Contents

1. Concepts of social stratification: equality, inequality, hierarchy, exclusion, poverty and deprivation
2. Theories of social stratification
3. Dimensions - Social stratification of class, status groups, gender, ethnicity and race
4. Social mobility – open and closed systems, types of mobility, sources and causes of mobility

Concepts of social stratification: equality, inequality, hierarchy, exclusion, poverty and deprivation

Equality

Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly and the extent of property right. However, it also includes access to education, health care and other social securities. It also includes equal opportunities and obligations and so involves the whole society.

Social equality however does not require communism or income equality. Equal opportunities are interpreted as being judged by ability, which is compatible with a free-market economy. A problem is horizontal inequality, the inequality of two persons of same origin and ability.

Inequality

Inequality simply refers to two or more things that are not same or equal.

Biological inequality: Jean Jacques Rousseau – biological inequality is natural or physical. Established by nature. Consists in a difference of age, health, bodily strength and the qualities of the mind and the soul. Biologically based inequalities relatively small and unimportant whereas socially created inequalities provide the basis for social stratification. Andre Beteille – biological differences become biological inequality when men define them as such. Example: Australian aborigines, old age is associated with more power and prestige but that is not so in modern society.

Social inequality: Consciously created or defined inequality. Socially created inequality consists of different privileges which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others.

Social stratification

Social stratification is a particular form of social inequality. It refers to the presence of social groups which are ranked one above the other, usually in terms of the amount of power, prestige and wealth their members possess.

Hierarchy

It is a specific form of social stratification which implies vertical division of people along a scale not of scales. Simply means rank. Social hierarchy is rigid system of ranking.

Social exclusion

Social exclusion is a process in which individuals and groups are rendered unable to participate fully in the social, economic, political, cultural, civic and other institutions, entitlements, activities and amenities that characterize ordinary, customary or generally accepted quality life in the societies in which they live.

Causes of social exclusion - Burchardt et al have identified 3 school of thoughts:

1. Combined effect of discrimination and unenforced rights

2. Function of the organization and operation of societal institutions and systems

3. Perverse, pathological, anti social and self destructive behaviours, morals and values of excluded individuals and groups

Types of social exclusion

1. Based on economic deprivation 2. Based on occupation 3. Based on violation of norms

4. Based on ascription 5. Based on achievement

Poverty

Poverty can be defined as “a socio-economic condition of an individual in which individual and their dependents are devoid of or deprived from those basic things which are essential for the effective functioning of body and mind.”

Causes of poverty

1. Culture of poverty (Oscar Lewis)

2. Lack of opportunity due to overpopulation

3. Natural disasters prone society

4. Religious dominance which discourages individuals from worldly achievement (Weber)

5. Concentration of wealth or resources in the hands of a particular group (Marx)

Types of poverty

1. Absolute Poverty or subsistence poverty:

Absolute poverty refers to the inability of a person or a household to provide even the basic necessities of life.

2. Relative Poverty:

Poverty according to this concept is to be measured according to standards of life at a given time and place with respect to the other members of the society.

Consequences of poverty

1. Class conflict and proletariat revolution.(Marx)

2. Sequential migration (Notestein)

3. Moral corruption, law and order problem, bad habits etc.

4. Over and under population

5. Sense of Retreatism and pessimism.

6. Social movements, civil wars, communal tensions, separatist movements, etc.

Deprivation

Townsend – deprivation maybe defined as a state of observable and demonstrable disadvantages relative to the local community or the wider society or nation to which and individual, family or a group belongs. Deprivation (outcome) is the result of poverty (cause)

Theories of social stratification

Structural functionalist theory

Talcott Parsons – value consensus and stratification

Parsons saw social stratification as both inevitable and functional for the society.

1. It is inevitable because it derives from shared values which are a necessary part of all social systems.

2. It is functional because it serves to integrate various groups in the society.

Values are shared beliefs. Given values are the best means though which stability can be maintained. Values are not only shared beliefs but they emerge out of consensus of the members of that society. Consensus emerges because all members want order and stability in their daily life.

Parsons argues that it follows from the existence of values that individuals will be evaluated and therefore placed in some form of rank or order. Parsons stated that "Stratification is the ranking of units in a social system in accordance with the common values system." Hence it is the value system which creates stratification in a society. Moreover, differences in the strata are justified by the values system.

In any society, those performing according to the social values are better rewarded. The type of rewards, according to Parsons, depends on what the values of that society define as superior.

Example – For Rajputs bravery and valor is highly valued.

Violation of social values implies punishment.

Modem industrial societies - higher value on individual achievement. Primary emphasis on productive activity within the economy. Those who excel in these will be better rewarded.

