SOC 200: Unit 3 - Social Stratification/Inequality, Global Stratification, Gender Stratification/Inequality, & Race and Ethnicity

social class

- a group that's fairly similar in terms of income, education, power, and prestige in society. - split up into 5 groups; upper class, upper middle class, average class, working class, lower class

federal poverty level

- a threshold that's used, in part, to determine who's eligible for public assistance programs, like food stamp or help with health care, gives us an indicator for which Americans have the fewest resources and lets us examine trends in groups that are the most economically vulnerable - absolute vs relative poverty

closed social stratification

- extremely rigid, allow for little social mobility, and social position is based on ascribed status - caste system

- a man in the 80th percentile, or top if the income distribution, lives an average of 84 years while a man at the bottom, in the 20th percentile, lives an average of 78 years - women live longer than men, but the income gap is still similar here with women in the 80th percentile living about 4.5 years longer than those in the 20th percentile - many low income Americans line in what are know as food deserts or neighborhoods without easy access to fresh foods, like fruits or vegetables because they usually don't have enough time or money to cook a healthy meal - many Americans with white-collar jobs are likely to live longer because they're less stressed with a flexible schedule and are in less danger so they have better health since they're able to receive benefit packages

what are examples of health being a component for social class?

- health - education - income segregation

what are the three components of social class?

- structural functionalist/davis moore thesis - social conflict theory

what are the two reasons explaining why there is social stratification?

columbian exchange

- a claim part of the modernization theory - the spread of goods, technology, education, and diseases between the Americas and Europe after Columbus's so-called discovery of the Americas - Worked out pretty well of European Countries; gained agricultural stables, which contributed to population growth, and provided new opportunities to trade, while strengthening the power of the merchant class - Not so much for Native Americans; populations were ravaged by diseases estimated that in the 150 years following Columbus's first trip, over 80% of the Native American population died due to diseases such as smallpox and measles

industrial revolution

- a claim part of the modernization theory - when new technology like steam power and mechanization allowed countries to replace human labor with machines and increase productivity - At first only benefited the wealthy in Western countries; it was so productive that it gradually began to improve standards of living for everyone because of the Protestant Reformation primed Europe to take on a progress-orientated way of life, in which financial success was a sign of personal virtue, and individualism replaced communalism - didn't occur everywhere because the tension between tradition and technological change is the biggest barrier of growth; a society that's more steeped in family systems and traditions may be less willing to adopt new

social stratification

- a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy - ranks them in a hierarchy - everything from social status and prestige, to the kind of job you can hold, to your chances of living in poverty, are affected by social stratification - closed vs. open, caste system vs. class system

meritocracy

- a system in which social mobility is based on personal merit and individual talent. - as much as a justification of inequality as it is an actual principle of stratification. - it's easy to ignore the structural factors that influence class standings. - greater likelihood of opportunity for individuals to experience status inconsistency (a situation where a person's social position has both

gender

- all about society - the set of social and psychological characteristics that a society considers proper for its males and females, own thing that is separate from sex, not biological but a matter of social construction, a matter of a self presentation, a performance that must be worked at constantly - masculinities; characteristics assigned to men femininities; characteristics assigned to women - expression; idea of gender as a performance - identity; refers to a person's internal, deeply held sense of their gender

open social stratification

- allow for much more social mobility, mobility both upward and downward, social position tends to be achieved, not ascribed - class system

lower class

- are blue-collar workers at the bottom of the income distribution - make less than $25,000 a year and ten to work hourly jobs that are part-time with unpredictable schedules and no benefits, like health insurance or pensions - about 20% of Americans or the bottom quintile fit into this category - majority don't own homes and more likely live in neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty, lower quality school districts, and higher crime rate - only 9% of children born in the bottom income quartile complete a four-year college degree

middle class

- because many Americans believe they fit into this group, sociologists had to split the mid-range into three groups - upper middle class, average middle class, lower middle class

lower middle class

- blue-collar jobs which is why it often called the working class and don't require a college education - about 30% of Americans are in this class category, with incomes ranging from about 25 to 50 thousand dollars a year, less likely to own their own homes and hold little to no wealth

