All societies treat people with certain characteristics differently from others; males/females, old/young, etc. This differential treatment leads to social inequality: Unequal sharing of societal resources; wealth, power, prestige, education, health, etc. (factor of scarcity). Small societies: Minor differences among individuals.
Complex societies have inequalities across categories. Hierarchies, built into social structure, self-perpetuating: passed on from one generation to the next. Effects individuals from before birth (pre-natal care). Impacts all aspects of life (Life Chances). In modern, capitalistic societies: Income and wealth as major factors assigning one to a specific place in the hierarchy.
Social Stratification: socially structured inequality of entire categories of people who have different access to social rewards as a result of their status.
Structural (stratum): movement of an entire category relative to another: historical circumstances, economic change, structural shift--War, post-industrialism, immigration trends. Can be consciously sought after.
Urbanization and industrialization breaks down the rigidity of such a system. 1950: India's new constitution abolishes-created special protection for untouchables (created resentment in upper castes)
Also used as a term to describe racially designated stratification systems.
Estates (Feudalism): Reciprocity: Land use for protection etc.
First estate--Nobility(5%)--land ownership and NO work
Second Estate: primogeniture and the noble professions
Third estate--the mass, commoners, "one's lot in life".
Increasing differentiation led to varieties of authority, new classes (merchants and artisans). Increasing importance of monetary wealth supplanted nobility's power and shifted dominance to emerging mercantile classes. Industrialization and urbanization produced further weakening. Economic expansion and further schooling--increasing wealth and a blurring of distinctions in social ranking. (Still remnants today: House of Lords, House of Commons {real power}, Old nobility still wealth and land).
Blau and Duncan (1967) and their students, Featherman and Houser (1978):
Occupational mobility (inter and intra) common for males: ~65% of sons employed in different and higher than fathers. (see "Class Matters" at the NY Times)
Much is "short distance," one or two levels out of eight. Odds of reaching the top very low unless you start out there.
Education (TEMPERED) by the fact that family background is significant predictor of educational access and attainment).
Secondly, impact of education diminished recently: B.A./B.S. no longer so significant, Parents of Generation X have degrees versus Boomer's parents.
Also: Gender-- Women's opportunities limited, more likely to withdraw when faced with downward mobility (significant gap in skills vs jobs offered. Many jobs are low level clerical.
Age at marriage..... 13) intelligence...15) Right place at right time.
Maintaining Stratification:
Ideology--
Cultural beliefs that directly, or indirectly, justify social relationships.
Plato--societies teach members to view inequality as fair.
MARX:
In capitalist society the economy channels wealth and power into the hands of a few, defining the practice as "the laws of the marketplace."
The legal system defines a basic right to own property and, tied to kinship, funnels money and privileges from one generation to the next--ideas, as well as resources remain under the control of the elite.
Central idea--wealth and power are "prizes" fairly won by individuals who display greatest merit--virtually synonymous with intelligence and hard work.
Poverty scorned as a state of personal inadequacy.
Marx on class:
Class and social relations of production.
Class consciousness and false consciousness.
Problems-- fragmentation of the capitalist class (managers and owners). white collar occupations and affluence, worker organizations, government intervention.
About 3/4 are poor ~15% of population (40 mil.) 1994, up from 14.8% in 1992 (although down a bit from 1993- new calculations). Rate highest in ten years, number highest since the "War on Poverty."
INDICATORS: 1) earnings have stalled or declined. 2) More working multiple jobs. 3) More job offer lower income. 4) Young people staying at home 5) Upward mobility becoming more and more difficult
Education: upper 1/5--79% go to college, bottom 1/5-- 44% (plus type of school).
Health: Infant mortality--70% higher in poor families, poorer more likely to suffer from serious illness (physical and psychological) 15% of population has no health insurance and this is NOT the same group as the POOR. Life expectancy 5-7 years less (environmental factors, occupation, nutrition)(see also)("food insecurity")
Crime: poorer--more likely to be victim (especially violence, including robbery. If accused--more likely to spend time in jail (bail), more likely to plea bargain (p.d.'s), more likely to receive harsher sentence.
Military: poorer--more likely to serve and get shot.
Poor least likely to participate in political activity, favor liberal policies on economic issues, yet conservative on social agenda.
"If we made an income pyramid out of child's blocks, with each layer portraying $500 of income, the peak would be taller than Mt. Everest, but most people would be within in few feet of the ground."
Median Family Income: for 2011: $64,200, 2001: $51,407 Bureau of the Census figure (Household--2.63 people, family--3.16 people and 1.58 earners) (Mean Household: 2000: $55, 000, Mean family: $62,600).
The
number of people below the official poverty thresholds numbered 35.9 million
in 2003, or 1.3 million more than in 2002, for a 2003 poverty rate of
12.5 percent. Although up from 2002, this rate is below the average of
the 1980s and 1990s.
The poverty
rate and number of families in poverty increased from 9.6 percent and
7.2 million in 2002 to 10.0 percent and 7.6 million in 2003. The corresponding
numbers for unrelated individuals in poverty in 2003 were 20.4 percent
and 9.7 million (not different from 2002).
