1.

Systems of stratification
• Stratification: structured ranking of entire groups of people that
perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in society
• Slavery: varied in practice
Greece, not permanent but in US since it was an ascribed status, racial and legal barriers
prevented freedom
Slavery still exists in forms of immigrants forced to labor, sexual trafficking.
• Castes: Hereditary ranks, usually religiously dictated, usually immobile,
ascribed status.
Expected to marry within own caste iii. Hinduism, four major categories (varnas), fifth=
untouchables, lowest
Castes decrease in India because of urbanization and technological advances, bringing
new opportunities those with the skill
Social Classes
The upper class - America’s top, and only the powerful elite get to see the
view from there. In the United States, people with extreme wealth make up
one percent of the population, and they own one-third of the country’s
wealth.

The middle class - People with annual incomes of $150,000 and people who
annually earn $30,000.
Upper-middle-class members hold bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees,
studied subjects such as business, management, law, or medicine.
Lower-middle-class members hold bachelor’s degrees or associate’s degrees
from two-year community or technical colleges.
 Rossides (1997) uses five-class model to describe
U.S. class system:

• Upper class: 1% to 2% of U.S. population

• Lower class: 10% to 25% of U.S. population
• Upper middle class: 10% to 15% of U.S. population
• Lower middle class: 30% to 35% of U.S. population
• Working class: 40% to 45% of U.S. population

Factors contributing to shrinking size of middle class

Disappearing opportunities for those with little education
Global competition and advances in technology
Growing dependence on temporary workforce
The 50 States: Contrasts in Income and Poverty Levels
Note: National median household income was $51,168; national
poverty rate, 14.3 percent.
Source: 2009 census data presented in American Community Survey
2010: Tables R1701, R1901.
2.1 Karl Marx’s View of Class Differentiation
class differentiation  crucial determinant of social,
economic, and political inequality.
social relations during any period of history depend on who
controls the primary mode of economic production. 2
2. Sociological Perspectives on
Stratification
Feudal Estate system
+Agricultural production
+The nobility owned the land.
+Peasants  work according to terms
dictated by those who owned the land.
 Capitalism
• Bourgeoisie- capitalist class (owns the
means of production)
• Proletariat- working class.

=> In capitalist societies, the members of the

bourgeoisie maximize profit in competition
with other firms by exploiting workers, who
must exchange their labor for subsistence
wages.
=> exploitation of the proletariat will lead to the
destruction of the capitalist system, because
the workers will revolt.
• Overcome false consciousness (“I am being exploited by my boss”).

• Develop class-consciousness -> realizes that all workers are being

exploited by the bourgeoisie and have a common stake in revolution.
2.2 Max Weber’s View of Stratification
No single characteristic (such as class) totally defines a
person’s position within the stratification system.
Instead, he identified three distinct components of
stratification:
• Class
• Status
• Power
Class- a group of people who
boardshave a similar level of wealth and
of directors,
income.
government bodies, and
interest groups
Status - people who have the same prestige or lifestyle. An
individual gains status through membership in a desirable group.

Power- the ability to exercise one’s will over others.

certain workers in the United
2 major sources of power—big business
States try to support theirand government—are
closelythrough
families interrelated
minimum-
wage jobs.
 2.3 Interactionist Perspective
“People at the top of the social hierarchy typically convert part of
their wealth into conspicuous consumption-purchase goods not to
survive but to flaunt their superior wealth and social standing.”

=> At the other end of the spectrum, behavior that is judged to be typical of the
lower class is subject not only to ridicule but even to legal action.
 3. Is Stratification Universal?

Functionalist and conflict sociologists offer contrasting explanations for social

stratification
3.1 Functionalist Perspective :

“Society must distribute its members

among a variety of social positions”

=> Stratification is universal and that social inequality is

necessary so that people will be motivated to fill functionally
important positions.
3.2. Conflict Perspective :

Social classes- groups of people who share

common interests resulting from their authority
relationships.
Dominant ideology - a set of cultural beliefs and
practices that helps to maintain powerful social,
economic, and political interests.
=> see stratification as a major source of
societal tension and conflict

Dahrendorf (1959)
3.3 Lenski’s Viewpoint :

• Some form of differentiation is found in

every culture
• In subsistence-based hunting-and-gathering
societies: people focus on survival
• the allocation of surplus goods and services
controlled by those with wealth, status, and
power reinforces the social inequality that
accompanies stratification systems
 4. Systems of Stratification
4.1 Objective Method of Measuring Social Class
• Objective method: assigns individuals to classes on basis of criteria such
as occupation, education, income, and place of residence
-Researcher, not person being classified, identifies the person’s class position
• prestige - the respect and admiration that an occupation holds in a
society.
• esteem - the reputation that a specific person  has earned within an
occupation. Surgeon,  physician, lawyer, dentist, and
college professor were the most highly
regarded occupations.
4.2 Gender and Occupational Prestige

The prestige ranking of occupations has proved to be a useful indicator

of a person’s class position.
4.3 Gender and Occupational
Prestige
For many years, studies of social class tended to neglect the
occupations and incomes of women as determinants of social rank.
• One new approach focuses on individual rather than family or
household
• Others seek to give monetary value to women’s unpaid work
4.4 Multiple Measures

• Advances in statistical methods and computer technology have multiplied

the factors used to define class under the objective method.
• Allowing sociologists to measure class in a more complex and
multidimensional way.
• socioeconomic status (SES), a measure of social class that is based on
income, education, and occupation.
5. Income and Wealth
• Wealth is distributed much more unevenly than income in the
United States.

