Chapter 7: Stratification

- In the US, the middle class has historically been composed of white-collar workers and the working class composed of those individuals who work manually. however, this distinction eroded with two trends. What are they? - The relatively stable middle class of previous decades has become increasingly _________. There is a differential income growth which has been explained possibly by one factor which may be the __________________. The technology sector experience and as a result the majority of jobs are being created either at very high skill levels with corresponding high salaries or at very low levels with little room for upward mobility. Furthermore, this bifurcated job growth is reflected in the change in ____________. - If a college education is the gateway to becoming middle class and only about a third of the American population has at least a four year degree, we can expect the percentage of middle-class Americans to ________. - Sociologist Michael Hout helped explain that even though there has been stagnation in the number of people receiving bachelors degrees, the value of those degrees is increasing. - some argue that along with income inequality, income insecurity, or volatility, has also increased for the middle classes. Jacob Hacker asserts that the chances of an American family experiencing a 50% drop in their annual income from one year to the next were 17% in 2002. However, other researchers argue that income instability is not the result of fluctuating earnings or job insecurity but rather stems from two major changes in family dynamics. What are these changes?

- (1) the post World War II boom led to the enrichment of many manual workers. They were able to buy their own homes, afford college for their children, and retire comfortably. (2)The second trend has also eroded the traditional manual-non-manual distinction between the working and middle classes: the rise of the low wage service sector. - stratified - changing nature of available employment, educational expectations of potential employers. - shrink - (1), there are more changes to household structure today because of divorce and remarriage. (2) women now play a greater role in breadwinning, but they also enter and exit the workforce with greater frequency than men.

- There are many dimensions and forms by which this equality or inequality can emerge in a given society. Many often overlap. What are examples?

- Examples: Age, birth order, gender, race, ethnicity.

- By analyzing the distribution of last names in the professional directories of lawyers and doctors, economic historian ________ (2014) is able to assess the degree to which societies demonstrate social mobility or social reproduction. - Clark's analysis is interesting because it challenges some of our most cherished assumptions about social mobility. He finds that the intergenerational correlation in status is much __________ than we had previously thought. - The US consistently ranks as the _______ mobile rich country in the world when it comes to income. - His analysis tells us that the US parent-child correlation in "social class" overall is about .84 compared to .3 or .6 in income. He suggests that earlier work focused on one measure of social class, making it look like there's a lot more mobility. His contention is that in some underlying, summary measure of class of status, most of us reflect our parents' social position a lot more than we may care to believe. This, he argues, is the only reason he would see the effects of what your ancestors did 15 generations ago on what you might be doing for a living now. - Perhaps even more surprising than the fact that rates of social mobility are lower than we thought they were is that, according to Clark, they don't vary all that much across ________ & _________. - Even conscious efforts to totally remodel society, including the slaughtering of elites, can only temper slightly the degree of social inheritance.

- Gregory Clark - higher - least - time and place - social

- What is Equality of Opportunity? - This is the standard model for what equality means in a bourgeois society, which is what? - Adopted by civil rights activists in 1960s. - The cry for equality of opportunity resonates with our overall capitalist ideology. An equal opportunity clearly stifles meritocracy.

- The idea that everyone has an equal chance to achieve well, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game, so to speak, are the same for everyone. - a society of commerce (modern capitalist society, for example) in which the maximization of profit is the primary business incentive.

- A second standard of equality is a bit more progressive and is termed the equality of condition, what is it? ○ sometimes these policies can enhance efficiency if they result in favor competition; other times they may result in a trade off between efficiency and equality in the favor of the latter. ○ Such "social engineering" maybe based on race, class, gender, or any other social sorting category, as long as the proponents can make a justifiable claim that the existing playing field is tilted against them.

- The idea that everyone should have an equal starting point. Example is affirmative action.

- One of the main reasons cited for rising income and wealth inequality in the United States is globalization, what is this? - Scholars have long been trying to figure out why Europe developed first. Early explanations, dating back to the French essayist ____________-, focus on __________ differences between the peoples of Europe and the global south. Perhaps because of the south heat or humidity, he associated _______ & ________ with the north; the south he associated with ______ & _________. His views are now discarded as a racist account to uneven development, but more recent version of the geographic explanation focus on differences what things? - Economist Jeffrey Sachs Explains the Africa explains the Africa's geography made it much more difficult for an agricultural revolution to occur. - others argue that geography doesn't matter as much as social institutions do. In one version of this line of reasoning, it is a strong foundation of property rights, incorruptible judiciaries, and the rule of law in general that predict economic development. These were institutions native to Europe and were transferred to the areas where European colonists settled and lived in significant numbers, spurring later development in areas such as India in Latin America. - other scholars argue that the types of relationships different colonized regions had with the European powers largely determine their fate today. - today that legacy of unequal starting places and economic potential's means that the latest sport of globalization has engendered and even greater level of income inequality across the north-south divide while creating huge differences within developing countries. - Economist Xavier Sakai-i-Martin Estimates that there were around half 1 billion fewer poor people in the world he also claims all indexes show a reduction in global income any quality between 1980 and 1998. With an individual countries inequality has generally risen over the sam estimates that there were around half 1 billion fewer poor people in the world he also claims all indexes show a reduction in global income any quality between 1980 and 1998. Within individual countries inequality has generally risen over the same time frame.

