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21st Century Sociology
Clifton D. Bryant & Dennis L. Peck
Pub. date: 2007 | Online Pub. Date: March 15, 2008 |
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412939645 | Print ISBN: 9781412916080 | Online
ISBN: 9781412939645 | Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.
Chapter 22: Social Stratification
HAROLD R. KERBO
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412939645.n22 Print pages: I-227-I-237Show page
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A History of Social Stratification in American Versus European Sociology
Social Stratification Theory Today
Social Mobility and Status Attainment
Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
The Great U-Turn
Research on Poverty
Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
Further Reading
Since the earliest-known writings on the nature of human societies, there has been
recognition that social stratification is a central part of all human organization (Lenski
1966). In his Politics, in 350 BCE, Aristotle wrote of the natural ranking of free people
and slaves. More recently, during the Age of Enlightenment, philosophers such as Locke,
Rousseau, and Montesquieu wrote of the feudal system of social stratification and its
inequities (Zeitlin 1968; Strasser 1976). By the mid-1800s, the classic sociological
theorists such as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber began more systematic analyses of system
of social stratification using concepts that remain with us to this day.
From the root word strata, we can recognize that social stratification refers to a ranking
of people or groups of people within a society. But the term was defined by the earliest
sociologists as something more than the almost universal inequalities that exist in all but
the least complex of societies. Social stratification refers to a system with rather
predictable rules behind the ranking of individuals and groups, which theories of social
stratification are meant to uncover and understand. The existence of a system of social
stratification also implies some form of legitimation of the ranking of people and the
unequal distribution of valued goods, services, and prestige. Without belief systems
justifying the inequality and unequal ranking, it is unlikely that a stratification system
would remain stable over time. Beyond agreement on a definition of social stratification,
however, the classic sociological theorists agreed on little else. From this classic period
of sociology, we have, in fact, a triple legacy of social stratification theories from the
works of Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber.
More than anyone, it was Karl Marx who attempted a more or less comprehensive theory
of social stratification. Along with Engels, in 1848, Marx began one of the world's most
famous political writings on the subject, The Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels
1964), by writing,
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Free man and
slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word,
oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a
revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending
classes. (P. 5)
But when Marx was finally about to undertake a more detailed and systematic discussion
of class at the end of the third volume of Capital, he died (see Dahrendorf 1959:8).
Although Marx referred to several different classes or class segments throughout history,
he clearly saw the ownership of property as the basis of class divisions. In preindustrial
agricultural societies, the primary division was between the landowners, or landed
aristocracy, and those who owned no land, peasants and serfs. In capitalist industrial
societies, the primary division was between the owners of industrial capital and the
working class, or proletariat. It was this exclusively economic definition of class—that is,
owners versus nonowners—that allowed Marx to conclude that the elimination of private
property in any future communist nation would eliminate extensive inequality and even
social stratification itself.
In strict contrast to a Marxian theory of social stratification are functional theories of
social stratification. In tracing the development of functional theory, most historians of
social thought draw a direct line from Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte, through
Durkheim, to modern functional theorists such as Talcott Parsons (see Gouldner 1970;
Giddens 1973; Strasser 1976). More than anyone else, though, it was Durkheim who
established this general perspective, though interestingly he had little to say about social
stratification specifically. This is somewhat understandable when considering that
Durkheim's holistic perspective focused on how parts and processes within societies work
for the good of the whole. Divisions between people within societies were given little
recognition.
Durkheim, however, did make brief mention of inequalities within societies. He saw two
types, what he called external inequality and internal inequality. As he described them in
The Division of Labor, external inequalities are those imposed on the individual by the
social circumstances of birth, in other words, ascribed status. It was in mechanical
solidarity, or preindustrial societies, that these external inequalities predominated. In
industrial society, on the other hand, there was a need for internal inequality: “All
external inequalities compromise organic solidarity” (Durkheim 1964:371)—that is,
threaten social order and the proper functioning of the division of labor in industrial
societies. Internal inequalities were seen as inequalities based on individual talent, or
achieved status. For the proper functioning of the industrial system, Durkheim implied
that the people with the proper talents must be allowed to move into positions for which
their talents are best suited.
What Durkheim anticipated was a meritocracy based on equality of opportunity.
Inequality would be there, but he believed an inequality based on merit was needed. And
although Durkheim's ideas paralleled somewhat those of many modern functionalists,
given his overriding concern with solidarity and moral integration in society, his stress
was different. The dominance of internal over external inequality, he believed, was most
important for the maintenance of social solidarity. If external inequalities were forced on
individuals, “constraint alone, more or less violent and more or less direct, binds them to
their functions; in consequence, only an imperfect and troubled solidarity is possible”
(see Lukes 1973:175). Thus, in contrast to Davis and Moore (1945), Durkheim was more
concerned with moral integration and cooperation than he was with the efficient staffing
of “important” positions in industrial society.
