Class Notes Chapter Five - Part B

Stratification by Social Class

Poverty – Key Concepts

Absolute Poverty refers to a minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below. The federal government’s poverty line is used to measure absolute poverty.

Relative Poverty is a floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society, whatever their lifestyles, are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison with the nation as a whole.

Federal Poverty Line – a money income figure adjusted annually to reflect the consumption requirements of families based on their size and composition

2007 HHS Poverty Guidelines
Family Size Poverty Threshold
4 $18,850.00
5 $22,030.00
6 $25,210.00

Explaining Poverty – Functionalist Perspective

Herbert Gans (1995) identified a number of social, economic, and political functions that the poor perform for society.

• The presence of poor people means that society’s dirty work – physically dangerous or dirty, dead-end and underpaid, undignified and menial jobs – will be performed at low cost.

• Poverty creates jobs for occupations & professions that “service” the poor. It creates legal employment (caseworkers and counselors in private and state agencies, public health experts, probation officers & many other employees of Crime Control Industry). It creates illegal jobs (drug dealers, numbers “runners”).

• The identification & punishment of the poor as deviants upholds the legitimacy of conventional social norms and “mainstream values” regarding hard work, thrift, and honesty.

• Within a relatively hierarchical society, the existence of poor people guarantees the higher status for the more affluent. Affluent people may then justify inequality (and gain a measure of satisfaction) by “blaming the victim” of poverty for their disadvantaged condition (William Ryan, 1976).

• Because of the lack of political power, the poor often absorb the costs of social change. Under the policy of deinstitutionalization, the mentally ill have been “dumped” primarily into low-income communities & neighborhoods. Halfway houses for rehabilitated drug abusers, as well as Methadone clinics, are in poorer neighborhoods because they are not accepted by affluent communities (N.I.M.B.Y.). Middle-class men & women who have developed problems with alcohol or other drugs move to poorer neighborhoods because of lower housing costs and the possibility of social services.


Social Mobility refers to movement of individuals or groups from one position in society’s stratification system to another.

An open stratification system implies that the position of each individual is influenced by the person’s achieved status.

A closed stratification system allows for little or no possibility of moving up, and is based on the person’s ascribed status.

Types of Social Mobility

(1) Vertical Mobility – the movement from one social position to another of a different rank (upward or downward)

(2) Horizontal Mobility – the movement from one social position to another of the same rank (the same prestige ranking)

(3) Intergenerational Mobility – changes in the social position of children relative to their parents

(4) Intragenerational Mobility – changes in social position within a person’s adult life

• About 65% of males are employed in higher-ranked occupations than their fathers; but intergenerational mobility is declining because today’s college students are increasingly likely to have college educated parents.

• People who reach a different occupational level from their parents usually advance (of fall back) one or two out of eight possible occupational levels. Mobility is limited.

• Education plays a strong role in intergenerational mobility. 75% of college-educated men achieved some upward mobility, compared with 12% who received no higher education.

• An undergraduate degree serves less as a guarantee of upward mobility than it did ten to twenty years ago because more and more people hold these degrees, and more and more jobs are requiring advanced degrees.

• Women’s employment opportunities are much more limited than men’s. Modest salary ranges & small prospects for advancement limit upward mobility.

• Race remains a factor in upward mobility, with African Americans less likely to advance. There has been a growing black middle-class throughout the country, but advances are significantly slower than white men and white women

Individual Mobility is most likely to take place when there is Cultural and Social Capitol (an accumulation of advantages). Key advantages are –
1. familial income (wealth)
2. level of education
3. occupation and family connections
4. supportive home environment, including parental expectations
5. financial resources to pay for higher education, extracurricular activities, tutoring, etc.; financial support to decrease or eliminate employment while in training program or higher education

Poverty in the United States

Moving Recipients Into the Workforce and Ending Welfare Dependency
The 1996 Welfare Reform Law – a combination of the Earned Income Tax Credit and new welfare rules – brought about the welfare revolution. Previously, only the nonworking poor had received cash assistance, but the money often wasn’t enough to live on and many recipients had held jobs they didn’t report. Under the new law, the poor are expected to work, and when they do, they receive a supplement to their wages – the earned income tax credit – that is 100 percent federally financed and more substantial than welfare in some states ever provided. In other words, the poor can now do exactly what the old system prohibited: work and receive additional public support to get them out of poverty. What is missing, besides stability of employment, is chiefly health insurance and child care for working mothers in low-pay jobs. The reforms are viewed as necessary and successful but incomplete. In the first four years (during the high prosperity) of 1996-2000, welfare rolls dropped by 60%, while the numbers of Americans in poverty also fell. But numbers in poverty have increased every year since 2000, while welfare rolls and median family incomes have fallen. Welfare rolls have remained stagnant, which is an excellent sign to experts – no resurgence in welfare.

Hunger In America

Stratification in the World

World Systems Theory (Immanuel Wallerstein)

Core Countries – Certain industrialized nations (among them the United States, Japan, and Germany) and their global corporations dominate economic & political relationships with other countries, control and consume the vast majority of resources.

Semi-Peripheral Countries – Certain typically semi-industrial nations (such as South Korea, Ireland, and Israel) have marginal economic status.

Peripheral Countries – They are poor developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South America. They are routinely exploited by Core Countries and their corporations.

Dependency Theory – even as developing countries make economic gains, they remain weak & subservient to Core Countries and corporations in an increasingly intertwined global economy.

Globalization – the worldwide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial networks through trade and the exchange of ideas.

