8-1

Richard T. Schaefer

SOCIOLOGY:
A Brief Introduction
Seventh Edition

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 chapter
Stratification and Social
8
Mobility in the United States
CHAPTER OUTLINE

•Understanding Stratification
•Stratification by Social Class
•Social Mobility
•Social Policy and Stratification: Rethinking
Welfare in North America and Europe

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 8-3

A Look Ahead
█ Is social inequality an inescapable part of
society?
█ 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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 8-4

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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 8-5

Systems of Stratification
█ Ascribed status: social position assigned
to person without regard for that person’s
unique characteristics or talents
█ Achieved status: social position attained
by person largely through his or her own
effort

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 8-6

Social 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-middle class
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 8-7

Figure 8-2: Household Income

in the United States, 2004

Source: DeNavas-Walt et al. 2005:31.

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Perspectives on Stratification
█ Sociologists have hotly debated
stratification and social inequality and
have reached varying conclusions
█ No theorist stressed the significance
of class for society more strongly than
Karl Marx

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 8-9

Karl Marx’s View of

Class Differentiation
█ Social relations depend on who controls
the primary mode of production
– Capitalism: economic system in which the
means of production are held largely in private
hands and the main incentive for economic
activity is the accumulation of profits
– Bourgeoisie: capitalist class; owns the means
of production

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 8-10

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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 8-11

Max Weber’s View

of Stratification
█ No single characteristic totally defines a
person’s position with the stratification
system
– Status group: people who have the same
prestige or lifestyle
– Class: group of people who have similar level
of wealth and income
– Power: ability to exercise one’s will over
others
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 8-12

Interactionist View
█ Both Marx and Weber looked at
inequality primarily from
microsociological perspective
█ Is Stratification Universal?
– Inequality exists in all societies—even in
the simplest societies

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 8-13

Functionalist View
█ Social inequity necessary so people will
be motivated to fill functionally important
positions
– Does not explain the wide disparity between
the rich and the poor

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 8-14

Conflict View
█ Human beings prone to conflict over
scarce resources such as wealth, status,
and power
– Stratification major source of societal tension
and conflict that will inevitably lead to
instability and social change
Dominant ideology: set of cultural beliefs
and practices that helps to maintain powerful
social, economic, and political interests

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 8-15

Lenski’s Viewpoint
█ 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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 8-16

Table 8-1: Sociological

Perspectives on Social
Stratification

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 8-17

Measuring Social Class

█ Objective Method
– Class largely viewed as a statistical category
based on
Prestige: respect and
• Education admiration an occupation
• Occupation holds in society
• Income
Esteem: reputation
• Place of residence
specific person has
earned within an
occupation
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 8-18

Measuring Social Class

█ Gender and Occupational Prestige
– For many years, studies of social class tended
to neglect the occupations and incomes of
women as determinants of social rank
█ Multiple Measures
– Advances in statistical methods and computer
technology multiplied factors used to define
class

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 8-19

Wealth and Income

█ Income in U.S. distributed unevenly
– Only 38% of people in U.S. believe
government should take steps to reduce
income disparity between the rich and poor
– Wealth in the U.S. is much more unevenly
distributed than income
• In 2001, the richest fifth of the population held
84.5% of nation’s wealth

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Table 8-2: Prestige Rankings

of Occupations

Source: J. Davis et al. 2005:2050-2051.

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Figure 8-3: U.S. Income

Pyramid, 2003

Source: Developed by the author based on data

from DeNavas-Walt et al. 2005:HINC-01
and the Internal Revenue Service (2004).

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Figure 8-4: Distribution of Wealth

in the United States, 2001

Source: Wolff 2002.

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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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Figure 8-6: Absolute Poverty in

Selected Industrial Countries

Source: Smeeding et al. 2001:51.

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 8-25

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

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 8-26

Poverty
█ Who Are the Poor?
– Not a static social class
█ Explaining Poverty
– In Gans’s view, poverty and poor satisfy
positive functions for many non poor groups
– Life chances: opportunities to provide
material goods, positive living conditions, and
favorable life experience

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 8-27

Table 8-3: Who Are the Poor

in the United States?

Source: DeNavas-Walt et al. 2005:10.

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 8-28

Life Chances
█ Max Weber saw class as being closely
related to people’s life chances
– Opportunities to provide material goods,
positive living conditions, and favorable life
experience
– In times of danger, affluent and powerful have
a better chance of surviving than people of
ordinary means

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 8-29

Open versus
Closed Stratification Systems
█ 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
– Social mobility: Movement of individuals or
groups from one position in a society’s
stratification system to another

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 8-30

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

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 8-31

Social Mobility
in the United States
█ Occupational Mobility
█ The Impact of Education
█ The Impact of Race and Ethnicity

█ The Impact of Gender

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 8-32

Rethinking Welfare in
North America and Europe
█ The Issue
– Governments in all parts of world searching
for right solution to welfare
– How much subsidy should they provide?
– How much responsibility should fall on
shoulders of poor?

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 8-33

Rethinking Welfare in
North America and Europe
█ The Setting
– In 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act was passed in
the United States
– Ended long-standing federal guarantee of
assistance to every poor family that meets
eligibility requirements
– Other countries vary widely in commitment to
social service programs
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 8-34

Rethinking Welfare in
North America and Europe
█ Sociological Insights
– Many sociologists tend to view debate over
welfare from conflict perspective
• Backlash against welfare recipients reflects
deep fears and hostility toward the nation’s
urban and predominantly African American and
Hispanic underclass
• Tax breaks and other “corporate welfare”
granted by the government for corporations
should be examined closely
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 8-35

Rethinking Welfare in
North America and Europe
█ Policy Initiatives
– There are some success stories in the new
“workfare” program of the United States
• Prospects for hard-core jobless faded as boom
passed and economy moved into recession
– European governments encountered same
citizen demand—keep taxes low
• In North America and Europe, people are
turning to private means for support

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.