social mobility

- changes in social position, measured by economic mobility however, sociologists will compare this through qualitative measures like occupational status. - depends on where you start and who you are - intragenerational mobility vs. intergenerational mobility - absolute mobility vs. relative mobility - horizontal social mobility

upper class

- consists essentially of the capitalists in the Marx's ideology - the top of the income and wealth distribution - those who earn at least $250,000/year and control much of the country's wealth - tends to wield much of the political power and social power - there's subclasses that distinguish, by and large, between old money and new money

upper middle income countries

- countries with BGI between $4,000 and $12,500/year. - They are heavily urban, have access to public infrastructure like education and health, and have comfortable standards of living for most citizens - 56 countries in this group and they tend to have advancing economies with both manufacturing and high tech markets such as; China, Mexico, Russia, and Argentina

high income countries

- countries with GNI above $12,500/year. - Standards of living here are higher than the rest of the world. - Also highly urbanized, with 81% of people in high income countries living in or near cities. - Much of the world's industry is centered in these countries too - and with industry, comes money and technology - 79 countries in this group which includes; U.S, U.K, Germany, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and more

lower middle income countries

- countries with GNI between $1,000 and $4,000/year. Only 40% of people living in these countries live in urban areas and the economy is based around manufacturing and natural resource production. - Access to services like health care and education, is limited to those who are well-off; mortality rates are 5 times higher in lower and middle income countries than in upper middle income countries & 1/3rd of children under the age of five are malnourished - Countries include; Ukraine, India, Guatemala, Zambia

low income countries

- countries with GNI less than $1,000/year. - Countries are primarily rural and most of the world's farmers live in these countries, and their economies are mainly based on agriculture. - Not only these countries face income poverty, they also have greater rates of disease, worse healthcare and education systems, and many of their citizens lack access to basic needs like food and clean water 8% of children die before the age of five - Among older children, more than 1/3rd never finish primary school - Children and women are the ones primarily affected here because they're connected by having poor access to healthcare. - This is the part of the reason that birth rates are so much higher in low income countries - meaning that less money and more children equals more child poverty

wallerstein's capitalist world economy

- explanation of dependency theory - the world economy benefits rich nations by generating profits and harms the rest of the world by perpetuating poverty; thus the world economy makes poor nations dependent on rich ones. - three factors: 1. narrow, export oriented economies; poor countries produce only a few crops for export to rich countries 2. Lack of industrial capacity; Poor countries must sell raw materials to rich countries, then buy finished products at high prices 3. Foreign debt: Poor countries owe the rich countries $1 trillion dollars, including hundreds of billions to the United States.

dependency theory

- explanation on why there is global stratification - focuses on how poor countries have been wronged by richer nations, stems from the paradigm of conflict theory, and it argues that prospects of both wealthy and poor countries are inextricably linked. - Argues that in a world of finite resources, we can't understand why rich nations are rich without realizing that those came at the expense of another country being poor - Begins with colonialism which inspired American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein's model of what he called the "Capitalist World Economy"

kuznets curve

- greater technological sophistication generally is accompanied by more pronounced social stratification - greater inequality is functional for agrarian societies, but industrial societies benefit from a more equal system. - this historical trend, recognized by the nobel prizewinning economist Simon Kuznets (1955, 1966)

upper middle class

- have incomes between $115,000 and $250,000 and make up about 15% of income earners - about 2/3rds of the adults have college degrees and many have post-graduate degrees as well - they may also have jobs that are considered prestigious

education

- how education is a large component of class differences that plays out through educational attainment and its consequences for success later in life - the more people who have access to greater education, the more equal a society gets but this depends by the social class you're born into - this could give education the opposite effect, and will actually help press inequalities from one generation to the next

average middle class

- make between $50,000 and $115,000 and make up about 35% of income earners - have a median income of $70,700 meaning that they own homes but they may be more cumbersome and they still have wealth but it's usually tied up in their home or a modest retirement savings account - about half of this group is college educated but they more than likely went to public universities than private schools and have so-called white-collar jobs

