Social Inequality

Social Differentiation

All societies are diverse in some regards. Biology imposes some of this diversity. Males and females obviously differ, as do people of various ages and physical characteristics. All but the most technologically primitive societies, however, also exhibit diversity on certain social bases. Not all people perform the same economic function, for examples, and therefore a set of diverse occupational roles is evident. Distinguishing individuals on the basis of their occupations creates an occupational order. We might think of this as the horizontal dimension of social structure. Let us suppose that society X has a simple occupational order, made up of six specific roles: doctor, teacher, soldier, toolmaker, farmer, and laborer. Arranging those who fill these six occupations simply demonstrates that people in this society perform six different tasks (Figure 1-1a). It tells us nothing about how people in each of these occupations are rewarded (who gets more of the society’s wealth and who gets less) or how much prestige is attached to each occupational position. It does not necessarily imply a rank order, only an order of differentiation. However, differentiation does establish the basis for inequality and stratification.

Social Stratification

If societies were divided only long horizontal lines, there would be little social conflict, for although people might be assigned to different groupings and perhaps even be segregated, there would not necessarily be invidious differences among them. That is, there would be no basis for envy or feelings of injustice so long as no differential rewards were accorded the different groupings. Clearly, however, in all societies people receive different shares of what is valued and scarce, that is, what is desirable and what members of the society strive for. These can be referred to as social resources. People are, in other words, differently rewarded.

This unequal distribution of the society’s resources creates a system of stratification. Stratification, as sociologists use the term, is akin to the geological concept. Geologists describe the different layers of subsoil – strata – as having different properties. Digging beneath the ground at a particular location, we might find a layer of soil, then rock, then shale, water, perhaps even oil. The sociological meaning of stratification is essentially the same as the geological meaning, except it is human groups that are arranged in a vertical order.

If we take the graphic depiction of the occupational order of society X and tip it on its side, we then have a hierarchy of occupations (Figure 1-1b). Now we can see that doctors are at the top of the structure, laborers at the bottom, and the others between them in relative order. This is no longer simply diversity or differentiation, but stratification. Social stratification, then, is the ranking of persons and groups on the basis of various social, and sometimes physical, characteristics. It is the vertical dimension of the social structure. Concentrations of people with roughly similar amounts of societal resources form points on this hierarchy, and this rank order ordinarily remains fixed from generation to generation.

Stratification Dimensions

Sociologists, following Max Weber, have usually explained social stratification as comprising three dimensions: wealth, prestige, and power. Individuals rank differently on each dimension, depending on their accumulation of social resources or rewards.

Wealth refers to economic resources. In capitalist societies, these comprise people’s market capacity, that is, their ability to purchase the material things that they want and need. People receive different amounts of income and other sources of wealth and thus enjoy more or less of society’s benefits. Economic inequalities are a function primarily of people’s occupations. Lawyers generally earn more than truck drivers, who earn more than dishwashers, and so on.

Prestige is the deference that people are given by others. It is, essentially, social esteem. Important positions in the society’s major institutions usually carry with them a great deal of prestige, and people who occupy those positions are therefore treated with much respect and deference. The president of the United States, for example, would never be referred to by his first name by anyone but his family and closest friends. Social custom would dictate that others address him as “Mr. President” or, at minimum, “Sir.” We need not look at such an extreme case, however, to understand prestige. A worker would interact with his manager quire differently than with a co-worker; he would accord his manager greater deference. In modern societies, prestige, or what Weber referred to as status, derives, for the most part, from one’s occupation. Doctors have more prestige than teachers, who, in turn, have more prestige than factory workers, and so on. Other important bases of status, in addition to occupation, are age and ethnicity. The latter is particularly critical in multiethnic societies.

Power underlies all forms of inequality. As a social resource, power refers to people’s authority in groups and organizations. Some have the power, as a result of their positions, to command others, to get them to do things, as Weber described, even against their will. The more important and broadly based the position, even against their will. The president of the United States has greater power, as a result of his position than a state governor, who, in turn, has greater power than a county sheriff. In the corporate would, the chief executive officer has greater power than a local salesperson. The power differentials are evident in all spheres of social life but are particularly critical in economic and political realms.

