Introduction to Sociology/Stratification
Contents |
Introduction
Social stratification refers to the hierarchical arrangement of people in a society. This chapter focuses on economic stratification, meaning how people are differentiated based upon their wealth (and/or power). The most common delineation of economic groups in societies is that of social classes, ranging from lower/working class to upper-class. Alternative systems of economic stratification include caste systems (which have traditionally combined additional factors, including religion and tradition) and the hierarchical structure in communist countries. Because the class nomenclature is more common, it will be the primary distinction used in this chapter.
To begin, this chapter explores what it means to be poor. It then turns to stratification in society, focusing on multiple levels of stratification at the global level and within the U.S.
Objective vs. Subjective Poverty
There are two notions of poverty that are often confused, objective poverty and subjective poverty. Objective poverty refers to the level of income below which one cannot afford to purchase all the resources one requires to live (see also poverty line). Objective poverty is contrasted with subjective poverty; people who feel some sense of deprivation resulting from their lower social standing or position near the bottom of a social hierarchy. Individuals who are subjectively poor have sufficient funds to survive but do not have as many resources as other members of their society, resulting in a sense of being poor despite having enough to survive.
While there are no clear statistics on the number of people who feel some sense of subjective poverty, there is a substantial amount of information on individuals who live in objective poverty:
- 1/6 of the world's population (1 billion people) live on less than $1 per day (source)
- 11 million children die each year from diseases and other causes that are poverty related (source)
- women and children are the most affected by poverty (source)
- malnutrition, an indicator of objective poverty, has lasting effects on biological and mental development (source)
Socioeconomic Status
Building on the ideas of Max Weber, who saw three main dimensions of stratification (class, status, and party), contemporary sociologists often define stratification in terms of socioeconomic status (or SES). This measure includes educational attainment, income and wealth, and occupational prestige. The overall summation of these standings dictates one's socioeconomic status in any given society.
Global Inequality
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At the international level, comparisons in economic stratification are made between different countries. While it is still common to hear countries described as first-world or third-world, this system of classification is outdated and has been replaced with the terms developed and developing (or, alternatively, post-industrial, industrialized, and industrializing). Third World was a term originally used to distinguish nations that neither aligned with the West nor with the East during the Cold War; many
One of the clearest measures of development in a country is the United Nations Human Development Index. The Index examines numerous aspects of social life in the countries around the world, combines measures of those aspects into a single number, then orders the numbers, producing an index ranging from high development to low development. Aspects of society included in the Human Development Index include:
- life expectancy at birth
- literacy rates
- GDP
The United Nations provides comprehensive data on trends in economic and other forms of stratification within countries over time (see here).
U.S. Inequality
A surprising characteristic of the United States for many people is that the U.S. has a large proportion of its population that lives in poverty. It is necessary to note that poverty can be measured in a number of ways (see poverty line), but by the standards used by the U.S. Census Bureau (see below), roughly 12.5% of United Statesians live in poverty. That translates into close to 35 million people (source).
Despite a pervasive belief in the U.S. that anyone can become rich (see Rags to Riches and Horatio Alger), intergenerational inequality in the United States is very rigid. There is very little socioeconomic or class movement, especially for people at the very top and bottom of the economic ladder. The majority of children born to parents with the lowest incomes remain in the bottom third of incomes as adults. Race is a strong correlate of this finding: 17% of white children born to parents in the bottom fifth of the income distribution remain there as adults, but 42% of black children do. The little movement that occurs takes place in the middle of the distribution (Bowles, Gintis, and Osborne-Groves 2005).
The discussion of sociological theories relating to stratification below helps explain this economic disparity.
Theories of Stratification
Two classic approaches to social stratification provide interesting insights into this phenemonon, structural-functionalism and social-conflict theories. A third approach, dependency theory, has roots in and extends Marxist thought and conflict theory by applying that approach to the world at a global/international level.
Structural-Functionalism
The structural-functional approach to social stratification asks the same question of social stratification that it does of the other components of society: What function or purpose does stratification serve? Underlying this question is the assumption that stratification serves some purpose because it exists in virtually every society (though it is almost non-existent in hunter-gatherer societies). The resulting answer is often that it must exist in society in order to facilitate stability and equilibrium; some level of hierarchical organization must be necessary in order for complex societies to function. Additionally, the structural-functional approach argues that positions higher in the social hierarchy must be of more functional importance to the society, which is why they result in greater rewards. In other words, according to this perspective, it makes sense for the CEO of a company whose position is more important functioanlly for a company to make more than a janitor working for the company.
There are several obvious problems with this approach to social stratification. First, the answer to the function of stratification of society results in an answer that is guilty of begging the question. The answer only exists because the question is asked the way that it is; it is assumed from the asking of the question that there must be a function, thus, a function is found. The second major problem with this approach is that it assumes social stratification is necessary for the functioning of society. While it may be the case that only hunter-gatherer societies have existed with minimal stratification and no complex societies have developed a purely egalitarian system, it should not be assumed that such a system is impossible. The third significant problem with this approach is that it supports the status quo of existing systems, regardless of how the power of the ruling group is derived (e.g., totalitarianism, dictatorship, oligarchy, etc.). While it may be the case that social stratification facilitates the stability of societies, the structural-functional approach falls short in developing lucid arguments to that end.
Social-Conflict Theory and Marxism
The social-conflict approach to stratification sees social hierarchies, like most other elements of society, as embodying inequality (which is virtually by definition in this instance). The conflict theory approach argues that individuals at the top of social hierarchies are there at the expense of people in lower positions. Additionally, people higher up in the hierarchy will use their power to strengthen both the hierarchy and their standing in it.