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore

For an ordered and efficient functioning, a society requires fulfillment of certain functional pre-requisites;

1. Effective role allocation and performance. This means;

1. All roles must be filled.

2. They must be filled by those best able to perform them.(merit based, competency, professional qualifications and skills)

3. Necessary training for them must be undertaken.

4. Roles must be performed conscientiously

Functional importance.

1. Functional uniqueness – there being no other positions that can perform the same function satisfactorily. Example: Doctors are functionally more important than nurses.

2. Degree of dependence – how many other roles are dependent on it. Example: Managers are more important than routine office staff.

Davis and Moore regarded social stratification as a functional necessity.

Criticism

Marxist sociologists Melvin Tumin

1. Functional importance:

Questions the adequacy of the measurement of functional importance. Every position is important. Example: Sanitary worker as important as a doctor.

2. The pool of talent:

1. Questions the adequacy of the tools of measurement of talent and ability. Example: even IQ test suffers from western cultural bias.

2. Davis and Moore say that society lacks talent and hence differential reward. Tumin argues that there is no dearth of talent in society. The scarcity is artificially created by privileged class by setting undue educational achievement criteria.

3. Training:

Questions the sacrifice aspect of training period.

4. Power and reward:

Davis and Moore ignored the role of power in differential reward.

5. Motivation:

Major function of unequal reward according to Davis and Moore is to motivate talented individuals and allocate them to the functionally most important positions. Tumin argued that social stratification can and often does act as a barrier to motivation.

6. Inequality of opportunity:

Tumin argues that those born into the lower strata can never have the same opportunities of realizing their talents as those born into the higher strata.

7. Social division:

Differential rewards can encourage hostility, suspicion and distrust. Stratification is a divisive rather than an integrating force.

Marxist theory: (Conflict theory of social stratification)

Marxists see stratification as a mechanism whereby some exploit others rather than a means of furthering collective goals.

2 Major social groups - Ruling class and Subject class

Power of ruling class from ownership and control of means of production.

Ruling class exploits the subject class.

Conflict between the two classes.

Various institutions are instruments of the ruling class domination and serve to further their interest.

Only when the means of production are communally owned the classes will disappear.

Weberian theory: (Trinitarian theory of social stratification)

Multidimensional and probabilistic in nature.

Society can be stratified along 3 dimensions;

1. Class (life chances) – group of individuals who share a similar position in a market economy and by the virtue of that fact receive similar economic rewards

2. Status (life style) – whereas class refers to unequal distribution of economic rewards, status refers to unequal distribution of social honour.

3. Party (organizational ability) – groups that are specifically concerned with influencing policies and making decisions in the interest of their membership. Parties are concerned with the acquisition of social power.

The 3 axis of stratification may act independent to each other.

There might be consistency as well as inconsistency in the position of a person along different dimensions.

Dimensions - Social stratification of class, status groups, gender, ethnicity and race

Social stratification is a particular form of social inequality. It refers to the presence of social groups which are ranked one above the other.

Stratification of class

Marxian adoption is an objective approach.

Karl Marx defined class ‘a group which is having a similar and stable relation with the mode of production is class.’

Weberian adoption is subjective approach.

Weber though accepted class as an economic category but departed from the view that it can be defined on the basis of relationship with forces of production only.

Max Weber believed that the “class depends on the life chances of an individual which in turn depends on the ‘market situation’ of that profession and consequently on the income of that individual. Income and profession in turn depends on education”

As per reputational view, a person may have low economic standard but high or middle position in class structure and vice-versa. Individual himself is asked to which class he belongs. W. Lloyd Warner in his study of Yankee city applied the reputational approach.

He presents a 6 fold classification of people on the basis of socio-economic criteria and then asks the subject his class structure.

He identified six classes in Yankee City:

1. Upper – Upper

2. Upper – Lower

3. Middle – Upper

4. Middle – Lower

5. Lower – Upper

6. Lower – Lower

Stratification of status group

Status groups are based on non-economic qualities like honour, prestige and religion. Status develops in opposition to the market.

Status rests on mode of living or life-style, formal education, prestige of birth and prestige of occupation or prohibitions from certain mode of acquisition.

Weber considered upper caste as fully developed status groups. They rigidly practice endogamy and commensality.

Status groups are a characteristic of pre-industrial, agricultural and tradition bound society.

Stratification of gender

Sex is a biological phenomenon which is determined on the basis of reproductive organs of an individual. Gender is socio-cultural expression of sex. It is largely determined by the cultural perception of the society. Hence, male and female are sexes whereas man and women are genders.

Society characterized by sexual division of labour (SDOL).

Functional explanation: Gender stratification exists to maximize social efficiency.

