Social Stratification

Social inequality is a problematic phenomenon that occurs all around the world and affects both the developed and developing nations. It is defined as “the unequal distribution of social, political and economic resources within a social collective” (van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 205). Inequality is closely connected with social stratification, a system of social hierarchy that positions individuals and groups into categories according to social variables such as class or ethnicity (van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 485). This stratification has a significant impact on the opportunity that an individual may have to move up the hierarchy of inequality (Gill 2017a).

Individuals within a society are grouped into certain rankings that is based on their wealth, income, race and education known as the social stratification. Sociologist use this to determine the social standings of individuals within a society. Social stratification can also appear in much smaller groups. These groups such as the work place, schools, and businesses can “take the form of a distribution of power and authority down the ranks”. (Cole, 2017) The Caste system is also another form of stratification that one does not get a choice in. They are born into it and regardless of their talents will hold positions that are given to them their whole life. Social mobility is the ability for individuals to move about their social standings.

Living in a society that does not help its people to live comfortably and provide facilities for them to achieve their demands, is harmful. One of these harmful affections is “social inequality” in each diverse society. Social inequality occurs when resources in each society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. The United States contains one of the most common social inequalities for its population and that is “social stratification and mobility” and the government should strictly investigate this social inequality for people who are living in the United States.

This first lecture gave us a close look into the unequal share of wealth and the factors that determine the wealth of individuals in the American society. One of the first factors that affect immensely the inequality in America is the obsessiveness of wanting to classify people and make them mark a box for their gender, race and class. Where men and whites have more privileges than any other person and are not only paid higher, but would most likely spend less time in prison for committing the same crime as an African American. The United states is so unequal that the top 1% of the population has 38.1% of the wealth and the bottom 40% which is a little less than half of the people living in America only have 0.2% of the wealth. And as if that statistic alone was not scary enough, we learn in this

The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology defines inequality as ‘the unequal distribution of opportunities, rewards, and power among and between individuals, households and groups’(1). It goes on to say that ‘the subfield of social stratification has as its main task the description and analysis of inequalities, or the makeup of the stratification system of any given society’.(1) From this one definition, we can already begin to see the strong links that lie between inequalities and social stratification. As we delve deeper into the topics, we can begin to see both the inevitability and the functionality of stratification

Class, income, and wealth play a significant role in social stratification. In “What Americans Had..” Fischer explains the differences between social classes and the inequalities the lower strata faces by providing data and graphs to corroborate his argument. In addition, presents throughout the reading the differences of income between the 1900s to 2000s. As well as the three features that helps explain the inequality of standard of living. These three features are: wealth, income, and consumption. Evidently, while observing the graphs, Fischer explains that after the 1960s, inequality became a trend that ultimately has led to become a “norm” if you are in the lower scale of social structure. Furthermore, as with wealth, there are many ways

Social stratification is defined as a system by which society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. For example, There are fundamental principles of stratification:

For example, a person’s position in life determines his or her income. Approximately 50 percent of total income is earned by richest 20% people. In 2010 the wealthiest 20% of families owned 87.7% of America’s wealth. Another factor is debt and stocks. The poor have little to no marketable assets and have a sizeable amount of debt. The top 10% also own 88% of all stock. The bottom 40% own less than 1% of total stock holdings. These examples clearly explain the inequality within society and that the amount of power that you have all depends on your social status and income. Some advantages to social stratification is that if you are a part of a wealthy family or you worked your way up the social stratification ranks, then you are granted more opportunities, money, and are more likely to get the job. I do like this part in social stratification because I do believe that If you work hard enough to get a high paying job, then you should be rewarded for your persistence and determination to better a life for yourself. Therefore, I conclude that social stratification has its pros and cons by producing both discrimination and opportunity to society though I firmly believe each person should be compensated equally based on level of education and

Social Stratification is a term used by sociologists to describe inequalities that exist between society and us as individuals and can also be described as a hierarchy with the less privileged people at the bottom and the more favoured people at the top. (Giddens, 2006)

The 21-st century is characterized by the continuous economic downfall. The relationship between race, class and gender should be evaluated to identify the life chances of people to improve their relative position in our socially stratified world. The increased rates of unemployment, homelessness and poverty show that our society requires implementing a transformative approach to reduce social stratification. The term social stratification is applied to identify and asses different forms of inequality that exist in the US society. Patricia H Collins suggests, “while a piece of the oppressor may be planted deep within each of us, we each have the choice of accepting that piece or challenging it as part of the 'true focus of revolutionary change'” (p. 680). Inequality has become a universal feature of our society; therefore, it exists everywhere and concerns race, class, and gender as the key categories of society.

For the past year and a half (and even longer), the media has been full of sayings like, “middle class,” “top 1%,” and “wage inequality.” To understand what any of those sayings mean, one must first understand the very complex system that is stratification. SparkNotes¬¬1 defines stratification as “a system by which society ranks its members in a hierarchy.” Today, most societies are considered to be stratified.

America is known as the land of the free and home of the brave. When thinking of this you think about all the opportunities presented to people and all the freedom. An idea of America is that we’re a meritocracy, which means anyone can be able to to become anything they want as long as they work hard playing by the rules. Along with that many people believe that diversity will bring together the country and unite us all but that’s not the case. America is not a meritocracy.

Even without being consciously aware of it, the use of some sort of scale when interacting with others is quintessential. This is because it represents a basic need of defining the self through the means of the others; knowing one’s place in society, as well as the positions of fellow individuals, ensures an orderly functioning of said system. For the sake of this essay, the definition of social stratification as a society’s categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power (Pearce, 2015), will be used.

In “Classes in Capitalism and Pre-Capitalism” Marx’s main emphasis is on class struggle, the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed or the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and the methods of production and their impact on society. Marx argues that the with the rise of the bourgeoisie, the mode of production has shifted from feudalism to capitalism forming a principal struggle between the bourgeoisie, the wealthy owners of the means of production against the proletariats, those who work for the owners. I agree with this because in today’s society there are many big companies that are owned by a few wealthy people and have millions of people who work for them such as Walmart and Costco. Many companies have advanced to use technology and machinery which has negatively impacted the hard working laborers including Amazon which now has robots that move boxes instead of people. Even though these robots may be a faster and more efficient way to move boxes and do work, they are taking away jobs and money from working

Social stratification defines any structure of inequality that persists in a society across generations. Social strata are groups of people — who belong to the same social class or have the same social level. Social strata are organised in a vertical hierarchy. In the early societies people shared a common social standing. In the hunting and gathering societies there was little stratification: men hunted for meat while women gathered edible plants. The general welfare of the society depended on the mutual sharing of goods between all members and no group emerged as better off than the others.