriculture depend
on a rigid sense of duty and discipline.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Caste in Japan
Feudal Japan was divided into several castes:
Nobility.
Samurai or warriors.
Commoners.
The burakumin or outcasts.
Japan today consists of “upper,” “upper-middle,”
“lower-middle,” and “lower” classes, and people
move between classes over time. But they may still
size up one’s social standing through the lens of
caste.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Characteristics of Class Systems
• In a class system, social stratification is based on both birth
and individual achievement.
– Industrial societies move towards meritocracy, social
stratification based on personal merit.
• In a class system, social stratification is based on both
birth and individual achievement.
• In class systems, status consistency, the degree of
consistency of a person’s social standing across various
dimensions of social inequality, is lower than in caste
systems
• In class systems, status consistency, the degree of
consistency of a person’s social standing across various
dimensions of social inequality, is lower than in caste
systems
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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The Soviet System
• The former Soviet Union.
– Although the former Soviet Union claimed to be classless, the jobs
people held actually fell into four unequal categories:
• apparatchiks or high government officials.
• Soviet intelligentsia.
• manual workers.
• rural peasantry
• The second Russian Revolution.
• Gorbachev introduced perestroika, and in 1991, the Soviet Union
collapsed.
• Social mobility is relatively common in the Soviet Union, especially
structural social mobility, a shift in the social position of large
numbers of people due more to changes in society itself than to
individual efforts.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Chinese Stratification
• Sweeping political and economic changes are taking place in
the People’s Republic of China.
• A new class system is emerging with a mix of the old
political hierarchy and a new business hierarchy.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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The Persistence of Stratification
• Stratification persists across generations because it is
backed up by an ideology, a set of cultural beliefs that
justify social stratification and inequality .
• Plato explained that every culture considers some type of
inequality “fair.”
• Marx understood this fact, although he was far more critical
of inequality than Plato.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Characteristics of Estate Systems
• Estate stratification systems were agrarian and peasants were
required to work land leased to them by nobles in exchange for
military protection and other services.
• During the feudal era, British society was
divided into three estates:
• The first estate was the hereditary nobility.
• The second estate was the clergy.
• The third estate was the commoners.
• The United Kingdom today is a class society, but it
retains important elements of its former caste system
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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The American Class System
• Inequality follows relatively consistent and stable
patterns that persist through time.
– Typically, stratified groups in the United States are referred
to as the upper class, the upper middle class, the lower
middle class, the working class and and the lower class.
– Income inequality is high in the United States; it is
increasing; and it is at its highest level in 50 years.
• In 2001, the top 20 percent of the population received
half of the income and inequality in wealth is even
greater.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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The American Class System
Social class largely determines people’s life chances and style of life.
Children and the elderly account for nearly half of all
Americans living in poverty.
Three theories predominate regarding poverty:
The culture of poverty theory,
poverty as situational
poverty as a structural feature of capitalist
societies
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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• Three primary methods are employed by
sociologists in identifying social classes:
• the objective method,
• the self-placement method,
• the reputational method.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Functional Analysis of Stratification
• The Davis-Moore thesis is the assertion that social
stratification has beneficial consequences for the
operations of a society.
• It is difficult to specify the functional importance of a
given occupation; some are clearly over- or underrewarded.
• Davis-Moore ignores how social stratification can
prevent the development of individual talents.
• The theory also ignores how social inequality may
promote conflict and revolution.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Conflict Analysis of Stratification
• Marx saw classes as defined by people’s relationship to the means of
production.
– Capitalists (or the bourgeoisie) are people who own factories and other
productive businesses.
– The proletarians sell their productive labor to the capitalists.
– Big Bucks: Are the Rich Worth What They Earn? Equating
income with social worth is risky business.
• Critiques
– Marxism is revolutionary and highly controversial.
– Marxism fails to recognize that a system of unequal rewards
may be necessary to motivate people to perform their social
roles effectively.
– The revolutionary developments Marx considered inevitable
within capitalist societies have failed to happen.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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The Failure of the conflict model of Stratification
The capitalist class has fragmented and grown in size,
giving more people a stake in the system.
A higher standard of living has emerged.
Blue-collar occupations, lower-prestige work
involving
mostly manual labor,
have declined.
White-collar occupations, higher-prestige
work involving
mostly mental
activity, have expanded.
Workers are better organized than they were in
Marx’s day,
and their unions have been
able to fight for reform.
The government has extended various legal
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protections to © 2006 Alan S. Berger workers.
Defense of Conflict theory of Stratification
Wealth remains highly concentrated.
• White-collar jobs offer no more income, security, or
satisfaction than blue-collar jobs did a century ago.
• Class conflict continues between workers and management.
