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Stratification

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█ Is social inequality an inescapable part of society?

A Look Ahead

█ How does government policy affect the life chances of the working poor?

█ Is this country still a place where a hardworking person can move up the social ladder?

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Understanding Stratification

Social inequality: condition in which members of society have different amounts of wealth, prestige, or power

Stratification: structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society

Income: salaries and wages Wealth: encompasses all of a person’s material

assets

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Systems of StratificationSocial Classes

Class System: social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence social mobility

Rossides (1997) uses five-class model to describe U.S. class system:

• Upper class • Working class • Upper-middle class • Lower class• Lower-middleclass

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Understanding Stratification

Is Stratification Universal?Functionalist View Yes. A differential system of rewards and

punishments is necessary for the efficient operation of society

Functionalist feel that stratification is functional for the following reasons

1. Society must make certain that its positions are filled

2. Some positions are more important than others

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3. The more important positions must be filled by the more qualified people

4. To motivate the more qualified people to fill these positions, society must offer them greater rewards

Karl Marx’s View of Class Differentiation

█ Social relations depend on who controls the primary mode of production

– Capitalism: Means of production held largely in private hands and main incentive for economic activity is accumulation of profits

– Bourgeoisie: Capitalist class; owns the means of production

– Proletariat: Working class

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Conflict Perspective (Karl Marx) Marx Focused on two classes the bourgeoisie

and the proletariat From this perspective, stratification is functional

mainly for those at the top of the social hierarchy All ruling groups-from slave masters to modern

elites-develop an ideology to justify their position at the top.

This ideology often seduces the oppressed into believing that their welfare depends on keeping society stable.

Karl Marx’s View of Class Differentiation

█ Class consciousness: Subjective awareness of common vested interests and the need for collective political action to bring about change

█ False consciousness: Attitude held by members of class that does not accurately reflect their objective position

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Consequently, the oppressed may support laws against their own interests and even make sacrifices that benefit the bourgeoisie.

Most workers develop a false consciousness - an attitude where they feel that the bourgeoisie is treating them fairly and accept their position in society.

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Conflict inevitably will lead to the destruction of the capitalist system

Eventually the proletariat will come to identify the bourgeoisie as the oppressors and will overthrow them

For this to happen the working class has to develop class consciousness

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Max Weber (1864-1920)

Weber believed that Marx's wholly economic view of stratification could not capture primary features of modern industrial stratification systems

Weber noticed that social position did not always seem to be simply a matter of property ownership

Weber believed that no single characteristic (such as class) dictates a person's position within the stratification system

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Max Weber

According to Weber, each of us has not one but three ranks in society.

Class -Weber used class to categorize people who have a similar level of wealth and income

Status – Weber defined status as people who have the same prestige or lifestyle, independent of their class positions.

Power -according to Weber, power reflects a political dimension

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Gerhard Lenski’s ViewpointSociocultural Evolution Approach

As a society advances technologically, it becomes capable of producing a considerable surplus of goods

Emergence of surplus resources greatly expands possibilities for inequality in status, influence, and power

Allocation of surplus goods and services reinforces social inequality

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Sociocultural Evolution Approach

In contemporary industrial society, the degree of social and economic inequality far exceeds what is needed to provide for goods and services

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Table 8-1: Sociological Perspectives on Social Stratification

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Class largely viewed as a statistical category based on Education Occupation Income Place of residence

Prestige: respect and admiration an occupation

holds in society

Measuring Social Class Objective Method

Esteem: reputation specific person has earned

within an occupation

Table 8-2: Prestige Rankings of Occupations

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Wealth and Income One important dimension of economic inequality

involves income, wages or salary from work.

Whereas wealth, is an individuals or family's total financial assets.

Income in the United States is distributed unevenly.

Richest 20 percent earned $150.499 or more in 2001. The Poorest 20 percent earned $17,970 or less

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All the data show that there is an enormous gap between the haves and the have nots and that it has been growing steadily wider

In the past 15 years, our highest-income family saw its share of all income go up about 12 percent while our eight low-income families saw their share drop 9%.

Overall, Americans are worth over $72 trillion

Figure 8-3: U.S. Income Distribution, 2005

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Comparison of Distribution of Income and Wealth in the United States

Figure 8-2: Household Income in the United States, 2006

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The U.S. Social Class Ladder. Source: Henslin 2004

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Figure 8-5: U.S. Minimum Wage Adjusted for Inflation, 1950-2005

Source: Author’s estimate and Bureau of the Census 2005a:413.

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The Middle Class

The middle-class include 40 to 45 percent of the population

Because it is so large and embodies the aspirations of many more people, the middle class exerts tremendous influence on our culture.

Television and other mass media usually show middle-class men and women and most commercial advertising is directed at these average consumers.

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Upper Middle Class

Of all the classes, the upper middle is the most shaped by education.

A large number of members of this class have at least a Bachelor's degree, and many have postgraduate degrees in business, management, law, or medicine.

About 14 percent of the population belongs to this class.

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The Working Class

About 30% of the population is a member of the working class holding manual or blue-collar jobs.

Even if they make good income, higher than lower middle class, they tend to identify with manual workers.

Compared with the lower middle class, they have less years of formal education.

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The Lower Class

Have little income, their lives are unstable and insecure.

Poverty approximately one out of every nine Americans

lives below the poverty line established by the federal government.

The Poverty Line Official U.S. government definitions of poverty

are based on the calculation of a minimum family “market basket”.

█ Relative poverty: Floating standard by which people at the bottom of a society are judged as being disadvantaged in comparison to the nation as a whole

Poverty

█ Absolute poverty: Minimum level of subsistence that no family should live below

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture regularly prepare estimates of the cost of achieving a minimum level of nutrition, based on average food prices.

It is assumed that an average low-income family must not spend one third of its total income on food

The poverty line for 2005 was $19,350.

In 2004 roughly, 12.7 percent or about 38.1 million-live below the poverty line

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The majority of all poor people in the USA are white - about two thirds

the percentage of whites below the poverty line is considerably lower than it is for most minorities.

Poverty rate for white families is about 9.9 percent, for black and Hispanic families is 22.7 and 21.4 percent respectively.

Table 8-3: Who are the Poor in the United States?

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The Underclass are long term poor people who lack training and skills.

Members of the underclass live in neighborhoods in social isolation

– Life chances: Opportunities to provide material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experience

Life Chances

█ Max Weber saw class as being closely related to people’s life chances

In times of danger, affluent and powerful have better chance of surviving than

people of ordinary means

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Social Mobility

Indicate social mobility in a society Open System: position of each individual influenced by

the person’s achieved position Closed System: allows little or no possibility of moving

up

• Open versus Closed Stratification Systems

Social Mobility: Movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society’s stratification system to another

Social Mobility

█ Social mobility: Movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society’s stratification system to another

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Social Mobility

Types of Social Mobility

– Horizontal Mobility: movement within same range of prestige

– Vertical Mobility: movement from one position to another of a different rank

– Intragenerational Mobility: social position changes within person’s adult life

█ Closed system: Allows little or no possibility of moving up

Open Vs. Closed Stratification Systems

█ Open system: Position of each individual influenced by the person’s achieved status

█ The Impact of Education

█ The Impact of Race and Ethnicity

█ The Impact of Gender

Social Mobility in the United States

█ Occupational Mobility