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The Importance of Social Stratification
Theoretical Explanations of Stratification
Individuals’ Social Status: The Micro Level
Social Mobility: The Micro-Meso Connection
Major Stratification Systems: Macro-Level Analysis
Poverty: Multilevel Determinants and Policy
National and Global Digital Divide: Macro-Level
Stratification
So What?
STRATIFICATION:
Rich and Famous—
or Rags and Famine?
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Survival, just maintaining life, is a daily struggle for the 37 million people (up 1.1 million from 2003) who live in poverty-stricken parts of the world (U.S. Census Bureau 2005b). (See Map 7.1.) These humans are at the bottom of the stratification hierarchy. This raises the following question: Why do some people live like royalty and others live in desperate poverty? Most of us live between these extremes. We study and work hard for what we have, but we also live comfortably, know- ing that starvation is not pounding at our door. This chapter discusses (1) some explanations of stratification systems, (2) the importance and consequences of social rankings for individuals, (3) whether one can change social class positions, (4) characteristics of class systems, (5) social policies to address poverty, and (6) patterns of stability and change.
THE IMPORTANCE OF STRATIFICATION
Social stratification refers to how individuals and groups are layered or ranked in society according to how many val- ued resources they possess. Stratification is an ongoing process of sorting people into different levels of access to
STRATIFICATION: RICH AND FAMOUS—OR RAGS AND FAMINE? 193
Many mansions in places like Newport, Rhode Island, cost several million dollars, and these may be only summer homes for the owners. For people born into wealth, such opulent living seems entirely normal. Source: © Nicole K Cioe.
MAP 7.1 Gross National Income per Capita, 2003 Source: Finfacts (2005).
resources, with the sorting legitimated by cultural beliefs about why the inequality is justifiable. This chapter focuses on socioeconomic stratification, and subsequent chapters examine ethnic and gender stratification.
Three main assumptions underlie the concept of stratification: (1) people are divided into ranked categories; (2) there is an unequal distribution of desired resources, meaning that some members of society possess more of what is valued and others possess less; and (3) each society determines what it considers to be valued resources. In an agricultural society, members are ranked according to how much land or how many animals they own. In an industrial society, occupational position and income are two of the criteria for ranking. Most Japanese associate old age with high rank, while Americans admire and offer high status to those with youthful vigor and beauty. What members of each society value and the criteria they use to rank other members depends on events in the society’s history, its geographic location, its level of development in the world, the society’s political philosophy, and the decisions of those in power. Powerful individuals are more likely to get the best positions, most desirable mates, and the greatest opportunities. They may have power because of birth status, personality characteristics, age, physical attractiveness, educa- tion, intelligence, wealth, race, family background, occupa- tion, religion, or ethnic group—whatever the basis for power is in that particular society. Those with power have advantages that perpetuate their power, and they try to hold onto those advantages through laws, custom, power, or ideology. Consider your own social ranking. You were born into a family that holds a position in society—upper, middle, or lower class, for instance. The position of your family influ- ences the neighborhood in which you live and where you shop, go to school, and attend religious services. Most likely, you and your family carry out the tasks of daily living in your community with others of similar positions. Your position in the stratification system affects the opportunities available to you and the choices you make in life. The social world model at the beginning of the chapter provides a visual image of the social world and socioeconomic stratification; the stratification process affects everything from individuals’ social rankings at the micro level of analysis to positions of countries in the global system at the macro level.
Micro-Level Prestige and Influence Remember how some of your peers on the playgrounds were given more respect than others? Their high regard came from belonging to a prestigious family, a dynamic or domineering personality, or symbols that distinguished them—“cool” clothing, a desirable bicycle, expensive toys, or a fancy car. This is stratification at its beginning stage. Wealth, power, and prestige are accorded to those individuals who havecultural capital (knowledge and access to important information in the society) andsocial capital (networks with others who have influence). Individual qualities such as leadership, personality, sense of humor, self-confidence, quick-wittedness, physical attractiveness, or ascribed characteristic—such as gender or ethnicity—influence cultural and social capital.
194 INEQUALITY CHAPTER 7
A displaced woman and her children sit beneath a temporary shelter at a refugee camp in South Darfur. A disproportionate number of displaced civilians in the camps are women and children. Although such refugees are clean and tidy people, their disrupted lives often result in illness and famine. Source: USAID.