ideology

- set of beliefs and values that justify a particular way of organizing society - it also includes strongly held beliefs about a society's patterns of inequality - can help explain why inequality never goes away, but it doesn't on its own explain why we have unequal societies - which is why structural functionalism theory, social conflict theory, symbolic-interactionism does explain why we have unequal societies

health

- social class depends on how you live and how you die. - more than just having more money to get healthcare, but it's about money, income, education, occupation, and neighborhood - mortality and disease rates vary by social class, with upper class Americans living longer and healthier lives

caste system

- social stratification based on ascribed status, or birth - is illegal, but elements survive - closed because birth alone determines a person's entire future, with little or no social mobility based on individual effort - people live out their lives in the rigid categories into which they were born, without the possibility for change for the better or worse

class system

- social stratification based on both birth and individual achievement, achieved status - they combine ascribed status and personal achievement in a way that allows for some social mobility - social mobility for people with education and skills - all people gain equal standing before the law - work involves some personal choice - meritocracy

sex

- society plays a role in the biological category of sex - a biological category that distinguishes between females and males, the root cause of sex is a pair of chromosomes; XX for females and XY for males - primary sex charateristics; show up as the sex organs involved with the perspective processes and which develop in utero - secondary sex charateristics; develop at puberty and are not directly involved in reproduction, things like pubic hair, enlarged breasts or facial hair - found that the physiological differences between men and women went from a 1 hour difference to 10 mins, this was because of cultural changes rather than biological

george murdock's research

- some global agreement about feminine and masculine tasks - almost like a functionalist approach where historically held that gender inequalities are a natural result of each gender taking on the tasks they're best suited for - men; made the boats, hunting, physical labor based on construction away from home - women; taking core livestock, household chores and children, working primarily at home because in pre-industrial societies, women have to take care of infants not hunting

quintiles

- splitting apart the U.S in groups of 5, 20% of the population each. - showing how we don't have a perfectly equal society because if we did every household would be earning the same income every year

modernization theory

- structural functionalist view on why there is global stratification - frames global stratification as a function of technological and cultural differences between nations, specifically pinpoints two historical events that contributed to Western Europe developing at a faster rate than much of the rest of the world. - If you invest capital in better technologies, they'll eventually raise production enough that there will be more wealth to go around and overall well-being will go up. - This causes rich countries to help other countries that are still growing by exporting their new technologies in things like agriculture, machinery, and information technology, as well as providing foreign aid - the rich countries can do all of this through the columbian exchange and the industrial revolution - according to walt rostow, it only took place in the west in four stages; traditional stage, take-off stage, drive to technological maturity, and mass consumption

davis moore thesis

- structural functionalist view on why there is social stratification - we have stratification because it's function for society - Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore argue that society assigns greater economic and social rewards to those jobs that are more important to society - this guarantees that difficult jobs will be filled, the thinking goes, and will draw people away from easier and less important work. - without unequal rewards, few people would want the jobs that require the years of training or personal sacrifice that typically come with long work hours, the more important a job is for the proper functioning of a society, the more a society rewards it, which promotes the effective functioning of that society

occupational prestige

- the jobs we do - and what other people think of those jobs - are a major part of our socioeconomic status. - jobs with higher occupational prestige pay pretty well, which creates overlapping spheres as you can get more social and financial benefits from being a lawyer. - white-collar jobs generally offer more income and prestige than blue-collar jobs. - many lower-prestige jobs are performed by women and people of color. - the most prestigious jobs require an advanced degree, however, the jobs at the bottom of the prestige scale don't require a college degree or even a high school diploma

wealth

- the total value of the money and other assets you hold, like real estate and stocks and bonds. - they also depend on demographic groups. - these gaps are also passed by generations - provides security to fall back on

