What stratification is
Social stratification is the ranking of people into layers with unequal access to resources such as wealth, power and prestige. It is a feature of societies, not just a result of individual differences. Inequality persists across generations because advantages and disadvantages tend to be passed on.
Systems
- Caste (closed) systems: position is fixed at birth, and movement is almost impossible. Marriage is usually restricted within the group.
- Class (open) systems: position depends partly on achievement, income and education. Movement is possible.
- Estate systems (feudal): rank based on land and law.
Many societies mix ascribed status (given at birth) and achieved status (earned).
Theories
- Functionalist: the Davis-Moore thesis says that unequal rewards ensure the most important jobs are filled by the most qualified. Critics note that some very important jobs are poorly paid and that opportunities to train are unequal.
- Conflict: Marx saw classes as defined by ownership of production. Weber saw three separate dimensions: class (economic position), status (social honour) and party (political power).
- Interactionist: studies how class appears in daily life, for example the symbols of consumption.
Wealth, income and mobility
Income is what a person receives over a period; wealth is the total value of assets minus debts. Wealth is typically more unequal than income. Social mobility is movement between strata: intergenerational (compared with parents) or intragenerational (within one career), upward or downward. Structural mobility is movement caused by changes in the economy, as when many farm jobs become office jobs.
Absolute poverty is a lack of the basic necessities, and relative poverty is being poor compared with others in your own society.
Cultural capital (Pierre Bourdieu) means non-financial assets such as education, language and tastes, and social capital means useful social connections. These help people convert class advantage across generations.
Measuring inequality
A common method is to split households into five equal groups (quintiles) by income and compare their shares of total income.
Worked example
In a country of 100 million households, suppose the poorest fifth earn 4% of all income and the richest fifth earn 52%.
- Each fifth is 20 million households.
- The richest group's share is 52 ÷ 4 = 13 times the poorest group's share in total.
- The average household in the richest fifth earns 13 times as much as the average in the poorest fifth, because both groups have the same number of households.
- The middle three fifths share the remainder: 100 − 4 − 52 = 44%.
The Gini coefficient summarises inequality in one number between 0 (perfect equality) and 1 (one person has everything).