Even in affluent North America, some people are homeless and spend nights on sidewalks, in parks, or in homeless shelters that are often dangerous, very noisy, and have no privacy. Sleeping on a sidewalk actually offers more safety than being in a isolated area. Source: © Thania Navarro.
social rankings. Learning our social position means learning values, speech patterns, consumption habits, appropriate group memberships (including religious affiliation), and even our self-concept. Consider the example of different school socialization experiences of children. Students bring their language patterns, values, experiences, and knowledge they have learned with them from home. These attributes are referred
to as theircultural capital. Schools place children into classes and academic groups based in part on the labels they receive due to their cultural capital. Home environments can help children by expanding vocabularies; developing good gram- mar; experiencing concerts, art, and theater; visiting histor- ical sites; providing reading materials; and modeling adults who like to read. The parents of higher-class families tend to stress thinking skills as opposed to simply learning to obey authority figures. The result of this learning at home is that members of the middle and upper classes or higher castes get the best educations, setting them up to be future leaders with better life chances (Ballantine 2001). In this way, children’s home experiences and education help reproduce the social class systems. Symbols often represent social positions. Clothing, for example, sets up some people as special and privileged. In the 1960s, wearing blue jeans was a radical act by college students to reject status differences; it represented a solidar- ity with laborers and a rejection of the prestige and status games in our society. Today, the situation has changed; young people wear expensive designer jeans that low-income people cannot afford. Drinking wine rather than beer, driving a jaguar rather than a simpler mode of transporta- tion, and living in a home that has six or eight bedrooms and 5,000 square feet is an expression ofconspicuous consumption—displaying goods in a way that others will notice and that will presumably earn the owner respect. Thus, purchased products become symbols that are intended to define the person as someone of high status. Interaction theories help us understand how individu- als learn and live their positions in society. Next, we consider theories that examine the larger social structures, processes, and forces that affect stratification and inequality: struc- tural-functional and various forms of conflict theory.
Meso- and Macro-Level Theories Structural-Functionalism Structural-functionalists (sometimes simply called function- alists) view stratification within societies as an inevitable— and probably necessary—part of the social world. The stratification system provides each individual a place or posi- tion in the social world and motivates individuals to carry out their roles. Societies survive by having an organized system into which each individual is born and raised and where each contributes some part to the maintenance of the society. The basic elements of the structural-functional theory of stratification were explained by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945), and their work still provides the main ideas of the theory today. Focusing on stratification by considering different occupations and how they are rewarded, Davis and Moore argue the following:
- Positions in society are neither equally valued nor equally pleasant to perform; some positions—such as physicians—are more highly valued because
196 INEQUALITY CHAPTER 7
Clothing not only covers our bodies but also acts as a symbol of our social status. Note the difference in the attire of the children on a field trip from a Japanese prep school (top) and the children at play from a low-income school (bottom). Source: Top photo by Sébastien Bertrand; bottom photo © David Claassen.
people feel they are very important to society. Therefore, societies must motivate talented individ- uals to prepare for and occupy the most important and difficult positions, such as being physicians.
- Preparation requires talent, time, and money. To motivate talented individuals to make the sacrifices necessary to prepare for and assume difficult posi- tions such as becoming a physician, differential rewards of income, prestige, power, or other valued goods must be offered. Thus, a doctor receives high income, prestige, and power as incentives.
- The differences in rewards in turn lead to the unequal distribution of resources for occupations in society. The result—stratification is inevitable. The unequal distribution of status and wealth in society provides societies with individuals to fill necessary positions—such as willingness to undertake the stress of being chief executive officer of a corporation in a highly competitive field.
In the mid-twentieth century, functional theory pro- vided sociologists with a valuable framework for studying stratification (Tumin 1953), but things do change. In the twenty-first century, new criteria such as controllinginfor- mation and access to information systems has become important for determining wealth and status, making scien- tists and technicians a new class of elites. The society also experiences conflict over distribution of resources that func- tionalism does not fully explain.
