Stratification & Inequality
Soc 758 Fall 2014
Prof. Attewell & Battle.
Intro Lecture
Why do sociologists study inequality?
1. Income inequality affects many areas of social life:
Childbirth; infant and maternal mortality; fertility & family size.
Raising children or parenting styles.
Vocabulary, language use, leisure preferences & cultural tastes.
School quality & how many years of formal education completed.
Risk of accidental injury, and likelihood of arrest and incarceration.
Neighborhoods & risk of pollution, & violence or victimization.
Access to transportation (for jobs & shopping & healthy food:“food deserts”).
Employment: access to jobs, their pay, and job security or precariousness.
Access to housing, mortgages and consumer credit.
Social networks, social support networks, “social capital”.
Marriage & marital stability & a partner with income.
Health & illness, stress, and aging. Health & aging disparities.
Political involvement, belief systems, and religious practices.
… Lives differ greatly because incomes are so unequal.
So inequality is a central sociological issue.
Why do sociologists study inequality?
2. There is a compelling moral dimension:
• Is inequality just or unjust?
• How much inequality is fair?
• Philosophers, political movements, and religions have views on the
acceptability of and limits to inequality:
"You will always have the poor among you," (Matthew 26:11).
"God blesses you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours." (Luke 6:20).
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 19:23-24).
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”
(Louis Leblanc 1851, Karl Marx 1875).
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."
(Stalin 1931).
Why do sociologists study inequality?
3. Inequality has been increasing rapidly for decades and is
changing our society.
http://stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/opinion/thomas-edsall-ferguson-watts-and-a-dreamdeferred.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=ccolumn-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
4. Does income inequality help or hinder economic growth?
https://www.globalcreditportal.com/ratingsdirect/renderArticle.do?articleId=1351366&SctArtId=255732&fro
m=CM&nsl_code=LIME&sourceObjectId=8741033&sourceRevId=1&fee_ind=N&exp_date=2024080419:41:13
http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2014/02/26/treating-inequality-with-redistribution-is-the-cure-worse-than-thedisease/
Terminology
• Inequality = unequal distribution of resources in a
society.
• Encompasses unequal resources such as
differences in income or wealth.
• Includes unequal opportunities, such as unequal
access to education or jobs.
• Can refer to unequal outcomes, such as ‘test
score gap’, ageing or health or mortality
disparities, incarceration or unemployment
disparities.
• Collectively, all these imply ‘unequal life chances’.
Social stratification
•
When inequalities in life chances follow the boundaries of social groups – social
classes, gender or gender orientation, racial or ethnic, or religious groups – then
we label this ‘social stratification.’
•
We often conceptualize social stratification as a hierarchy:
the group at the top is called ‘the elite’ while groups at the bottom are sometimes
called ‘the underclass.’
•
When those at the bottom are disadvantaged on multiple dimensions (voting,
education, decent housing, jobs) this is termed ‘social exclusion.’
•
When many people move a long distance socially from their family’s origin, we say
that this is a highly mobile society.
•
When most people’s social position is inherited at birth, a society is described as
‘caste’-like, or low social mobility.
Social stratification is multidimensional
• Max Weber emphasized three different
dimensions of stratification: class, status (or
prestige)and power.
• While these dimensions often go together,
they are not identical. Sometimes low-prestige
individuals earn a lot. Sometimes highprestige individuals earn very little (e.g.,
clergy). Political power may usually reside in
the elite, but not always.
Measuring Inequality
• One must first specify what dimension of income
is being measured: income, or wealth, or
something else.
• Second, one must specify the ‘unit of analysis’
Individuals, Households, States, Countries.
• There are lots of inequality measures but one
important one is the ‘Gini coefficient’ – a gini of
zero means everyone has equal amount (perfect
equality, egalitarian); a gini of one means
maximum inequality all the resources belongs to
one person.
Income inequality by country:
• Gini Coefficients for income:
South Africa
Brazil
USA
UK
Canada
Afghanistan
Germany
Sweden
.65
.51
.45
.40
.32
.29
.27
.23
• Not all poor countries are highly unequal and some
high income countries are more unequal than others.
Social mobility
• Change in an individual’s social standing or
income over time.
• There is upward mobility and downward mobility
plus lots stay the same (immobility).
• Intra-generational mobility: change during a
person’s lifetime eg from their young adulthood
to old age. A persons’ personal mobility
trajectory.
• Inter-generational mobility typically compares
parents’ status to their offspring’s status. Mobility
across generations.
Why is there social inequality?
Two conflicting perspectives.
Functionalism:
• The belief is that inequality is necessary
(functional) for society.
• There need to be higher rewards for work that
is more demanding, complex, or difficult, in
order to entice enough talented young people
to enter those occupations and endure long
arduous training.
• More socially-important jobs pay more.
Why is there social inequality?
Two conflicting perspectives.
Critical Sociology:
• The degree of inequality & stratification is not “natural” or given.
• It varies within a country over time.
• It differs across countries.
• It reflects a political power struggle between groups:
which groups pay taxes and at what tax rates;
the level of the minimum wage;
unions and the bargaining power of employees.
redistribution of income through social security & govt. benefits.
variations in spending & services across school districts, cities, states etc.