Chapter Ten Sociology
Why would we contrast Americans perceptions of wealth inequality with actual wealth inequality? (Norton and Ariely inset, p. 307)
What they found was striking. Americans, of all political persuasions, ideally prefer a distribution of wealth more along the lines of countries like Sweden, where those at the top have a modest amount of wealth and those at the bottom account for a larger share of the country's assets than is the case in the United States. Second, they found that people drastically underestimate the actual magnitude of the American wealth imbalance (see Exhibit 10.9). The authors conclude that these erroneous perceptions of wealth inequality may lead to overly optimistic beliefs about poor people's access to opportunities for social mobility, hence impeding any meaningful or effective effort to change the situation.
What is stratification? (p. 279 and key terms)
Inequality is woven into the fabric of all societies through a structured system of stratification, the ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal rewards and life chances in a society.
How does sociologist Herbert Gans argue that in free-market economies, poverty serves economic and social "functions"? (pp. 308 - 309)
Yet according to sociologist Herbert Gans (1971, 1996), in a free-market economy and competitive society such as the United States, poverty plays a necessary institutional role. Although structural functionalism has often been criticized for its propensity to justify the status quo, Gans combines it with conflict thinking to identify several economic and social "functions" served by poverty that benefit all other classes in society:This explanation of poverty's persistence can easily be dismissed as cold and heartless. We certainly don't want to admit that poor people allow the rest of us to avoid unpleasant or even dangerous tasks and enjoy comfortable and pleasant lifestyles. Yet this explanation is quite compelling. Just as society needs talented people to fill its important occupational positions, it also needs a stable population of poor people to fill its "less important" positions. If society fostered full equality, who would do the dirty work? If we are truly serious about reducing poverty, we must find alternative ways of performing the societal functions it currently fulfills. But such a change will assuredly come at a cost to those who can now take advantage of poverty's presence. In short, poverty will be eliminated only when it becomes dysfunctional for people who aren't poor.
Why does poverty persist? (pp. 305 - 306)
According to the federal government, housing is considered "affordable" if it costs no more than 30% of a family's income. The poorest fifth of the population spend about 78% of their wages on housing. By comparison, the wealthiest fifth of the population spend only 19% of their income on housing (cited in Swartz, 2007). In 2019, the nationwide median housing wage—the minimum amount of money a person would have to make to afford a modest twobedroom apartment—was $22.96 an hour (or an annual income of over $45,000, assuming full-time, year-round employment). That's more than three times the federal minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) and over $5 more than the average wage earned by renters nationwide ($17.57 an hour). Nowhere in the United States does a full-time, minimum-wage job provide enough income to afford adequate housing, and in some states—California, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Washington, Maryland, and Massachusetts, to name a few—a household would need the income of at least three minimum-wage jobs. In Hawaii, nearly four minimum-wage jobs would be needed (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2019).
While class distinctions are "fuzzy and subjective", what markers are used to distinguish the upper, middle, and classes from one another? (pp. 291-296)
Although the boundaries between social class categories tend to be fuzzy and subjective, distinct class designations based on typical occupational patterns and incomes remain a part of everyday thinking, political initiatives, and social research. When we think of social classes, we usually talk about the upper class, the middle class, the working class, the near-poor, and the poor (see Exhibit 10.4).
What is social mobility (p. 281 and key terms)? What is the reality of social mobility in a class-based economic system? (p. 281)
Class systems differ from other systems of stratification in that they raise no legal barriers to social mobility—the movement of people or groups from one level to another. Theoretically, all members of a class system, no matter how destitute they are, can rise to the top.In practice, however, mobility between classes may be difficult for some people. For instance, where you live can influence your chances of upward mobility. Climbing the income ladder is less common in the Southeast and industrial Midwest and more likely in the Northeast and West, where poor people have a greater chance of living in mixed-income neighborhoods with better elementary schools and high schools and more civic engagement (Leonhardt, 2013). In addition, some economists say that it often takes five or six generations to erase the advantages or disadvantages of a person's economic origins (Krueger, 2002).
