INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
Chapter 9: SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
College Physics
Chapter # Chapter Title
PowerPoint Image Slideshow
Throughout the world, the gap between those who are rich and those who are poor is widening.
Of the 7.3 billion people on the planet, 2.4 billion are so poor that they must subsist on the equivalent of two dollars a day or less.
There are a record-breaking 2,089 billionaires and 17 million millionaires, but there are hundreds of millions of homeless people.
The increase in world poverty also contributes to environmental degradation and political instability and violence, which drain resources that might be used to meet a nation’s domestic needs.
Economic Inequality in the United States
Social stratification is a society’s system of ranking categories of people in a hierarchy.
Stratification produces social classes, categories of people who have similar access to resources and opportunities.
In early societies, people shared a common social standing. As societies evolved and became more complex, they began to elevate some members. Today, stratification, a system by which society ranks its members in a hierarchy, is the norm throughout the world. All societies stratify their members. A stratified society is one in which there is an unequal distribution of society’s rewards and in which people are arranged hierarchically into layers according to how much of society’s rewards they possess. To understand stratification, we must first understand its origins.
***HISTORY OF STRATIFICATION
Hunting and Gathering Societies
Hunting and gathering societies had little stratification. Men hunted for meat while women gathered edible plants, and the general welfare of the society depended on all its members sharing what it had. The society as a whole undertook the rearing and socialization of children and shared food and other acquisitions more or less equally. Therefore, no group emerged as better off than the others.
Horticultural, Pastoral, and Agricultural Societies
The emergence of horticultural and pastoral societies led to social inequality. For the first time, groups had reliable sources of food: horticultural societies cultivated plants, while pastoral societies domesticated and bred animals. Societies grew larger, and not all members needed to be involved in the production of food. Pastoral societies began to produce more food than was needed for mere survival, which meant that people could choose to do things other than hunt for or grow food.
Division of Labor and Job Specialization
Division of labor in agricultural societies led to job specialization and stratification. People began to value certain jobs more highly than others. The further someone was from actual agriculture work, the more highly he or she was respected. Manual laborers became the least respected members of society, while those engaged in “high culture,” such as art or music, became the most respected.
As basic survival needs were met, people began trading goods and services they could not provide for themselves and began accumulating possessions. Some accumulated more than others and gained prestige in society as a result. For some people, accumulating possessions became their primary goal. These individuals passed on what they had to future generations, concentrating wealth into the hands of a few groups.
Industrialized Societies
The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the mid-1700s, when the steam engine came into use as a means of running other machines. The rise of industrialization led to increased social stratification. Factory owners hired workers who had migrated from rural areas in search of jobs and a better life. The owners exploited the workers to become wealthy, making them work long hours in unsafe conditions for very low wages. The gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” widened.
The Improvement of Working Conditions
By the middle of the 1900s, workers had begun to secure rights for themselves, and the workplace became safer. Wages rose, and workers had something they had never had before: buying power. They could purchase homes, automobiles, and a vast array of consumer goods. Though their financial success was nothing compared to that of their bosses, the gap between the two was narrowing, and the middle class grew stronger.
At the same time, new forms of inequality took hold. The increasing sophistication and efficiency of factory machines led to the need for a different kind of worker—one who could not only operate certain kinds of equipment but could also read and write. The classification of the skilled worker was born. A skilled worker is literate and has experience and expertise in specific areas of production, or on specific kinds of machines. In contrast, many unskilled workers could neither read nor write English and had no specific training or expertise. The division arose between skilled and unskilled workers, with the former receiving higher wages and, as some would say, greater job security.
Postindustrial Societies
The rise of postindustrial societies, in which technology supports an information-based economy, has created further social stratification. Fewer people work in factories, while more work in service industries. Education has become a more significant determinant of social position. The Information Revolution has also increased global stratification. Even though new technology allows for a more global economy, it also separates more clearly those nations who have access to the new technology from those who don’t.
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What is Social Stratification?
Refers to a society’s categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power.
Stratification is not about Wealth (net value of money and assets a person has) and income (person’s wages or investment dividends) usually determine strata in the US.