Soon after Marx's death, sociologist Max Weber took issue with Marx's unidimensional
view of social stratification in writings often referred to as a debate with Marx's ghost.
Weber recognized that humans have always been divided by not only economic
ownership but also occupational skills, status, and organizational power or class, status,
and power/party (see Gerth and Mills 1946:181–94). In a sense, Weber recognized two
forms of economic divisions under the term class—divisions based on ownership as well
as divisions based on occupational skills (or one's relation to the marketplace). Weber
then recognized that people could be divided over honor, status, or prestige with respect
to a strongly held value system (particularly one based on religion) and political or
organizational power. It was this power/party dimension that Weber believed would be
increasingly important in modern industrial societies, especially because of the necessity
of political and corporate bureaucracies and organizations (such as labor unions), which
challenge those in higher ranks in these bureaucracies.
Max Weber's multidimensional view of social stratification became the most accepted
perspective among twentieth-century sociologists. Among other things, Weber's more
complex view of social stratification allow sociologists to explain the rapidly growing
middle class, as more occupations emerged between the owners of capital and the
unskilled working class. Equally important, Weber's multidimensional view of social
stratification could explain why social stratification and inequality did not go away in
twentieth-century societies that called themselves communist. As Weber predicted, when
one dimension of social stratification is minimized, such as private ownership of
property, another dimension would come to be more important. In communist societies,
this was the dimension of power and control over state bureaucracies.
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More sections
o A History of Social Stratification in American Versus European Sociology
o Social Stratification Theory Today
o Social Mobility and Status Attainment
o Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
o The Great U-Turn
o Research on Poverty
o Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
o Further Reading
A History of Social Stratification in American Versus
European Sociology
Although today most American sociologists consider social stratification as one of the
most important areas of study, this has not always been the case. In fact, the importance
of this subject in understanding societies and human behavior has been widely recognized
by American sociologists only in the past 50 years. The contrast to European social
thought is clear. Sociology as a separate discipline of study in the United States dates
back only to the early 1900s. But in the works of the founders of American sociology
(e.g., William Graham Sumner, Albion Small, and Edward Ross), we find a rather
classless view of American society (Gordon 1963; Page 1969; Pease, Form, and Huber
1970). The relative neglect of social stratification is not surprising, however. Unlike in
European societies, the old rigid class and estate inequalities were less in evidence. The
value system stressed equality of opportunity for all, and at least an appearance of
opportunity and democracy was in greater evidence. Not until the Great Depression of the
1930s was this classless image seriously reexamined, and then only by a few American
social scientists. Even then, many years passed before the study of social stratification
was able to make a significant break with American classless mythology.
The first detailed American study in social stratification appeared in 1929 with Robert
and Helen Lynd's (1929) Middletown, followed later by Middletown in Transition(1937).
This first work was to establish a long tradition of stratification studies of small
community life in the United States. But the general conflict perspective of this study was
only much later a part of this tradition. The Lynds’ focus was on power and economic
inequalities, and the overpowering image of equality of opportunity in American society
was exposed as a myth (see Gordon 1963:66). With the end of the Great Depression, their
view of American society was placed on the shelf and all but forgotten for three decades.
Of the social stratification research stimulated by the Great Depression, Lloyd Warner's
work (in the 1930s and 1940s) had the most significant impact, at least for the next 20 to
30 years. Like the Lynds’ research, Warner's many-volume Yankee City study was
centered on social stratification in small communities (Warner and Lunt 1941, 1942;
Warner and Srole 1949). Using various methods of study, from survey research to
detailed participant observation, these works sought to examine the extent of inequality
and social mobility, as well as the meaning of social stratification for the people involved.
But the Warner School differed from the Lynd tradition in three ways. Most important,
the Warner School came to define social stratification in terms of status (Weber's second
dimension of social stratification). As Warner and Lunt (1941) wrote, “By class is meant
two or more orders of people who are believed to be, and are accordingly ranked by the
members of the community, in superior and inferior positions” (p. 82). With such a view,
inequalities of economics and power were easily ignored, and the dynamics of conflict
related to these stratification dimensions were dismissed. Second, the Warner School
failed to examine the actual extent of equality of opportunity critically. In the face of
contrary experience highlighted by the Depression, this research tradition continued to
stress a reality of social mobility for all who had the talent and ambition to succeed, a
finding now disputed in a reanalysis of Yankee City (Thernstrom 1964). We find in the
Warner School, therefore, an emphasis on social stratification as functional and necessary
for complex societies like our own. The conflict, the structured and hereditary nature of
inequalities, the harsh conditions for workers, and the extensive poverty all too often
found in the expansion of American capitalism were all but ignored.
