Mid-Term

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND CLASS

Social stratification
Social stratification is structured inequality

between groups.
This inequality may be based on economics,
gender, race, religion, age, or another factor
What is at play is power.

Characteristics of
stratification systems

Systems of inequality are organized around

groups with a shared characteristic.
The social location of a group is significant
in terms of the life chances of members.
Rankings of groups change only very slowly.

Three basic models

Slaveryownership of certain people

Castestatus for life

Classpositions based on economics

Class systems
In modern societies, class systems dominate.
While class systems do allow for social

mobility, opportunities are not evenly

distributed across social groups.
Class has a significant impact on many
aspects of life, including education,
occupation, place of residence, marriage
partner, and more.
10

Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition

Copyright 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

How do stratification systems

look today?
In modern, industrialized societies, there is

little overt support for rigid systems of

inequality.
Remaining caste systems appear to be
transitioning into class systems.
From the time of World War II to the 1970s,
class boundaries appeared to soften, but they
have been hardening since the 1970s.
19

Marx and class conflict

Karl Marx was very interested in class

relations in capitalist societies.

Class was determined solely by ones relation
to the means of production.
Proletariat and bourgeoisie
Group membership utterly determined life

chances.

Ultimately the proletariat would overthrow

the bourgeoisie, ending the reign of

capitalism.
20

Weber: Class and status

For Max Weber, position in a stratification

system was not based on economics alone:

social status was also significant.
Webers multidimensional approach is
attractive to those who believe that social
prestige and power can be independent of
economics.

21

Key Ideas of Conflict

Theorists: Stratification
1.
2.

3.
4.
5.

Theres no objective measure of a jobs importance. Sanitation

workers keep the rats away, which keep bubonic plague away.
Many bright and capable people have been squeezed out of
opportunities to compete for higher paying jobs.
The rewards we give to some professionals are way out of
proportion to their real contribution to the society.
What motivates people once basic needs are met? Pride at
work; independence on job; Input into organisation.
This great inequality leads to Hostility, Conflict. Maybe even
revolution.

Functionalist approaches
Functionalist theorists attempt to understand

what role inequality plays in keeping society

at equilibrium.
Davis and Moore (1945) argued that
stratification benefited society by ensuring
that the most important roles would be filled
by the most talented and worthy people.

23

Key Ideas of Functionalists:

Stratification
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Functionalists: Society is made up of smoothly

functioning parts that all work for common good.
Some jobs are important and they require special
training.
Only a limited number of people have the ability to
acquire the skills for these jobs.
Learning these skills takes years of sacrifice.
Motivate people to do this by offering them power,
prestige and money = lifestyle
Therefore, social inequality is good for society. Its
Functional. Its Inevitable.

What is social class?

Social class is some mixture of:
Wealth

Income
Education
Occupation

25

Race and wealth

Though race is not an actual component of

class, there is a clear intersection.

Research shows that in US, African Americans
generally have less wealth and education
than other social groups.
Non-whites are also much more likely to
experience discrimination when buying
homes.
26

Occupational prestige
Occupation

Rank (1 = most prestigious; 16 = least

prestigious)

Accountant

_________________________________

Cab driver

_________________________________

Carpenter

_________________________________

Classical musician

_________________________________

Engineer

_________________________________

Garbage collector

_________________________________

Journalist

_________________________________

Doctor

_________________________________

Police officer

_________________________________

Real estate agent

_________________________________

Registered nurse

_________________________________

Secretary

_________________________________

Shoe shiner

_________________________________

Social worker

_________________________________

Sociologist

_________________________________

Waiter or waitress

_________________________________

27

The rankings
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

Doctor
Engineer
Sociologist
Accountant
Nurses and other Doctors
Classical musician
Police officer
Journalist
Social worker
Secretary
Real estate agent
Carpenter
Cab driver
Waiter or waitress
Garbage collector
Shoe shiner

28

The middle class

Most people understand themselves as a

middle-class society.
This fits with strongly held ideologies,
including classlessness, meritocracy, and the
work ethic.
Middle-class ideologies tend to promote the
reproduction of inequality.

29

Social mobility
Social mobility is the movement of people

up or down the stratification system.

Class systems allow for more movement than
slave or caste systems.
Even so, it remains quite difficult to achieve
upward, intergenerational social mobility.