3 MAIN SYSTEMS OF STRATIFICATION:
Slavery, Caste System and Class system
Slavery’s Global History
Many Americans view slavery as a phenomenon that began with the colonization of the New World and ended with the Civil War, but slavery has existed for a very long time. Slavery appears in the Old Testament of the Bible, as well as in the Qur’an. It was common practice in ancient Greece and Rome.
The Causes of Slavery
A common assumption about slavery is that it is generally based on racism. Though racism was the primary cause of slavery in the United States, it was not the main reason that people in other areas were enslaved. Reasons for slavery include debt, crime, war, and beliefs of inherent superiority.
Debt: Individuals who could not pay their way out of debt sometimes had to literally sell themselves. If a slave’s debt was not paid off before his or her death, the debt was often passed down to his or her children, enslaving several generations of the same family.
Crime: Families against whom a crime had been committed might enslave members of the perpetrator’s family as compensation.
Prisoners of war: Slaves were often taken during wartime, or when a new territory was being invaded. When Rome was colonizing much of the known world approximately 2,000 years ago, it routinely took slaves from the lands it conquered.
Beliefs of inherent superiority: Some people believe that they have a right to enslave those who they believe are inherently inferior to them.
Slavery in the United States
Slavery in the United States was unique for several reasons. First, it had a fairly equal male-to-female ratio. Slaves also lived longer than in other regions. They often reproduced, and their children were born into slavery. In other countries, slavery was not permanent or hereditary. Once slaves paid off their debts, they were set free. In the United States, slaves were rarely freed before the Civil War.
Slavery Today
Slavery still exists today. As many as 400 million people live under conditions that qualify as slavery, despite laws prohibiting it. In the Sudan, Ghana, and Benin, slavery exists much as it did 800 years ago. In other parts of the world, including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, debt slavery is common. Sex slavery, the forcing of girls into prostitution, is prevalent in Asia.
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Modern Day Slavery
Systems of Stratification
Open system: are based on achievement and allow movement between different strata.
Class system: based on social factors and individual achievement.
Class: people who share similar status with regard to factors like wealth, income, education, and occupation.
Meritocracy: where personal effort determines social standing
Social Mobility
Social mobility refers to the ability to change positions within a social stratification system.
Upward mobility-Downward mobility
Intergenerational mobility explains a difference in social class between different generations of a family.
Intragenerational mobility describes a difference in social class between different members of the same generation.
Structural mobility happens when societal changes enable a whole group of people to move up or down the social class ladder.
Types of Poverty
Relative poverty is a state of living where people can afford necessities but are unable to meet their society’s average standard of living.
Subjective poverty describes poverty that is composed of many dimensions;
it is subjectively present when your actual income does not meet your expectations and perceptions.
absolute poverty lack even the basic necessities, which typically include adequate food, clean water, safe housing, and access to health care.
Close to 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day
Relative poverty: focuses on the idea that people are poor relative to some standard, and that standard is partially shaped by the lifestyles of other citizens
Episodic poverty: poor for at least two consecutive months in some time period.
Absolute poverty: establishes a fixed economic level below which people are considered poor, and this level does not necessarily change as society on the whole becomes more or less affluent.
A Global View of Poverty
In nations such as Ethiopia, Liberia, and Somalia, well over 50 percent of the people live in such severe poverty.
Few, if any, of the poor in the United States experience such severe poverty.
Trends of the past century have produced higher levels of inequality in the United States while the trend in Britain has been toward reducing levels of inequality.
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How much economic inequality is there in the United States today?
This is 13 times as much as the 3.8% earned by the poorest one-fifth of families.
Distribution of Income in the United States
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How much economic inequality is there in the United States today?
Note that wealth is distributed much more unequally than income: 60% of families have less than 2% of all wealth.
Distribution of Wealth in the United States
Why Does Poverty Persist?
6.6: Analyze the individualistic, structural, and cultural explanations for poverty.
Many theories are offered to explain the nature of poverty and account for why so many people are impoverished in the U.S.:
Individualistic explanations
Structural explanations
Cultural explanations
Individualistic Explanations: poverty is primarily the result of laziness or lack of motivation, and those who are poor generally have only themselves to blame.
Individualistic explanations are popular in America because there is great ambivalence toward those who are poor.
Meritocracy
Structural explanations: attribute poverty to the functioning of the dominant institutions of society, such as markets and corporations.
assumes that poverty is a result of economic or social imbalances within the social structure that restrict opportunities for some individuals (e.g., a changing economy, a drive for profit inherent in capitalism, racism, sexism, an eroding safety net).
