Social Stratification

Open and closed systems, and mobility

A closed system fixes position at birth and permits little movement; a caste order is the type case. An open system permits movement on the basis of achievement; a class order approximates it. All real systems lie between, and the useful question is how much movement occurs, which is measured as social mobility.

Kinds of mobility.

• Vertical: movement up or down between strata.
• Horizontal: movement between positions at the same level, from one occupation to another of similar standing.
• Intergenerational: comparing a person's position with their parents'. The standard measure of openness.
• Intragenerational: movement within a person's own working life.
• Structural: movement caused by a change in the shape of the occupational structure, as when industrialisation creates many new positions above, so that people rise without anyone falling.
• Exchange or circulation mobility: movement in which one person's rise is another's fall, which is the harder kind and the better test of openness.

The distinction between structural and exchange mobility is the one that carries marks, because a society may show a great deal of upward movement, all of it structural, while remaining exactly as closed as before.

Why does stratification persist? The central debate

The functionalist explanation: Davis and Moore

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore argued that stratification is universal because it is functionally necessary. Their argument runs in steps, and should be given as steps.

1. Some positions in a society are more important than others and require greater talent and longer training.
2. Only a limited number of people have the talent, and training is costly and involves sacrifice.
3. To induce the talented to undergo the training and to fill these positions, society must attach greater rewards to them: income, prestige and leisure.
4. Unequal rewards attached to positions produce stratification.
5. Therefore stratification is necessary and inevitable in any society.

Tumin's criticism

Melvin Tumin's reply is the standard criticism and must be given with the theory.

1. How is functional importance measured? Independently of the reward attached, there is no measure. The argument then becomes circular: positions are important because they are well rewarded, and well rewarded because they are important.
2. The pool of talent is not freely available. Stratification itself restricts who can discover and develop talent, so the argument assumes what it must prove. This is the point already made in [Social Determinants of Economic Development].
3. Training is not only a sacrifice. It carries prestige, leisure and, in many societies, is financed by the family, so the compensation argument overstates the cost.
4. Rewards need not be material or unequal to this degree. Intrinsic satisfaction and social duty motivate people, and the observed gap between the highest and lowest rewards is far greater than any incentive argument requires.
5. Stratification is dysfunctional. It wastes talent, produces hostility and distrust, distributes loyalty unequally, and is a standing source of conflict.

Sorokin's account, which MU has asked for by name

Pitirim A. Sorokin treated stratification as universal and permanent, and his contribution is threefold.

Its forms. He distinguished economic, political and occupational stratification, and held that a society's profile on the three does not necessarily coincide, which anticipates Weber's three dimensions.

Its fluctuation. The height and the profile of the social pyramid fluctuate over time within limits: societies become more and then less unequal, and no permanent trend towards either equality or inequality can be established. This is his cyclical view, met again in [Theories of Social Change], applied to stratification.

Mobility. He gave the systematic account of social mobility, distinguishing horizontal from vertical movement and identifying the institutions that operate as channels of vertical circulation: the army, the church, the school, political organisations, professional bodies and marriage. The school he regarded as the principal channel and as a testing and sifting agency which selects who may rise, which is the point [Social Determinants of Economic Development] makes about education.

The conflict explanation

Marx: stratification arises from the ownership of the means of production, and persists because those who own it control the state, the law and the ideas by which the arrangement is justified. Weber: stratification has three dimensions, class, status and party, which vary independently, and this is the account that fits India best, since ritual status and economic class do not coincide there. Both are developed in [Class].

The judgment to offer. The functionalist account explains why some inequality of reward exists in every society; it does not explain the amount of inequality observed, nor its inheritance across generations, which is exactly what a purely functional account cannot justify: nothing about the importance of a position explains why the child of its holder should start ahead.

A worked example

Take a hundred children born in one district in 1990 and follow them to 2025.

Structural mobility would show if the district industrialised: many new positions above the ones their parents held, so a large proportion could rise without anyone falling. Impressive figures, and consistent with a completely closed system.

Exchange mobility is the real test: how many children of the lowest stratum reached the highest, and how many children of the highest fell. If almost none did either, the system is closed however much movement the aggregate figures show.

The additional questions a sociologist would ask are about the mechanism: who obtained the schooling that qualifies a person for the new positions; whose parents could support them through unpaid training; who had the contacts through which such work is found; and how caste and gender bore on each of those. Those questions, and not the aggregate rate, are what stratification research consists of, and they are answered by the methods in Module III.

Quick revision

1. Stratification is the ranking of a society into layers receiving unequal shares of wealth, power and prestige.
2. Tumin's characteristics: it is social, ancient, universal, in diverse forms, consequential for life chances, about groups not individuals, supported by beliefs, and transmitted across generations.
3. Forms: slavery, estates, caste, class; with gender and race and ethnicity cutting across all of them. They operate simultaneously, which is intersectionality.
4. Closed systems fix position at birth (caste); open systems permit achievement (class). All real systems are between.
5. Mobility: vertical, horizontal, intergenerational, intragenerational, structural and exchange. Structural mobility can be large while the society remains closed.
6. Davis and Moore: important positions need talent and training, so unequal rewards are necessary to fill them; therefore stratification is inevitable.
7. Tumin: functional importance cannot be measured independently of reward, so the argument is circular; the pool of talent is restricted by stratification itself; training is not purely a sacrifice; the observed inequality exceeds any incentive requirement; and stratification is dysfunctional, wasting talent and generating conflict.

Test yourself

1. Define social stratification and give five of its characteristics. The division of a society into a hierarchy of layers, ranked above and below one another and receiving unequal shares of wealth, power and prestige. It is social rather than natural, since it is society that converts differences into ranks; it is ancient and found in every developed society; it takes diverse forms; it determines life chances, including health, education and length of life; and it applies to groups rather than individuals, is justified by supporting beliefs, and is transmitted across generations.

2. Distinguish structural from exchange mobility and say why it matters. Structural mobility is movement produced by a change in the shape of the occupational structure, as when industrialisation creates many new positions above so that people rise without anyone falling. Exchange mobility is movement in which one person's rise is matched by another's fall. It matters because a society may record a great deal of upward movement, all of it structural, while remaining exactly as closed as before; only exchange mobility tests whether positions are genuinely open.

3. State the Davis and Moore theory of stratification. That some positions in a society are functionally more important than others and require scarce talent and long, costly training; that to induce the talented to undertake that training and occupy those positions, society must attach greater rewards of income, prestige and leisure to them; that unequal rewards attached to positions constitute stratification; and that stratification is therefore functionally necessary and universally found.

4. Give Tumin's criticism of it. That functional importance cannot be measured independently of the reward attached, making the argument circular; that stratification itself restricts who can discover and develop talent, so the theory assumes the free pool of talent it needs; that training carries prestige and is often financed by families, so it is not simply a sacrifice requiring compensation; that the observed inequality vastly exceeds anything an incentive argument requires; and that stratification is dysfunctional, wasting talent and generating hostility and conflict.

5. Why is it wrong to treat caste, class, gender and ethnicity as alternatives? Because they operate simultaneously rather than as systems from which a society selects one. Every person occupies a position on each, and the disadvantages do not simply add: the position of a woman of a subordinated caste is not the sum of the disadvantages of caste and of gender taken separately, since each alters how the other operates. That is the point of the concept of intersectionality.