How do the functionalists explain the existence of social stratification? (pp. 282 - 283)
From the structural-functionalist perspective, the cause of stratification lies in a society's inevitable need for order. Because social inequality is found in some form in all societies and thus is apparently unavoidable, inequality must somehow be necessary for societies to run smoothly. The efficient functioning of society requires that various tasks be allocated through a strictly defined division of labor. If the tasks associated with all social positions in a society were equally pleasant and equally important and required the same talents, it wouldn't make a difference who occupied which position. But structural functionalists argue that it does make a difference. Some occupations, such as teaching and medicine, are more important for the well-being of society than others and require greater talent and training. Society's dilemma is to make sure that the most talented people perform the most important tasks. One way to ensure this distribution of tasks is to assign higher rewards—better pay, greater prestige, more social privileges—to some positions in society so that they will be attractive to people with the necessary talents and abilities (K. Davis & Moore, 1945).
What are examples the text provides of the existing inequalities that exist across economically rich and economically poor countries? (pp. 312314) What are some of the explanations for global stratification? (pp. 314 - 318)
How has global stratification come about? The conflict perspective explains not only stratification within a society but also stratification between societies. One way a country can use its power to control another is through colonization—invading and establishing control over a weaker country and its people in order to expand the colonizer's markets. Typically, the native people of the colony are forced to give up their culture. The colony serves as a source of labor and raw materials for the colonizer's industries and a market for their high-priced goods. Much of North and South America, Africa, and Asia were at one time or another under the colonial control of wealthier nations:
How do conflict theorists in general explain the existence of stratification? (pp. 283 - 284)
In contrast, conflict theorists argue that social inequality is neither a societal necessity nor a source of social order. They see it as a primary source of conflict, coercion, and unhappiness. Stratification ultimately rests on the unequal distribution of resources—some people have them, others don't. Important resources include money, land, information, education, health care, safety, and adequate housing. Those high in the stratification system can control these resources because they are the ones who set the rules. The conflict perspective takes it as a fundamental truth that stratification systems serve the interests of those at the top and not the survival needs of the entire society.
How have the Neo-Marxist scholars expanded on Marx's ideas? (pp. 285 - 287) Know Wright's model of social class (exhibit 10.2, p. 286)) What is the concept of contradictory class locations? (p. 287)
In light of changing realities, more contemporary conflict sociologists, such as Ralf Dahrendorf (1959), have offered models that focus less on ownership and more on differing levels of authority among the members of society. What's important is not just who owns the means of production but who can exercise direct influence over others. Authority is the possession of some status or quality that compels others to obey (Starr, 1982). A person with authority has the power to order or forbid behavior in others (Wrong, 1988). Such commands don't require the use of force or persuasion, nor do they need to be explained or justified. Rulers simply have authority over the ruled, as do teachers over students, employers over employees, and parents over children. These authority relationships are not fixed, of course: Children fight with their parents, students challenge their teachers, and workers protest against their bosses.Wright's approach also emphasizes that class conflict is more than just a clash between the rich and the poor. Societies have, in fact, multiple lines of conflict—economic, political, administrative, and social. Some positions, or what Wright calls contradictory class locations, fall between two major classes. Individuals in these positions have trouble identifying with one side or the other. Middle managers and supervisors, for instance, can align with workers because both are subordinates of capitalist owners. Yet because middle managers and supervisors can exercise authority over some people, they may also share the interests and concerns of owners.
What defines the category of "near-poor" or working poor? (p. 299)
Interestingly, the government seems to agree implicitly that the poverty line is set too low. The U.S. Census Bureau defines the 14 million people who are not officially poor but who earn up to 25% more than the poverty line amount as the near-poor or working poor (Fontenot et al., 2018). These individuals and families are not officially poor but face difficulties making ends meet. Those who fall into this category can be eligible for certain government assistance programs. For instance, the Affordable Health Care Act (also known as "Obamacare") extends Medicaid coverage to people earning 38% above the official poverty line. The existence of the near-poor is fraught with irony. For one thing, they tend to defy stereotypes of how poor people live. Half live in married-couple households, 49% live in the suburbs, 42% have private health insurance, and 28% work full time (DeParle, Gebeloff, & Tavernise, 2011). And because of the lingering effects of the 2008 recession, they tend to be older and better educated than the nearpoor were 50 years ago.