Conflict Theory Conflict theorists see stratification as the outcome of strug- gles for dominance and scarce resources, with some indi- viduals in society taking advantage of others. Individuals and groups act in their own self-interest by trying to exploit others, leading inevitably to a struggle between those who have advantages and want to keep them and those who want a larger share of the pie. Conflict theory developed in a time of massive economic transformation. With the end of the feudal system, economic displacement of peasants, and the rise of urban factories as major employers, a tremendous gap between the rich and the poor evolved. This prompted theorists to ask several basic questions related to stratification: (1) How do societies produce necessities—food, clothing, housing? (2) How are relationships between rich and poor people shaped by this process? and (3) How do many people become alien- ated in their routine, dull jobs in which they have little involvement and no investment in the end product? Karl Marx (1818–1883), considered the father of conflict theory, lived during this time of industrial transformation. Marx described four possible ways to distribute wealth: (1) according to each person’s need, (2) according to what each person wants, (3) according to what each person earns, or
(4) according to what each person can take. It was this fourth way, Marx believed, that was dominant in competitive capital- ist societies (Cuzzort and King 2002; Marx and Engels 1955). Marx viewed the stratification structure as composed of two major economically based social classes: The haves and the have-nots. The haves consisted of the capitalist bour- geoisie, while the have-nots were made up of the working class proletariat. Individuals in the same social class had sim- ilar lifestyles, shared ideologies, and held common outlooks on social life. The struggle over resources between haves and have-nots was the cause of conflict (Hurst 2004). The haves control what Marx called the means of production—money, materials, and factories (Marx 1964/ 1844). The haves dominate because the lower class have- nots cannot earn enough money to change their positions. The norms and values of the haves dominate the society because of their power and make the distribution of resources seem “fair” and justified. Social control mecha- nisms including laws, religious beliefs, educational systems, political structures and policies, and police or military force ensure continued control by the haves. The unorganized lower classes can be exploited as long as they do not develop a class consciousness—a shared awareness of their poor status in relation to the means of pro- duction (control of the production process). Marx contended that, with the help of intellectuals who believed in the injustice of the exploited poor, the working class would develop a class consciousness, rise up, and overthrow the haves, culminating in a classless society in which wealth would be shared (Marx and Engels 1955). These are some basic ideas underlying Communist philosophy today.
STRATIFICATION: RICH AND FAMOUS—OR RAGS AND FAMINE? 197
A McDonald’s employee cleans the Thank You sign at the local franchise. Many such workers are paid minimum wage. Source: Photo by Mark Peterson / Corbis Saba.
some of the wealth or fear being overthrown. Interestingly, when societies finally reach the advanced industrial stage, inequality is moderated; this is because there is greater polit- ical participation from people in various social classes and because there are more resources available to be shared in the society. Lenski’s 1966; Nolan and Lenski 2005) theory explains many different types of societies by synthesizing elements of both structural-functional and conflict theory. For instance, evolutionary theory takes into consideration the structural- functional idea that talented individuals need to be moti- vated to make sacrifices by allowing private ownership to motivate them. Individuals will attempt to control as much wealth, power, and prestige as possible, resulting in poten- tial conflict as some accumulate more wealth than others (Nolan and Lenski 2005). The theory also recognizes exploitation leading to inequality, a factor conflict theorists find in capitalist systems of stratification. The reality is that while some inequality may be useful in highly complex societies, there is far more stratification in the United States than seems necessary. Indeed, extraordinary amounts of differential access to resources may even undermine pro- ductivity; it may make upward mobility so impossible that the most talented people are not always those in the most demanding and responsible jobs. The amount of inequality differs in societies, according to evolutionary theorists, because of different levels of technological development. Because industrialization brings surplus wealth, a division of labor, advanced technology, and interdependence among members of a society, no one individual can control all the important knowledge, skills, or capital resources. Therefore, this eliminates the two extremes of haves and have-nots because resources are more evenly distributed. The symbolic interaction, structural-functional, con- flict, and evolutionary theories provide different explanations for understanding stratification in modern societies. These theories are the basis for micro- and macro-level discussions of stratification. Our next step is to look at some factors that influence an individual’s position in a stratification system and the ability to change that position.
According to the theories discussed above, what are some reasons for your position in the stratification system?
INDIVIDUALS’ SOCIAL STATUS:
THE MICRO LEVEL
You are among the world’s elite. Only about 3 percent of the world’s population ever enters the halls of academia, and less than 1 percent has a college degree. Being able to afford the
STRATIFICATION: RICH AND FAMOUS—OR RAGS AND FAMINE? 199
Philadelphia Eagles Terrell Owens is paid millions of dollars each year to carry a football for 16 weeks, while the public school teacher on the right would take 30 years teaching hundreds of children to read before her total cumulative income for her entire career would add up to one million dollars. Source: © Tim Shaffer / Reuters / Corbis; © Paul Almasy / Corbis.