Cultural explanations: people become adapted to certain ways of life because of the way they were raised, including adapting to poverty.
a “culture of poverty” arises among poor people, with new norms, values, and aspirations.
The idea that there is a culture of poverty that arises among chronically poor individuals and families is controversial.
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Class Traits and Fashion
Class traits: also called class markers, are the typical behaviors, customs, and norms that define each class.
Georg Simmel: Duality of differentiation and conformity/imitation
Fashion is a custom followed transiently.
It is a social phenomenon that occurs in almost all ages, races, social classes and societies.
Trends in clothing, music, cars and accessories.
Fashion As Imitation
“Fashion is an imitation of a given model”
Imitation provides the individual the security of not being alone in their performance.
The fusion of the individual and community.
Fashions die out when they become practiced by more and more people.
Symbolic Interactionism: In most communities, people interact primarily with others who share the same social standing; note that people’s appearance reflects their perceived social standing
Conspicuous consumption refers to buying certain products to make a social statement about status
Simmel: “En Vogue” is in large measure a consequence of higher classes attempting to distance themselves from the lower classes.
Fashion is a visible and easily identifiable sign of class position.
As lower classes seek to imitate higher classes, the upper classes seek new ways to retain and express their distinctiveness.
Modern society: mass production, access to wealth (purchasing power), cheaper products
Paradox: as we try to be unique in our fashion choices, we turn to buying mass-produced, standardized goods.
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“Tragedy of Culture”
A social constraint in which the ‘objective culture’ (material items we create) comes to dominate ‘subjective culture’ (self-development, interactions and individual will).
Compromises self-development and individuality by increasing conformity.
Cell Phone
Car
Computers
Money
Media
High price of Materialism (click for video)
Simmel described blasé attitude as an attitude of absolute boredom and lack of concern. He goes on and states that we have limited emotional resources and are only able to give/care so much. Simmel explains it as a multiple stimuli and at the final step we withdraw emotionally. After reading this article, I could see the relations it has with blasé attitude and the bystander effect. Simmel talks about how we withdraw emotionally due to changes in knowledge, culture and how we are faced with diverse people and circumstances.
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The Poverty Line
Poverty line: income level set by the government for the purpose of counting the poor
Roughly 3x what a family needs to eat a basic, nutritious diet.
The Consequences of Poverty
More than any other social class, the poor suffer from short life expectancies and health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and mental illness. Reasons include the following:
Poor people are often not well educated about diet and exercise. They are more likely than people in higher social strata to be overweight and suffer from nutritional deficits.
They are less likely to have health insurance, so they put off going to the doctor until a problem seems like a matter of life and death. At that time they must find a public health facility that accepts patients with little or no insurance.
Living in poverty brings chronic stress. Poor people live every day with the uncertainty of whether they can afford to eat, pay the electric bill, or make the rent payment. Members of the middle class also have stress but have more options for addressing it.
Poor people usually do not have jobs that offer them vacation time to let them relax.
High levels of unresolved stress, financial problems, and poor health can wreak havoc within a relationship. Poor people report more relationship problems than do people in other classes and have higher rates of divorce and desertion. The children of such families are more likely than their middle-class counterparts to grow up in broken homes or in single-parent, female-headed households.
The Culture of Poverty
Anthropologist Oscar Lewis coined the term culture of poverty, which means that poor people do not learn the norms and values that can help them improve their circumstances; hence, they become trapped in a repeated pattern of poverty. Because many poor people live in a narrow world in which all they see is poverty and desperation, they never acquire the skills or the ambition that could help them rise above the poverty level. Since culture is passed down from one generation to the next, parents teach their children to accept their circumstances rather than to work to change them. The cycle of poverty then becomes self-perpetuating.
Though the stratification system of the United States is based on class rather than on caste, some people claim that a racial caste system exists in this country. Slavery was outlawed after the Civil War, but some believe it was replaced by another prejudicial system—a caste system based on race. Though whites could no longer own slaves, they still considered themselves to be superior to people of African descent. They insisted on separate recreational, educational, and other facilities for themselves and their families and even prevented intermarriage between people of different races. Before this time, one’s race was a strong indicator of destiny, and some would say that there is still a racial caste system in the United States today
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In 2012, there were 46.5 million people in poverty, for a poverty rate of 15%
The Poverty Rate
The Poverty Rate in the United States,
1960-2012
The Poor: Who is at greatest risk?