What is the Marxian class model? (p. 284 - 285) What are the means of production? (p. 284 and key terms) What is false consciousness? (p. 285 and key terms)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848/1982) were the original proponents of the view that societies are divided into conflicting classes. They felt that in modern societies, two major classes emerge: capitalists (or the bourgeoisie), who own the means of production—land, commercial enterprises, factories, and wealth— and are able to purchase the labor of others, and workers (or the proletariat), who neither own the means of production nor have the ability to purchase the labor of others. Workers, instead, must sell their own labor to others in order to survive. Some workers, including store managers and factory supervisors, may control other workers, but their power is minimal compared with the power exerted over them by those in the capitalist class. Marx and Engels supplemented this two-tiered conception of class by adding a third tier, the petite bourgeoisie, which is a transitional class of people who own the means of production but don't purchase the labor power of others. This class consists of self-employed skilled laborers and businesspeople who are economically self-sufficient but don't have a staff of subordinate workers (R. V. Robinson & Kelley, 1979). Exhibit 10.1 diagrams the positions of the three classes.Ultimately, the wealthy segments of society gain the ability to influence important social institutions such as the government, the media, the schools, and the courts. They have access to the means necessary to create and promote a reality that justifies their exploitative actions. Their version of reality is so influential that even those who are harmed by it come to accept it. Marx and Engels called this phenomenon false consciousness. False consciousness is crucial because it is the primary means by which the powerful classes in society prevent protest and revolution. As long as large numbers of poor people continue to believe that wealth and success are solely the products of individual hard work and effort rather than structured inequalities in society
How did Weber both support and expand on Marx's ideas? (p. 287)
Other conflict sociologists have likewise questioned Marx's heavy emphasis on wealth and income as the sole factors that stratify society. Max Weber (1921/1978) agreed with Marx that social class is an important determinant of stratification. However, he observed that the way people are ranked is not just a matter of economic inequality. Weber added two other dimensions—status (or what he called prestige) and power—to his model of stratification, preferring the term socioeconomic status—the prestige, honor, respect, and power associated with different class positions in society—rather than class to describe social inequality (Weber, 1970). The existence of these other dimensions makes the conflict model of class stratification more complex than simply a battle between the rich and the poor. Prestige is the reverence and admiration given to some people in society. It is obviously influenced by wealth and income, but it can also be derived from achieved characteristics, such as educational attainment and occupational status, and from ascribed characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, gender, and family pedigree. While wealth and prestige often go hand in hand, they don't necessarily have to. Drug dealers, for example, may be millionaires, but they aren't well respected and therefore aren't ranked high in the stratification system. On the flip side, professors may earn a modest salary, but they can command a fair amount of respect. Power, for Weber, is a person's ability to affect decisions in ways that benefit them. Again, power is usually related to wealth and prestige, but it need not be. Sometimes low-income individuals can band together and influence decisions at the societal level, as happened in 2012 when several thousand janitors effectively shut down the city of San Francisco by going on strike and marching through the streets to demand higher wages and better working conditions.
What did Mike Rose (excerpt) discover when he studied working class people at their jobs? (pp. 296-297)
Our collective failure to acknowledge the qualities and skills that even lower-status jobs require has helped to undermine a large chunk of the American working-class population. Rose's research is less an objective assessment of these occupations than it is a plea to broaden our definitions of intelligence and to see dignity in the jobs that keep American society running.