Inequalities in wealth, prestige, and power are usually closely related. Thus, those who have a disproportionate share of economic resources will likely be accorded a similar a similar degree of prestige and will have comparable power. This consistency across the three dimensions of inequality, however, is not always evident. Teachers, for examples, are accorded more occupational prestige than their salaries would seem to warrant.

In sum, not only are people differentiated in their social roles, they are rewarded unequally as well. Some get more of the society’s scarce and valued items than others. Some are treated with more esteem than others. And some have more power than others. Subsequently, people are grouped on the basis of how much of the society’s rewards they receive, and these groups, or strata, are arranged in a rank order, or hierarchy. Those at the top receive the most of what there is to get, and those at the bottom the least.

Stratification Forms

All societies rank their members on the basis of some characteristics. In societies with low levels of technological development, those typical of the premodern world, stratification systems are quite simple, with only a few bases of differentiation and an equally few bases of ranking. Usually sex and age are the only two sources of social differentiation. Each man of a particular age plays a role similar to that of other men of that age, and the same if true of women. Moreover, there are minimal differences in rewards. This is because almost all that is produced is used immediately to provide the basic needs (food, clothing, shelter, and so on) to all members of the society. There is little in the way of a surplus to be divided and thus no basis for competition. Hence, everyone is rewarded pretty much the same.

Modern societies, with high levels of technological development, are far more complex, and as a result, there are numerous bases of differentiation. Think, for example, of the thousands of occupations that make up the labor force of an industrial society. And, with high levels of production, there is a huge surplus for which people are in competition. This creates the conditions for stratification. Thus, there are many social hierarchies, each based on some social characteristic. The most important, however, are hierarchies of class, race and ethnicity, and gender. In each case, people receive unequal shares of the society’s wealth, are given differential amounts of prestige, and are able to exert different degrees of power over others.

Class Social class is a concept that has been the focus of much sociological debate and theorizing, Essentially, however, it refers to groupings of people with approximately similar incomes and occupations. Class hierarchies are characteristic of all modern societies, and they are enormously consequential. Much of our analysis of social inequality, therefore, will focus on them.

Race and Ethnicity In societies composed of a variety of racial and ethnic groups, such as the United States and Canada, people’s race and/or ethnicity become the basis of categorization and, subsequently, of inequality. In no multiethnic society are these racial and ethnic divisions of no consequence. On the contrary, in almost all cases, race or ethnicity becomes a major differentiating characteristic and distinct racial/ethnic hierarchies are formed.

Gender In no society do men and women perform identical functions, but, more important, in none do they rank equally and, thus, in none are they treated equally. A gender hierarchy is part of all societies regardless of their level of technological development or the complexity of their social structure.

Age All societies differentiate people on the basis of age, and they subsequently rank them as well. People of different age groups are expected to play particular roles and are given more or less of the society’s power, wealth, and prestige. Children are not expected to do what adults do, and they don’t have the same power as adults; the elderly have certain privileges that younger people do not have, and so on.

Structured Inequality

Societies may comprise any number of hierarchies based on various social characteristics (income, occupation, ethnicity, gender, age, and so on), but in all cases, this system of inequality is structured. This means that stratification is not random, with groups and individuals occupying different positions by chance; rather, social institutions such as government, the economy, and education operate to assure the position of various groups. Those who comprise the upper class do not lose their high position from one year or even one generation to another. The rich remain rich; the poor, for the most part, remain poor; and those in the middle tend to remain in the middle. Likewise, ethnic minorities do not lose their minority status and receive the same treatment as dominant group members without great struggle over long periods of time. The same is true of the relationship of men and women. Moreover, the system of stratification in all societies is legitimized by an ideology that justifies inequality. The pattern of stratification in a society therefore remains in place for many generations.

Life Chances and Inequality of Opportunity

Social resources, as noted earlier, are those things that people strive for, things material and nonmaterial that are values and scarce. The uneven distribution of social resources produces inequality of condition – variations in people’s actual living standards or life conditions. This is not the same as inequality of opportunity, however, which means differences in people’s chances of acquiring social resources. Weber referred to the opportunities that people have to acquire social resources as life chances. Among the most basic life chances in modern in modern societies are education, physical and mental health, residence, and justice.

