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Social Stratification, Class,
and Inequality
1
Agree/Unsure/Disagree?
• It is possible to move from poverty to the
middle class.
• Hard work alone determines success.
• Being middle class is the American Dream.
• Poverty equals unhappiness.
• Money equals happiness.
• You can never change your class status.
• A stable family life is important to achieving
success.
2
Social stratification
• Social stratification is structured
inequality between groups.
• This inequality may be based on
economics, gender, race, religion, age,
or another factor
• What is at play is power.
3
Characteristics of
stratification systems
• 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.
4
Three basic models
• Slavery—ownership of certain people
• Caste—status for life
• Class—positions based on economics
5
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.
6
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.
7
What is social class?
• Social class is some mixture of:
• Wealth
• Income
• Education
• Occupation
8
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.
9
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.
10
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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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
Rank (1 = most prestigious; 16 = least
prestigious)
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The rankings
1. Physician
2. Electrical engineer
3. Sociologist
4. Accountant
5. Registered nurse
6. Classical musician
7. Police officer
8. Journalist
9. Social worker
10.Secretary
11.Real estate agent
12.Carpenter
13.Cab driver
14.Waiter or waitress
15.Garbage collector
16.Shoe shiner
13
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.
14
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.
15
Social Inequality in the U.S.
Median net worth of American families based on various social factors
$300,000
EDUCATION
No high school
High school
$225,000
Some college
College degree
AGE
0
55
35
65
45
75
$150,000
RACE OR
ETHNICITY
$75,000
Nonwhite or Hispanic
White, non-Hispanic
HOME
OWNERSHIP
$0
Renter
Owner
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
© 2011 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.
SOURCE: U.S. Federal Reserve Board 2009.
16
Social Inequality in the U.S.
Median net worth by percentile
$2m
$1m
$0
0%
25%
50%
75%
90%
100%
PERCENTILE OF NET WORTH
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
© 2011 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.
SOURCE: U.S. Federal Reserve Board 2009.
17
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.
18
Poverty in the United States
• A full 12.5 percent of the population in 2007
was in poverty (more than 37 million people);
this is the highest rate among the major
industrialized nations.
• One-third of these people is working.
• 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.
19
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.
20
Race and wealth
• Though race is not an actual component of
class, there is a clear intersection.
• Research shows that non-whites generally
have less wealth and education than other
social groups.
• Non-whites are also much more likely to
experience discrimination when buying
homes.
21
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
female-headed households today than
throughout modern U.S. history.
• Of these families, 28 percent were poor in
2007.
22
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)
23
Poverty and social problems
• Social welfare systems
• Homelessness
• Lack of basic medical care
• Educational segregation
• People turn to non-conventional means to
make money.
24
Does inequality affect you?
• The U.S. economy is changing;
that means changing jobs,
changing wages, and new
competition.
• Inequality has been on the rise for
the past three to four decades.
25
Practice Questions
1. What is social stratification?
a. the existence of structured inequalities between
individuals and groups in a society
b. a system in which success is based on whom 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
26
Practice 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.
27
Practice 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 project their
material interests.
d. Class is a transitory system of stratification between
feudal estates and the classlessness of communist
society.
28
Practice Questions
4. What term describes the movement of individuals or
groups between different social positions?
a. social mobility
b. social exclusion
c. social structure
d. vertical advancement
29
Practice 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.
30
Practice Questions
6. Which of the following systems of stratification permit
the least amount of mobility?
a. caste
b. class
c. slavery
d. clan
31
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.
32
How do students derive status from the products
they buy and the clothes they wear?
Women from the Dalit caste (formally known as
Untouchables) earn a living as sewage scavengers in
the slums of Ranchi, India.
Figure 7.1 The Kuznets Curve
Figure 7.2 Distribution of Income in the
United States, 1967– 2008
Figure 7.3 Social Inequality In The U.S.
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Social Inequality in the U.S.
Median net worth of American families based on various social factors
$300,000
EDUCATION
No high school
High school
$225,000
Some college
College degree
AGE
0
55
35
65
45
75
$150,000
RACE OR
ETHNICITY
$75,000
Nonwhite or Hispanic
White, non-Hispanic
HOME
OWNERSHIP
$0
Renter
Owner
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
© 2011 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.
SOURCE: U.S. Federal Reserve Board 2009.
Social Inequality in the U.S.
Median net worth by percentile
$2m
$1m
$0
0%
25%
50%
75%
90%
PERCENTILE OF NET WORTH
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
© 2011 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.
SOURCE: U.S. Federal Reserve Board 2009.
100%
Globalization and Everyday Life
Globalization and Everyday Life
Table 7.1 How Has an Increase in Income
Figure 7.4 Income Inequality in Selected Industrialized
Countries: Ratio of Richest 20 Percent to Poorest 20
Percent for 2008
Figure 7.5 Black and Latino Household Income
Compared to Whites’
Over the last two decades Tony Barbagallo has collected
around $3.6 million in stock options from companies
The former governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, shares a joke with
former president George W. Bush, his brother, and his father,
former president George H. W. Bush.
Figure 7.6 Percentage of Americans Living
in Poverty, 1959– 2008
What does Katherine Newman’s research reveal
about the working poor?
Figure 7.7 Median Income and Poverty Rates for
Households in 2008, by Race and Ethnicity
Figure 7.8 Families with Children: Percentage in
Poverty, by Race and Ethnicity, Marital Status, and
Sex of Householder, 2006
Figure 7.9 Percentage of the U.S. Population on Welfare
since 1960.
The people who are at the greatest risk of becoming homeless are
those who work in jobs that have low wages, live in poverty,
and also struggle with personal troubles such as mental illness,
alcoholism, and family problems.