What is the ideology of competitive individualism? (pp. 309 - 310 and key terms) What is the culture of poverty thesis? (pp. 310 - 311 and key terms) Why do sociologists critique this thesis? (p. 311)
Poverty also persists because of cultural beliefs and values that support the economic status quo. An important component of this value system in U.S. society is the belief in competitive individualism (Feagin, 1975; M. Lewis, 1978; Neubeck, 1986). As children, most of us are taught that nobody deserves a free ride. The way to be successful is to work hard, strive toward goals, and compete well against others. We are taught that we are fully responsible for our own economic fates. Rags-to-riches stories of people who rose above terrible conditions to make it to the top reinforce the notion that anybody can be successful if they simply have the desire and put in the necessary effort. Consequently, many people perceive the wealthy to be deserving of their good fortune. As one worker put it, "There's a lot of people out there who are wealthy and I'm sure they worked darned hard for every cent they have" (quoted in Williams, 2016, p. 1). The dark side of the U.S. belief in competitive individualism is that it all too easily justifies the unequal distribution of rewards and the existence of poverty. If people who are financially successful are thought to deserve their advantages, allegedly because of individual hard work and desire, then the people who are struggling financially must likewise deserve their plight—because of their lack of hard work and desire. one of the earliest proponents of this culture-ofpoverty thesis, maintained that poor people, resigned to their position in society, develop a unique value structure to deal with the unlikelihood that they will ever become successful by the standards of the larger society. This culture is at odds with the dominant culture —in the United States, the middle-class belief in self-discipline and hard work. According to Lewis, although the culture of poverty may keep people trapped in what appears (to the outside observer) to be an intolerable life, it nevertheless provides its own pleasures. Street life in the inner city is exhilarating compared with a world where jobs are dull, arduous, and difficult to obtain and hold (P. Peterson, 1991). It's more fun to hang out, tell exaggerated stories, and exhibit one's latest purchases and conquests than to work and struggle in the "conventional" world. This extreme "present-orientedness"—the inability to live for the future (Banfield, 1970)—and not the lack of income or wealth is the principal cause of poverty, according to this view.Critics of the culture-of-poverty approach also contend that behavior that seems to be characteristic of poor people is likely to be caused by institutional impediments, such as a tradition of racial or ethnic prejudice and discrimination, residential segregation, limited economic opportunities, and occupational obstacles against advancement (W. J. Wilson, 1980). Poor African Americans, for example, still struggle to overcome the disadvantages of slavery and the Jim Crow laws that subjugated their ancestors. Other root causes of poverty include skyrocketing health care costs, the growing lack of affordable housing, and a changing economy that has all but eliminated entire classes of high-paying, low-skilled jobs.
Be able to give a brief description of the four stratification systems discussed in your text - slavery, caste, estate and class (pp. 279-281)
Slavery is an economic form of inequality in which some people are the property of others. Because slaves are owned and controlled, they are denied the rights and life chances other people take for granted.Some societies today retain a second form of stratification: a caste system. Traditionally, one's caste, which determines lifestyle, prestige, and occupational choices, was fixed at birth and couldn't be changed. Ancient Hindu scriptures, for instance, identified the strict hierarchy of elite, warrior, merchant, servant, and untouchable castes. The rights and duties associated with membership in each caste were clear.A third form of stratification is the estate system, or feudal system, which develops when high-status groups own land and have power based on their noble birth (Kerbo, 1991). Estate systems were most commonly found in preindustrial societies.A social class is a group of people who share a similar economic position in society based on their wealth and income. Class is essentially, therefore, an economic stratification system. It is a means of ranking people or groups that determines access to important resources and life chances.
How does class "play out" in everyday life, what are examples of where we can see class differences in day-to-day life? (pp. 287 - 290).
Such exclusive personal attention reinforces feelings of power and privilege. On the other side of the coin, people who are less well off routinely face frustrating barriers in their daily lives. They must often use public facilities (health clinics, Laundromats, public transportation, etc.) to carry out the day-to-day tasks that wealthier people can carry out conveniently and privately. Social class also determines access to everyday resources that can contribute to long-term advantages. Poor families spend, on average, 60% of their income on food, clothing, and housing, leaving less money available for leisure activities as well as things geared toward the future, like insurance and savings accounts. As one author put it, "Thinking about the future is a form of luxury" (D. Thompson, 2013, p. 1). Consider something many of us now take for granted: high-speed Internet access. It would seem as if the Internet has become a truly universal resource. Over the last decade, inexpensive access over wireless phone lines has brought the Internet to millions of lowincome people who may not have been able to afford it in the past. However, the emergence of services like video on demand, videoconferencing, online medicine, and web classrooms has restratified digital access.
What is the poverty rate (p. 300 and key terms) and how has it changed over the last several decades? (pp. 300 - 302 and Exhibit 10.5, p. 300 and Exhibit 10.7 p. 302)
The poverty rate—the percentage of residents whose income falls below the official poverty line—is the figure that the U.S. government uses to track the success of its efforts to reduce poverty. Exhibit 10.5 shows how the poverty rate has fluctuated over the past few decades. In 2017, 12.3% of the population—or 39.6 million Americans—fell below the official poverty line, up from 11.3% in 2000 but down from over 15% in 2012. Indeed, due to a relatively strong economy, millions of people nationwide have climbed out of poverty (P. Cohen, 2016). But, as we saw earlier, inching above the official poverty line does not guarantee a comfortable or even sustainable life. Hence if we add the near-poor to those officially counted as poor, the number of people who suffer financially in this country increases to over 54 million, or about 17% of the population (Fontenot et al., 2018). When used to describe national trends in poverty, the overall poverty rate can obscure important differences among subgroups of the population. In 2017, 8.7% of people who identify themselves as nonHispanic Whites and 10.0% of Asian Americans fell below the poverty line. That same year, 21.2% of Blacks and 18.3% of Latino/as (who could be of any race) were considered poor. The poverty rate in the South (13.6%) is higher than in the West (11.8%), the Midwest (11.4%), and the Northeast (11.4%). In addition, poverty is higher in rural areas (14.8%) than in metropolitan areas (11.9%), although it's highest in inner cities (15.6%). Finally, people with disabilities are nearly three times as likely to be poor than those without disabilities (Fontenot et al., 2018).