Distribution of Family Wealth in the United States (Source: Data for 2013 from Institute
for Policy Studies 2015)
6. Poverty
• Def: a condition in which people do not have enough money to
maintain a standard of living that includes the basic necessities of life.
• One contributor to the United States’ high poverty rate has been a
large number of workers employed at minimum wage.
• Raising the minimum wage does not remedy other difficulties that
low wage workers encounter
6.1 Studying Poverty

Absolute poverty - a minimum level of subsistence that no family

should be expected to live below.
- One commonly used measure of absolute poverty is the federal government’s
poverty line

Relative poverty - a floating standard of deprivation by which people

at the bottom of a society, whatever their lifestyles, are judged to be
disadvantaged in comparison with the nation as a whole.
6.2  Who Are The Poor?

• Despite perceptions that the poor are able to work but will not, many
poor adults do work
–       12% of poor adults aged 18–64 work outside the home, compared
to 53% of all adults
–       37% of the poor who work are employed a full time
• Majority of the poor live outside of urban slums
• The overall composition of the poor changes continually
6.3 Feminization of Poverty

Def: a change in the levels of poverty biased against women or female headed
households.
•  Since World War II, increasing proportion of U.S. poor have been women
•  The trend is known as feminization of poverty
– 1959, 26% of the nation’s poor were female householders
–  2014, that was 54%
– Worldwide issue
• Major factor: increase in families with women as single heads of household
6.4 The Underclass
• Underclass: long-term poor who lack training and skills
• About 38% in impoverished areas are Black; 30% Hispanic;
26% White non-Hispanic
–       Limited educational opportunities
–       Greater exposure to crime and health risks
–       Reduced access to private investment
–       Higher prices for goods and services
6.5 Explaining Poverty
• Poverty and the poor satisfy positive functions for many non-poor
groups
–       Society’s dirty work performed at low cost
–       Creates jobs for occupations and professions that serve the poor
–       Upholds conventional social norms and values
–       Guarantees higher status of the more wealthy
–       Poor absorb costs of social change
 7. Life Chances 
• Def:the
Ex: When people’s
ill-fatedopportunities
Titanic sank in to provide
1912, manythemselves with material
more goods, positive
first-class living conditions,
passengers and favorable life experiences
than third-class
• Life chances
passengers survived. are reflected in measures such as housing, education,
This photograph,
and health. taken recently on the ocean floor,
shows the remains of a first-class cabin on the
• In some cases, life chances are a matter of life and death.
luxury liner.

=> The opportunity for advancement—for social

mobility—is of special significance to those on the
bottom of society.
8. Social Mobility

• Definition: refers to the movement of individuals or groups from one

position in a society’s stratification system to another.

• The ascent of a person from a poor background to a position of

prestige, power, or financial reward is an example of social mobility.
Ex: Cinderella story
8.1 Open versus Closed Stratification Systems:

Ex: the government attempts to reduce the barriers faced by women, racial and
ethnic minorities, and people born in lower social classes.
• Open stratification system and closed stratification system: are used
-Closed system: allows little or no possibility of individual social mobility.
Ex:to toslavery
The indicate
andthe degree
caste of social mobility in a society.
systems.
• Open system: the position of each individual is influenced by his or
her achieved status.
→a system encourages competition among members of society.
 8.2 Types of Social Mobility:

Two types of Vertical mobility:

• Horizontal mobility:
Intergenerational mobility
the- movement
changes in oftheansocial position
individual from of one
children
socialrelative to
theirposition
parents.to another of the same rank.
Ex:Ex:
a plumber whose
an elementary father
school waswho
teacher a physician
becomes aprovides an example of downward
police officer
intergenerational mobility.
• Vertical mobility: the movement of an individual from one social
Intragenerational mobility
position to another of a- different
changes in social position within a person’s adult life
rank.
Ex:Ex:
A woman who works as a
the teacher becomes a lawyer
teacher’s aide and eventually becomes
superintendent of the school district experiences upward
intragenerational mobility.
8.3 Occupational Mobility
• First, occupational mobility (both intergenerational and
intragenerational) has been common among males.
• Second, people who reach an occupational level above or below that
of their parents usually advance or fall back only one or two out of a
possible eight occupational levels.
 8.4 The impact in the
occupational structure
• Education: plays a critical role in social mobility. The impact of formal schooling on adult
status is even greater than that of family background.
• Race and Ethnicity: the cumulative disadvantage of discrimination plays a significant
role in the disparity between the two groups’ experiences.
• Gender:
+ Women’s employment opportunities are much more limited than men’s
+ Most people will aspire to upward mobility and seek to make the most of their
opportunities.
+ women have a rather large range of clerical occupations open to them.
→On the positive side, though today’s women lag behind men in employment,
their earnings have increased faster than their mothers’ did at a comparable
age, so that their incomes are substantially higher.
9. Executive Compensation
9.1 Looking at the Issue
• In 1965, top executives earned 24 times the average worker’s pay
• By 1980 the gap widened to 40 times the average paycheck
• By 2009, the gap was 300 times the average
9.2 Applying Sociology
• Functionalist: compensation reasonable given the potential for gain
• Conflict theorists: question compensation and process that determine
executives’ pay
• DiPrete: corporations report executives’ compensation relative to peer
compensation
Public comparisons of executive compensation within industries may influence board
decisions
9.3 Initiating Policy

• Law now mandates companies publish “summary compensation

tables” with retirement packages and “golden parachute”
• In 2009, White House appointed Treasury Department official to look
into executive compensation
• Critics worry companies will just develop new ways to inflate
executives’ pay