time and money for college is a luxury; it is beyond the financial or personal resources of 99 percent of individuals in the world. Spending time and money now to improve life in the future has little relevance to those struggling to survive each day. Considered in this global perspective, college students learn professional skills and have advantages that billions of other world citizens will never know or even imagine. In the United States, access to higher education is greater than in many other countries because there are more levels of entry—technical and community colleges, large state universities, and private four-year colleges, to name a few. However, with limited government help, most students must have financial resources to help pay tuition and the cost of living. Many students do not realize that the prestige of the college makes a difference in their future opportunities. Those students born into wealth can afford better preparation for entrance exams and tutors or courses to increase SAT scores, attend private prep schools, and gain acceptance to prestigious colleges that open opportuni- ties not available to those attending the typical state univer- sity or non-elite colleges (Persell 2005). Ascribed characteristics, such as gender, can also affect one’s chances for success in life. In Japan and a number of other countries, the imbedded gender stratification system makes it difficult for women to rise in the occupational hierarchy. Many Japanese women earn college degrees but often leave employment after getting married and having children (Japan Institute of Labor 2002). Of 2,396 compa- nies surveyed, the number with women directors was just 72 (less than 3 percent). Furthermore, Japanese women hold only 2 percent of all corporate board seats, and few are on boards of directors (Globe Women’s Business Network 2002). Issues of gender stratification will be examined in more depth in Chapter 9, but they intersect with socioeco- nomic class and must be viewed as part of a larger pattern of inequality in the social world.
Individual Life Chances and Lifestyles Life chances refer to your opportunities, depending on your achieved and ascribed status in society. That you are in college, probably have health insurance and access to health care, and are likely to live into your late 70s or 80s are factors directly related to yourlife chances. Let us consider several examples of how placement in organizations at the meso level affects individual experiences and has global ramifications.
Education Although education is valued by most individuals, the cost of books, clothing, shoes, transportation, childcare, and time taken from income-producing work may be insurmountable barriers to attendance from grade school through college. Economically disadvantaged students in most countries are more likely to attend less prestigious and less expensive insti- tutionsif they attend high school or university at all. One’s level of education affects many aspects of life, including political, religious, and marital attitudes and behavior. Generally speaking, the higher the education level, the more active individuals are in political life, the more mainstream or conventional their religious affiliation, the more likely they are to marry into a family with both economic and social capital, the more stable the marriage, and the more likely they are to have good health.
Health, Social Conditions, and Life Expectancy Pictures on the news of children starving and dying dramat- ically illustrate global inequalities. The poorest countries in the world are in Sub–Saharan Africa, where most individu- als eat poorly, are susceptible to diseases, have great stress in their daily lives just trying to survive, and die at young ages compared to the developed world. (See Table 7.1.) If you have a sore throat, you can usually get an appointment to see your doctor. Yet many people in the world will never see a doctor. Access to health care requires
200 INEQUALITY CHAPTER 7
Poorest Life Expectancy, Per capita Infant Richest Life Expectancy, Per capita Infant Countries 2005 (in years) GNP ($) Mortality Countries 2005 (in years) GNP ($) Mortality
Malawi 36.97 160 103.32 Japan 81.15 37,050 3. Mozambique 40.32 270 130.79 San Marino 81.62 N/A 5. Namibia 43.93 238 48.98 Singapore 81.62 24,760 2. Niger 42.13 210 121.69 Switzerland 80.39 49,600 4. Rwanda 46.96 210 98.23 Sweden 80.4 35,840 2. Zambia 39.7 400 88.29 United States 77.71 41,440 6. Source: World Fact Book (2005). Note: Infant mortality is per 1,000 live births. (In Canada, the life expectancy is 80.1 years, gross national income is $28.310, and infant mortality rate is 6.5 per 1000 life births.)
TABLE 7.1 Life Expectancy
Lifestyles This includes attitudes, values, beliefs, behavior patterns, and other aspects of your place in the social world; they are shaped through the socialization process. As individuals grow up, the behaviors and attitudes consistent with their culture and family’s status in society become internalized through the process of socialization. Lifestyle is not a simple matter of having money. Acquiring money—say by winning a lottery—cannot buy a completely new lifestyle (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977). This is because values and behaviors are ingrained in our self-concept from childhood. You may have material possessions at your disposal, but that does not mean you have the lifestyle of the upper-class rich and famous. Consider some examples of factors related to your individual lifestyle: attitudes toward achievement, political involvement, and religious membership.
Attitudes toward Achievement These differ by social status and are generally closely corre- lated with life chances. Motivation to get ahead and beliefs about what you can achieve are in part products of your upbringing, what opportunities you think are available. Even tolerance for those different from yourself is influ- enced by your social status.
Religious Membership This also correlates with social status variables of educa- tion, occupation, and income. For instance, in the United States upper-class citizens are found disproportionately in Episcopalian, Unitarian, and Jewish religious groups, whereas lower-class citizens are attracted to Nazarene, Southern Baptist, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other holiness and fundamentalist sects. Each religious group attracts members predominantly from one social class, as will be illustrated in Chapter 12 on religion (Kosmin and Lackman 1993; Roberts 2004).