30

Social Mobility

Poverty
Despite the wealth of resources and

opportunities, poverty remains a significant

social problem.
Sociologists discuss two general types of
poverty: absolute poverty and relative
poverty.

32

 Relative poverty: a level of poverty in which a

person lacks resources that other members of
her society has access to.

Absolute poverty: less than 1 $ per capita

income per day

This is a life-threatening level of poverty, a

situation in which a person faces the prospect of
hunger and disease on a daily basis

Poverty in the United States

A full 12.5 percent of the population in 2007

was in poverty (more than 37 million people);

this is the highest rate among the major
industrialized nations.
One-third of these people is working.
Poverty is calculated using a formula from the
1960s, whereby the poverty line is based on an
income three times the cost of monthly
groceries.

34

Why are the poor poor?

Poverty is not simply the result of not working
hard.
Explanations for poverty are diverse.
What we know is that low earnings (often based
on a low minimum wage) make it very hard to
get ahead.
Also, the poor have less educational attainment,
less health insurance, and more broadly,
diminished life chances.

35

Explanations for poverty

Sociologists have many empirical

explanations for poverty, but by and large

they all fall under one of two themes:
Blaming the victim (culture of poverty arguments)
Blaming the system (social exclusion, structural

arguments)

36

Gender and poverty

Sociologists often discuss what is called the
feminization of poverty.

Because of social changes, including divorce and

the increasing normalization of single-parenting,
there are more female-headed households today
than throughout modern history.
Of these families, 28 percent were poor in 2007.

37

Poverty and social problems

Social welfare systems
Homelessness
Lack of basic medical care

Educational segregation
People turn to non-conventional means to

make money.
38

Does inequality affect you?

The world economy is changing; that means

changing jobs, changing wages, and new

competition.
Inequality has been on the rise for the past
three to four decades.

39

SOME EXPERIMENTS

Paul Piff

30 Studies, 1000s of people, all over the U.S.

Rich people are more likely to break the law

while driving; help themselves with childrens
candy; and cheat in a game of chance.

Key Questions
What is the scale of global economic

inequality?
What is the extent of poverty across the
globe?
How can we explain the existence of global
economic inequality?
modernization theory, dependency theory,
world systems perspective

THE SCALE OF GLOBAL INEQUALITY

Some facts:
World population is more than 6 billion
1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a
day they are in absolute poverty
** richest 20 percent of world population
receives 80 percent of world income
** poorest 20 percent of world population
receives 1 percent of global income!!!

Some Basic Terms

GDP (gross domestic product) all the goods and
services produced on record in a country in a
year
GNP (Gross national product) all the goods and
services produced in a country plus all foreign
earnings in a given year

High income countries

40 countries (Western Europe, USA, Canada,

Japan, Australia, New Zealand)

Per capita annual income: USD 9,360 and
above
15 percent of world population (870 million
people)
More than half the worlds total income

Middle Income Countries

About 90 countries fall in this category.
One third of humanity lives in middle income countries.
Latin America, the Middle East, East Asia, West Africa
Per capita annual income between USD 760 and 9,360. Half
of the population lives in cities. They have moderate
levels of industrialization.
Several distinct groups within this category:
*Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs): Brazil, Argentina,
Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan.
*Oil-producing nations of the Middle East
*Former Soviet bloc countries

Low income countries

Half of humanity lives in low income

countries
About 60 countries, mostly in central and
eastern Africa and South Asia
Per capita annual income less than USD 760
25 percent of the population lives in cities
Little industrialization, mostly agricultural

The world according to

incomes

THE EXTENT OF POVERTY GLOBALLY

Poverty exists in all countries of the world;
but it is most severe in low and middle
income countries
Poverty rates are highest in countries that
have weak economies, weak
industrialization, and high rates of population
growth

Groups most affected by

poverty
Women
Children

Refugees and displaced people ( people

affected by wars and disasters)

SOME STATISTICS
(UN/WORLD BANK)

If you want to live their American Dream,

they should go to Denmark

Children and poverty

Poverty forces children to work or to desert their
families

Results

-- children working on the streets

-- street children (living on the streets)
-- exploitation of child labor
-- sexual exploitation
-- criminal activities such as drug abuse and theft

Displaced people
Every year, millions of people are displaced from
their homes and lands because of armed
conflicts and wars, natural disasters and

development projects
Refugees: are the people who flee their own
country and cross international borders to avoid
war or political/economic oppression.
Currently, there are more than 20 million refugees
in the world.
Examples of recent refugee flows: Afghanistan,
Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraqi Kurds

Refugees
Why might refugees be poor?
Because they leave everything behind. And often, they might not
get sufficient aid and basic services in the countries they
arrive. Since, not all refugees are granted asylum.
Current international refugee regime was established in 1951 in
response to the population displacement after WWII.
UNHCR was established.

