Sociological Perspectives on Stratification, Social Mobility, and Poverty

Vocabulary flashcards covering core sociological concepts of wealth, income, socioeconomic status (SES), stratification systems, social mobility, and poverty metrics from the lecture transcript.

Wealth

The total accumulation of assets owned by an individual or household, including homes, vehicles, stocks, bonds, properties, and pensions, representing more than earned income alone.

Income

The monetary wages or earnings that an individual earns from employment, typically measured through IRS statements such as W-2 forms.

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

A composite index used by sociologists to measure an individual's social standing based on three primary variables: income, educational attainment, and occupational prestige.

Composite Variable (Index Variable)

A statistical measure constructed by combining multiple separate measurements or variables into a single unified indicator.

Educational Attainment

The highest official level of education an individual has successfully completed, such as a high school diploma, associate degree, bachelor's degree, or professional degree.

Occupational Prestige

The social standing or respect associated with a job, evaluated through predetermined index scores based on educational requirements, income earned, and required skill sets.

Generational Wealth

Accumulated financial assets, property, and investments passed down from parents or older generations to their offspring, creating a cumulative economic advantage.

Meritocracy

A societal system founded on the principle that individuals can change and advance their socioeconomic rank through their own earned merits, efforts, and accomplishments.

Social Mobility

The ability of an individual or group to move upward or downward across the socioeconomic stratification continuum.

Achievement-Based Stratification System

A stratification system where an individual's social ranking depends on personal effort, diligence, educational attainments, and measurable accomplishments.

Ascription-Based Stratification System

A stratification system where an individual's societal rank is fixed based on traits beyond their control, such as race, ethnicity, religion, or sex, as seen in South African apartheid.

Intergenerational Mobility

Changes in socioeconomic status or class standing that occur across different generations, such as a child attaining higher status than their parents or grandparents.

Intragenerational Mobility

Changes in socioeconomic status or social class that occur within a single individual's own lifetime or generation.

Five Generations

The average number of generations, totaling over $100$ years, that it takes for a child born into a low-income family in the United States to reach the national average income.

Poverty

A state in which an individual or household lacks essential material or cultural resources, including food, clothing, shelter, or healthcare.

Poverty Line

An official government income threshold established using Department of Agriculture food cost estimates based on family size and composition, which does not account for geographic cost of living.

Relative Poverty

A subjective sense of economic deprivation that occurs when an individual compares their resources, income, and lifestyle to the people around them.

Absolute Poverty

A fixed condition where individuals lack the minimum financial resources needed to meet basic physical survival needs, measured directly against the official poverty threshold.

Gini Coefficient

A statistical index measured on a scale from $0$ to $1$ utilized by sociologists to assess the degree of economic inequality and stratification between the top and bottom of a population.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

A government assistance program, formerly known as food stamps, designed to provide nutritional and food aid to low-income individuals and families.

Social Security Act

Federal legislation funded by payroll taxes that created a federally administered system of social insurance for retirees, reducing elderly poverty from $35\%$ prior to the 1970s to around $9\%$ today.

Cycle of Poverty

A self-perpetuating pattern whereby low income, inadequate housing, poor health, high costs of basic goods, and absence of inherited assets keep individuals and families in poverty across generations without major intervention.