Cultural or feminist explanation: SDOL is a product of patriarchy, power differential between men and women, rule of men over women.

Structural theory of gender stratification

Technological base of a society sets parameters for what type of family structure can exist and the degree of gender inequality generated.

1. Hunting and gathering societies

2. Stateless horticulture

3. Advanced horticulture

4. Agrarian states

5. Modern industrial society

Stratification of ethnicity

The term ethnicity is defined in broader sense to signify self-consciousness of a group of people united or closely related by shared experience such as language, religious belief, common heritage, etc.

Weber prescribes following characteristics for a group relation to be ethnic;

1. Believe in a group identity

2. Believe in a common descent (real or imaginary).

Stratification of race

Sociologists define race as a vast collective of people more or less bound together by shared and selected history, ancestors and physical features. These people are socialized to think themselves as a distinct group, and others regard them as such.

Social mobility – open and closed systems, types of mobility, sources and causes of mobility

Social mobility

Social mobility means any transition of an individual or social object or value or anything that has been created or modified by human activity from one social position to another.

Types of mobility

Pitrim Sorokin has identified 2 types of social mobility;

1. Horizontal mobility: The transition of an individual or social object from one social group to another situated on the same level.

Example: Baptist to Methodist religious group.

2. Vertical mobility: Relations involved in a transition of an individual (or a social object) from one social stratum to another. According to the direction of the transition there are two types of vertical social mobility: ascending and descending, or 'social climbing' and 'social sinking' respectively.

Lipset and Benedix identified two more types of Social Mobility;

1. Intra-generation Social Mobility: It is also termed ‘career mobility’, refers to social mobility within a single generation. It is measured by comparing the occupational status of individual at two or more points in time. Individual ensures social climbing or social sinking in their own life.

Example: someone becomes rich suddenly and poor suddenly.

2. Inter-generational Social Mobility: It refers to the social mobility between generations. It is measured by comparing occupational status of sons with that of father (and only rarely the occupational status of father or mother with that of their daughter).

Example, a son of a farmer becomes an IAS and vice versa.

Forms of mobility

Sorokin states that, both the ascending and descending currents of economic, political and occupational mobility exists in two principal forms.

They exist as:

1. An infiltration of the individuals of a lower stratum into an existing higher one; and

2. A creation of a new group by such individuals, and the insertion of such a group into a higher stratum instead of, or side by side with, the existing groups of this stratum.

Correspondingly, the descending or downward mobility has also two principal forms as:

1. Dropping of individuals from a higher social position into an existing lower one, without a degradation or disintegration of the higher group to which they belonged; and

2. Degradation of a social group as a whole, in an abasement of its rank among other groups, or in its disintegration as a social unit.

Recent forms of mobility by Ralph H. Turner

1. Contest mobility:

A system in which elite status is the prize in an open contest and is taken by the aspirants on efforts. While the "contest" is governed by some rules of fair play, the contestants have wide choices in the strategies they may employ. Since the "prize" of successful upward mobility is not in the hands of a established elite to give out, the latter cannot determine who shall attain it and who shall not.

2. Sponsored mobility:

One where the established elite or their agents recruit individuals into their fold. In this case elite status is given on the basis of some criterion of supposed merit and cannot be taken by any amount of effort or strategy.

Open and closed system

Open system: Norms prescribe and encourage mobility. Individuals assigned position on the basis of merit or achievement.

Closed system: No mobility. Fixed status. Known as social hierarchy. Position based on ascribed status.

The open and close system is a relative concept

Lockwood and Gold Thorpe in their study of ‘Black-coated workers’ found that the lower class do not get easy acceptance in the middle class in spite of their economic achievements. They are rejected by being called Nouveau Riche. They also found that in schools, offices are different and unfriendly environment and they believe that they are not accepted by the middle class.

Caste, race, and gender based social stratification are the examples of closed social system. Sankritization (M. N. Srinivas), migration (David F. Pocock), conversion (Yogendra Singh) and Royal Proclamation were some of the means of social mobility within the caste system.

Sources and causes of mobility

Structural Factors

1. Occupational Structure: Agricultural and extractive economy - many low status and few high status positions, and mobility will be low. The rate of mobility rises with the degree of industrialization in both the capitalist and socialist countries.

2. Mobility Barriers: Even in a relatively open class society, upward mobility is not open equally to everyone. Middle-class children typically have learning experiences which are more helpful in gaining upward mobility than the experiences of lower-class children.

Individual Factors

While structural factors may determine the proportion of high-status, well-paid positions in a society, individual factors greatly affect which persons get them.

1. Ability Differences

2. Mobility-Oriented Behaviour

1. Education

2. Work Habits

3. Deferred-Gratification Pattern

4. Mobility ‘Game Playing’