Race: African Americans and Hispanics
Age: children
Gender: women
Family Patterns: single mothers
Region: the South and the West
Social Circumstances
The Working Poor
Despite common misconceptions, many adults below the official poverty line actually work for a living, often at low-paying or part-time work.
The Unemployed
The unemployed receive unemployment benefits for a time, but these are exhausted eventually.
Poor health, lack of skills, lack of jobs, lack of child care
Gender inequalities of this social phenomenon
Family composition: dissolution of marital unions, constitutions of families without these unions, higher male mortality
Family organization
Gender division of labor and consumption within the household, gender roles regulating the control over household resources
Inequality in the access to public services or in their quality
Barriers to education of girls, educational segregation by sex, lack of women specific health attention
Inequality in social protection
Contributory pensions systems reproducing previous labor market inequalities, lower access to pensions and social assistance by women, inequality in benefit concession or in benefit values in targeted policies
Labor market inequalities
Occupational segregation, intra-career mobility, differential levels of employment in paid work, wage discrimination, duration of work shifts.
Legal, paralegal and cultural constrains in public life
Property rights, discrimination in the judiciary system, constrains in community and political life, etc.
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Problems Linked to Poverty
1 out of 30 children or 2.5 million children
58K homeless veterans
Texas, California and Florida have the highest numbers of unaccompanied homeless youth under 18 (lgbtq 20% to 40%)
Homelessness affects men more than women 70%
Causes of homelessness can be found in recent social trends, such as
the decline in the number of industrial jobs that pay a living wage,
the flight of jobs from the cities where people live,
the contraction of social welfare,
increases in poverty, and
the decline in the amount of low-cost housing.
Other Causes: affordable housing, deinstitutionalization, redevelopment, US dept of VA, nearly half of foster children in the US become homeless (aging out of system), natural disasters, ex-cons and those hiding from authorities, fleeing domestic violence, teenagers who flee home, evictions, lack of social capital
College youth: FAFSA 2013 58K identified as homeless
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Poor health
Linked to a lack of good nutrition.
The infant mortality rate among the poor is twice the rate among affluent people.
Death comes earlier to the poor; more likely to die from infectious diseases and violence.
Substandard Housing
decline in availability of low-rent apartments
housing crisis starting in 2007
Homelessness
About 610,000 people are homeless on a given night
Up to 2.3 million people are homeless at some point during the year
Average monthly income for homeless families is $475
Problems Linked to Poverty
Limited schooling and education
Poor children are less likely than rich children to complete high school.
Poor counseling
Unresponsive administrators
Overcrowded classes
Irrelevant curricula
Tracking/grouping
Dilapidated school facilities (click for video)
Several can be addressed with more funding
Some are stalemated by disagreements
The Rising Cost of Education
Fewer poor children enter college; they have less chance of completing an advanced degree.
Education
One determinant of socioeconomic status is education. People with a high school degree are classified in one group. People with college degrees are put into another. Using educational attainment levels to indicate SES is problematic for two reasons:
School systems in this country are not uniform in quality.
Not everyone has equal access to primary, secondary, and higher education.
Free, compulsory education has existed in the United States since the beginning of the twentieth century, but some school systems are better than others. The American public education system tends to be highly decentralized, with decisions about what to include in the school curriculum being made at the state or local level. School systems differ widely in what they choose to teach and when.
Disparity of Resources Among Public Schools
Some school systems produce graduates who are prepared for higher education, while others turn out people whose basic math and language skills are so poor that they qualify for only a few types of jobs. The quality of the education a school provides depends largely on its budget, which in turn relies heavily on the tax base of the town or city in which it is located. Wealthy cities can afford better teachers, newer materials, and superior technology, whereas poor cities can barely afford basic supplies.
Poorer communities also tend to have a higher dropout rate than wealthier communities. Therefore, while establishing a profile of a typical high school graduate is difficult, the assumption remains, for the purposes of social classification, that all high school graduates are equally prepared for either the workplace or for higher education.