Political Behavior This is also affected by social status. Around the world, upper-middle classes are most supportive of elite or pro- capitalist agendas because these agendas support their way of life; lower working-class members are least sup- portive (Wright 2000). Generally, the lower the social class, the more likely people are to vote for liberal parties (Kerbo 2001), and the higher the social status, the more likely people are to vote conservative on economic issues consis- tent with protecting wealth (Brooks and Manza 1997). In the United States, members of the lower class tend to vote liberal on economic issues, favoring government intervention to improve economic conditions; however, they vote conservatively on many social issues relating to minorities and civil liberties (e.g., rights for homosexuals) (Gilbert and Kahl 2003; Jennings 1992; Kerbo 2001). The 2004 U.S. presidential election created a conflict for those who vote liberal on economic issues and conservative on moral issues because voters had to make choices about which of these was more important.
The reality is that some people experience high status on one trait, especially a trait that is ascribed, but may experi- ence low status in another area. For example, a professor may have high status but low income. Max Weber called this unevenness in one’s statusstatus inconsistency. Individuals who experience such status inconsistency, especially if they are treated as if their lowest ascribed status is the most important one, are likely to be very liberal and to experience discontent with the current system (Weber 1946). People tend to associate with others like themselves, perpetuating and reinforcing lifestyles. In fact, people often avoid contact with others whose lifestyles are outside their familiar and comfortable patterns. Life chances and lifestyles are deeply shaped by the type of stratification system that is prevalent in the nation. Such life experiences as hunger, the unnecessary early death of family members, or the pain of seeing one’s child denied opportunities are all experienced at the micro level, but their causes are usually rooted in events and actions at other levels of the social world. This brings us to our next questions: Can an individual change positions in a stratification system?
Describe your own lifestyle and life chances. How do these relate to your socialization experience and your family’s position in the stratification system? What difference do they make in your life?
SOCIAL MOBILITY:
THE MICRO-MESO CONNECTION
The filmHoop Dreams followed the story of two talented black teenagers as they pursued their dreams to rise in the basketball world and escape from their bleak neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago (Berkow 1994). Although they faced daily threats from robberies, drug dealers, and peer pressure to commit crimes and to join gangs, the hope of making it big in basketball against astronomical odds drove them on. Such hopes are some of the cruelest hoaxes faced by young African Americans, according to sociologist Harry Edwards (2000), because the chances of success or even of moving up a little in the social stratification system through sports are very small. For example, neither of the young men inHoop Dreams went beyond partial completion of college. Those few minority athletes who do “make it big” and become models for young people experience “stacking,” holding certain limited positions in a sport. When retired from playing, black athletes seldom rise in the administra- tive hierarchy of the sports of football and baseball, although basketball has a better record of hiring black coaches and managers. Thus, when young people put their hopes and energies into developing their muscles and physical skills, they may lose the possibility of moving up in the social class
202 INEQUALITY CHAPTER 7
system, which requires developing their minds and their technical skills; misplaced focus thwarts their dreams of upward social mobility. Of course, systematic discrimination, discussed in the next chapter, also makes upward mobility— even in the world of sports—a difficult prospect. The whole idea of changing one’s social position is called social mobility. Social mobility refers to the extent and direction of individual movement in the social stratifi- cation system. What is the likelihood that your status will be different from that of your parents over your lifetime? Will you start a successful business? Marry into wealth? Win the lottery? Experience downward mobility due to loss of a job, illness, or inability to complete your education? What factors at the different levels of analysis might influence your chances of mobility? These are some of the questions addressed in this section and the next. Three issues dominate the analysis of mobility: (1) vari- ations in types of social mobility, (2) factors that affect social mobility, and (3) whether there is a “land of opportunity.”
Types of Social Mobility Most people believe that they can improve their social class ranking with hard work and good education.Intergene- rational mobility refers to change in status compared to your parents’ status, usually resulting from education and occupa- tional attainment. If you are the first to go to college in your family and you become a computer programmer, this would represent intergenerational mobility. The amount of inter- generational mobility in a society measures the degree to which a society has an open class system —one that allows movement between classes. In technologically developed countries, there is a severe lack of mobility at the two extremes of the occupational hierarchy—the upper-upper and lower-lower classes—but considerable movement up, down, and sideways in the middle group (Grusky and Hauser 1984; Hauser and Grusky 1988; Slomczynski and Krauze 1987; Treiman 1977). This movement perpetuates the belief that mobility is possible and the system is fair. Intragenerational mobility (not to be confused with intergenerational mobility) refers to the change in position in a single individual’s life. For instance, if you begin your career as a teacher’s aide and end it as a school superintendent, that is intragenerational mobility. However, mobility is not always up.Vertical mobility refers to movement up or down in the hierarchy and sometimes involves changing social classes. You may start your career as a waitress, go to college part- time, get a degree in engineering, and get a more prestigious and higher paying job, resulting in upward mobility. Alternatively, you could lose a job and take one at a lower sta- tus, a reality for many when the economy is doing poorly.
