CHAPTER 7CHAPTER 7

STRATIFICATIONSTRATIFICATION

“Stratification is an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social statuses are ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources” (Brinkerhoff, p. 144).

“Life chances describe the probability that throughout the

life course one will have (or not have) a wide range of

opportunities, experiences, and achievements” (Brinkerhoff, 4th

ed., p. 219).

Class is a large group of people who occupy

a similar economic position in the wider

society.

Four Characteristics of Class Systems of Inequality:

• Class systems are fluid.

• Class positions are (in some part) achieved.

• Class is economically based.

• Class systems are large-scale and impersonal.

For Weber, one’s position in the status hierarchy can be observed

three ways:• Class: economically

based

• Status: based on honor and prestige

• Party: based on the groups one belongs to

Wealth is the total of all assets an individual owns: stocks, bonds,

property.

Income is the money people earn from paid occupations.

MOBILITY:

• Intragenerational mobility refers to movement within one’s own lifetime.

• Intergenerational mobility refers to movement from one generation to the next.

• Upward mobility refers to moving up the hierarchy.

• Downward mobility refers to moving down the hierarchy.

Structural mobility is the idea that entire “floors” in the stratification hierarchy may experience upward or downward mobility.

Absolute poverty means that a person can’t get the basic necessities of life, no matter what stratification system they live in. Relative poverty means being poor relative to the wealth and incomes of others in one’s society.

Functionalists argue that societies must entice the people with the right skills to perform society’s most important jobs.

The size of rewards must be proportional to three factors:

• The importance of the task

• The pleasantness of the task

• The scarcity of the talent and ability necessary to perform the task

Conflict theorists see stratification as the result of conflict over scarce resources.

“Development refers to the process of increasing the productivity and standard of living of a society” (p. 164).

Three categories of nations based on their level of development:

• Most-developed

• Less-developed

• Least-developed

“Most developed countries

include those rich nations that have relatively high degrees of economic and political autonomy” (p. 164)

“Less developed countries

have a far lower living standard than the most-developed countries but are substantially better off than the least-developed nations” (p. 164).

“Least-developed countries

are characterized by poverty and political weakness” (p. 164).

Two Theories of Global Inequality

• Modernization Theory

• World System Theory

“Modernization theory sees development as the natural unfolding of an evolutionary process in which societies go from simple to complex institutional structures” (p. 167).

“World system theory is a conflict perspective of the economic relationships between developed and developing countries, the core and the periphery” (p. 167).

“Core societies are rich, powerful nations that are economically diversified and relatively free of outside control” (p. 168).

“Peripheral societies are poor and weak, with highly specialized economies over which they have relatively little control” (p. 168).