Despite its neglect of class and class conflict, a tradition of stratification theory and
research was at least begun. The Warner School stimulated many students, and there was
soon a wide variety of research on subjects such as differing class values and lifestyles,
occupational prestige, and the degree and causes of social mobility (Pease et al. 1970).
One review of the early stratification literature found at least 333 research articles and
books on the subject published between 1945 and 1953 (Pfautz 1953). By 1954, the first
American textbook on the subject was published (Cuber and Kenkel 1954).
The break with functional theory came first with Floyd Hunter's (1953) study of
community power, then most dramatically with C. Wright Mills's (1956) description of a
power elite on the national level. Before Watergate, Vietnam, and America's discovery of
poverty and discrimination in the 1960s, these works were ahead of their time. There
were soon new neo-Marxist theories, more empirical research on elite power and conflict,
and a greater recognition of the long history of conflict theories of social stratification
from the European traditions.
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More sections
o A History of Social Stratification in American Versus European Sociology
o Social Stratification Theory Today
o Social Mobility and Status Attainment
o Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
o The Great U-Turn
o Research on Poverty
o Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
o Further Reading
Social Stratification Theory Today
Toward the end of the twentieth century, many theorists began combining the insights of
Marx and Weber for more realistic explanations of social stratification. For example,
rather than accepting Marx's view of the state as simply an institution run by and for the
capitalist class to control others, the concept of state autonomy emerged as a means of
understanding how political elites are able to control or regulate modern economic
systems to prevent the meltdown of capitalism predicted by Marx (see, e.g., Skocpol
1979; Skocpol and Amenta 1985).
Class Categories and the Meaning of Class
Other theorists began combining dimensions of stratification from Marx and Weber for
more sophisticated conceptions of class categories. The most impressive of these attempts
has been Erik O. Wright's empirical work (Wright 1978a, 1978b, 1997; Wright et al.
1982; Wright and Martin 1987). By following Marx's idea that class must be defined in
relation to the productive system in the society (i.e., by one's relation to the means of
production), rather than simply occupational status levels, as functionalists suggest,
Wright has developed a four-class model. With this four-class model, Wright is able to
show the usefulness of both the Marxian and the Weberian views of class.
Defining class in relation to the productive system, we have what Wright calls capitalists,
managers, workers, and the petty bourgeoisie. Capitalists own the means of production
(factories and banks), purchase the labor of others, and control the labor of others.
Managers merely control the labor of others for capitalists and sell their labor to
capitalists (such as managers of corporations). Workers, of course, have only their labor
to sell to capitalists, while the petty bourgeoisie own some small means of production but
employ very few or no workers.
Most previous empirical research in social stratification has been done from the
functional perspective. Class positions, or, more accurately, occupational status positions,
are viewed by functionalists as skill and status rankings on a continuum from lowest to
highest. Pay, status, and education levels are all assumed to roughly follow this
continuum. In other words, functionalists do not consider class divisions, but rather
rankings, as on a ladder. However, these previous functional studies have many
problems. For one, research shows no simple relation between these occupational grades
and income. Another problem is that education level does not predict income very well
(see Jencks et al. 1972 on these problems).
Research by Wright (1978b, 1997) has produced some interesting findings using these
new class categories. With national samples of people in the labor force, Wright's
research found class position (the four categories described earlier) to be about as good in
explaining differences in income between people as are occupational status and education
level. It is also interesting that capitalists have higher incomes, even controlling for or
eliminating the effects on income from education level, occupational skill, age, and job
tenure. In other words, being a capitalist, and especially a big capitalist, irrespective of
other factors such as education and occupational skill, brings more income (see also
Aldrich and Weiss 1981).
There are other interesting findings using Wright's class categories. For example,
education does not on the average help workers attain a higher income, but more
education does bring more income for the managerial class. And, examining people
within class categories, there is not much difference between males and females, blacks
and whites on income. The male-female and black-white overall income differences
(males and whites have higher incomes) are due primarily to class position. That is,
females and blacks have lower average incomes because they are proportionately more
often than white males to be in the working class, as defined by Wright.
Another recent conceptualization of class has been made by Pierre Bourdieu, a French
sociologist who came to be respected in the United States in the 1990s. From a French
structuralist tradition, Bourdieu (1993) focused on how meanings people have of the
world are shaped or limited by objective structures in the society. In social stratification,
Bourdieu argued that economic class positions shape the worldviews of members of
distinct class positions. Thus, these class subcultures result in class differences in tastes,
lifestyles, and even preferences of values (Bourdieu 1984, 1996). Through differing class
subcultures, people of different classes tend to draw lines around their class “in-group”
and the “out-group” of people in other class positions. Thus, people in higher-class
positions come to define those of lower-class positions as different and perhaps not as
capable of fitting into higher positions in the class system. One can say that from this
perspective, “people compete about culture and they compete with it” (Jenkins
1992:128). While there are questions about the extent to which these class subcultures are
as important in the American mass culture context, this perspective has contributed to our
understanding of how social mobility might be restricted or enhanced by how people in
higher-class positions (such as teachers with lower-class children) evaluate others in
terms of their knowledge of higher culture (DiMaggio 1982; DiMaggio and Mohr 1985).