Disparity in Higher Education
The reliance on educational level as an indicator of social class becomes more problematic when one considers the huge variety of colleges in the United States. There are vocational schools, junior colleges, four-year colleges, and universities. Some colleges prepare individuals for specific careers, whereas others emphasize the development of intellectual and life skills. Religiously oriented colleges focus on development of the spirit and the teaching of theology as well as academic material. Some colleges encourage their students to pursue graduate degrees, whereas others assist middle-aged people in returning to college after long absences from the academic sphere.
Cost of Higher Education
As the quality of higher education varies, so does the cost of attending college. Even if our federal government completely subsidized the cost of a college education, as governments in some countries do, the financial circumstances of some individuals would preclude them from seeking higher education.
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Problems Linked to Poverty
Crime and Punishment
A focus on “street crime” means the poor are more likely to face arrest, trial, conviction, and prison.
The poor depend more on public defenders and court-appointed attorneys.
Conviction of a crime increases difficulty of finding a good job.
Political Alienation
Voters in 2012: 54% of people earning less than $40,000; 80% of people earning at least $100,000
“The Metropolis and Mental Life”
The intensity of stimuli in the urban environment
its consequences for the psychology of the city dweller.
The metropolitan person is bombarded with sensory impressions that lead him to adopt, out of necessity, an intellectualized approach to life.
Void of emotional investment (click for video)
What does it mean to be a homeless?
•According to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council a homeless is an individual who lacks housing and any other resources to have a comfortable living.
•These individuals may live on the streets; stay in a shelter, mission, single room occupancy facilities, abandoned building or vehicle; or in any other unstable or non-permanent situation.
Why do people become homeless?
•Poverty #1
•Unable to affordable Housing
•Health problems
•Substance Abuse
•Domestic violence
•Veterans
•Mentally Ill
Misconceptions about homeless population
#1. Homelessness is a choice
#2. They are all lazy
#3. All homeless are addicts
#4. Homeless people are dangerous
#5. Homelessness will never happen to me
Homeless Women
Feminist Standpoint Theory
Homeless women represent about 32% of the homeless population
Feminist Standpoint Theory is certain socio-political positions occupied by women that can become starting points for asking questions about not only those who are socially and politically marginalized but also those who, by making a dent in social and political privilege, occupy the positions of oppressors.
Application: by having a woman in a position of power when dealing with the needs of the homeless population a woman can take on the issues of the homeless more adequately because they can see the problem from the marginalized perspective
Shelter Options
Example: How shelters are geared toward men rather than women
Two options when it comes to shelters:
Shelters for women with children
Being lumped in with men
Being in a shelter surrounded by men isn’t an option for many women due to sexual assault or domestic violence
50% experienced violence in the last year
25% experienced violence at least 4 times in the last year
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, it is regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
Example: The income inequality that was supported by racist and sexist institutional arrangements can be associated with the increase of women being on the streets
Wadge Gap Chart
Health Needs
Meeting most basic Health needs is very challenging
At any given time approximately 10% of homeless women are pregnant a rate twice that of all us women
Lack of knowledge and access to contraception
Homeless women are almost three times more likely to have preterm delivery
Though there are services for homeless women who are pregnant many, do not access them for fear of losing newborn to CPS or they are uninformed about services that exist
Homeless Veterans
How many veterans in the United States are homeless?
Homeless veterans are widely reported to make up about 30 percent of the homeless adult population.
In 2016, about 39,471 homeless veterans were identified.
Within that population
Mostly males
African American
Many with a mental and/or physical disability
Why are Veterans Homeless?
Lack of support through family and friends and social networks
They do not have liable income and health care
Many suffer from mental illness, physical disabilities, and substance abuse
There’s not a lot of affordable housing
Homeless Youth
Homeless Youth
As we have seen, there is a diversity among the homeless population. Homeless youth are a portion of the population that often goes unnoticed.
Approximately 1.6 to 2 million youth, aged 12 to 24 years old, experience homelessness in the United States per year.
Homeless Youth and the Foster Care
Research shows that young adults who age out of foster care are have a high risk of becoming homeless.
Youth that were a part of the foster care system report maltreatment and/or abuse.
About 11%-46% of maltreated youth who age out of the foster care system end up homeless in their young adulthood.