Factors Affecting Mobility Mobility is driven by many factors, from your family’s cultural capital to global economic variables. One’s chances to move up depend on micro-level factors such as your
socialization and education and macro-level factors such as the following: the occupational structure and economic sta- tus of countries, population changes and the numbers of people vying for similar positions, discrimination based on gender or ethnicity, and the global economic situation.
Socialization In industrial societies, change of jobs is most likely to occur at the same socioeconomic level because our socialization and training are most applicable to similar jobs (Sernau 2001).
Education, Skills, and Social Ties Many poor people lack education and skills such as interviewing and getting recommendations needed to get or change jobs in the postindustrial occupational structure (Ehrenreich 2001, 2005). Isolated from social networks in organizations, they lack contacts to help in the job search. The type of education system one attends also affects mobil- ity. In Germany, Britain, France, and some other European countries, children are “streamed” (tracked) into either college preparatory courses or more general curricula, and the rest of their occupational experience reflects this early placement decision in school. In the United States, educational oppor- tunities remain more open to those who can afford them.
Occupational Structure and Economic Vitality The global structure, a country’s position as a rich or poor country in the world system, affects the chances for individual mobility. As agricultural work is decreasing and technology jobs increasing (Hurst 2004), these changes in the
STRATIFICATION: RICH AND FAMOUS—OR RAGS AND FAMINE? 203
Arthur Agee, one of the two subjects of the documentary film Hoop Dreams , shows off his ballhandling skills at a neighborhood park in Chicago. Unfortunately, those skills were not the path to upward mobility as he had hoped. He did not make it into the pros. Source: Photo by John Zich; Getty Images.
Do you know individuals who have lost jobs because of economic slowdowns or gotten jobs because of economic booms and opening opportunities? What changes have occurred in their mobility and social class?
Is There a “Land of Opportunity”? Cross-Cultural Mobility Would you have a better chance to improve your status in England, Japan, the United States, or some other country? If there is a land of opportunity where individuals can be assured of improving their economic and social position, it is not simple to identify. Countless immigrants have sought better opportunities in new locations. Perhaps your parents or ancestors did just this. The reality of the land of opportu- nity depends on the historical period and economic condi- tions, social events, and political attitudes toward foreigners when the immigrants came, their personal skills, and their ability to blend into the new society. During economic growth periods, many immigrants have found great opportunities for mobility in the United States and Europe. Early industrial tycoons in railroads, automobiles, steel, and other industries are examples of suc- cess stories. Today, the number of millionaires in the United States has skyrocketed to 5 million, four times the number a decade ago. Yet such wealth eludes most people who immigrate and must work multiple low-paying jobs just to feed their families and stay out of poverty. Opportunities for upward mobility have changed significantly with globalization. Many manufacturing jobs in the global economy have moved from developed to devel- oping countries with cheap labor, reducing the number of unskilled and low-skilled jobs available in developed countries (Krymkowski and Krause 1992). Multinational corporations look for the cheapest sources of labor, mostly in developing countries with low taxes, no labor unions, few regulations, and workers needing jobs. Today, only 14 per- cent of United States workers are in manufacturing jobs, while the percentage of workers grows in low-level service jobs and in high-skilled, high-tech jobs careers. The high- tech positions are good news for those with college degrees and technical skills, but the loss of laboring positions and replacement in fast-food and box store chains (e.g., WalMart, K-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe’s) means a severe loss of genuine opportunity for living wages. Although the new multinational industries springing up in developing countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines provide opportunities for mobility to those of modest origins, much of the upward mobility in the world is taking place among those who come from small, highly educated families with “get-ahead” values and who see education as a route to upward mobility (Blau and Duncan 1967; Featherman and Hauser 1978; Jencks 1979; Rothman 2005). They are positioned to take advantage of the changing
occupational structure and high-tech jobs. As the gap between rich and poor individuals and countries widens, more indi- viduals are moving down than up in the stratification system.
What Are Your Chances for Mobility? College education is the most important factor in moving to high-income status in developed countries. In fact, the
STRATIFICATION: RICH AND FAMOUS—OR RAGS AND FAMINE? 205
Despite significant progress in gender inequality in the United States and Canada, women and men professionals, such as these architects, often get quite different financial compensation for their work. Source: © Paul Barton / Corbis.