To illustrate life chances and the creation of inequality of opportunity, consider two children. One is born into a family in which the father is a medical doctor and the mother an attorney. We can predict with a good deal of certainty that this child will be exposed to opportunities that will almost automatically assume her social success as she proceeds through life. As a result of her parents’ high-status occupations and the correspondingly high income they earn, she will enjoy the opportunity to acquire a superior education; the best in health care; and, if needed, the best in legal aid. These, in turn, will assure that she, like her parents, will most likely work in a high-paying and rewarding occupation. Compare her life chances with those of a child born into family in which the parents(or, more likely, parent) are high school dropouts and possess hardly an occupational skills. Just as the probabilities of social success for the child from the more well-to-do family are extremely high, for this second child, the probabilities of social failure are equally high.

All of our life chances are determined by our position, or as children, the position of our parents, in the various stratification hierarchies, particularly the class hierarchy. Take health, for example. We might assume on the face of it that health is mainly a product of genetic inheritance. To a great extent that is the case. We have no say in whether we will be born with healthy bodies or with genetic defects that may handicap us. Some of us will need to wear glasses all our lives, whereas others will enjoy 20/20 vision. Statistics indicate, however, that those in the lower classes have higher rates of illness and lower life expectancy than those higher in social class. Differences in health care may explain some of this, but medical sociologists suggest that environmental and psychosocial conditions probably play a larger role (Williams, 1990; Charlson et al., 1993). Poor people live and work in more toxic, hazardous, and nonhygienic environments. More stressful family and work conditions may also lead to unhealthy lifestyle characteristics, like excessive use of tobacco and alcohol or poor nutrition. Although it is not yet fully understood, the relationship between health and social class has been apparent for generations (Mullaby et al., 2004; Williams and Lardner, 2005; Syme and Berkman, 1997).

The same is true of another basic life chance, justice. Again, we might assume that all people in the United States are societies like it, where there are constitutions and other legal protective mechanisms, are equal before the law; that justice, therefore, is “blind,” distributed with no undue preference to any group or individual. IF we conducted a census of prisons, however, we would find that they are filled mostly with people from the lower social classes. Is this because the poor commit most crimes? The answer is both yes and no. Crimes knows no class bounds; middle- and upper-class people commit crimes just as people lower in the class hierarchy do. But the kinds of crimes committed by the poor are usually those that are defined as social threatening and are pursued arduously by the police. They are the kinds of crimes with which the criminal justice system is designed to deal. Crimes committed by the nonpoor, in contrast, are most often less starkly menacing and more deceptive; therefore, they are not viewed as harshly or treated by the police and the courts as severely as crimes committed by the poor.

Even if there were no differences in the types of crimes committed, the nonpoor are in a better position to defend themselves within the criminal justice system. Most simply, they can purchase more and better legal assistance. It is true, of course, that the nonpoor who are accused of crimes are not always acquitted and, if guilty, do not always receive lesser sentences than poor criminals, but their chances of winning favor in this way are increased enormously by their ability to pay for more and better justice.

Life chances are acquired, then, as a result of factors that are only partially in the control of individuals. Obviously, our class position at birth is ascribed; over this we can exercise no control. People’s initial class position and, therefore, the dimensions of their opportunities and future prospects are essentially an “accident of birth.” Certainly, people may subsequently enhance their life chances through individual effort, but those of lower social origins will need to overcome many socially imposed handicaps to do so. Again, it is important to think in terms of probabilities. Obviously some born into wretched social environments are able to escape and go on to a significantly higher social standing. But we cannot use the experiences of these relative few as examples of typical patterns followed by the many, since most do not escape. Tongue-in-cheek, people might be advised that if they want to assure themselves a comfortable and secure future, they should choose their family carefully!

Although inequality of condition is not the same as inequality of opportunity, the two are closely interdependent. Debate of public policies regarding issues of inequality often revolves around questions of whether people should be afforded greater equality of opportunity or equality of condition.

Stability in Systems of Inequality

Social hierarchies are ordered. They are arranged in a systematic way and do no change radically over long periods of time. How is this order and stability of inequality, in class, race and ethnicity, and gender, maintained?

The Society’s Culture A society’s cultural norms and values may support inequality. This is particularly the case in capitalist societies. The basic objective of behavior within a capitalist system is to maximize personal interests, that is, to acquire as much as one can even at the expense of others. Competition within the market is the central operating principle of a capitalist economy. This automatically produces inequality; it can be no other way. Competition yields winners and losers. Capitalism, then, encourages, indeed requires, inequality.