LGBTQ Homeless Youth
LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the young homeless population.
Studies demonstrate that LGBTQ youth make up 20%-40% of the homeless youth population.
Housing insecurity is a major barrier to leaving Domestic Violence
Forces abused women to live in inadequate conditions
Forces victims to return to their abusers
Reasons for Substance Abuse within Homeless Community
Mental Health Issues
Depression, anxiety, PTSD
Family History & Genetics
Self-medicating
Isolation, stress from societal pressure, sudden tragic life event
Resources for Homeless with Substance Addiction
Not many resources provided for substance abuse users within the homeless community
Growing number of resources such as Needle Exchange Programs
Resources often require a lot of money which the homeless cannot afford
Sociological Theory Application
Weber’s Theory on Class, Status and Power
Application: Weber’s theory can be applied to substance abuse within the homeless community due to the correlation and intersection of class, status, and power. Homelessness and substance abuse are connected due to people not having the privilege to afford resources to help with their substance abuse due to belonging to a lower class. Not enough resources are also provided to them based on the sole fact they are of lower status and do not have power within society. Those of lower class are more likely to become homeless due to lack of resources and financial struggles.
Sociological Theory Application
Durkheim’s Theory on Anomie
Application: The use of drugs within the homeless community can be looked at as occurring as a reaction against the social controls of society such as social norms and regulations. Some people, such as homeless, feel extreme societal pressure to conform, perform, and follow social norms that they might abuse drugs as a way of rebelling against society’s expectations.
Homelessness in LA County
Homelessness in LA County
Systems of Stratification
Closed Systems: accommodate little change in social position.
Caste Systems: people are born into their social standing and remain in it their whole lives.
The Dalits
Impact on women
Caste System
A caste system is a social system based on ascribed statuses, which are traits or characteristics that people possess as a result of their birth. Ascribed statuses can include race, gender, nationality, body type, and age. A caste system ranks people rigidly. No matter what a person does, he or she cannot change castes.
People often try to compensate for ascribed statuses by changing their nationality, lying about their age, or undergoing plastic surgery to alter their body type. In some societies, this strategy works; in others, it does not.
Example: Religion is an ascribed status in some societies. Americans may convert to other religions, but in other countries, people may not change out of the particular religion into which they were born.
India’s Caste System
The Indian government officially outlawed the caste system in 1949, but vestiges of it remain today. The system originated with the Hindu religion, which subscribes to the concept of reincarnation, the belief that while the physical body dies, the soul of a person is immortal and goes on to be reborn into another body. People who are good in their current life will come back to improved circumstances in the next life, but if they are evil, they will be punished in the next one. Therefore, those who are poor or ill are suffering punishment for having done something wrong in a past life. One should not interfere in the life of another person because that individual’s circumstances are the result of what he or she has done in a previous incarnation.
Some might view reincarnation as religious tradition. Others might view it as ideology, a set of values that people devise to rationalize a particular social custom. In the case of the caste system, the custom being rationalized is inequality. If an individual is poor, for example, blaming his or her circumstances on what he or she did in a past life absolves others in the society of the responsibility for providing any assistance. Ideology also attempts to explain why some are in positions of wealth and power. Hindu tradition would say that the wealthy and powerful are being rewarded for what they did in a past life, and therefore they deserve every privilege they have.
The Five Castes
The Indian caste system has existed for about 3,000 years. There were four original castes, and one caste so low that it was not even considered to be part of the caste system:
The Brahmin/Brahman caste usually consisted of priests or scholars and enjoyed a great deal of prestige and wealth.
The Kshatriya caste, or warrior caste, was composed of those who distinguished themselves in military service.
The Vaishva/vaisyas caste comprised two sets of people—business-people and skilled craftspeople.
The Shudra caste consisted of those who made their living doing manual labor.
The Harijan, Dalit, or Untouchable caste was thought to comprise only inferior people who were so repulsive that an individual who accidentally touched one would have to engage in extensive ritual ablutions to rid himself or herself of the contamination.
There is no social movement in a caste system. An individual born into the Harijan caste cannot change his or her fate. Nor can someone be demoted to a lower caste; the caste into which a person is born is the caste he or she will have for life.