- The rise in the trade of goods and services across national boundaries, as well as the increased mobility of multinational businesses and migrant labor. - Montesquieu, geographic - virtue and rationality, vice and passion - in the length of growing seasons the higher variability of water supply, the types of cereal crops that can grow in temperature zones compared with tropical and subtropical regions, the lack of cold deposit, and the disease burden in warmer climates.

- What is a Caste system? - This is primarily found in South Asia, India. - Origins of the caste system are rooted in Hinduism and a division of labor predetermined by birth. - Social hierarchy was further entrenched by preferential treatment of upper caste members during British colonialism. The result was rigid social stratification of 4 main castes/varna: ○ Brahman - priests, scholars ○ Kshatriya - soldiers ○ Vaishya - merchants and farmers ○ Shudra - servants class - Adivasi (India's indigenous people) and Dalit (Untouchables) are completely excluded from the system. - Each major caste is allowed to engage in...? - There are thousands of sub castes - Historically little mobility between castes ranks because castes are largely endogamous (members marry within the group) and problems classifying children. Too much exogamy (marriage between castes) will cause the system to fall apart. An increase in exogamy is slowly happening but social mobility remains low, especially of Dalits - This ____________ is a powerful method of maintaining the caste hierarchy within Indian society. - Although there is little mobility, an entire caste could obtain a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting practices and behaviors of the upper castes. This is called ____________-. ○ Practices adopted pertain to a higher degree of religious purity and some aspects of a tradition will be avoided if they are considered impure. - In this way, an entire group of people can rise in a social status in 1-2 generations. This attempt may or may not work.

- a religion-based system of stratification characterized by no social mobility. - certain ritual practices from which the others are excluded. - social closure - Sanskritization

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Reviewed history in terms of a master - slave dialectic. - What is a Dialectic? ○ Slave and master have mutual dependence. - He wrote in 19th century. Talked about slave trafficking. Becoming a slave is mixed with ___________. Could last a lifetime due to stigmas or have an optimistic ending. - he views history as marching steadily forward from a situation of few masters and many servants or slaves to a society with more and more free men and women, a situation of democracy and equality. He felt that notions of inequality are constantly evolving in a larger historical arc. He saw this as a trajectory that would eventually lead to _________ for all or nearly all.

- a two-directional relationship, following a pattern in which an original statement or thesis is countered with an anti-thesis, leading to a conclusion that unites the strengths of the original position in the counterarguments. - deceit and desperation - equality

- Thinkers of the later Enlightenment, including Adam Ferguson and John Millar of Scotland and Thomas Malthus of England, saw inequality as ___________. These three agreed that inequality arises when private property emerges and that private property emerges when resources can be preserved, because it is only through surplus is that some people are able to conserve and increase their bounty. - When individuals or groups in society become more efficient and productive they will conserve a surplus and transform them into assets, a form of wealth that can be stored for the future. - If a resource-rich individual decides to distribute surplus wealth, they might decide to extract power, promises, and rewards in return for what they provide. - For Ferguson and Millar, such social developments resulting from the establishment of private property leads to ______________. - For the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, inequality was a prerequisite for social progress, and social progress was a prerequisite for the development of civilization - the greatest goal toward which humankind could strive. - In 1798, Malthus published an anonymous treatise arguing that human populations grow geometrically, while our ability to produce food increases only exponentially , this theory suggests that a rising number of people on the planet will eventually use up all the available resources and bring about mass starvation and conflict. He believed that human kind was similarly destined to live in a state of constant near death experiences, as population growth always push society to the limits of food availability. ○ Because of these trends, he believed that inequality was good, or at least necessary, for avoiding the problem of massive overpopulation and hence starvation ○ He believed that over population would create more and more human misery, and therefore the most logical solution would be to allow the population to thin it self out naturally rather than to exacerbate the problem by reducing the levels of inequality, a measure that would "temporarily" ease the condition of the masses, thereby causing their numbers to swell even more. Such a condition is today called a _____________ - a situation in which the population grows not to abundance but to increased poverty. - Jeffrey Sachs explained how the sub-Saharan Africa might be facing a Malthusian population trap as the per capita land available for farming dwindles.