• The laws still protect the private property of the rich.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Sociological Study of Stratification Systems
Sociologists typically take a multidimensional view of
stratification, identifying three components:
• economic standing (wealth and income)
• prestige
• Power
Sociologists typically take a multidimensional view of
stratification, identifying three components:
• economic standing (wealth and income)
• prestige
• power
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Sociological Study of Stratification Systems
• Questions Sociologists Ask about Stratification
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–
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What type of system is it
How much social mobility is there
How much inequality is there and what is the basis for inequality
Why is there stratification
The founders of Sociology had several set of answers
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Sociological Study of
Stratification Systems
Many sociologists use the term socioeconomic status, a
composite ranking based on various dimensions of social
inequality (Income, Occupation, Power)
• Inequality in history: Weber’s view. Weber noted that each of his
three dimensions of social inequality stands out at different points
in the evolution of human societies.
• Although social class boundaries may have blurred, all industrial
nations still show striking patterns of social inequality.
• Income inequality has increased in recent years. Because of this
trend, some think Marx’s view of the rich versus the poor is
correct.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Inequality in the US
• U.S. society is highly stratified, but many
people underestimate the extent of structured
inequality in U.S. society for the following
reasons:
• In principle, the law gives equal standing to all.
• Our culture celebrates individual autonomy and
achievement. We tend to interact with people like
ourselves
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Inequality in the US
The United States is an affluent society.
• Income consists of wages or salaries from work and
earnings from investments. U.S. society has more
income inequality than most other industrial
societies.
• Wealth consists of the total amount of money and
other assets, minus outstanding debts. It is
distributed even less equally than income.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Income and Wealth
• Income: wages and salaries measured
over some period, such as per hour or
per year
• Wealth: total of a person’s material
assets, including savings, land, stocks,
and other types of property, minus his or
her debts at a single point in time
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Mean Household Income
by Quintile, 2006
Source: U.S. Census 2007d.
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The Income Pie: Percent
Share of Total Income, 2006
Source: U.S. Census 2007c.
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Percentage of Wealth Owned,
by Percentile
Source: Kennickell 2006: 29.
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• Power is also unequally distributed.
• Occupational prestige. Occupation serves as a key source of social
prestige since we commonly evaluate each other according to what
we do.
• .Schooling affects both occupation and income.
• .Social Stratification and Birth.
• Ancestry. Family is our point of entry into the social system.
• Gender. On average, women have less income, wealth, and
occupational prestige than men.
• Race and ethnicity. Race is closely linked to social position in the
United States.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Why Stratification ?
• Explanations of social stratification involve value
judgments.
• The Bell Curve Debate: Are Rich People Really Smarter?:
• A series of claims made in The Bell Curve (Murray, Charles
and Hernstein, Richard J., Free Press, 1994) that Race and
class are related to intelligence.
Historical patterns of ideology. Ideology changes as a
society’s economy and technology change.
• Is Getting Rich "The Survival of the Fittest"?
• Spencer’s view that people get more or less what they deserve
in life remains part of our individualistic culture.
• Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Mobility
The process of moving from one stratification level to another
takes a number of forms:
vertical
horizontal
intergenerational
intragenerational.
Intragenerational social mobility is a change in social
position occurring during a person’s lifetime;
intergenerational social mobility is upward or downward
social mobility of children in relation to their parents.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Mobility
• When sociologists speak of social mobility, they
usually mean intergenerational occupational
mobility.
• More Americans are upwardly mobile than downwardly
mobile across generations.
• Sociologists study the course of an individual’s occupational
status over the life cycle by looking at the socioeconomic life
cycle.
• The processes of status attainment are different for women
and blacks than for white males.
• Critics of status attainment research contend that it has a
functionalist bias and that the dual labor market operates to
sort people into core or periphery sector jobs.
• There is ongoing controversy about whether the American
middle class is “shrinking” and whether the American Dream
is history.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Mobility
• Social Classes in the United States.
• The upper class. Historically, though less so today, the
upper class has been composed of white Anglo-Saxon
Protestants.
• The upper-upper class includes less than 1 percent of
the U.S. population.
• The lower-upper class are the “working rich”; earnings
rather than inherited wealth are the primary source of
their income.
• Color of Money: Being Rich in Black and White. The number
of affluent African Americans has increased markedly in
recent years, but well-to-do blacks differ from their white
counterparts in significant ways.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Mobility
• Religion.
• Historically, people of English ancestry have enjoyed the most
wealth and wielded the greatest power in the United States.
• Throughout our history, upward mobility has sometimes meant
converting to a higher-ranking religion
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Mobility
• Education
– Impact of formal schooling is even greater
than that of family background
– Important means of intergenerational mobility
– Critical factor in development of cultural
capital
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Social Mobility
• Occupational Mobility
– Common among males
– Most mobility is minor
• Income and Wealth
– Mobility occurs, but most do not move very far
– Likelihood of ending up in same position as
one’s parents has been rising since 1980
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The Shrinking Middle Class
• Contributing factors:
– Disappearing opportunities for those with little
education
– Global competition and rapid advances in
technology
– Growing dependence on temporary workforce
– Rise of new-growth industries and nonunion
workplaces
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What Difference Does Class Make
• Health. Richer people live, on average, seven years longer
because they eat more nutritious food, live in safer and less
stressful environments, and receive better medical care.
• Values. Affluent people with greater education and financial security
are more tolerant of controversial behavior, while working-class people
tend to be less tolerant.