social conflict theory

- view on why there is social stratification - Karl Marx's stratification is based on different relation to the means of production. - At the simplest level, bourgeoisie the means of production, which allows them to extract labor from proletariat, which controls only their own labor. - Marx believed that as capitalism progressed, the inequality between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat would get worse until the proletariat would unite and overthrow the bourgeoisie, the oppression would drive the working majority to organize and overthrow capitalism - In doing that, he thought, they'd ultimately derail the whole capitalist system and all the inequality that came with it

global stratification

- where people have the idea of first, second, and third countries, nowadays sociologists sort countries into groups based on their specific levels of economic productivity. It's important to remember the distinctions between relative and absolute poverty, inequalities of wealth and power between societies - absolute mobility; occurs when a lack of resources is literally life threatening - relative mobility; exists in all societies regardless of the overall income level of the society

relative poverty

a lack of resources compared to others who have more, based on the standard line of living

absolute poverty

a lack of resources that threatens your ability to survive

margaret mead

culture is key to gender differences

no because our thinking behind gender and labor has drastically changed because of the physiological differences based by culture

did murdock's research remain the same in modern societies?

neocolonialism

doesn't involve direct political control of a nation; instead it involves economic exploration by corporations

israeli kibbutzim

gender equality is a stated goal

gdp

gross domestic product, measures the total output of a country

gni

gross national income, measures the GDP per capita

intragenerational mobility

how a person moves up or down the social ladder during their lifetime

- as technological advances create a surplus, social inequality increases - in horticultural and pastoral societies, a small elite controls most of the surplus. - large-scale agriculture is more productive still, and striking inequality—as great as at any time in history—places the nobility in an almost godlike position over the masses

how did social stratification in horticultural, pastoral, and agrarian societies look like?

some people may produce more than others, but the group's survival depends on all sharing what they have. thus no categories of people are better off than others.

how did social stratification look like in a hunter-gatherer society?

- pushes inequality downward. - prompted by the need to develop people's talents, meritocracy takes hold and weakens the power of traditional elites. Industrial productivity also raises the living standards of the historically poor majority - over time, even wealth becomes somewhat less concentrated so the government taxed the rich with higher rates in the 1980's - however, economic inequality increased again after 1990, and it has now reached about the same level as it was in the 1920s - in 2017, the Trump administration has announced plans to reduce tax rates on the rich, which will certainly make economic inequality even greater

how did social stratification look like in industrial societies?

feminization of Poverty - the higher rates of poverty in women is related to the increasing number of women who are raising children on their own, and who work low-wage jobs

how does gender affect poverty?

- 2/3rds of the poor in the U.S are white - however, Black Americans are more likely to be poor than white Americans; 24.1% of Black Americans, who make up about 13% of the total American population were living in poverty in 2015 & 11.6% of White Americans, who makeup about 77% of the total population

how does race affect poverty?

some categories of people have greater opportunities than others

how does schooling affect occupation and income?

- women have experienced absolute mobility over the last half century alone - 85% of women have earned higher wages than their mothers did - income gap has decreased significantly - in 1980, the average income for women was 60% that of men whereas by 2015 that gap was 8% - women born at the bottom of the social class ladder are more likely to remain there than men - about of half of women born in the button quintile are still there at the age of 40 compared about only 1/3rd of men - women born at the bottom experience more downward mobility than men

how has social mobility differed in gender?

- half of Black Americans that are born at the bottom of the income distribution are still in the bottom quintile at the age of 40 - black Americans also face higher rates of downward mobility, being more likely to move out of the middle class than White Americans

how has social mobility differed in race/ethnicity and education?

- as they are more open and are not legally restricted to certain people - they aren't formally defined categories in the same way there are in caste systems - the boundaries between class categories are often blurred, and there's greater opportunity for social mobility in and out of class positions

how is america using a class system?

- has been increasing upward throughout the years because of industrialization as the median annual family income rose steadily throughout the 20th century, going from around $34,000 in 1955 to $70,000 in 2015 - however, economic growth has been at the top of the income distribution while family incomes have been pretty flat for the rest of the population - this unequal growth in incomes has meant less absolute mobility for Americans - sociologists found that absolute mobility has declined over the last half century - has remained stagnant - while people generally improve their income over time by gaining education and skills, most people stay on the same rung of the social ladder that they started on - differs by race/ethnicity, gender, and education - also differs by gender

how much social mobility is there in the u.s?