- good, or at least necessary - higher degrees of social organization and efficiency. -Malthusian population trap

- although those in the upper class have a real influence and control, the effects of this or sometimes limited in the public perception. The United States is often thought as a ______________, so much so that depending on how the question is freeze, almost ______ of Americans have self identified with the middle class. - What is the middle class?

- middle-class nation, 90% - a term commonly used to describe those individuals with non-manual jobs that pay significantly more than the poverty line - though this is a highly debated and expansive category, particularly in the United States, where broad swaths of the population consider themselves middle class.

- Poverty has an official government definition. In 2018, the poverty line for a family of four was $25,100. Day to day survival keeps The poor clearly planted in the ___________. Of course, like any class, the poor are not unified group. There is the _______- poor and the ____________ poor. Poverty is a state that families usually shift in and out of throughout their history, and often a clear distinction does not exist between the working class and the poor.

- present - working, nonworking

- Max Weber argues that a class is a group that has as its basis in common life chances were opportunities available to it in the marketplace. Based on the value of your _______, _______, & ________, you fall into a certain class rank. Thus, for Weber, property and lack of property are the basic categories for all classes relations. - Weber's paradigm is distinct from the Marxist class framework, where the basic framework is antagonistic and exploitative; rather, for Weber, classes are ________, not relational.

- prestige, power, property, - gradated

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Wrote from 1750-1782. - Seeing humankind as naturally _______ & _______, Rousseau appeal to biology and human instincts to explain social outcomes. For him, it is only through the process of building society and repressing this pure natural character that social problems develop. Specifically, he sees the emergence of __________ the idea that a person has the right to own something, as the primary source of social ills. If we were to strip away the elements of society that result from the institution of private property - The competition, isolation, aggression, and hierarchical organization - only social equality, a condition in which no differences in wealth, power, prestige, or status based on non-natural basis exist, would remain. ○ There are two forms of any equality: _________ (of natural), which "consist of a difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind or of the soul," and ________ (or political), which consists of the different privileges which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others. - Rousseau acknowledges that a certain amount of natural inequality will exist between people. Some are a result of aging. Social inequality is a result of privileges and uneven access to resources. Eventually will lead to social ills. - He sees inequality as _____________?

- pure and good - private property - physical - ultimately detrimental and as a catalyst for social conflict.

- In Marxist sociological analyses, every mode of production has its own unique social relations of production, basically the rules of the game for various players in the process. - Thus, to talk about class in this Marxist language is to place an individual into a particular group that has a particular set of interests that often stand opposite to those of another group. - in this sense, class is a _________ concept. That is, one can't gain information about a persons class by simply looking at his or her _________. - Class identity, in fact, does not correspond to an individual at all but rather corresponds to a ________-. - And in individual may, over the course of her career, change class positions as she changes jobs. Class positions and jobs them selves, that is, the roles with respect to the production process, do not change, however. - Indeed for Marx, It all boils down to two antagonistic classes in a fully mature capitalist society: the employee in class and the working class. ○ What is the proletariat? But, according to Marx, the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class) does what? - The central aspect of Marxist class analysis is this exploitation - capitalists taking more of the value of the work of laborers then they repay in wages. - Because the two class model does not appear to adequately describe the social world as we find it in most modern capitalist economies, more recent Marxist theorist such as Eric Olin Wright have elaborated this basic model with the concept of contradictory class locations, which is what? ○ for instance, managers might be perceived as both working class and capitalist class. - The issue of class definition could also be further complicated by multiple class locations, mediated class locations, and temporarily distinct class locations. Marxists use these distinctions to analyze how various classes rise and fall under the capitalist system.

- relational, income - role O the working class. it sells its labor to the reservoir in order to receive wages and thereby survive. The capitalist/owners extract surplus value from the proletariat, even when a few proletarians make high incomes. - the idea that people can occupy locations in the class structure that fall between the two "pure" classes.

- Sociologists often use the phrase _______________ to describe an individual's position in a stratified social order. By using this term, they are referring to any measure that attempts to classify groups, individuals, families, or households in terms of indicators such as ____________________. ○ What is Income? ○ What is Wealth?

- socioeconomic status - occupation, income, wealth, and education. O money received by a person for work, that transfers (gifts, inheritances, or government assistance), or from returns on investments. ○ a family's or individual's net worth

- To answer questions about stratification, we need a conceptual framework through which to view inequality. - What is Stratification?

- the hierarchical organization of a society into groups with differing levels of power, social prestige, or status and economic resources.