As defined
by the Office of Management and Budget and updated for inflation using
the Consumer Price Index, the average poverty threshold for a family of
four in 2003 was $18,810; for a family of three, $14,680; for a family
of two, $12,015; and for unrelated individuals, $9,393. (Census
Bureau)
One out
of nine are poor.
"Post-Dispatch"
10-7-94: Census bureau--Poverty rate at highest level in ten years. There
are 39.3 million poor (1993).
"Post-Dispatch"
10-6-95: Census bureau--Poverty down 14.5%: 38.1 million (Social Construction
of Reality)
Figures
for 1995 indicate another modest decline in the poverty rate.
1989-13.1%,
1993--15.1%, this increase came at a time of strong economic GROWTH. The
poverty level for a family of four was $14,763 (1993); $15,141 (1994).
1993 was
the fourth straight year of increase.
1997:
13.3% ($16,400): 35.6 Million people (1997
Bureau of the Census
figure)
21.8% of all
children were living in poverty. 40.1% of the poor are children, i.e. the
poorest group in USA (they account for about 27% of total population).
Poverty rate
for families headed by single mothers was 35.6%, accounting for over half
(52%0 of the poor; up from 26% in 1959.
Rate for married
couples: 6.5% (over 50% of the population).
Don't work--40% of adults do, others; elderly (~4 million, ~10% of the poor); disabled and ill, maintain the household. Problems--minimum wage jobs, lack of full-time employment (only 9%). 10,000 military.
Urban: 57% rural. Inner cities have highest rate--20.5%.
Race: 47% of poor are white (88% of population), 23% Hispanics (13% of pop.), 25% African Americans (12% of pop.), however are 3 times as likely to be poor. Hispanics 2x. Asians about equal. Since 1980 the "poverty gap" has increased.
For CHILDREN: 14% white, 33% Hispanic, 36.6% African American are POOR (37% of the poor)
1994: Slight decrease in number of African Americans living in poverty, but offset by slight increase of Hispanics living in poverty. Continuing trend in the new millennium
Gender: Welfare mothers-feminization of poverty: Of poor over 18, 62.5% are women. Divorce (experience dramatic reduction in income. Costs of child care, Sexual harassment on the job, sex discrimination in getting a job. Additional monthly AFDC per child ranges between $50-$90 from state to state (Missouri ~$60). If trend continues all poor will be female and their dependent children in another 30 years. This is a world wide problem.
43% of poor live in
central cities, greatest visibility, focus of most relief efforts, Yet growing
WORSE.
Combination of: poor
schools, limited employment and lack of skills and discrimination.
William Julius Wilson-the
Underclass:
3-4 million of poor, chronic poor. 49% AA, 29% H, 17% W. No opportunity, beyond
the reach of programs, no housing, no shopping.
Versus: undeserving
poor, don't try, lazy. Oscar Lewis- culture
of poverty,
resigned to it and pass on norms and values to children in a self-perpetuating
cycle. Ed Banfield: subculture erodes personal ambition and achievement.
present time orientation--live for the moment.
Blaming
the Victim (William Ryan)--argues that the "culture of poverty" individualizes
the problem, creates an ideology that justifies lack of concern. Problem
is not personal deficiency but lack of money--unequal distribution of
wealth. Culture or Sub-Culture? If sub-culture policy
must address the fact that poverty is a product of our system of inequality
rather than a separate and self-sustaining institution.
Structural factors
cited by Wilson:
Post-industrialism
and loss of manufacturing jobs, shifting tax base and technology of production--relocation
of factories.
SOCIAL ISOLATION--lack
of contact with people and institutions that are part of the legitimate
and profit making economy. Cut-off and alienated, leads to illegality,
further distances and alienates, on and on.
Stephen Steinberg's
analysis of the concept of a "culture of poverty:" the
idea of a self-perpetuating and intergenerational culture of poverty deflects
attention away from the economic and social structural inequalities
that maintain a system of poverty.
Versus welfare to the wealthy: Subsidies, tax breaks, grants, government supported industries. Corporate costs to the tax payer equal $104 billion, welfare costs us $75 billion.
Motivates, selection and screening, attract best to most critical jobs.
Problems: Type of reward necessary, Fails to draw on talents of lower classes, justification of rewards for some jobs, legitimacy of wide gulfs in distribution, patterns suggest that being drawn to certain occupations is not necessarily economically motivated--socialization into medicine.
Conflict:
Not inevitable, but built into capitalism.
Dahendorf: Authority relations (blends Marx and Weber)--the powerful today want society to run smoothly so they can enjoy their privileges (private affluence and public decay).
The status quo is satisfactory to those with wealth, status and power. Dominant ideology again.
Reforms pacify and maintain authority relationships--minimum wage, welfare, etc.
In "less developed countries" (per capita income: $5,000) most people live no better than the poor in the USA
In "least-developed countries" (50 nations, agrarian, 35% of world's land area, 50% of population the majority cling to survival: 800 million do not receive the nutrition which would allow them to work. 15 million die each year. In the poorest of these countries 25% of the children die before the age of 5.
Opportunity
in the U.S. 