Despite the wide acceptance of these new conceptualizations of class, there are still
retractors who favor older, more functionalist views of continuous hierarchies rather than
classes at all. Years ago, Dennis Wrong (1959, 1964) outlined what he called realist
versus nominalist definitions of class. As Kingston's (2000) recent attempt at revival
shows, the realist places emphasis on clear class boundaries in people identifying
themselves as members of a particular class and interacting most with others in the same
class; in other words, forming distinct social groupings based on class divisions. There is
evidence that Americans are less likely to think about common economic class interests
and are more likely to associate with others on the basis of nonclass lifestyle or
subcultural preferences rather than within their own economic class (Kingston 2000). For
the nominalist, however, most important are the common characteristics that groups of
people may have that influence their life chances and share of valued rewards in the
society, such as education level, occupational position, or bureaucratic power position.
People are then placed in class categories in terms of these common characteristics
whether or not they are aware of these characteristics and associate with others in the
same class.
Related to this realist view of class are recent questions about the extent to which
economic class conflicts are important enough to influence voting behavior. There is
evidence that voting in national elections is now more likely based on moral or value
issues rather than economic class issues (LeDuc, Niemi, and Norris 1996; Evans 1999;
Clark and Lipset 2001). However, this decline in class voting is occurring to a great
extent in the United States only, and the United States is most unique in lower-class
nonvoting. In other words, something in the United States has led to the neglect of issues
important to the less affluent (Kerbo and Gonzalez 2003). The majority of sociologists
who continue to argue that class divisions remain powerful argue that when the interests
of the less affluent are being ignored in the political system, this in itself suggests an
element of class conflict.
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More sections
o A History of Social Stratification in American Versus European Sociology
o Social Stratification Theory Today
o Social Mobility and Status Attainment
o Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
o The Great U-Turn
o Research on Poverty
o Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
o Further Reading
Social Mobility and Status Attainment
During the second half of the twentieth century, there has been more research in the area
of social mobility and status attainment in the United States than any other area in social
stratification (Kerbo 2006a, chap. 12). Social mobility refers to the extent of movement
up and down the stratification, while the subject of status attainment refers to the process
and factors leading individuals to movement up or down with respect to their parents’
position. The most detailed studies of social mobility in the United States following the
functionalist occupational categories were conducted by Blau and Duncan (1967), and
then 11 years later by Featherman and Hauser (1978). Since the 1973 data, there has been
no research as comprehensive from a functionalist perspective, though we have smaller
studies providing updated information. Blau and Duncan's (1967) mobility data were
collected with the help of the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1962, with detailed
information on the family backgrounds, educational experience, and occupational history
of over 20,000 males in the labor force. Blau and Duncan's study The American
Occupational Structure is considered the landmark study of social mobility in the United
States. The Featherman and Hauser study (1978) Opportunity and Change is designed as
a replication of this landmark study, with a similar sample of over 30,000 employed
males in 1973. Hout (1988) updated this research with new data from 1972 to 1985.
The basic conclusions of this research are that intergenerational mobility has been rather
extensive in the United States, at least between the 1950s and 1980s. Furthermore, there
has been more upward mobility than downward mobility, primarily because of changes in
the American occupational structure. That is, with more jobs being created in the middle
and upper-middle occupational categories compared with lower occupational positions in
this time period, there has been more upward mobility due to occupational changes.
However, most people move only short distances in the occupational structure, and those
toward the bottom have substantially lower rates of upward mobility than those born
toward the middle.
Unfortunately, large-scale social mobility studies of the Blau and Duncan or Featherman
and Hauser type have not been done since the 1970s. But smaller studies indicate that
changes in the American occupational structure due to corporate restructuring and
changes in the global economy have led to much less upward social mobility. Even
during the 1972 to 1985 time period, Hout (1988) found that the overall rate of social
mobility was slowing for the first time in the years we have data on the subject. He also
found that while there was still more upward than downward social mobility, upward
social mobility had slowed. When we move from indicators of intergenerational
occupational mobility to the intergenerational changes in income attainment, all
indicators suggest less upward mobility and significant increases in downward mobility.
