Social Stratification and Global Inequality

This is Unit Six of Sociology, Part One: the shape of inequality inside a single society. The unit's first sentence does most of its work. Stratification is a property of a society, not a ranking of the individuals inside it. The layers exist before any particular person arrives and persist after they leave, which means a position describes the structure at least as much as the person occupying it. That is also where the unit's first error entry sits, and it is the most intuitive error in the course. Effort is real. Effort is not the question. The question is what a given amount of effort is applied to, and from where. Then mobility, class, and one distinction that changes how every economic statistic in the unit reads: income is money received over a period, and wealth is what is held. They behave differently, they concentrate differently, and only one of them survives its owner. The last stretch defines poverty twice, because the two definitions answer different questions and a society can defeat one while keeping the other whole. By the end you will be able to do five things. One: say what stratification is, and what it is not. Two: tell caste from class, and say what meritocracy names. Three: tell the four kinds of mobility apart. Four: tell income from wealth. Five: tell absolute from relative poverty.

Three entries. The definition, the error it invites, and a classification of the systems themselves. Note the ordering: the error entry comes second because the misreading follows so naturally from the definition that leaving it unaddressed would let it stand.

The definition.

Soc 0821 Social Stratification

A society's arrangement of its members into a hierarchy of layers with unequal access to resources, power and prestige. Two people born in the same country begin with different housing, schooling, safety and expected lifespan. It is a property of the society, not a ranking of the individuals inside it.

The standing error.

Soc 0822 "Stratification Reflects Individual Merit"

Stratification is a structural arrangement existing before any individual enters it, so a position reflects the structure at least as much as the effort applied within it. Effort varies within every layer, and the layers persist across generations regardless. Effort is real, and it is not the question.

Sorting the systems.

Soc 0824 Systems of Stratification

Systems are classified by how position is assigned and whether it can change: closed systems fix position at birth, open systems permit movement. No real society is purely one or the other — the terms mark the ends of a range.

Three entries. The closed form, the open form, and then a term that names a standard rather than a society. Watch what happens to the third one when it is treated as already achieved.

The closed form.

Soc 0825 The Caste System

A closed system in which position is ascribed at birth, fixed for life, and typically reinforced by rules on marriage and occupation. Position determines occupation and marriage partner, and no achievement alters it. The system is defined by its closure, not by any one religion or region.

The open form.

Soc 0826 The Class System

Position assigned by a mix of birth and achievement, permitting movement between layers and marriage across them. A person may end their life in a different layer from the one they were born into — though permitting movement is not the same as movement being common.

The ideal type.

Soc 0828 Meritocracy

Position assigned purely by ability and effort — an ideal no society has achieved, used as a standard for comparison. A hiring process open to all still selects from applicants whose preparation differed for twenty years. Treating an existing hierarchy as already meritocratic converts the ideal into a justification.

Four entries. Two measures of movement, one within a life and one across generations, and then a fourth kind worth watching for — movement caused by the economy rather than by anybody, which runs downward as readily as upward.

The term.

Soc 0830 Social Mobility

Movement between positions in a stratification system — upward, downward or lateral. A nation that abolished formal barriers to a profession later saw entrants whose parents had been barred from it. Mobility describes people moving between layers, and never means the layers disappeared.

Across generations.

Soc 0831 Intergenerational Mobility

The difference in position between a person and their parents, and the standard measure of how open a society is. A society can show high individual mobility and unchanged overall inequality.

Within one life.

Soc 0832 Intragenerational Mobility

The movement a person makes between positions across their own working life. Someone beginning in one occupation and ending in a differently placed one has moved within a generation. This is taught as vertical movement across a career; lateral moves at the same rank are horizontal mobility.

Nobody's achievement.

Soc 0834 Structural Mobility

Movement caused by change in the economy itself rather than by anything individuals did, moving many people at once in the same direction. When an industry contracts, people lose position together without any change in their conduct. It runs downward as readily as upward.

Five entries. An error that denies the whole category, the bundle of factors that actually defines it, and then the single distinction that does the most work in this unit and the next — the difference between what a person receives and what a person holds.

The standing error.

Soc 0835 "The United States Is a Classless Society"

Every society that has been measured is stratified, and an open class system produces layers as reliably as a closed one. Wealth, schooling, health and lifespan all sort by position in societies describing themselves as classless. The belief survives because class is rarely named aloud, not because it stopped operating.

The definition.

Soc 0836 Social Class

A position defined by income, wealth, occupation and education taken together, rather than by any one of them. Two people earning the same amount can hold different class positions once assets and occupation are counted. Class is a bundle, and income alone is the weakest single proxy for it.

The distinction.

Soc 0837 Income and Wealth

Income is money received over a period; wealth is the total value of assets held, minus debts, accumulated over time and across generations. A high earner with student debt may hold negative wealth; a modest earner who inherited property may hold a great deal.

Why the gap grows.