It is a natural result of advances in communications technology, particularly the Internet and satellite transmission of the mass media.

It allows multinational corporations to expand unchecked. Outsourcing of higher wage jobs from Core to Semi-Peripheral countries is an example.

Multinational Corporations – commercial organizations that are headquartered in one country but do business throughout the world

“Global Factories” – factories throughout the developing world (many in Peripheral countries) that are run by multinational corporations

What Holds Some Semi-Peripheral & Peripheral
Countries Back From Advancement?

1. Core values, including work ethic
2. Technology resources
3. Natural resources
4. Climate, other environmental hindrances
5. Acceptance of their economic reality
6. Religious beliefs, interventions
7. War or civil discord
8. Wealth and poverty, starvation and famine
9. Health care needs
10. Education and literacy
11. Energy consumption, availability
12. AIDS, other diseases
13. Frustration > Anger > Aggression > Violence


“Clothes make the poor invisible...America has the
Best-dressed poverty the world has ever seen.”
- Michael Harrington

Class Notes Chapter Five - Part A

Class Notes
Professor Henry Schissler
Chapter 5 – Part A


Understanding Stratification

Social Inequality – members of a society enjoy different amounts of wealth, prestige, or power

Stratification – the structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic reward

Unequal economic reward is evident in income (salaries and wages) and wealth (material assets such as land, stocks, automobiles – minus what is owed on them)

Systems of Stratification

Slavery – individuals are owned by other people who treat these human beings as property (Ascribed Status – social position is “assigned” without regard to a person’s unique characteristics or talents)

Castes – hereditary systems of rank, usually religiously dictated, that tend to be fixed & immobile. India has four major castes, called varnas. A fifth category is referred to as untouchables, so lowly & unclean as to have no place within this system of stratification (Ascribed Status)

Class System – social ranking based primarily on economic position; boundaries between classes are imprecisely defined, and one can move from one stratum, or level, of society to another (Achieved Status – social position attained by a person largely through his or her own efforts)

Class Systems maintain stable stratification hierarchies and patterns of class division. They are marked by unequal distribution of wealth and power. Ascribed statuses such as race, gender, and disability influence a person’s wealth & social position.

Karl Marx’s View of Class Differentiation

Social relations depend on who controls the primary mode of economic production, such as land or factories. Differential access to resources shapes the relationship between groups.

Social relations within capitalism (an economic system in which the means of production are largely in private hands, & the main incentive for economic activity is the accumulation of profits) are focused on two main groups –

(1) The bourgeoisie, or capitalist class, owns the means of production, such as factories and machinery; they maximize profit in competition with other firms

(2) The proletariat is the working class; they are exploited by the capitalist class; their exploitation will eventually lead to revolt & the overthrow of capitalist systems (the bourgeoisie & the government).

In order for this to happen, the working class must develop class consciousness – a subjective awareness of common vested interests & the need for collective political action to bring about social change; the proletariat comes to identify the bourgeoisie as the source of its oppression.

The working class must overcome false consciousness – an attitude held by members of a class that does not accurately reflect its objective position.

Marx failed to anticipate the emergence of labor unions and the power of collective bargaining, and laws that supported workers rights. He did not foresee how political liberties & relative prosperity would contribute to “false consciousness,” and the importance of individualism, success motivation, and social mobility within “free” societies.

Marx succeeded in advancing discussions of stratification & social behavior, the fundamental separation between the rich & the poor, and institutionalized inequality. He also succeeded in advancing debate about the nature of work, the downfall of traditional families, and the need for societal reform in the new industrial age.

Max Weber’s View of Stratification

In 1916, Weber stated that our position in the stratification system reflects some combination of the three distinct components of stratification that he identified –

(1) Class refers to people who have a similar level of wealth and income, and who share the same economic position and fate. Unlike Marx, he argued that this economic dimension was only one element of the actions of individuals and groups in a stratified system.

(2) Status Group refers to people who rank the same in prestige (stature, regard, esteem) or lifestyle. This is different from economic class High economic class (“career” criminal) does not necessarily mean high prestige. Low economic class (nun) does not necessarily mean low prestige.

(3) Power is the ability to exercise one’s will over others. Power stems from membership in particularly influential groups, such as corporate boards of directors. Conflict Theorists note that two major sources of power – big business and government – are closely interrelated.

Stratification is Universal

All societies maintain some form of social inequality among members.

Functionalists maintain that a differential system of rewards & punishments is necessary for the efficient operation of society. Society must, therefore, distribute its members among a variety of social positions. People are motivated by reward (money, power) to develop talents and abilities, and fill functionally important positions within society. Personal pleasure and intrinsic satisfaction are also motivators but with a different combination of rewards (prestige).

Conflict Theorists maintain that we are prone to conflict over such resources as wealth, status, and power. There are also ongoing conflicts based on gender, race, age, and other dimensions. But the powerful want society to run as smoothly as possible so that they can enjoy their privileged positions. Because the status quo suits those with wealth, status, and power, they have a clear interest in preventing, minimizing, or controlling societal conflict.

Stratification is a major source of societal tension and conflict that may result in varying degrees of instability and social change.

A critical way for the powerful to maintain the status quo is to define the society’s dominant ideology – the set of cultural beliefs and practices that supports powerful social, economic, and political interests. They achieve this by influencing people’s cultural beliefs through the society’s educational systems, religious institutions, and the media.

Minimal social welfare policy reforms are put in place to pacify the needy and the oppressed. This reduces the danger of challenges to the powerful’s dominance, and minimizes the threat from any conflict emerging from the dominated groups.