Social stratification impacts most of our experiences within our society (figure 8.2). Recent accounts point to increasing disparities between the wealthy and everybody else in the United States (Pinketty 2017). Even as the wealthy have accumulated more and more resources, other forms of inequality persist. These inequalities include racial segregation and occupational sex segregation, meaning that in workplaces and neighborhoods throughout the United States, people are treated differently based on their race and sex. Increasing inequalities not only negatively affect the macro aspects of our society, but also have individual consequences. In this chapter, we are going to explore some of the different stratification systems that exist and explanations for those systems. We will follow this by exploring social class in the United States and how it impacts our experiences.

Defining Stratification

Sociologists use the term social stratification to describe the system of social standing. Social stratification refers to a society’s categorization of its people into rankings based on factors like wealth, income, education, family background, and power.

Geologists also use the word “stratification” to describe the distinct vertical layers found in rock (figure 8.3). Typically, society’s layers, made of people, represent the uneven distribution of society’s resources. Society views the people with more resources as the top layer of the social structure of stratification. Other groups of people, with fewer and fewer resources, represent the lower layers. An individual’s place within this stratification is called socioeconomic status (SES).

Most people and institutions in the United States indicate that they value equality, a belief that everyone has an equal chance at success. In other words, hard work and talent—not inherited wealth, prejudicial treatment, institutional racism, or societal values—determine social mobility. This emphasis on choice, motivation, and self-effort perpetuates the American belief that people control their social standing.

However, sociologists recognize social stratification as a society-wide system that makes inequalities apparent. While inequalities exist between individuals, sociologists are interested in larger social patterns. Sociologists look to see if individuals with similar backgrounds, group memberships, identities, and locations in the country share the same place in the social stratification system. No individual, rich or poor, can be blamed for social inequalities, but instead, all participate in a system where some rise and others fall. Most Americans believe that rising and falling are based on individual choices. But sociologists see how the structure of society affects a person’s social standing and therefore is created and supported by society.

Stratification is about resources, and there are a variety of resources that can be dispersed or concentrated. Often, when we talk about inequality, it has to do with economic inequalities related to money. Here, it is useful to distinguish between wealth and income. Wealth is the net value of money and assets a person has. Income is a person’s wages or investment dividends. You can think of wealth as something that accumulates over time, such as property or stocks. Income is something that is being earned on a month-to-month or year-to-year basis. Wealth and income do not necessarily have to be connected, but they typically are. As an example, if someone inherited a lot of wealth, they could live off that and not have to earn a wage. Alternatively, someone could have income but be unable to turn it into wealth for reasons that are outside of their control.

Power is another resource that can be a source of stratification. This resource can be political power or power in a workplace. For example, the president of the United States has more influence than a typical citizen. As we discussed in Chapter 6, culture can be used as a resource to create inequalities. The same goes for our social networks and the related social capital. Education can be another source of stratification. Some people do not complete high school, while other people get graduate degrees from prestigious universities. We also have civil resources, where there are benefits to being a citizen of a country. If you are not a citizen, there may be additional hurdles you will face (Grusky and Ku 2008).

Stratification Systems

Sociologists identify different stratification systems across the globe. These systems vary in terms of their major classes (strata); the degree of inequality, rigidity, crystallization; and the ideas that those with power and influence use to justify their position at the top of the hierarchy (Grusky and Ku 2008). We’ll cover some of these new terms in this section.

When we discuss social stratification, “rigidity” describes how much movement people have between the different layers of society (Grusky and Ku 2008). Typically, sociologists distinguish between open and closed systems. Open systems allow people to move between the different layers. In closed systems, people do not or cannot shift between the different layers. Whatever strata you are born into is the one you are likely to live your life in. There are also constraints on how you can interact with people from other strata.

