sociology chapter 8
The theory offered by Simon Kuznets regarding the relationship between inequality and economic development is challenged by which of the following facts?
Between 1990 and 2004, CEO pay increased by 300 percent, while production worker pay increased by only 4.5 percent.
Marx identified surplus value as the source of profit in a capitalist system. What is surplus value?
. the value of a worker's labor power left over when an employer has repaid the cost of hiring the worker
What percentage of Americans live in extreme poverty, meaning at near-starvation levels?
6.7 percent
According to your text, the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the population holds the same amount of wealth as the bottom __________ percent?
90.0 percent
__________ have the highest percentage of median income, while __________ have the lowest percentage.
Asians; blacks
Rosie, a woman from a working-class family who works as an administrative assistant, won a huge lottery jackpot. She decided to apply for membership at an exclusive country club in the next town over but felt unwelcome after ordering the "wrong" wine at a prospective member dinner and receiving stares from members when she smoked a cigarette outside. What does Rosie's experience demonstrate about class?
Class is not only determined and expressed economically but also through lifestyle choices and personal tastes.
What is the most significant difference between the working class and the lower class?
While working-class families often struggle to get by, they tend to have significantly more job and neighborhood stability than those in the lower class
What is wealth?
all of one's assets minus what one owes on them
What is meant by the feminization of poverty?
an increase in the proportion of the poor who are female
Ownership of wealth, occupation, income, and education are the four main bases of which kind of stratification system?
class
According to the logic of Davis and Moore's functionalist theory of stratification, which of the following occupations must be functionally most important to society?
corporate lawyer
What is one of the strongest predictors of income and wealth in later life?
education
The subprime mortgage crisis described in the beginning of this chapter has potentially contributed to the rapid growth rate of which of the following populations of homeless people?
families with children
According to the text, __________ and __________ are categories that contribute to structured inequalities.
gender; racial identity
Which of the following is an important condition that facilitated the accumulation of unprecedented wealth in the twenty-first century?
globalization
What is status, according to Max Weber
the social honor or prestige a particular group is accorded by other members of a society
The main argument of Thomas Picketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, that increasing wealth inequality is an inevitable feature of most capitalist economic systems, is MOST akin to the ideas of which theorist?
Karl Marx
Which of the following explanations does your text give to explain, in part, why blacks and Hispanics were particularly hard hit by the recession of 2008?
Lenders of subprime loans tend to focus on minority communities that were often passed over by prime lenders.
What is one implication of Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital?
Social mobility is less about how hard you work and more about the kinds of tools you work with.
__________ is directly challenged by the idea that structural forces shape the way resources are distributed.
The "culture of poverty" thesis
_____________ negatively impacts women's class position far more than it impacts men's class position.
Divorce
What is relative poverty?
poverty defined according to the living standards of the majority in any given society