Castes and Work
Caste dictates the type of work an individual is allowed to do. Members of the Shudra caste, for example, are relegated to performing hard physical work regardless of their skill, intelligence, or ambition. Those born into the Brahman caste must attend university or become a member of the clergy, even though they may show no interest or aptitude toward that end.
Castes and Marriage
In a true caste system, societies practice endogamy, or marriage within one’s own group or caste, with marriage between castes strictly forbidden. Traditionally, love is not used as a basis for marriage in a caste system. Rather, parents arrange marriages, sometimes when the future bride and groom are still children. The Indian concept of marriage is that while love is wonderful, it is neither a necessary nor desirable condition of marriage. If the couple is considered compatible in terms of major demographic variables, then the marriage is considered appropriate. Caste is one of the important variables, along with religion and educational level.
Modern India’s caste system has many more than the original five castes. Because the distinctions between these numerous castes have blurred over time, some people marry outside their caste. In general, however, caste is still considered an important determinant of whom one will marry. When people do marry outside of their caste, they are likely to marry someone whose caste is only a few levels away from their own.
Castes and Socializing
One’s caste also determines social contact. Friendships, and relationships in general, are rare among members of different castes. They neither live nor work near each other and rarely have any contact with one another.
South Africa’s Apartheid System
The apartheid system of South Africa is another example of a caste system. The term apartheid refers to the total separation of the races. White Europeans colonized South Africa starting in the seventeenth century, and the area remained part of the British Empire until its independence in 1961. The policy of apartheid, introduced in 1948, relegated black people to a caste far below that of whites. Black people could not vote, receive an education, or mix with whites in any way. The work of Nelson Mandela and others who fought for black equality have made apartheid illegal in South Africa, but, like the caste system in India, some prejudice and discrimination remain.
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India used to have a rigid caste system. The people in the lowest caste suffered from extreme poverty and were shunned by society. Some aspects of India’s defunct caste system remain socially relevant. In this photo, an Indian woman of a specific Hindu caste works in construction, demolishing and building houses.
CA Minimum Wage
Currently California’s minimum wage is $13 per hour.
This is $520 per week and $24,960 per year.
Is this too high or to low? Is this a living wage?
The minimum wage currently, projected, and historically.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/minimumwagehistory.htm
9X 40=360
360X52=18,720
Federal minimum wage is $7.25
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Living Wage
What’s a Living Wage?
A living wage is a decent wage so that a family can thrive safely and healthy.
Covers basic costs of living without need for government support or poverty programs.
Living Wage Calculator
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Global Stratification and Inequality
Global stratification compares the wealth, economic stability, status, and power of countries across the world.
The poor in wealthy countries like the United States or Europe are much better off than the poor in less-industrialized countries such as Mali or India.
Models of global stratification rank countries according to their relative economic status, or gross national product (GNP)
Other systems consider 2 groups: more developed and less developed countries
Global Stratification and Inequality
Global classification defines countries based on the per capita gross domestic product (GDP), a country’s average national wealth per person.
Those in lower income countries:
Have little access to amenities (electricity, plumbing, and clean water).
Are not guaranteed education, and many are illiterate.
The life expectancy of citizens is lower than in high-income countries.
Structural Functional Analysis: Some Poverty is Inevitable
Social pathology theories
Focus on personal deficiency
Culture of poverty, patterns that encourage poverty as a way of life
U.S. as a meritocracy; social standing corresponds to personal ability and effort
Social disorganization theory
Breakdown in social order caused by rapid social change
Structural Functional Analysis: Some Poverty is Inevitable
Modern functional theory
Davis and Moore – inequality of rewards actually helps society function efficiently
the greater the functional importance of a social role, the greater must be the reward.
Social stratification is necessary to promote excellence, productivity, and efficiency, thus giving people something to strive for.
Herbert Gans – inequality is useful only to affluent people.
Davis and Moore: The Functionalist Perspective
Sociologists Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore believed that stratification serves an important function in society. In any society, a number of tasks must be accomplished. Some tasks, such as cleaning streets or serving coffee in a restaurant, are relatively simple. Other tasks, such as performing brain surgery or designing skyscrapers, are complicated and require more intelligence and training than the simple tasks. Those who perform the difficult tasks are therefore entitled to more power, prestige, and money. Davis and Moore believed that an unequal distribution of society’s rewards is necessary to encourage people to take on the more complicated and important work that required many years of training. They believed that the rewards attached to a particular job reflect its importance to society.