In capitalist societies, ownership of property is sanctified. Private property is, in other words, a fundamental societal value. Children learn early on to respect others’ property and to protect their own. Elaborate bodies of law spell out the rights of property, and crimes against property are enforced rigorously.

Inequality in noneconomic realms is also supported by the society’s culture. Consider education. Students are expected to compete against each other for grades. This competition and the resultant inequality is such a basic part of Americans’ perception of the educational environment and so ingrained that most students would recoil at the thought of a collective classroom effort, one that would reward high grades to everyone regardless of their individual contributions.

Individual and Organizational Power Inequality is stabilized through the efforts of powerful individuals and organizations. Power, as earlier explained, is the foundation of all forms of inequality. Differentials in power, therefore, create and sustain inequality in other forms. Those who possess power are not apt to voluntarily relinquish it. Effective power in modern societies is wielded by individuals, but they act within the context of organizations and institutions. In the United States and advanced capitalistic societies like it, power is essentially an interplay of government and business. The consequences of the actions of business and government leaders affect all people; the far-reaching issues of inequality – jobs, prices, public services, education, and so on – are settled by them. Thus, it is in large measure through the decisions of leaders within these institutions that the distribution of wealth, prestige, and power is both upheld and changed.

Ideology and Legitimation It is not only through cultural expectations and the power of groups and individuals that stratification systems are stabilized. For a system of inequality to endure, people muse come to see the inequalities in power and wealth as natural and even socially beneficial. When this is accomplished, social inequality acquires legitimacy, and ruling groups need not resort to coercion to maintain their power and privilege. Such long-range stability and popular acceptance require the development of an effective ideology and its communication through socialization. Sociologists refer to this process as legitimation.

An ideology is a set of beliefs and values that explains and justifies a society’s system of power and privilege, that is, structured inequality. Although a number of competing ideologies may be evident, a dominant ideology emerges that explains and justifies the status quo. This becomes the prevailing or generally accepted belief system of the society. Chapter 8 discusses the dominant ideology in American society; for the moment we can describe it simply as comprising the belief that people are responsible for their fate and that their social position is essentially a product of their personal efforts and talents. The American ideology is, in a word, individualism. The opportunity structure is presumed to be open, and as a result, equality of opportunity provides everyone with an equal chance of rising to the top. Positions are awarded on the basis of merit, and thus people earn their ultimate fate in the social hierarchies. The system of inequality, then, is fair and just. To the extent that people subscribe to these beliefs, they are disinclined to question, let alone challenge, the prevailing system of inequality. Obviously, this is a far more effective means of sustaining a hierarchical order than is the coercive power of a ruling class or an authoritarian leadership.

Changes in Systems of Inequality

Although patterns of social inequality are structured and endure for very long periods of time, they are not static. Individuals do change their place on the stratification hierarchies, and even entire social categories may change their rank.

Individual Mobility The ability for individuals to change their position in a social hierarchy is referred to as mobility. Generally, individual mobility is limited to one’s economic class. In societies with class systems, such as the United States, theoretically there are no impediments to movement up or down. Thus, one born into poverty may advance upward without limit, just as one born into wealth may experience a free fall into the ranks of the poor.

Neither of these cases is typical. Here we need to reapply the idea of structural factors. Although one’s individual mobility may be theoretically unlimited, in fact numerous obstacles hinder people’s movement. To move up the occupational ladder, for example, requires that good jobs be available. Thus, individual occupational mobility is very much dependent not simply on one’s personal achievement but on the state of the labor market.

Also, the social position of a person’s family of birth will influence that person’s mobility chance more than his or her individual efforts will. The resources accumulated by parents are inherited by their children, and the prevailing patterns of inequality are thereby perpetuated from generation to generation.

Nonetheless, individual mobility is not uncommon, especially in societies like the United States, where the economic and political system place few impediments before people. Also, despite the overarching importance of structural factors – and of luck – we should not think that personal efforts are of no consequence in people’s quest for higher social positions. In fact, there is a great doal of individual mobility in American society, though most people who move do so only in small steps, not in great leaps. Rags-to-riches stories are rare (and riches-to-rags stories are even rarer).