What is the difference between absolute and relative poverty? (p. 297 and key terms) What is the poverty line? (p. 297 and key terms) and what is the critique of measuring poverty this way? (p. 298)
We hear the word poverty all the time. In common usage, poverty is typically conceived in monetary terms, as the lack of sufficient funds to ensure an adequate lifestyle. Sociologists, though, often distinguish between absolute and relative poverty. The term absolute poverty refers to the minimal requirements a human being needs to survive. The term relative poverty refers to one's economic position compared with the living standards of the majority in a given society. Absolute poverty means not having enough money for minimal food, clothing, and shelter. But relative poverty is more difficult to gauge. It reflects culturally defined aspirations and expectations. Poor people "generally feel better if they know that their position in life does not compare too badly with others in society".The U.S. government uses an absolute definition of poverty to identify people who can't afford what they need to survive. The U.S. poverty line identifies the amount of yearly income a family requires to meet its basic needs. Those who fall below the line are officially poor. The official poverty line is based on pretax cash income only, which doesn't include food stamps, Medicaid, public housing, and other noncash benefits. The line varies by family size, and it's adjusted each year to account for inflation.That dollar amount is established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and for decades has been based on something called the Thrifty Food Plan. This plan, developed in the early 1960s, is used to calculate the cost of a subsistence diet, which is the bare minimum a family needs to survive. This cost is then multiplied by three because research at the time showed that the average family spent one third of its income on food each year. The resulting amount was adopted in 1969 as the government's official poverty line. Even though the plan is modified periodically to account for changes in dietary recommendations, the formula itself and the basic definition of poverty have remained the same for over half a century.
What is the connection between poverty and health? (pp. 302 - 303) What is the connection between poverty and education? (pp. 303 - 304) What social factors contribute to people being without housing? (pp. 304 - 305)
With each step down the income ladder comes increased risk of headaches, varicose veins, respiratory infection, hypertension, stress-related illness, low-birth-weight babies, stroke, diabetes, and heart disease (Krugman, 2008; Pérez-Peña, 2003; Shweder, 1997). Public health studies have found a troubling increase in tropical parasitic diseases like Dengue fever and typhus in poverty-stricken areas of the U.S. South and Southwest that were heretofore confined to poor countries in Latin America. These parasites thrive where there is poor street drainage, plumbing, sanitation, and garbage disposal (Hotez, 2012).The educational deck is likewise stacked against poor people. A recent report by the Education Trust showed that throughout the United States the highest-poverty school districts receive about 10% (or about $1,200) less state and local funding per student than the lowest-poverty districts (Ushomirsky & Williams, 2015). That might not sound like much, but for a moderately sized 1,000-student high school, that works out to $1.2 million in missing resources every year. Moreover, teachers in poor districts tend to be less experienced and are paid less than teachers in more affluent districts (LaCosteCaputo, 2007). Without adequate resources, teachers become frustrated and do not teach; children become cynical and do not learn.The most publicly visible consequence of poverty is homelessness. No one knows for sure exactly how many homeless people live in the United States. The National Alliance to End Homelessness (2018) estimates that on any given night, there are more than 552,000 homeless people. Approximately 67% of homeless people are single adults, 33% are people in families, and 7% are unaccompanied youth and children. The causes of homelessness in the United States are typically institutional ones: stagnating wages, changes in welfare programs, the gentrification of old neighborhoods, and, perhaps most important, lack of affordable housing. Nearly three quarters of homeless families cite lack of affordable housing as the principal cause of their homelessness (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2014). When rising wealth at the top of society drives up housing prices, the poor are left unable to afford decent housing (Shipler, 2004).