Melvin Tumin
Sociologist Melvin Tumin took issue with Davis and Moore’s theory. He disagreed with their assumption that the relative importance of a particular job can always be measured by how much money or prestige is given to the people who performed those jobs. That assumption made identifying important jobs difficult. Were the jobs inherently important, or were they important because people received great rewards to perform them?
If society worked the way Davis and Moore had envisioned, Tumin argued, all societies would be meritocracies, systems of stratification in which positions are given according to individual merit. Ability would determine who goes to college and what jobs someone holds. Instead, Tumin found that gender and the income of an individual’s family were more important predictors than ability or what type of work an individual would do. Men are typically placed in a higher social stratification than women, regardless of ability. A family with more money can afford to send its children to college. As college graduates, these children are more likely to assume high-paying, prestigious jobs. Conversely, people born into poverty are more likely to drop out of school and work low-paying jobs in order to survive, thereby shutting them off from the kinds of positions that are associated with wealth, power, and prestige
Davis and Moore Thesis:
Some jobs are more important than other jobs. For example, the job of a brain surgeon is more important than the job of shoe shining.
Some jobs require more skills and knowledge than other jobs. To stay with our example, it takes more skills and knowledge to perform brain surgery than to shine shoes.
Relatively few people have the ability to acquire the skills and knowledge that are needed to do these important, highly skilled jobs. Most of us would be able to do a decent job of shining shoes, but very few of us would be able to become brain surgeons.
To encourage the people with the skills and knowledge to do the important, highly skilled jobs, society must promise them higher incomes or other rewards. If this is true, some people automatically end up higher in society’s ranking system than others, and stratification is thus necessary and inevitable.
Gans (1994) suggests that there are benefits to society from poverty
ensuring that society’s “dirty work” will be done
subsidizing many of the activities of the affluent
creating jobs for people who serve the poor
creating a market for inferior goods
using the poor as symbols of the “underdog”
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Theoretical Perspectives on Social Stratification
Conflict: Stratification perpetuates inequality creating class conflict.
Marxist Theory: Poverty and Capitalism
Poverty involves more than money: Cultural Capital
Symbolic Interactionism: In most communities, people interact primarily with others who share the same social standing; note that people’s appearance reflects their perceived social standing
Conspicuous consumption refers to buying certain products to make a social statement about status
According to Pierre Bourdieu, cultural capital comes in three forms—embodied, objectified, and institutionalized. One’s accent or dialect is an example of embodied cultural capital, while a luxury car or record collection are examples of cultural capital in its objectified state. In its institutionalized form, cultural capital refers to credentials and qualifications such as degrees or titles that symbolize cultural competence and authority.
The Conflict Perspective
Marx viewed society as involving constant struggle between social classes over scarce resources.
The affluent are merely using the resources available to protect their own position.
Once people become successful they tend to pass on their success to their children and this makes it more difficult for people on the bottom to move up.
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Feminist Analysis: Poverty and Patriarchy
Patriarchy: social pattern in which men dominate women
Feminization of Poverty: high risk of poverty for families headed by single mothers
Intersectionality Theory: Investigation of the interplay of race, class, and gender, often resulting in multiple dimensions of disadvantage
The Interactionist Perspective and Cultural Analysis
The cultural analysis of poverty focuses on the psychological orientations that may emerge among groups of people who live under conditions of poverty.
Some people who live in poverty develop a cultural orientation that helps them adapt to their life circumstances in a way that enables them to feel good.
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Global Poverty
Explanations of global poverty parallel those of US poverty in their focus on individualistic versus structural problems.
Modernization Theory
Dependency Theory
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Modernization theory
Wealthy nations became wealthy because early on they were able to develop the necessary beliefs, values, and practices for trade, industrialization, and rapid economic growth to occur. Poor nations remained poor because they failed to develop these beliefs, values, and practices; instead, they continued to follow traditional beliefs and practices that stymied industrial development and modernization.
Dependency theory
The poverty of poor nations stems from their colonization by European nations, which exploited the poor nations’ resources and either enslaved their populations or used them as cheap labor. The colonized nations were thus unable to develop a professional and business class that would have enabled them to enter the industrial age and to otherwise develop their economies.