These immigrants arrived at Ellis Island more than a century ago, hoping that in North America they could get a new start in life with more economic opportunity than they had in the old country. Source: LOC.
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economic rewards of a college degree have increased; those with degrees become richer, and those without become poorer. This is because of changes in occupational structures, creating new types of jobs and a new social class with skills for the computer information age. These “social-cultural specialists” who work with ideas, knowledge, and technol- ogy contrast with the old middle class of technocrats, man- ufacturers, business owners, and executives (Brint 1984; Florida 2004; Hurst 2004). With the rapid growth of postindustrial economies and computer technologies, fewer unskilled workers are needed, resulting in underemployment or unemployment for this group, who will continue to live at the margins in information societies, forming the lower class. Do you know individuals who are being nickel-and-dimed in today’s economic environment? The next Sociology in Your Social World discusses this situation.
What social factors in your society limit or enhance the likelihood of upward social mobility for you and your gener- ation? Explain.
MAJOR STRATIFICATION SYSTEMS:
MACRO-LEVEL ANALYSIS
Barak’s family works on a plantation in Mozambique. He tries in vain to pay off the debts left by his father’s family.
However hard he and his wife and children work, they will always be in debt; they cannot pay the total amount due for their hut or food from the owner’s store. Basically, they are slaves—they do not have control over their own labor. They were born into this status, and there they will stay! Imagine being born into a society in which you have no choices or options in life. You could not select an occupation that interested you, could not choose your mate, could not live in the part of town you favor. You would see wealthy aristocrats parading their advantages and realize that this would never be possible for you. You could never own land or receive the education of your choice. The situation described above is reality for millions of people in the world; the situation into which they are born is where they spend their lives. All individuals are born with certain characteristics over which they have no control
Poverty on the Zuni reservation in New Mexico is such that much of the town looks like it is part of a developing country. Source: Photo by Keith Roberts.
These Aboriginal boys in Australia seem to be having fun as children, but their futures are determined by their place and family of birth. It is highly unlikely they will ever experience much affluence. Still, they may have rewarding lives surrounded by family if they are not absorbed into the larger world system that makes them dependent on a cash income. That is often what makes families vulnerable and forced to trade their children into slavery. Source: Photo by Elsie Roberts.
The Outcastes of India
T
he village south of Madras in the state of Tamil Nadu was on an isolated dirt road, one kilometer from the nearest town. It consisted of a group of mud and stick huts with banana leaf thatched roofs. As our group of students arrived, the Dalit villagers lined the streets to greet us—and stare. Many had never seen Westerners. They played drums and danced for us and threw flower petals at our feet in traditional welcome. Through our translator, we learned something of their way of life. The adults work in the fields long hours each day, plowing and planting with primitive implements, earning about eight cents from the landowner, often not enough to pay for their daily bowl of rice. Occasionally, they catch a frog or bird to supplement their meal. In the morning, they drink rice gruel, and in the evening eat a bowl of rice with some spices. Women and children walk more than a kilometer to the water well—but the water is polluted during the dry sea- son. There are no privies but the fields. As a result of poor sanitation, inadequate diet, and lack of health care, many people become ill and die from easily curable health prob- lems. For instance, lack of vitamin A, found in many fruits and vegetables to which they have little access, causes blindness in many village residents. Although the children have the right to go to the school in the closest village, many cannot do so because they have no transportation, shoes, or money
for paper, pencils, and books. Also, the families need them to work in the fields alongside their parents or help care for younger siblings. Many taboos rooted in tradition separate the Dalit from other Indians. For instance, they are forbidden to draw water from the village well, enter the village temple, or eat from dishes that might be used later by people of higher castes. The latter prohibition eliminates most dining at public establishments. Ninety-five percent are landless and earn a living below subsistence level. Dalits who question these practices have been attacked and their houses burned. In one instance, 20 houses were burned on the birthday of Dr. Ambedkar, a leader in the Dalit rights movement. Official records distributed by the Human Rights Education Movement of India state that every hour, two Dalits are assaulted, three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, and two Dalit houses are burned ( Dalit Liberation Education Trust 1995; Thiagaraj 1994; Wilson 1993). This group in the bottom rung of the stratification sys- tem has a long fight ahead to gain the rights that many of us take for granted. A few Dalit have migrated to cities where they blend in, and some of these have become educated and are now lead- ing the fight for the rights and respect guaranteed by law. Recently, unions and interest groups have been representing the Dalit, and some members turn to religious and political groups that are more sympathetic to their plight, such as Buddhists, Christians, or Communists.