Crystallization refers to the relationship between the various resources within the society (Grusky and Ku 2008). Some stratification systems tend to be highly crystallized and to have status consistency, meaning the consistency of an individual’s rank across the factors that determine social stratification within a lifetime. An example of this is when you compare the different resources people can be stratified along. If there is status consistency, a group will score high on all the different resources. Status inconsistency, associated with lower levels of crystallization, is when an individual can have a lot of one type of resource, but not another. For example, someone could have a lot of money but limited political power or cultural capital.

For most of human history, humans lived in societies characterized by tribal stratification systems. These types of systems tended to have lower degrees of inequality and few strata. For example, chiefs and shamans might inhabit different strata than everyone else in the community. While the systems were somewhat open, there were also high levels of status consistency.

Before the emergence of capitalism, a lot of Western societies had feudalist stratification systems. The main sources of stratification were economic, specifically, holding land and control over labor. The different levels included the nobility, clergy, and commoners. This led to high levels of inequality. Overall, feudalist stratification systems tended to be closed systems with high degrees of status consistency.

Another stratification system is the caste system. In comparison to a feudalist system, the main sources of stratification in a caste system are cultural and honorific. The caste system determines all aspects of an individual’s life: occupations, marriage partners, and housing. Individual talents, interests, or potential do not provide opportunities to improve a person’s social position.

In the Hindu caste tradition, people expect to work in an occupation and to enter into a marriage based on their caste. Accepting this social standing is considered a moral duty, and people are socialized to accept their social standing. Cultural values reinforce the system. Caste systems promote beliefs in fate, destiny, and the will of a higher power, rather than promoting individual freedom as a value. Overall, caste systems are closed systems with high degrees of status consistency.

The various revolutions and social changes we explored in Chapter 2 changed the stratification systems within Western societies. The result was a shift from feudalism to class-based stratification. In class-based systems, economic resources play a crucial role, and the main distinction is between workers and owners.

A class system is based on both social factors and individual achievement. A class consists of a set of people who share similar status based on factors like wealth, income, education, family background, and occupation. Unlike caste systems, class systems have some degree of openness. People may move to a different level (vertical movement) of education or employment status than their parents. Though family and other societal models help guide a person toward a career, personal choice and opportunity play a role. Overall, there is still a lot of status consistency.

Recent scholarship on race argues the United States can be best characterized as a racial caste system. As you learned in Chapter 7, in the New Jim Crow, American civil rights activist and writer Michelle Alexander argues that throughout U.S. history there have been a series of systems of control based on race. These systems gave systemic advantages to White people, while subjugating Black and minority groups defined as “others.” Slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration are all variations of this same system. Specifically, we can understand racial caste as a “stigmatized racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom” (Alexander 2012:15). As a result of this system, for Black Americans there is limited to no mobility within society. Dunbar-Ortiz, in An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014), shows how the origins of stratification in the United States are tied to settler colonialism and the dispossession of Indigenous people. She argues that the possession of land is the basis of U.S. history, resulting in settler colonialism and “the founding of a state based on the ideology of White supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft” (Dunbar-Ortiz 2014:1).

Licenses and Attributions for What Is Stratification?

Open Content, Original

“Activity: Stratification, Race, Class, and the Criminal Justice System” by Sonya James is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

“What is Stratification?” by Matthew Gougherty is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Open Content, Shared Previously

Figure 8.2. “Pyramid of Capitalist System” is in the Public Domain.

First four paragraphs from “Defining Stratification” and definitions of wealth and income are modified from “9.1 What Is Social Stratification?”by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Introduction to Sociology 3e, OpenStax, which is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Definitions edited. Edited for consistency and clarity.

“Status Consistency” definition from “What Is Social Stratification?” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Introduction to Sociology 3e, OpenStax, which is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Edited for consistency.

Paragraphs on caste system and class systems from “Stratification Systems” are modified from “9.1 What Is Social Stratification?”by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Introduction to Sociology 3e, OpenStax, which is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Added comparison to feudal system and detail on status consistency.

Figure 8.3. “Painted Hills” by tsaiproject is licensed under CC BY 2.0.