The greatest refugee flow was between India and Pakistan in the
late 1940s after the Partition more than 20 million people
crossed borders, thousands died on the road.

Internally displaced people

IDPs flee their homes because of wars, disasters
or development projects, but unlike refugees,

do not cross international boundaries.

Thus, they do not have the same rights as people
who are recognized by the UNHCR as refugees.
Today, there are nearly 20 million IDPs globally.
Do you know which country in Europe has one of
the greatest numbers of IDPs right now?

Turkey!
An estimated 350,000 to 1 million people
(overwhelmingly Kurds) have been displaced
since the late 1980s from their homes in the
Southeast.
Why?
low intensity conflict, fear of terror, village
evacuations, collapse of the regional pastoral
economy and agriculture

Why are IDPs poor?

They leave behind property and belongings.

They do not have skills required for finding
jobs in their new environment.

HOW CAN POVERTY BE

EXPLAINED?
Technology: most poor nations are still agricultural; they dont
have much industry
But does this explain poverty?
2)
Population growth: the poorest nations have the highest
population growth rates
But whats the correlation between poverty and high birth rates?
3)
Cultural patterns: Some poor nations are more traditional.
But what does this mean?
4)
Social stratification: income distribution in poor countries is very
uneven. That is correct, but it is also uneven in some wealthy
nations.
5)
Gender inequality: women are more subordinated in some poor
countries than in rich ones.
1)

6) Global power relationships: historically, wealth

flowed from poor to rich nations

Colonialism: political domination and economic

exploitation of some countries by others
Neo-colonialism: economic exploitation of some
nations by multinational corporations and
wealthy countries, but without political
domination

Three theories on global

inequality and development
Modernization theory (W.W. Rostow)
Dependency theory (A.G. Frank)

World systems approach (I. Wallerstein)

Modernization theory
It is a theory of social and economic development
which explains global inequality between
countries in terms of different levels of
technological development
Traditional societies are backward,
underdeveloped, and poorer.
Societies which embrace modernity and change
are wealthier and more developed

Modernization theory
Western Europe, and then North America
modernized and developed thanks to the
Industrial Revolution.
If traditional societies industrialize and embrace
modernize, they will also become developed.
So, the path to modernization is open to all who
want it.

Rostows stage theory of

modernization
W.W. Rostows book : The Stages of Economic
Growth. A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960)
All societies will eventually pass through the
following stages
1) Tradition
2) Preconditions for take-off
3) Take-off
4) Drive to technological maturity
5) High mass consumption

Rostows modernization
theory
Each country reaches the take-off for
industrialization when a market economy

emerges. Britain reached that stage in 1800.

Non-western nations will reach that stage when
their productive investments grow. How?
Through foreign aid and technology transfer.
By the 1950s, the US reached the stage of high
mass consumption.

Modernization
Role of rich nations in the modernization of
the poor
-- foreign aid
-- industrial technology transfer
-- transfer of food production technology the
Green Revolution

Criticism of Modernization
Theory
1) Modernization theory is the ideological

justification of Western-led capitalism

2) Modernization theory does not take into
account the colonial exploitation of the nonWestern world by Europe
3) Wealthier nations are often the cause of
poverty, rather than being a solution for it

Contd
4) The wealth gap between the rich and the poor
countries is not diminishing; in fact, it has
increased since the 1950s
5) Industrialization does not guarantee an
increase in living standards
6) Modernization theory looks for internal causes
of poverty; doesnt consider any external
7)

factors
It holds the life style of Western countries as a
yardstick to judge the development of other
nations. Hence, it is ethnocentric.

Dependency theory
A model of economic and social development that
explains global inequality in terms of the
historical exploitation of poor societies by
Western nations.
Andre Gunder Frank: The Development of
Underdevelopment (1975)
He argued that colonial and post-colonial
exploitation by Western Europe and the USA
caused the underdevelopment of non-Western
societies, rather than their development
Why?