Sociology Around the World
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denominations) or one’s nextreincarnation or rebirth (in the Hindu tradition) might be in jeopardy. Stability is maintained by the belief that one can be reborn into a higher status in the next life if one fulfills expectations in their ascribed— socially assigned—position in this life. Thus, believers in both religions work hard in hopes of attaining a better life next time around. The institution of religion works together with the family, education, economic and political institu- tions to shape (and sometimes reduce) both expectations and aspirations and to keep people in their prescribed places in caste systems. The clearest example of a caste system is found in India. The Hindu religion holds that individuals are born into one of fourvarna, broad caste positions, or into a fifth group below the caste system, theoutcaste group. The first and highest varna, called Brahmans, originally was made up of
priests and scholars; it now includes many leaders in society. The second varna, Kshatriyas or Rajputs, includes the origi- nal prince and warrior varna, and now makes up much of the army and civil service. The Vaishyas, or merchants, are the third varna. The fourth varna, the Sudras, include peasants, artisans, and laborers. The final layer, below the caste system, encompasses profoundly oppressed and broken people—“a people put aside”—referred to as untouchables, outcastes, Chandalas (a Hindu term), and Dalits (the name preferred by many “untouchables” themselves). Although the Indian Constitution of 1950 granted full social status to these citizens, and a law passed in 1955 made discrimination against them punishable, deeply rooted traditions are difficult to change. Caste distinc- tions are still very prevalent, especially in rural areas, as seen in the discussion in the next Sociology around the World.
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Just as the position of individuals in caste systems is ascribed, estate systems are similarly rigid in stratifying indi- viduals. Estate systems are characterized by the concentra- tion of economic and political power in the hands of a small minority of political-military elite, with the peasantry tied to the land (Rothman 2005). During the Middle Ages, knights defended the realms and the religion of the nobles. Behind every knight in shining armor were peasants, sweating in the fields and paying for the knights’ food, armor, and cam- paigns. For framing the land owned by the nobility, peasants received protection against invading armies and enough of the produce to survive. Their life was often miserable; if the crops were poor, they ate little. In a good year, they might save enough to buy a small parcel of land. A very few were able to become independent in this fashion. Estate systems are based on ownership of land, the position one is born into, or military strength; an individual’s rank and legal rights are clearly spelled out, and arranged marriages and religion bolster the system. Estate systems existed in ancient Egypt, the Incan and Mayan civilizations, Europe, China, and Japan. Today, similar systems exist in some Central and South American, Asian, and African countries with large banana, coffee, and sugar plantations, as exemplified in the opening example of Barak in Mozambique. Over time, development of a mercantile econ- omy resulted in modifications in the estate system. Now, peasants often work the land in exchange for the right to live there and receive a portion of the produce.
Achieved Status: Social Class Systems Social class systems of stratification are based on achieved status. Members of the same social class have similar income, wealth, and economic position. They also share comparable styles of living, levels of education, cultural similarities, and patterns of social interaction. Most of us are members of class-based stratification systems, and we take advantage of opportunities available to our social class. Our families, rich or poor, educated or unskilled, provide us with an initial social ranking and socialization experience. We tend to feel a kinship and sense of belonging with those in the same social class—our neighborhood and work group, our peers and friends. We think alike, share interests, and probably look up to the same people as a reference group. Our social class position is based on the three main factors determining positions in the stratification system: property, power, and prestige. Compared with systems based on ascribed status, achieved status systems maintain that everyone is born with common legal status; everyone is equal before the law. In principle, all individuals can own property and choose their own occupations. However, in practice, wealth affords better legal representation; similarly, most class systems pass privilege or poverty from one generation to the next, and individual upward or downward mobility is never guaranteed.
Property, Power, and Prestige This is the trio that, according to Max Weber, determines where individuals rank in relation to each other (Weber 1946, 1964). Positions in social stratification systems, according to Weber, are determined by these three elements and the opportunities the individual has to gain these. Byproperty (wealth), Weber refers to owningor controlling the means of production.Power, the ability to control others, includes not only the means of production but also the position one holds.Prestige involves the esteem and recognition one receives, based on wealth, position, or accomplishments. Table 7.2 gives examples of house- holds in the upper and lower social classes; it illustrates the variables that determine a person’s standing in the three areas listed above. Although these three dimensions of stratification are often found together, this is not always so. Recall the idea of status inconsistency: an individual can have a great deal of prestige yet not command much wealth (Weber 1946). Consider winners of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize such as Wangari Maathai of Kenya, Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, or Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan of Northern Ireland; none of them is rich, but each has made contributions to the world that have gained them prestige around the world. Likewise, some people gain enormous wealth through crime or gambling, but this wealth may not be accompanied by respect or prestige.
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