Social Stratification 

 

 

 

 

 


The Meaning of Stratification

Social stratification means the division of people into various social groups who have different levels of prestige, economic rewards and power. Most societies have ways of dividing people into social groups. The main ones are Caste, Estates (Feudalism), Slavery and Social Class. However, running alongside these divisions are: Age, Gender and Ethnicity.

 

 

Comparative Forms of Stratification

 

·         CASTE

 

Caste stratification is based on the principle that people are born into a group and there is little they can do to alter their group membership. The caste system is based on the Hindu religion, which believes in reincarnation.

 

The various castes are rigidly separated: contact with a lower caste member pollutes a higher caste member person. Marriages between different caste members are forbidden.

 

 

·         ESTATES (FEUDALISM)

Ownership of the land was in the hands of a small group of nobles. Serfs worked for them and provided food and clothes in return for protection.

 

Each noble divided their land and allowed a lesser noble to have that land as long as they swore personal loyalty to the senior noble.

 

·         SLAVERY

 

Slavery was found in societies such as Ancient Rome and Greece. It was customary for society to be divided up into freemen and slaves.

 

 

·         SOCIAL CLASS

 

In modern industrialised societies the dominant form of stratification is social class. People are grouped according to a hierarchy (a series of steps) based on economic and status differences.

 

The main differences between social class and other forms of stratification are that:

 

·         Social class is open in the sense that one can move up or down the hierarchy.(Social mobility)

·         The basis of class is primarily economic.

·         The separate strata are not clearly marked off from each other.

·         Social class, unlike caste, is not formally legalised.

·         Intermarriage between social classes is possible in a social class system.

 

 

 

Life Chances and Social Class.

 

Social Class is one of the most significant influences on our lives and can affect us in two ways:

·         Objectively, that is in such things as our health, possessions and general lifestyle

·         Subjectively, that is in our ideas and values.

 

OBJECTIVE

·         Birth and infant mortality

Children of unskilled working class parents are three times more likely to die in the first year of life than children born to middle class parents.

 

·         Health

Working class people are three times more likely to have long-term serious illness compared to middle class people.

·         Death

Over 75% of social class I survive to 65, less than 65% of social class V do.

·         Family Life

Working class people are more likely to marry young and traditionally have larger families.

 

·         Housing

Whereas, 85% of social class I are homeowners, only 24% of social class V are.

·         Education

60% of social class I are graduates, whereas 47% of unskilled manual workers have no educational qualifications at all.

·         Income

Income varies by occupation; needless to say non-manual workers on average earn more than manual workers.

 

·         Possessions

Those in higher income groups (non-manual workers), have greater income to spend on consumer goods such as cars and videos.

 

·         Job Security

Working class people are three times more likely to be unemployed than middle class people are.

 

 

SUBJECTIVE

 

·         Politics

Voting behaviour is related to social class. Support for the Conservative Party is more likely the higher a person’s social class.

·         Leisure

The middle class tends to have different leisure interests from the working class. This is partly a reflection of greater income, longer holidays and higher levels of education.

 

·         Views on Social Issues

The middle class are less likely to be sympathetic to trade unions and the unemployed than the working classes. According to Goldthorpe & Lockwood the middle class look upon social class as a ladder of opportunity. Those who work hard are able to climb up and eventually become successful. The working class see social class as being largely fixed at birth and those who are successful are regarded as lucky and the exception to the rule.

 
Explanations of Social Class

 

 

Although it is clear that social class exists and that it influenced our lives, sociologists have disagreed about how it developed and what the basis of class is. There are three different explanations:

 

1.      The ideas of Karl Marx (conflict theorists or Marxists)

2.      The ideas of Max Weber

3.      The Functionalist approach

 

 

Karl Marx

 

The basis of Marx’s explanation of social class is economic. Marx argued that although the class structure appeared very complex, in reality a clear distinction could be made between two groups who formed the only two classes in society:

 

·        The Bourgeoisie who own the means of production, land, factories and machinery.

·        The Proletariat who sell their labour to the owners of production.

 

 

Max Weber

 

Weber lived shortly after Marx and he influenced his work on class. Weber agreed that a small group of people did have excessive power and wealth, although he disagreed that the most important division was into two groups based on ownership of wealth.

 

Weber suggested that three elements divide people in our society:

 

1.      Economic Factors – How much wealth or income a person has or inherits from their family

2.      Status – The amount of prestige we give to a person based on such characteristics as occupation, accent, education, etc…

3.      Power – The amount of power and influence a person has.

 

 

Functionalist Approach

 

In the 1940s Davis and Moore put forward the classic Functionalist explanation of social class. Functionalists see society as similar to a human body. Each part of society performs a function to keep the society ‘alive’, just as each part of the body has a role to play.