- The final and most radical form of equality is equality of outcome, what is it? - This standard is concerned less with the rules of the game then with the distribution of resources; it is essentially a communist ideology. - It is the idea that everyone contributes to society into the economy according to what they do best. - Centrally organized society calls on its citizens to contribute to the best of their ability, everyone receives the same rewards. The median income is everyone's income regardless of occupation or position. The only incentive is _________-. - Unless in oppressive wall emanated from some central agency, collective endeavors would be doomed to failure on account of the free rider problem, which is what? - critics of the system argue that even when there is a relatively strong central planning agency to assign each worker a task and enforce productivity, such an administrative mechanism cannot make decisions and allocate resources as efficiently as a more free market approach does.

- the idea that each player must end up with the same amount regardless of the fairness of the "game." - altruistic - the notion that when more than one person is responsible for getting something done, the incentive is for each individual to shrink responsibility and hope others will pool the extra weight.

- What is social mobility? - ______________ emphasized the importance of not just looking at the mobility of individuals but also examine in group mobility. He noted that social mobility can either be horizontal or vertical. ○ ______________ social mobility means a group or individual transitioning from one social status to another situated more or less on the same rung of the ladder. ○ _________ social mobility refers to the rise or fall of an individual or group from one social Stratham to another. There are two types of vertical mobility which are ascending and descending ○ descending vertical mobility can similarly take either two forms: _______ or _________. Sorokin asserted that channels a vertical circulation necessarily exist in any stratified society and are as necessary as channels for blood circulation in the body. - most sociologists concerned with studying mobility focus on the process of individual mobility. These studies generally fall into two types: __________ and _________. How is a mobility table set up? - changes in the distribution of jobs lead to structural mobility: mobility that is inevitable from changes in the economy. - What is exchange mobility? - most measures of economic inequality have risen each year since the 1960s - A consensus seems to be slowly emerging at mobility rates should be broken down into the two components of ____________ and _________. When we do this, it turns out that the rates of trading places are fairly fixed across developed societies. By contrast, historically the United States has enjoyed an advantage in growth-induced upward mobility; as the farm and blue-collar sectors withered and white-collar jobs expanded, sons and daughters of manual workers have, by necessity, experienced a degree of upward occupational mobility. However, sociologists and economists debate whether bifurcated job growth means intergenerational stagnation. - Another common methodology for studying social mobility is the status-attainment model, what is it? - The occupational status research of Peter M. Blah and Otis Dudley Duncan, Who ranked occupations into a status hierarchy to study social attainment processes, is generally seen as the paradigmatic work in this tradition. The model allows sociologists to study some of the intervening processes. - Generally, it is thought that ____________ is the primary mediating variable between parents' and children's occupational prestige. That said, research shows that ________ & ___________, not only occupation or income, best predict children's educational and other outcomes. - Although there is increasing consensus on what aspects of class background matter, there is relatively little understanding of the multiple mechanisms by which class is reproduce. For instance, families with a higher socioeconomic status are likely to have more success in preparing their children for school, entry exams, and ultimately the job market because they have greater access to resources that promote and support their children's development.

- the movement between different positions within a system of social stratification in any given society. - Pitirim A. Sorokin - horizontal, vertical, individual or group. - mobility tables and status attainment models - the left column of a grid listing a number of occupations for people's fathers. Across the top there is a list of the same occupational categories for the sons. there can be as many or few categories as you see fit as long as they are consistent for the parental and child generations. - mobility resulting from the swapping of jobs. - structural and exchange mobility - approach that ranks individuals by socioeconomic status, including income and educational attainment, and seeks to specify the attributes characteristic of people who end up in more desirable occupations. - education - parental education and net worth

- _____________: a term for the economic elite. - historically the upper class was often distinguish by not having to work. They were the aristocracy, the wealthy, the elite, the landowners. The only way to join the upper class was by ______ or _______. The upper class was the basis for Marx's capitalist class. - in the United States, upper class is associated with income, wealth, power, and prestige. The primary distinguishing characteristic of upper class individuals is their ___________. Approximately ____ of the US population is considered to fall in the stratum. Over and above income levels, the upper class is also distinguished by prestige and power, which can be used to promote ___________ and influence __________.

- upper class - birth or marriage - source of income - 1% - personal agendas, everything from political decisions to consumer trends.

- What is a Class system? ○ It is a class system that implies an economic basic for the fundamental cleavages in society. - Class means different things to different people, no consensus for the term's precise definition. - Some controversy has existed about whether class is a real category or a category that exists in name only. There have been problems in drawing boundaries around class categories. - _________- & __________ are the main sociologists to analyze class.

an economically based hierarchical system characterized by cohesive, oppositional groups and somewhat loose social mobility. - Karl Marx and Max Weber