- malnutrition, homelessness, dangerous & illegal jobs. - According to UNICEF, there are 18.5 million children worldwide that are orphans and estimated 150 million who are engaged in child labor. - Half of child deaths worldwide are attributed to hunger

how was child poverty a consequence of global poverty?

- a reality for almost 21 million men, women, and children - includes, descent based slavery, forced labor by the state, child slavery, debt bondage, servile forms of marriage, and human trafficking - In 1948, the United Nations issued its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." - Unfortunately, more than six decades later, this social evil still exists.

how was slavery a consequence of global poverty?

- 70% of those living at or below absolute poverty levels worldwide are women, some of this is a result of women being kept from working, due to religious or cultural beliefs & some of it is because many women who do work don't get to control the fruits of their labor - Women - produce 70% of the food in low income countries - Men - produce 90% of the land in low income countries

how were women in poverty a consequence of global poverty?

relative mobility

how you move up or down in social position compared to the rest of society, exists in all societies regardless of the overall income level of the society

- occupation - marriage within caste - social life is restricted to "own kind." - belief systems are often tied to religious dogma.

in a caste system, what are the four ways birth determines social positions?

old money

includes those who derive their wealth from inheritance rather than work, may have jobs but usually take on more honorary positions such as board members or heading up philanthropic organization

power

income and wealth are important sources

intergenerational mobility

movement in social position across generations

income

the money you earn from work or investments

colonialism

the process by which some nations enrich themselves by taking political and economic control of other nations

income segregation

the tendency for families of similar income levels to live in the same neighborhoods, is incredibility common in the U.S. an apartment in a "good" neighborhood or an area with low crime, good schools, and better quality housing, is more expensive than apartments where crime and pollution are higher and education an job is inconsistent

horizontal social mobility

they work in different occupation than their parents, but remain in a similar social position

new money

wealth came from work, most of what we think is wealth (Bill Gates, Oprah Winfery)

- family ancestry - race and ethnicity - gender

what affects social standing?

1) india - traditionally seen in India that contains four large divisions called vernas, together these vernas encompass hundreds of smaller groups called jatis at the local level. extremely rigid, closed, and unequal system. caste position not only determined what jobs were acceptable, but it also strongly controlled its members' everyday lives and life outcomes as it required endogamy (marriage within your own caste category), and in everyday life, the caste systems determined who you could interact with and how with systems of social control restricting contact between lower and higher castes. based on a set of strong cultural and religious beliefs, establishing castes as a right of birth and living within the structures of your caste as a moral and spiritual duty 2) aristocratic england w/ estates - the nobility, the clergy, and the commoners, meaning that a person's birth determined his social standing such as; commoners paying the most taxes and owe labor to their local lord. the whole social order was justified on the belief that it was ordained by god, with the nobility ruling by so-called divine right 3) jim crow laws/aparthied - a legally enforced separation between black and white people, which denied black people citizenship, the ability to own their own land, and any say whatsoever in the national government

what are examples of caste systems?

- education varies by class is because the public in the U.S are funded mainly at the local level - which is why most children who are from higher income families usually attend private schools and this continues past high schools - classes who went to private schools and/or Ivy league schools were apart of the top 1% quintile - some of this is based on the "legacy" policy for students - policies like this entrench class inequalities access generations by making it less likely that those from lower socioeconomic classes will move up the ladder plus the social networks formed within prestigious colleges often are the stepping stones toward jobs and financial success later in life

what are examples of income segregation being a component for social class?

- as of 2017, the federal poverty level for a family of four is $24,600 and 13.5% of Americans live in household below that - many working Americans are prone to poverty too; 12% of working-age adults in poverty work full-time, and another 29% work part time these are the working poor

what are examples of the federal poverty level?

- women have lower individual wealth levels than men - married couples accumulate more wealth than people who are unmarried - median white American families have 10x more wealth than African American families

what are examples of wealth/wage gaps?