A particularly clear example of the social-conflict perspective is Marx's early analysis of capitalism. Marx argued that positions in the social hierarchy were directly related to an individuals' relationship to the means of production. Individuals in the upper-class are the owners of the means of production or bourgeoisie. Those who use the means of production to produce goods (or services) and own only their labor power, the proletariat, are members of the lower or working classes.
Because capitalists rise to the top of the social hierarchy on the backs of the proletariat through exploiting their labor power, Marx believed the proletariat would eventually rise up in protest to their exploitation. Marx hoped that the workers of the world would develop a collective conscience or universal sense of injustice that would lead them to overthrow the ruling class of capitalists and institute a new socio-economic system, communism.
The astute student may be asking why such a revolution did not occur in every capitalist society. Of course, some communist revolutions did occur: the U.S.S.R., China, Cuba, and Vietnam are all examples of countries where communist revolutions took place. But there are a number of non-communist countries that have not experienced revolutions in their economic systems, the U.S. being a prime example. If, as Marx proposed, the exploitation of the proletariat would ultimately lead to the overthrowing of the capitalists at the top of the social hierarchy, one is left asking why this has not happened in the U.S. The answer lies in the concessions made by capitalists to proletariats who joined together as labor unions to fight for worker's rights.
In a truly capitalist society, the only restrictions placed upon capitalists would be the restrictions they place upon themselves. In other words, if a capitalist wanted to have her laborers work 20-hour shifts, in a true capitalist society, there would be no restrictions preventing such practices. The U.S. is not a true capitalist society in this sense. The federal and state governments have instituted legislation limiting the labor practices of corporations and capitalists, including:
- regulated working hours
- minimum wage requirements
- laws against child labor
- mandated working conditions
Many of these concessions have resulted from the efforts of organized labor unions.
To return, then, to the question posed above, revolution has been averted through the gradual transformation of capitalist societies into more socialistic societies. By improving the working conditions and wages of the proletariat, capitalists have been able to prevent the over-throwing of the capitalist system.
Dependency Theory of Global Stratification
Dependency theory is the body of theories that propound a worldview suggesting the wealthy countries of the world need a peripheral group of poorer countries to remain wealthy.
As depicted in the diagram, wealthy nations are seen as the core countries; poorer nations are seen as the peripheral countries (with some countries falling in between). Core countries extract resources from the periphery countries and eventually return those resources as manufactured goods. This works to maintain the superiority of the core countries by stripping the periphery countries of their natural resources and forcing them to buy manufactured goods at high prices - the proceeds going to the people and corporations of the core countries. Thus, poor nations provide natural resources, cheap labour, a destination for obsolete technology, and markets to the wealthy nations. Without the poorer, peripheral nations, the wealthy, core countries could not have the standard of living they enjoy.
The theory contends that core countries actively, but not necessarily consciously, perpetuate a state of dependency through various policies and initiatives. This state of dependency is multifaceted, involving economics, media control, politics, banking and finance, education, sports, and all aspects of human resource development. Any attempt by the dependent nations to resist the influences of dependency will result in economic sanctions and/or military invasion and control. While military invasion is somewhat rare, dependency of the periphery countries on the core countries is strongly enforced by the wealthy nations setting the rules of international trade and commerce.
The system of dependency was likely created with the industrial revolution and the expansion of European empires around the world due to their superior power and wealth. Some argue that before this expansion exploitation and dependency was internal to countries, with the major economic centres dominating the rest of the country (for example southeast England dominating the British Isles, or the Northeast United States dominating the south and east). Establishing global trade patterns in the nineteenth century allowed this system to spread to a global level. This resulted in the isolation of the wealthy from both the dangers of peasant revolts and rebellions by the poor. Rather than turn on their oppressors as in the American Civil War or in communist revolutions, the poor could no longer reach the wealthy and thus the less developed nations became engulfed in regular civil wars. With the superiority of rich nations established, it is difficult, if not impossible, for poorer countries to move away from this system. This control ensures that all profits in less developed countries are taken by the better developed nations, preventing reinvestment and growth.
Dependency theory first emerged in the 1950s, advocated by Raul Prebisch, whose research found that the wealth of poor nations tended to decrease when the wealth of rich nations increased. Dependency theory became increasingly popular in the 1960s and 1970s as a criticism of standard development theory that seemed to be failing due to the continued widespread poverty of large parts of the world.
A Case Study
In 1995 a heat wave hit Chicago, IL. It is estimated that 739 Chicagoans died as a result. Browning, Wallace, and Feinberg (2006) contrasted income with mortality rates in Chicago and found that economically disadvantaged neighborhoods had higher rates of heat-related deaths during the heat wave. In addition to a straightforward relationship between income disparity and mortality rates was a finding that neighborhoods and communities that were experiencing significant commercial decline prior to the heat wave had mortality rates over six times higher than their mortality rates under average conditions. This study illustrates that economic inequality can significantly impact various aspects of peoples' lives, including peoples' very ability to stay alive.
Notes
The antonym of inequality is, of course, equality, but there is debate as to what equality should mean. Different definitions include:
References
- Block, Fred; Kortweg, Anna C., and Woodward, Kerry. The Compassion Gap in America. Contexts: Understanding People in Their Social Worlds. 2006; 5(2):14-20.
- Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert, and Osborne-Groves, Melissa. 2005. Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success. New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
- Browning, C.R., Wallace, D., Feinberg, S.L., et al. (2006). Neighborhood Social Processes, Physical Conditions, and Disaster-Related Mortality: The Case of the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave. American Sociological Review, 71(4), 661-678.
- UNICEF
This page also draws heavily on the following Wikipedia articles:
External links
See also:
- Positive freedom
- Negative freedom
- Millennium Development Goals from the United Nations
- Caste system
- Social inequality
- Elitism
- Theodor Geiger
- Marxism
- Three-component theory of stratification
