Sociology Now, Census Update

What Is Social Stratification?

The system of structured social inequality and the structure of mobility in a society

is called social stratification. Stratification is concerned with the ranking of people.

Social stratification takes its name from geology: Imagine a society looking very much

like the side of a mountain made of sedimentary rock: each layer—or “stratum”—

carefully demarcated and sitting on the top of another well-defined layer.

All societies rank people. The criteria for the ranking varies: In the contempo-

rary United States, perhaps it’s the size of your bank account; in traditional societies,

perhaps it’s the size of your yam crop. But once you are ranked, you enjoy benefits

and rewards “appropriate” to your social location. You get more or less money, fame,

prestige, and power throughout your life, regardless of your individual talent, intel-

ligence, and drive to succeed.

In almost every society, an entrepreneurial genius born in a hovel dies in a hovel,

and a person of, shall we say, limited ability, born in a palace dies in a palace.

Nobody moves from hovel to palace, except in fairy tales. Your social position is a

matter of birth, passed on from parents to children, from generation to generation.

Some societies, mostly extremely wealthy ones, like our own, allow for some social

mobility, so entrepreneurial geniuses born in hovels can found megasuccessful corpo-

rations, or the children of solidly middle-class shop owners can find themselves punch-

ing time clocks. But even where social mobility is possible, most people remain at the

same social location throughout their lives. If your father was a janitor, it is very

unlikely that you will one day be the president—even if you get the right education.

Social stratification involves inequalities not only in wealth and power but also

in belief systems. It gives some people more benefits and rewards than others and also

defines the arrangement as fair, just, and reasonable. The explanation offered for why

it is fair, just, and reasonable differs from society to society. Often no explanation is

offered at all: Both the “haves” and the “have-nots” accept the system without ques-

tion (Crompton, 1993; Kerbo, 1996; Saunders, 1990).

206 CHAPTER 7STRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL CLASS

and, paradoxically, especially powerful in countries where people don’t believe it exists.

Their inability to “see,” as the joke suggests, helps class persist from generation to

generation.

Although it seems invisible, social class remains the single best indicator of your “life

chances”—of the sort of life you are likely to have—where you will go to school, what you

think, and even whom you will marry (or if you will) and how you like to have sex! Even

focusing so much on your individual choices and individual talents is a reflection of

your class position. (Middle-class people believe in the meritocracy more than

upper-class people.)

This chapter will explore the importance of class in our society—both as a source of

identity and as a structure of inequality.