For example, data on income attainment between 1980 and 1995 in Europe and the
United States show that the income of the middle class, or incomes of 25 percent above
and below median income, has shrunk by 4 percent in the United States, the highest
shrinkage of all industrial nations (Pressman 2001). In almost half of the European Union
countries, in contrast, there was in fact an increase in the percentage of the income of
middle class. In another study of income mobility employing a sample of over 6,000
American families, Hertz (2004) found considerable drops in upward social mobility and
increases in the inheritance of low income over the generations. Other research has found
the rate of income mobility to drop between 1979 and 1998. In this time period, almost
70 percent of sons remained in the same 20th percentile income position as their fathers.
At the top 20 percent income group, however, most sons had attained more income than
their fathers, indicating only significant upward mobility for those born toward the top
(Perrucci and Wysong 2003). And finally, other research shows that the position of the
United States has dropped below that of Canada and several European countries with
respect to income mobility in recent decades (Solon 1992).
As noted, one of the limitations of previous research on social mobility has been
exclusive focus on occupational status. In addition, this earlier research was primarily
limited to social mobility patterns for sons compared with their fathers. Wright, with
research using class categories developed from both Marx and Weber, has overcome
these limitations. In particular, the capitalist ownership category and the authority
category have been completely missed in previous studies of social mobility. Using a
large data set from the United States, Canada, Norway, and Sweden, Wright found that
the capitalist property boundary is the least permeable, while the authority boundary is
the most permeable in all four countries (Western and Wright 1994; Wright 1997:169–
201). In other words, there is more intergenerational mobility into higher positions of
authority than mobility into the category of capitalist property ownership. This is
especially so for the United States (and to some extent Canada), which in many ways is
the most capitalist of all the industrial societies, has more inequality based on the
ownership of property, and has more power in the hands of capitalists and the corporate
class than other industrial nations (Wright 1997:186–90).
In this research, they also investigated the expertise category, which we can generally call
a category of professionals and technical experts. The likelihood of moving into this
expertise category was mixed in the four countries, but generally between the capitalist
property category and authority category in permeability. Thus, given the importance of
wealth in the United States, and given that there are different chances of mobility into the
capitalist (or owner) class than into a higher occupational position (occupational skill
level and expertise category) and authority positions, it is here that we find the old studies
of social mobility focused only on occupational status. In an interesting addition to this
research, Wright also examined cross-friendship patterns in these four countries with
respect to these class categories (Wright and Cho 1992; Wright 1997:203–22). As
expected, fewer people from outside the capitalist property boundary had friendship ties
to people in this capitalist class category compared with friendship ties across the other
class categories. In other words, it is harder to break into the capitalist class and even
more difficult to form friendship ties with people in this class if the person is not already
in it.
Another issue of comparative mobility rates can now be addressed that was impossible to
address before the Erikson and Goldthorpe (1992) study and Wright's (1997) class
categories research on comparative rates of social mobility for women. If the family unit
of women is considered (thus the position of the husband entered into the measure), what
is most significant “is the evidence of how little women's experience of class mobility
differs from that of men” (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992:275). On the other hand, when
the occupations of women are considered, there is more social mobility compared with
men, but much of it is downward to manual employment. Women tend to experience
more limited prospects of moving into top positions in the society, even when born into
families at or close to the top of the occupational structure.
Wright (1997) has found some differences in the social mobility patterns for women
across countries. For example, higher-authority positions are slightly less difficult for
women to attain in the United States compared with Europe (Wright 1997:192). Recent
research in the United States on women engineers has also suggested that the “glassceiling” effect for American women may be becoming less of a problem for younger
women (Morgan 1998).
Finally, another issue of comparative mobility rates can be made clear with the studies of
Erikson and Goldthorpe (1992) and Wright (1997). The United States has the reputation
of being the land of opportunity among many people in the world. These studies,
however, indicate that the United States is only about average with respect to its rate of
circulation mobility, or equality of opportunity in general. In fact, none of the advanced
capitalist societies are radically different with respect to their overall rates of circulation
mobility. But in some places in the stratification system, especially toward the bottom,
the chances of moving up are below average in the United States.
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More sections
o A History of Social Stratification in American Versus European Sociology
o Social Stratification Theory Today
o Social Mobility and Status Attainment
o Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
o The Great U-Turn
o Research on Poverty
o Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
o Further Reading
Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification
Research
In terms of the specific subjects researched in the second half of the twentieth century, a
content analysis of the five leading sociology journals in the United States showed that
more than half of the published research in the general area of social stratification
focused on some aspect of social mobility (Kerbo 1981, 2006a, chap. 12). In the last
couple of decades of the twentieth century to the present, there is a shift toward more
research on race, ethnic, and gender inequalities. But there remains a kind of ambivalent
relationship between the field of social stratification and these areas of research. Are
theory and research on race, ethnic, and gender inequalities to be considered subareas of
social stratification, or are they to be considered subareas of sociology in their own right?
The trend seems to be toward the latter as more and more of the research and theory seem
less connected to broader theories of social stratification. There are, however, other
recent trends in research and theory on social stratification in recent decades.