1) Lack of access to technology - Being able to use fertilizer and modern seeds make a huge difference for families in low-income countries. Also cell phones, the growing number of cell phones in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased access to educational tools, banking services, and healthcare resources 2) Population Growth - Even with higher death rates, the high birth rates in lower income countries mean that the populations in poor countries double every 25 years which further strains those countries economic resources 3) Gender inequalities - The same cultural and social factors that prevent women from working also tend to limit their access to birth control, which in turn, increases family size. And that contributes to population growth and slows economic development, as resources become strained 4) Social and Economic Stratification - unequal distribution of wealth within a country makes it hard for those stuck in poverty to get out of poverty 5) Inequality Across Nations - Countries with more economic power have historically been able to subjugate less powerful nations through systems like colonialism

what are the causes of global poverty?

- class starts to matter at the very beginning of your life with anticipatory stratification and class stratification as they demonstrate values, beliefs, and political views as well. - social class matters because it gives us a way to identify advantages and disadvantages that different groups of people share and understand the consequences of those advantages and disadvantages - annette l areau as American sociologists found in her research on parenting styles. In the 1990's, Lareau's research focused on observing families of elementary school students from upper-middle class and working class backgrounds. - In doing this, she realized that parents had very different approaches to how they educated and disciplined their kids. - She found that upper-middle class parents tend to be more involved in their kid's social and academic lives - However, working-class parents who were more likely to have less time and money to devote to these activities were more likely to be hands off in structuring their kid's free time. These kids might be more likely to be playing with whoever is around their neighborhood than playdates. - Laureau found that working class parents also tend to put a greater emphasis on obedience and discipline cared to upper middle class counterparts - Most Upper Class are more likely to be fiscally conservative and socially progressive while the - Lower Class is the opposite Upper income Americans are more heavily represented in liberal groups; episcopalians, presbyterians, judaism, hinduism, and atheism - While Lower income Americans are evangelical protestants or catholics

what are the impacts of social class and what's an example?

1) universal, but variable - universal because it shows up in every society on the planet but it's variable since it dividends and categorizes people, and the advantages or disadvantages that come with that division - carry from society to society 2) it is a characteristic of society, and not a matter of individual differences - people are obviously all different from each other, so we might assume that stratification is just a kind of natural outcome of those differences but it's not - it affects the people, independent of their personal choices of traits 3) it persists across generations - stratification serves to categorizes and rank members of society, resulting in different life changes, but society generally allows some sort of social mobility as people can sometimes move upward or downward in social class 4) it isn't just about economic inequalities; it's also about beliefs - a society's cultural beliefs tell us how to categorize people, and they also define the inequalities of a stratification as being normal, even fair. the beliefs about social stratification that inform what it means to deserve wealth, or success, or power

what are the key principles of social stratification?

- don't talk about how this theory works in society, only talk about why inequality might be functionally useful. - not all jobs that are important are necessarily hard to learn or come with high pay ALSO not all highly paid jobs are functionally important. - finally, not all paths are equally open to all people, meaning that if inequality is functional for society because it motivates hard work, then society should reflect this by being meritocratic

what are the problems of the davis moore thesis?

- the proletariat revolution never happened in Western Europe or the United States, if the inequality was so bad for workers, why did the revolution not happen? According to Dahrendorf, this didn't happen because the idea of capitalism was used more for the economic system. - Another criticism would be from Max Weber, he said that Marx's focus on economic stratification was too simplistic. - Weber said that stratification actually occurs along three different dimensions; economic class, social status, and social power, or what sociologists refer to as the socioeconomic status. - This is more complex, however, it focuses more on the macro perspective

what are the problems with social conflict theory?

- modernization theory - dependency theory

what are the two theories describing why there is global stratification?

income, wealth, and power/prestige

what factors influence social stratification in the U.S?

- households in the U.S that make less than $22,800 a year - only earn 3.4% of the total income in the U.S

what households are considered the bottom quintile of income distribution?

because of debt, negative 6,000

what households are considered the bottom quintile of wealth distribution?