Group Mobility Although stratification systems are stable for long periods, they are not immune to change. In fact, social hierarchies are at times challenged successfully by lower-ranked groups. American workers in the late nineteenth century, for example, launches a movement that led to the creation of trade unions that forced employers to recognize their rights and modify the conditions of work. Again in the 1930s, a workers’ movement produced a greatly expanded system of labor unions that effectively challenged the power of industrialists.

Ethnic and gender hierarchies are also successfully challenged at times by lower-ranking groups. The civil rights movement, beginning in the 1950s, led to a fundamental change in the social and economic status of African Americans. Similarly, the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s yielded basic changes in the status of women. In these cases, a group’s hierarchical position vis-a-vis other changed, and the extent of inequality among them was modified.

These institutional challenges are usually supported by corresponding changes in ideologies. Worker’s movements were undergirded by the belief that workers had certain basic rights in the workplace that employers could not violate. The so-called muckrakers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries described conditions of capitalism that led to a greater awareness of injustices and the need for institutional reforms. People’s ideas of what was a “just” and “fair” work environment began to change, creating public support for workers’ rights. Similarly, changes in the perception of racial and ethnic minorities accompanied the demands the demands for black rights. Until the 1930s, few in American society, including social scientists, questioned the assumption that black people were intellectually and morally inferior to white people. As that belief was effectively challenged, greater impetus was given to the demands for black rights, and public support was strengthened.

Equity versus Liberty

Capitalistic democracies, like the United States, constantly struggle with the conflicting forces of equity and liberty. On the one hand, they honor the principle of democracy, which dictates adherence to equity – the is, distribution of the society’s rewards in a just manner. If all citizens see themselves as part of a unified nation, they are thereby required to engage in some collective acts, such as paying taxes, in order to bring about a fairer appointment of resources than would occur if they acted only on the basis of personal interest. Collective interests, in other words, tend to take precedence over individual interests.

On the other hand, as capitalist societies, they are committed to the principle of liberty – that is, freedom to pursue one’s interests as one desires and to reap the benefits of one’s efforts. Such personal freedom naturally produces inequality; in a competitive, free-market system, some are bound to get more than others. Where liberty prevails, individual interests are expected to take precedence over collective, or societal, interests.

Reconciling the opposing influences of liberty and equality is a major focus of political philosophers who have wrestled with the notion of distributive justice. As a normative issue, the question is not “who gets what?” but “who should get what?” What, in other words, is a just, fair distribution of the society’s valued items? Libertarian thinkers, on one side, maintain the social arrangements should be constructed with the idea that protecting individual interests in paramount. Robert Nozick (1974) has been a major philosophical influence on this side of the debate. Nozick holds that a fair distribution is accomplished if all persons are entitled to what they receive. What is most important, in this view, is not the resultant pattern of distribution but the process by which the society’s valued goods are apportioned. It is individuals who engage in voluntary exchanges, and if they are entitled to what they have, the distribution is just.

Egalitarian thinkers, on the other side, hold that there is a wider collective interest that must be met in the distribution of the society’s valued resources. John Rawls’s theory of justice is a widely cited defense of this position. Rawls acknowledges that personal liberties should be maximized and accepts the idea that individuals will get more or less but maintains that “social and economic inequalities … are only just if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society” (1971:14-15). That is, there are inequalities, but ideally they are arranged in such a way that they contribute to the benefit of the least advantaged.

Some have pointed out that liberty and equity are not really alternatives but are woven together at different points and levels. “Liberty is among the possible fields of application of equality,” notes the philosopher Amartya Sen, “and equality is among the possible patterns of distribution of liberty” (1995:22-23). Thus, the issue of equality cannot be avoided even for libertarian thinkers any more than issues of liberty and personal freedom can be ignored by egalitarians (Patterson, 1978).

Although our objective is to describe how and why the society’s values resources are apportioned as they are rather than how we think they should be apportioned, it is important to keep in mind that the distribution of wealth, power, and prestige always hinges on a delicate balance between these two forces. At certain times equity outweighs liberty, and at other times liberty takes precedence. The latter has certainly been the case in the United States throughout most of it’s history, but it has been exceedingly prevalent in the last thirty years [this was written in 2008]. In western European societies and Canada, by contrast, equity has seemed to outweigh liberty. The conflict between the forces of equity and liberty is a theme that will resurface at various points in the chapters that follow.

Social Inequality by Martin Marger