Historical and Comparative Research
Within sociology more generally, there has been a clear trend toward more historical and
comparative research, especially in American sociology. As many have observed, since
the early days of American sociology there was less interest in research that compared
different societies on the same issue, or even research focused on historical trends within
the United States. The research methodologies and interests of the classic European
sociologists seemed to fade quickly as the young discipline was transported to the United
States (Gouldner 1970). Perhaps globalization has had its impact on American
sociologists, but new research methods requiring fewer cases and allowing for time series
analysis no doubt helped bring about this new research trend.
Despite the value of more historical and comparative research, most of this research has
been quantitative and less sensitive to the qualitative differences that exist across
societies thereby making indicators and measures of key variables misleading. For
example, when comparing rates of social mobility across a sample from modern
industrial societies, the issue is whether social mobility up and down a standard ranking
of occupations is equally important in all societies. It is known that there is a strong
correlation between how people in different countries rank occupations in terms of status
(Treiman 1977). But there are certainly other dimensions to status or economic ranking
that differ cross-culturally. In Japan, being an electrician or a manager for Toyota or Sony
brings much more status and long-term rewards than holding similar positions in small
companies (Kerbo and McKinstry 1995). There has recently been more qualitative
historical-comparative research that can counter these problems in the quantitative
historical-comparative research, which will likely expand in coming years.
Modern World-Systems Theory and Research
Over the last couple of decades, it has become clear that one of the most important new
theories related to social stratification comes under the general title of the modern worldsystems theory. It is now evident that no clear understanding of social stratification in the
United States or any other country can be achieved without reference to the affects of the
modern world system. The growing income inequality in the United States, the growing
class conflict in Europe over changes in class relations and rewards, the Asian economic
crisis beginning in 1997 (earlier for Japan), to name just a few topics, must be considered
in relation to changes in the modern world system. We must also include major world
events, such as colonialism, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, along with
all the events and conditions these world-shaping events caused, as related to changes in
the modern world system.
In brief, from the works of Wallerstein (1974, 1977, 1980, 1989, 1999), Frank (1969,
1975, 1978, 1998), Bornschier (1995), Chase-Dunn (1989), and Chirot (1986), modern
world-systems theory considers nations to be ranked in ways similar to the international
system of social stratification. From about 1500 AD, when the new modern world system
began, nations have been in competition with each other for dominance over other
nations, especially with respect to economic domination. Core nations are the richer
nations on top of the modern world system, with semiperiphery and periphery nations in
lower ranks in this system, much like middle class, working class, and the poor in an
internal stratification system. Throughout this period of core nation competition and
conflict, aspects of a country's political economy, including its system of social
stratification, have had negative or positive affects on the country's ability to maintain or
improve its ranking in the world of nations. Conversely, this modern world system has
had effects on domestic political economies and systems of social stratification in both
rich and poor countries.
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o Social Stratification Theory Today
o Social Mobility and Status Attainment
o Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
o The Great U-Turn
o Research on Poverty
o Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
o Further Reading
The Great U-Turn
Another new topic of comparative-historical research in social stratification shows the
importance of the modern world system in understanding domestic trends in social
stratification. Earlier research had established that as nations become more economically
developed, there was a clear long-term trend toward reduced income inequality (Jackman
1975; Harrison and Bluestone 1988). New research, however, has shown a clear trend
toward increasing inequality in the most advanced and richest nations in the world,
especially in the United States (Alderson and Nielsen 2002). Other research has recently
shown that government policies can strongly affect the level of income inequality and
poverty in advanced industrial nations. The questions become, Why is income inequality
increasing in several advanced industrial nations (most extensively in the United States),
and why have not more governments attempted to reduce income inequality and poverty?
Modern world-systems theory suggests two related explanations (Kerbo 2006a, 2006b).
First, the greater ability of corporations to move across the world more freely has brought
many workers in advanced industrial nations in more direct competition with low-wage
labor in less affluent countries. Where the working class has less political influence in
rich nations, these workers have their standards of living eroded. Second, in advanced
industrial societies where workers have less protection, corporations from these countries
are in a stronger position to compete successfully for greater profits in the global
economy. While the incomes, benefits, and job security of workers in countries with
stronger traditions of working-class political action are more protected in the short term, a
history of core competition in the modern world system suggests that the competitive
position of their corporations in the global economy may be eroded, and thus their
standards of living may be reduced in the future. But this outcome is far from certain
because, as German unions and many German executives argue, more job security and
employee influence within the company will give German and other European
corporations a long-term advantage in global competition (Thelen 1991; Turner 1991;
Kerbo and Strasser 2000).