• Politics.
• Well-off people tend to be more conservative on economic issues
but more liberal on social issues. The reverse is true for those
people of lower social standing.
• Higher-income people are more likely to vote and join political
organizations than people in the lower class.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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What Difference Does Class Make
Family and gender.
• Most lower-class families are somewhat larger than middle-class
families.
• Working-class parents encourage conventional norms and respect
to authorities
• whereas parents of higher social standing transmit a different
“cultural capital” to their children, stressing individuality and
imagination.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Life Chances
• Max Weber saw class as being closely
related to people’s life chances: their
opportunities to provide themselves with
material goods, positive living conditions,
and favorable life experiences
– In times of danger, affluent and powerful have
a better chance of surviving than people of
ordinary means
– Digital divide is recent aspect of social
inequality
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The Shrinking Middle Class
• Only about 22 percent of American
households qualified as middle class in
2006, compared to 28 percent in 1967
– About half rose to higher ranking, and half
dropped to lower position
– Suggests broadly based middle class is being
replaced by two growing groups of rich and
poor
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Poverty
• In 2006, 36.5 million people in U.S.—
12.3 percent of the population—were
living in poverty
• One in five households has trouble
meeting basic needs
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Defining Poverty
• Absolute poverty: minimum level of
subsistence that no family should be
expected to live below
– Common measure is federal government’s
poverty line
• Relative poverty: floating standard of
deprivation by which people at the bottom
of a society are judged as being
disadvantaged in comparison with the
nation as a whole
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The Poverty Rate in Households
with Children, Selected Countries
Note: Data are for 2000 except for Germany (2001) and Mexico (2002). Poverty threshold is 50 percent
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of nation’s median income.
Source: Förster and d’Ercole 2005: 36.
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Who Are the Poor?
• Our stereotypes about poverty are flawed
• Likelihood of being in poverty is shaped
by factors such as age, race, ethnicity,
and family type
• Feminization of poverty is a worldwide
phenomenon
• Underclass: long-term poor who lack
training and skills
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Who Are the Poor in
the United States?
Note: Data for 2006, as reported by the Bureau of the Census
in 2007.The
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Source: DeNavas-Walt et al. 2007.
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People Below Poverty Level
Source: 2006 census data presented in Bureau
of the Census 2007d: Tables R1701, 1901.
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Education Pays: Full-Time,
Year-Round Workers, Ages 25–64, 2006
Source: U.S. Census 2007f.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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• Myth versus reality.
• Four general conclusions about social mobility in the United States:
• Social mobility over the course of the last century has been
fairly high.
• The long-term trend in social mobility has been upward.
• Within a single generation, social mobility is usually small.
• Social mobility since the 1970s has been uneven.
• Mobility varies by income level.
• Mobility varies by race, ethnicity and gender.
• The "American Dream:" Still a reality?
• For many workers, earnings have stalled.
• Multiple job-holding is up.
• More jobs offer little income.
• Young people are remaining at home.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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• CEOs Get Richer: The Great Mansions Return
– The Global Economy and U.S. class structure. Much of the industrial
production that gave U.S. workers high-paying jobs a generation ago
has moved overseas. In their place, the economy now offers “service
work,” which often pays far less.
• Poverty in the United States.
– Relative poverty refers to the deprivation of some people in relation to
those who have more.
– Absolute poverty is a deprivation of resources that is life-threatening.
• The extent of U.S. Poverty. In 2001, 11.7 percent of the U.S.
population was tallied as poor. The typical poor family had to get
by on about $10,873 in 2001.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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• Who are the poor?
• Age.
• 2001, 16.3 percent of people under the age of eighteen
(11.7 million children) were poor.
• Race and ethnicity. African Americans are about three times
as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be poor.
• Gender and family patterns.
• The feminization of poverty is the trend by which women
represent an increasing proportion of the poor.
• Urban and rural poverty. The greatest concentration of poverty
is found in central cities.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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• Explaining poverty.
• One view: The poor are mostly responsible for their own poverty.
• The poor become trapped in a culture of poverty, a lower-class
subculture that can destroy people’s ambition.
• Another view: Society is primarily responsible for poverty.
• Most of the evidence suggests that society rather than the
• William Julius Wilson points out that while people continue to
talk about welfare reform, neither major political party has said
anything about the lack of work in central cities.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Weighing the evidence. The reasons that people do not work
seem consistent with the “blame society” position.
• The working poor. Three percent of full-time workers
earn so little that they remain poor.
• Homelessness.
• Counting the homeless. As many as 1.5 million people
are homeless at some time during the course of a year.
• Causes of homelessness:
• Personality traits.
• Societal factors.
• Welfare reform has slashed the number of people
receiving welfare, but it has done far less to reduce
poverty.
© 2006 Alan S. Berger
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Social Mobility
• Race and Ethnicity
– Class system more rigid for African Americans
than for other racial groups
– Typical Hispanic has less than 10 percent of
the wealth that a White person has
• Gender
– Traditional mobility studies have ignored
gender
– Women especially likely to be trapped in
poverty
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