Social Stratification
Why are you at college?
- Get a good job?
- Get ahead?
- If so, then you sound like you are already concerned with inequality, fairness, and social mobility.
Social Stratification
- How a society is sorted into groups (a.k.a. strata).
- Each layer of a stratification system has different
- access to resources
- and opportunities
- Stratification refers to the hierarchical organization of a society into groups with differing levels of power, social prestige, or status and economic resources.
- Social stratification is UNIVERSAL
- The degree of stratification differs across societies
- Davis-Moore Thesis
- the greater the functional importance of a social role, the greater must be the reward
- The theory posits that social stratification represents the inherently unequal value of different work.
Forms of Equality
- Equality of opportunity
- Inequality is acceptable so long as everyone has the same opportunities for advancement and is judged by the same standards.
- Equality of condition
- Idea that everyone should have an equal starting point from which to pursue his or her goals
- Equality of outcome
- Everyone in a society should end up with the same “rewards,” regardless of starting point, opportunities, or contributions. [e.g. Communism]
3 Views of Stratification
- Rousseau argued that private property creates social inequality, and that this inequality ultimately leads to social conflict.
- Malthus viewed inequality favorably, but only as a means for controlling population growth.
- more equal distribution of resources would increase the world’s population to unsustainable levels and ultimately bring about mass starvation
- Hegel viewed history in terms of a master–slave dialectic, a relationship of mutual dependency
- eventually lead to equality for all (or very nearly all).
Components of Stratification Systems
- How do you enter strata?
- How do you move between strata?
Caste Systems
- born into strata
- no mobility
- often religious based system
Class Systems
- Born into strata
- Some mobility
- Classes are groups of people who share similar characteristics and social locations.
Marx’s Two Class System
- Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat
- Exploitation leads to revolution
Weber’s Multi-Class System
- Weber believed that a class of people was defined by the similar life chances they held.
- Life chances can be thought of as the chances that you will be able to reach your goals in society.
Status Hierarchy System
- Another way that Weber argued we could identify social classes was to look at the social status a person held.
- To approximate social status Weberian Sociologists study the social honor and prestige we give to certain occupations.
Meritocracy
- Meritocracy: a system that rewards and punishes based on your merit, talent, and achievement.
- Vilfredo Pareto argued that 20% of the population was more talented, smarter, and more able to assume positions of power.
C Wright Mills - The Power Elite
- The Power Elite focused on controlling just 3 institutions:
- Economic Order: With just a few mega-corporations controlling almost the entire economy.
- Political Order: With only a few parties who are remarkably similar on almost every issue, controls the legal justice system allowing the powerful to define their behaviors as legal and others behaviors as illegal.
- Military Order: The largest and most expensive feature of government and one that has a monopoly on violence and death.
Why is Inequality Rising So Much?
- Changes in Politics
- De-unionization
- Supply-Side Economics (a.k.a. trickle down economics)
- Distrust in government
- Changes in Economy
- Deindustrialization
- Automation of labor
- Changes in Society
- Credentialization
- Divorce/Remarriage
- Feminization of poverty
Hegemony
- political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states
- leadership or dominance of one group over another.
- Eg: hegemony is the student government leadership in a school.
Returning to Meritocracy
- What is wrong with the our understanding that: “You get what you deserve and you deserve what you get”
Poverty
- Structural Causes of Poverty
- Joblessness:
- in 2010 48 million people aged 18 to 64 were unable to find work for even one week.
- Access to education:
- the poor are disproportionately likely to go to poorly funded schools
- The lower classes bear the brunt of almost every aspect contributing to growing inequality.
- Consequences of Being Poor
- Payday loan industry charges 400% interest.
- Cost borrowers $3.4 billion dollars a year.
- There are as many pay day loan outlets as there are McDonalds and Burger Kings combined! (Rivlin 2010).
- Hospitals routinely charge more to patients without healthcare.
- Check cashing can cost up to 10%.
- WIC-only grocery stores charge 10-20% more for food items.
- Food Deserts
- Many low income communities have no access to grocery stores or places that sell fresh produce, meats, or dairy.
- Welfare Benefits to the Poor
- In 1996 congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).
- Limited welfare cash assistance to 5 years total in your lifetime
- in GA it's 4 years, in some states it's as low as 2 years.
- Mandated welfare recipients find work within 2 years.
- Cut federal assistance programs by $54.5 billion.
- People may still be eligible for food stamps, housing assistance, and programs like W.I.C., but very few people receive cash from the government because they are poor.
- Upside Down Welfare System
- Of all the money spent by the government on people, the majority goes to the non-poor.
- Public education
- Social Security
- Medicare
- When Asked if Using a Government Program
- 60% of those receiving the home mortgage tax deduction said no.
- 53% of those receiving subsidized student loans said no.
- 51.7% of those receiving a child and dependent care tax credit said no.
Cultural Capital
- “The general cultural background, knowledge, skills, dispositions inherited from one generation from to the next”
- Habitus is really the physical embodiment of cultural capital– such that we have the goals, tastes, ideas, and thoughts of people who are in our same social class
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