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o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Social Stratification Theory Today
Social Mobility and Status Attainment
Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
The Great U-Turn
Research on Poverty
Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
Further Reading
Research on Poverty
One of the biggest contrasts between sociological research in the 1960s and 1970s
compared with the present has been a lack of research on domestic poverty in recent
years. The reason is rather obvious; the Great Society Programs of the 1960s generated
more interest and funding for research on American poverty in these years. There is
evidence of new interest and research on American poverty, however, with several recent
books with 1960s-style titles and tables of contents recently published (e.g., Danziger and
Haveman 2001; Iceland 2003; Rank 2004). Ironically, with this new interest in American
poverty, under the American administration of the early 2000s, there has been less
research support and even less data, as shown in the 2004 Annual Census Bureau report,
which combined the previously separate census reports on income and poverty into one
report that left out much of the information about poverty that has been provided for
many years (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2004).
The reemergence of interest in American poverty is likely related to the continued growth
of inequality in the United States as well as the fact that poverty was reduced only
slightly and temporarily with the longest economic boom in American history between
1991 and 2001. New data also show that the poor are poorer in the United States than in
previous years as measured by how many are below 50 percent of the poverty line, and
the percentage of poor people in families with a full-time worker has been increasing
steadily in the last two decades (Kerbo 2006a, chap. 9).
The new interest in comparative research in social stratification has also been evident in
research on poverty in rich nations. Not surprisingly, comparative research has shown
less government action to reduce poverty in the United Sates than other rich nations, with
U.S. government programs reducing American poverty by about 28 percent of what it
otherwise would be compared with reductions of 50 to 80 percent in the original 15
European Union nations (Smeeding 1997; Mishel, Bernstein, and Schmitt 1999:377;
Smeeding, Rainwater, and Burtless 2001).
There is something of a surprise in this area of research, however. Previous comparative
studies of poverty in rich nations had to use spotty data on absolute poverty rates
compared with relative poverty rates. Absolute poverty rates are measured using a
poverty line that estimates the actual costs of basic necessities. Relative poverty rates are
set at 50 percent of median income in each nation. With the United States having the
highest rates of income inequality, the finding of higher rates of relative poverty in the
United States is hardly surprising. Now, although, the new Purchasing Power Parity
(PPP) measures of income across nations has provided a new tool. The measures for PPP
are set at what U.S. dollars would buy and then adjustments are made for real currency
when comparing incomes across nations. The current U.S. poverty line is set at about $11
per day using PPP. Thus, we now have figures for many more countries on a poverty line
also set for $11 per day in these other countries. The surprise is that about 13 percent of
the American population lives below $11 per day (about the figure below the poverty line
estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau), while the figures from Great Britain is 15.7
percent and Australia is 17.6 percent (Smeeding et al. 2001). Absolute poverty rates for
other rich countries range from 9 to 4 percent of the population.
There has also been increased interest in global inequality and poverty in recent years, no
doubt stimulated by figures showing that world inequality has been at unprecedented
levels in recent decades (Kerbo 2006a, chap. 17, 2006b), and growing protest since the
1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. New PPP measures have provided
new perspectives on world poverty, especially with findings that about 1.3 billion people
live on less than $1 per day and almost half the world's population lives on less than $2
per day (World Bank 2000).
The belief among antiglobalization protestors has been partly supported by research from
the modern world-systems perspective. One of the most important research questions has
been whether poor countries have more or less long-term economic growth when they
become extensively tied to multinational corporations from rich nations. While there is
certainly variability among periphery nations, especially in Asia, several early studies
indicated that many periphery nations do have less long-term economic growth when
overly dominated by outside multinational corporations (Chase-Dunn 1975, 1989;
Bornschier, Chase-Dunn, and Rubinson 1978; Snyder and Kick 1979; Stokes and Jaffee
1982; Nolan 1983; Bornschier and Chase-Dunn 1985). Poor nations that receive
extensive multinational corporate investments, of course, tend to have some economic
growth in the short term. But the longer-term prospects for growth (over five years or
more) are in many cases actually harmed by the kinds of outside aid and investment these
nations have received. This research has also indicated that outside corporate investment
increases income inequality within poorer nations. As noted above, the historical pattern
for rich nations until recently has been one of reduced income inequality as economic
development proceeds (Jackman 1975; Hewitt 1977; Stack 1978a, 1978b; Weede 1980).
In the case of poor nations, however, the rich tend to get richer while the poor are either
poorer or no better off (Chase-Dunn 1975; Rubinson 1976; Bornschier et al. 1978; Stack
1978b; Bornschier and Ballmer-Cao 1979).