Soc 0838 Why Wealth Concentrates

Wealth concentrates because assets generate returns, returns can be reinvested, and the accumulated stock transfers at death — none of which is true of a wage. Property appreciates while its owner sleeps; an hour of labor pays once. The mechanism is structural and requires no unusual conduct by anyone.

When it fails to line up.

Soc 0840 Status Consistency

The degree to which a person's income, education and occupational prestige align. Class systems produce more inconsistency than caste systems: a highly educated person in a low-paying occupation holds inconsistent status. The inconsistency is a feature of open systems, not a malfunction.

Four entries naming the standard categories, and each is defined by what the position rests on rather than by a number. That matters most at the top and at the bottom, where the ordinary shorthand is furthest off.

The top.

Soc 0842 The Upper Class

Substantial wealth rather than merely high income, typically sustained across generations by inheritance. Position rests on assets that continue producing whether or not anyone works — so a high salary without transmissible wealth is not upper class.

The broadest.

Soc 0843 The Middle Class

Earned income from occupations usually requiring credentials, holding some assets but relying on continued employment. A professional household lives on salary, and an interruption in earning changes its position quickly. The term is claimed by an enormous range of positions, which makes it the least precise category.

Defined by its labor.

Soc 0844 The Working Class

Earnings from labor that is typically hourly, more closely supervised, and less protected against interruption than salaried work. A clinic visit requires missing a shift, and missing a shift costs the day's pay. The distinction is control over one's work and its security, not the difficulty of the work.

The bottom, and a disputed term.

Soc 0845 The Lower Class and the Underclass

The lower class holds unstable, low-paid work or none; the underclass names those durably excluded from regular employment across long periods. Exclusion compounds, because gaps in work history become the reason for later refusals. Underclass is a contested term some sociologists reject as blaming those it describes.

Three entries, and the pairing is the point. Absolute poverty and relative poverty answer different questions, and a society can eliminate the first while keeping the second entirely. The third entry then shows how many decisions sit behind any published poverty rate.

Against a fixed standard.

Soc 0847 Absolute Poverty

Deprivation measured against a fixed standard of the resources required for survival, unchanged by what others have. A threshold based on the cost of minimum food and shelter is an absolute measure — though the threshold is set by a decision about what counts as minimum, so it is fixed by choice.

Against one's own society.

Soc 0848 Relative Poverty

Deprivation measured against the standard of living normal in one's own society, so it changes as that society changes. Lacking what participation requires is poverty there, whatever it would mean elsewhere. A society can eliminate absolute poverty and retain relative poverty entirely.

How the line is drawn.

Soc 0849 How a Poverty Line Is Constructed

A poverty line is built by choosing a basket of necessities, pricing it, and setting a threshold — three decisions determining how many people are counted as poor. Changing what the basket contains moves the measured rate without moving anyone's circumstances. Read every poverty figure as the output of those three choices.

Three entries to close Part One. An unequal distribution with structural causes, a self-reinforcing pattern that is a tendency rather than a prediction, and then a genuine dispute the course presents in its strongest forms without picking a winner.

Unequally borne.

Soc 0851 The Feminization of Poverty

The pattern in which women are disproportionately represented among the poor, driven by care obligations, occupational segregation and lone-parent household structure. Households headed by a lone mother face poverty at markedly higher rates. The pattern is structural, and is not explained by differences in individual effort.

Across generations.

Soc 0853 The Cycle of Poverty

The self-reinforcing pattern in which growing up poor reduces the resources that would allow escape, transmitting position across generations. Housing instability disrupts schooling, and disrupted schooling narrows later work. It describes a strong tendency and is never a prediction about any individual.

The dispute.

Soc 0855 Explaining Poverty

Explanations divide between those emphasising individual and cultural factors and those emphasising structural conditions such as labor markets and housing. The same neighborhood supports both accounts, depending on which evidence is examined. The strongest form of each is presented here, and neither is adjudicated.

Five things to carry out of Part One. Stratification is a property of a society rather than a ranking of its members. The layers exist before anyone arrives and persist after they leave. Effort is real, varies inside every layer, and is not what the term is measuring. A caste system fixes position at birth and a class system permits movement, but permitting movement is not the same as movement being common. Meritocracy names a standard no society has met — and treating a hierarchy as though it already had turns the standard into a defence of the hierarchy. Four kinds of mobility: between generations, within one working life, and structural — which the economy does to people rather than the other way round, and which moves crowds downward as readily as upward. Income is received and wealth is held, and the gap between them widens on its own. Assets return, returns reinvest, and the stock transfers at death. None of that is true of a wage, and none of it requires anyone to behave unusually. And poverty has two definitions answering two questions. Absolute poverty is measured against a fixed standard; relative poverty against one's own society. A society can defeat the first and keep the second whole — and every published figure rests on a chosen basket, a price, and a threshold. Part Two takes up why stratification persists, and then inequality between nations rather than within them.