 

Clearly some parts of the body are more important than others, this is also the case with certain jobs in society. According to functionalists these different but very important jobs (doctors etc.) need to offer higher social status with greater pay to encourage the very best people into them.

 

According to this explanation of stratification, the differences in income reflect the differences in the importance of certain jobs within society. Functionalists see little conflict among classes.

 

Measuring Social Class

 

The Importance of Occupation

When investigating society, sociologists need to use a simple measurement of social class – as a result most surveys have been based upon occupational differences. Occupation is related to differences in:

·         Income

·         Prestige

·         Lifestyle

·         Education

·         Speech and dress

 

PROBLEMS with using OCCUPATION as the only measure of SOCIAL CLASS

 

In using occupation to measure class, problems arise; these include

 

·         Classifications based on occupation omit the very rich who own factories and commercial institutions.

·         The fact that some people in similar occupations may have very different backgrounds and resources.

·         These classifications ignore the unemployed

·         Classifications based on occupation ignore the fact that the same job title can mean very different things in different circumstances.

 

Social Mobility

 

The Meaning and Measurement of Social Mobility

Social mobility means the movement of people up and down the social scale.

 

1.      There are 2 types of social mobility (sometimes called vertical mobility):

·         Intragenerational – movement within the occupational structure by ones career over a period of time

·         Intergenerational mobility – occupation of a person compared to their father.

 

2.      The measurement of social mobility is usually based on the Registrar-General’s scale (occupational)

 

3.      The extent of social mobility is usually described in terms of

·         Long-range mobility – movement of two or more occupational groups up or down the scale

·         Short-range mobility – movement up or down by one occupational group.

·         Self-recruitment – the situation when children are in the same occupational group as their father.

 

Key Studies and Research

 

·         The Oxford Mobility Study – Compared the social mobility of men born between 1908 -1917 with those born between 1938 -1947, in order to obtain a view of the changes in social mobility this century. The research showed that in all groups the chances of entering the service class had increased. Moreover upward mobility had increased overall. However, the relative chances of children in each group entering the service group did not alter over time. The sons of the service class had four times the chance of following their fathers compared to the sons of the working class.

 

·         Halsey & Goldthorpe - Suggest that the movement of so many people is due to the changing occupational structure that has resulted in more jobs becoming available in the service sector.

 

·         Heath in ‘Social Mobility’ – Heath is one of the few sociologists to look at patterns of female mobility. He found that single women tend to be more upwardly mobile than single men are, although in a restricted range of professions. Argues that women have to choose between marriage and children or their career but for men marriage and career go together whereas for women they are opposed.

·        GENDER

 

Up until the middle of the 20th century, it was unusual for women to work outside the family home, which meant that her husband’s occupation would define her social class. Even in today’s society occupation continues to be the key factor in determining class, which sociologists argue ignores unpaid domestic work which is usually performed by women in the home.

 

 

Even in the UK today, women are often treated differently to men simply on the basis of their gender.

Women are:

 

·         often paid less than men for equivalent work

·         more likely to work in part-time/ low-paid jobs

·         more likely to perform the majority of domestic chores

·         usually the parent responsible for bringing up any children in the family

 

·        AGE

 

Sociologists have demonstrated that the way that the old and other age groups are treated varies from society to society. Like other aspects of stratification, the life chances of different age groups are affected by class, ethnicity and gender, a person's age in itself does affect his/her opportunities.

Later life is often portrayed as a time of poverty, poor health and dependency and the proportion of the UK population over the age of 65 is now one in five, compared with about one in twenty in 1900.

 

Age discrimination is a common problem in some occupations for people who are over forty. In 1995 The Institute of Employment Consultants carried out research into age discrimination among UK employers and found that the majority of employers specify an upper age limit when recruiting new staff.

     

 

 

·        ETHNICITY / RACE

 

 

In a survey for BBC Radio Five Live in 1996 60% of black people and 40% of Asian people said they had suffered physical attacks which they believed to have been racially motivated.

 

 

A report published by the Office for National Statistics in 1996 (‘Social Focus on Ethnic Minorities’) found that while some ethnic groups- notably Indians – do relatively well in areas such as education and home ownership, minority ethnic groups generally fared much worse than white people in areas such as:

·         Unemployment

·         Low pay / poor working conditions

·         Housing conditions

·         Diminished social security rights

·         Victims of crime

·         Education