After the first wave of research on the effects of multinational corporate investments in
poor countries, however, more recent research has shown less consistent and even
contradictory results. Some research using larger and more recent data sets of poor
nations has found that extensive multinational corporate investment now tends to produce
more positive economic growth in the long term, while another using recalculations of
older data also finds outside investment results in more long-term economic growth
(Firebaugh 1992, 1996; de Soysa and Oneal 1999). Other research has shown that outside
corporate investment in poor nations does not lead to less economic development when
the types of goods imported or exported to and from the poor nations are considered, or if
the outside corporate investment is accounted for by several rich nations rather than just
one or two (Bollen and Appold 1993; Kentor 2001; Kentor and Boswell 2003). When
many multinational corporations have smaller amounts of investment within a poor
country, they are less able to dominate the economy and political system and, in fact,
must compete among themselves giving workers in poor countries some advantage. Still
other studies have questioned the negative effects of multinational investments in poor
nations, such as increases in income inequality and a lower standard of living among the
poor masses of people. These studies suggest a more complex relationship between
multinational corporate investment and income inequality with evidence that the poor in
many of these nations do have improved lives because of multinational investment
(Alderson and Nielsen 1999; Firebaugh and Beck 1994). Some authors of original
research showing that multinational corporate investment harms poorer nations have
conducted research using data from the 1990s to conclude that their original research was
correct but that the negative effects on poor countries tend to be less today (e.g.,
Herkenrath and Bornschier 2003). The current conclusion is that the effects of location in
the modern world system are more complex than originally thought, and the global
economy itself is changing. The conflicting research results on the impact of outside
corporate investment on poorer countries is also due to rapid economic growth in Asian
nations with extensive outside investments compared with countries in Latin America
and Africa (Kerbo 2006b).
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o A History of Social Stratification in American Versus European Sociology
o Social Stratification Theory Today
o Social Mobility and Status Attainment
o Recent Trends in Social Stratification and Stratification Research
o The Great U-Turn
o Research on Poverty
o Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
o Further Reading
Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of
Social Stratification
One has to be cautious about overstating the impact of globalization on domestic systems
of social stratification around the world, but we must recognize that the impact is
certainly increasing for both rich and poor nations. Furthermore, new comparative
analyses of political economy, or social stratification more generally, show that a nation's
competitive position in the modern world system is affected by the nature of its system of
social stratification.
Table 22.1 Competing Forms of Capitalism Competing Forms of Capitalism
CorporateCooperative
State Development
Dominated
Capitalism
Capitalism (Asian
Capitalism
(Corporatist)
Development Model)
(Neoliberal)
United States,
Japan and developing
Western European
Countries
Canada, United
countries in East and
Union countries
Kingdom
Southeast Asia
Small state, little
Large welfare state,
Strong state intervention,
government
state regulation of
extensive
Characteristics
regulation, weak
the economy,
regulation/planning,
unions, low labor
economic planning,
weak unions
costs
strong unions
Cheap production High production
costs, high
costs, low
Medium production
inequality, low
inequality, high
costs, low inequality,
benefits to workers, worker benefits,
medium worker benefits,
Outcomes
less job security,
high job security,
medium job security,
low unemployment, high
low unemployment, low
high poverty, low unemployment, low poverty, low taxes
taxes
poverty, high taxes
SOURCE: Kerbo
(2006b, chap. 3,
2006a, chap. 14).
Also see EspingAnderson (1990),
Goodin et al. (1999),
and Kerbo and
McKinstry (1995).
Esping-Anderson (1990) and Goodin et al. (1999) have specified two distinct models of
capitalism and shown their differing outcomes for people in differing class positions
within a nation. To their two models of capitalism, which are found mostly in Europe and
North America, we can add a third Asian model as indicated below (Kerbo and
McKinstry 1995; Kerbo 2006b). There are differing outcomes for people in different
class positions in each of these three models of capitalism as summarized in Table 22.1.
As noted earlier, much future research on class systems and the modern world system,
such as the great U-turn, will be devoted to whether or not one of these three models will
become the dominant one as global competition proceeds throughout the twenty-first
century.
Less-developed nations in the modern world system today are divided between those
forced into the neoliberal model of capitalism by rich nations and the International
Monetary Fund (especially in Latin America and the Philippines), those with
development states (primarily in East and Southeast Asia), and those that can best be
described as “predator states,” that is, states captured by particular subgroups in the
society and used primarily for the enrichment of that subgroup only (most often in Africa,
but also in some other countries such as Burma) (see Kerbo 2006b). The questions for
these countries will be which form of capitalism will be able to sustain economic
development in the twenty-first century, and which form of capitalism will be able to
promote more equally spread economic development that reduces poverty. Current trends
point to the Asian development model as being most sustainable and able to reduce world
poverty, though Japan's long stagnation since 1990 and the Asian economic crisis of 1997
suggest that the answers are far from certain.
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o Social Stratification Theory Today
o Social Mobility and Status Attainment
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o The Great U-Turn
o Research on Poverty
o Globalization and the Future of Domestic Systems of Social Stratification
o Further Reading
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