Dependency theory
Rich and poor nations are linked economically.

Modernization of countries cannot be considered in

isolation from each other.
During colonial period, European countries extracted raw
materials, mineral and food from their colonies. this
enabled them to industrialize
Exploitation of their resources left colonized societies
poor. They were dependent on imports of industrial
goods from Europe. Most of the peasantry worked on
farms or mines from which products were exported to
Europe

Unequal exchange: the importation of

manufactures from Europe and the
exportation of raw materials and food to
Europe was detrimental for the economies of
colonial and post-colonial nations. WHY?
Manufactures are more expensive to buy than
to sell raw materials

Did the end of colonization decolonization

bring an end to exploitation of the newly
independent states?
No.
Political liberation has not translated into
economic autonomy.

Criticism of dependency
theory
It only focuses on external factors of global
inequality.

It does not take into account that some

segments of the population in a poor country
also benefit from dependent development and
from exploiting poor members of their society.
The rapid development of some countries such
as South Korea cast doubt on the thesis that it is
rich nations which make others poor.

World systems perspective

This perspective builds on the dependency approach. But
it has a world systemic angle.
Immanuel Wallerstein (1974): The Modern World Economy
Wallerstein argues that capitalism is a world economy.
The unit of analysis for studying the world economy is the
world rather than individual nation-states (contra
modernization theory)
The capitalist world economy emerged in the 16th century in
western Europe in the wake of the discovery of the
Americas

World systems perspective

The capitalist world economy consists of a core, a periphery, and a
semiperiphery.
Historically, the core was western Europe, which became industrialized
by extracting surplus (funneling raw materials and precious
metals) from the periphery.
The semiperiphery stood in-between the core and the periphery in
terms of incomes and levels of industrialization.
In this world economy, the core exploited, or extracted surplus from the
periphery in terms of cheap labor, natural resources, raw materials
and as markets for European manufactures.
Example: In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was an exporter of
dried fruits and nuts to Europe and was dependent on imports of
manufactures (English cloth, for example). It was heavily indebted
to European countries.

World systems perspective

What is the situation today?
In the postwar period, many countries in the
periphery have become relatively industrialized
For example, Turkey is a relatively industrialized
nation today, the majority of whose exports are
manufactures (industrial goods)
Does this mean that the core no longer extracts
surplus from the periphery?
Or, does it mean that peripheral countries have
entered the core?

The answer to both questions is no.

1) Surplus extraction from the periphery to the core
is still ongoing.
2) Only a few countries have entered the
semiperiphery or the core (e.g. South Korea) in
the postwar period.
Wallerstein calls this situation, development by
invitation.

Commodity chains
1) Peripheral countries are usually specialized in
low-profit and labor-intensive links in
international commodity chains. Core countries

are usually specialized in high profit links of

commodity chains.
A commodity chain: a chain of activities from the
manufacturing to the distribution of a final
product.
Example: the apparel (ready-to-wear clothing)
commodity chain includes, cotton growing,
textile mills, stitching of garments, design,
marketing, distribution, retailing

Apparel commodity chain

Multinational companies are concentrated in the high profit
end of the apparel commodity chains such as design,
brand names, high technology and marketing
Companies in countries such as Turkey and Mexico are
concentrated in labor-intensive activities such as the
stitching of garments
Example: when Levis manufactures jeans in Turkey and
sells them in Europe, it retains a higher proportion of the
profits because of its world-popular brand name.
What about Mavi jeans?

2) The South Korean miracle

S. Korea was a special case for two reasons:
a) having geo-political importance for the U.S.
and therefore a favored economic
relationship with it
b) having an authoritarian state which prioritized
industrialization at the expense of workers
rights and democracy until the early 1990s

In a nutshell, according to the world systems

perspective, the capitalist world economy is
still a system with structural inequalities
between richer and poorer countries

What is the role of multinational corporations and global

financial institutions in perpetuating global inequality?
Examples: the World Trade Organization and the IMF?
WTO (established in 1995) ensures that international trade
takes place in a liberal environment. But by doing so, it
prevents poorer countries from protecting their
agricultural and manufacturing sectors.
IMF (established in 1945) extends stabilization loans to
countries, but in turn, it requires them to cut down on
social spending (education, healthcare, public sector
jobs) and open up (liberalize) their economies.