- households that make about $56,000 a year

what households are considered the median quintile of income distribution?

about $68,000

what households are considered the median quintile of wealth distribution?

- households that make over $117,000 a year - earn about 50% of all the income in the U.S - about 20% is earned by the top 5% alone

what households are considered the top quintile of income distribution?

- are about $690,000, about 9 times more than the median - $2.4 million for the top 1%

what households are considered the top quintile of wealth distribution?

- purchasing managers - office supervisors - it technicians - private investigators

what jobs are considered having middle occupational prestige?

- attendants - busboys - telephone solicitors

what jobs are considered having the bottom occupational prestige?

- college presidents - nuclear physicist - surgeons - lawyers - astronauts

what jobs are considered having the top occupational prestige?

1) Point out that capitalism is the only way for a country to develop. Even as technology has improved throughout the world, a lot of countries have been left behind. 2) It also sweeps a lot of historical factors under the rug when it explains European and North American progress - countries like the U.S and U.K industrilized from a position of global strength, during a period when there were no laws against slavery or concerns about natural resource depletion 3) Rostow's marker are inherently Eurcratic, putting an emphasis on economic progress 4) "Blaming the victim" - In this view, the theory essentially blames the poor countries for not being willing to accept change, putting the fault on their cultural values and traditions, rather than acknowledging that outside forces might be holding back those countries

what were some problems with the modernization theory?

- results of child poverty - results of women in poverty - slavery

what were the consequences of global poverty?

- The problem isn't that there isn't enough global wealth, it's that we don't distribute it well - The world economy isn't a zero-sum game, one country getting richer doesn't mean other countries get poorer - innovation and technological growth can spill over to other countries, improving all nations' well-being, not just the rich - Colonialism can't explain today's economic disparities - in contrast to what dependency theory predicts, most evidence suggests that, nowadays, foreign investment by richer nations help poorer countries - Very narrow minded - it points the finger at the capitalist market system as the sole cause of stratification, ignoring the role that things like culture and political regimes play in impoverished countries - There's no solution to global poverty that comes out of dependency theory - most dependency theorists just urge poor nations to cease all contract with rich nations or argue for a kind of global socialism

what were the issues regarding the dependency theory?

- Traditional stage: societies that are structured around small, local communities with production typically getting done in family settings. Because these societies have limited resources and technology, most of their time is spent laboring to produce food, which creates a strict social hierarchy. Tradition rules how a society functions; what your parents do is what their parents did and what you'll do too. - Take-off stage: people begin to use their individual talents to produce things beyond the necessities, and this innovation creates a new market for trade. In turn, greater individualism takes hold and social status is more closely linked with material wealth - Drive to Technological Maturity: technological growth of the earlier periods begins to bear fruits, in the form of population growth, reductions in absolute poverty levels, and more. More of a push for economic and social change like implementing basic school for everyone and developing more democratic political systems - High Mass Consumption: when your country is big enough that production becomes more about wants than needs. Puts social supports in place to make sure that everyone has more basic necessities

what were the three stages to walt rostow's reasoning of why modernization only occurring in the west?

absolute mobility

when you move up or down in absolute terms, occurs when a lack of resources is literally life threatening

- dates back to the Cold War, when Western policymaker began talking about the world as there distinct political and economic blocs; western Countries - first world, soviet union and its allies - second world, everyone else - third world - third world countries referred to improved states, white first world was associated with rich, industrialized countries - are very inaccurate because there are more than 100 countries that fit the label "third world", but they have vastly different level of economic stability - changes from first, second, and third world to high-income, middle-income, and low-income - high-income: nations with the highest standard of living; almost always post-industrial - middle-income: somewhat poorer nations with economic development typical for the world as a whole - Low-income: nations with lowest productivity and extensive poverty; almost always agricultural

where did the idea of global stratification come from?

- sort countries based on their specific level of economic productivity - high income countries, upper middle income countries, lower middle income countries, and low income countries

why do sociologists use gdp and gni?