Social Class And Social Mobility 2006 Alan S

Characteristics of Class Systems • In a class system, social stratification is based on both birth and individual achievement. – Industrial societies move towards meritocracy, social stratification based on personal merit. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 2

The Persistence of Class Status • Class status persists across generations because it is backed up by an ideology, a set of cultural beliefs that justify social stratification and inequality. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 3

The American Class System • Inequality follows relatively consistent and stable patterns that persist through time. – Typically, stratified groups in the United States are referred to as the upper class, the upper middle class, the lower middle class, the working class and the lower class. – Income inequality is high in the United States; it is increasing; and it is at its highest level in 50 years. • In 2001, the top 20 percent of the population received half of the income and inequality in wealth is even greater. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 4

The American Class System Social class largely determines people’s life chances and style of life. Children and the elderly account for nearly half of all Americans living in poverty. Three theories predominate regarding poverty: The culture of poverty theory, poverty as situational poverty as a structural feature of capitalist societies © 2006 Alan S. Berger 5

Social Inequality in the US • U. S. society is highly stratified, but many people underestimate the extent of structured inequality in U. S. society for the following reasons: • In principle, the law gives equal standing to all. • Our culture celebrates individual autonomy and achievement. We tend to interact with people like ourselves © 2006 Alan S. Berger 6

Social Inequality in the US The United States is an affluent society. • Income consists of wages or salaries from work and earnings from investments. U. S. society has more income inequality than most other industrial societies. • Wealth consists of the total amount of money and other assets, minus outstanding debts. It is distributed even less equally than income. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 7

Income and Wealth • Income: wages and salaries measured over some period, such as per hour or per year • Wealth: total of a person’s material assets, including savings, land, stocks, and other types of property, minus his or her debts at a single point in time © 2006 Alan S. Berger 8

Mean Household Income by Quintile, 2006 Source: U. S. Census 2007 d. © 2009

• Power is also unequally distributed. • Occupational prestige. Occupation serves as a key source of social prestige since we commonly evaluate each other according to what we do. • Schooling affects both occupation and income. • Social Stratification and Birth. • Ancestry. Family is our point of entry into the social system. • Gender. On average, women have less income, wealth, and occupational prestige than men. • Race and ethnicity. Race is closely linked to social position in the United States. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 10

Why Stratification ? • Explanations of social stratification involve value judgments. • The Bell Curve Debate: Are Rich People Really Smarter? : • A series of claims made in The Bell Curve (Murray, Charles and Hernstein, Richard J. , Free Press, 1994) that Race and class are related to intelligence. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 11

Historical patterns of ideology. Ideology changes as a society’s economy and technology change. • Is Getting Rich "The Survival of the Fittest"? • Spencer’s view that people get more or less what they deserve in life remains part of our individualistic culture. • Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic © 2006 Alan S. Berger 12

Social Mobility The process of moving from one stratification level to another takes a number of forms: vertical horizontal intergenerational intragenerational. Intragenerational social mobility is a change in social position occurring during a person’s lifetime; intergenerational social mobility is upward or downward social mobility of children in relation to their parents. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 13

Social Mobility • When sociologists speak of social mobility, they usually mean intergenerational occupational mobility. • More Americans are upwardly mobile than downwardly mobile across generations. • The processes of status attainment are different for women and blacks than for white males. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 14

Social Mobility • Social Classes in the United States. • The upper class. Historically, though less so today, the upper class has been composed of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. • The upper-upper class includes less than 1 percent of the U. S. population. • The lower-upper class are the “working rich”; earnings rather than inherited wealth are the primary source of their income. • Color of Money: Being Rich in Black and White. The number of affluent African Americans has increased markedly in recent years, but well-to-do blacks differ from their white counterparts in significant ways. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 15

Social Mobility • Religion. • Historically, people of English ancestry have enjoyed the most wealth and wielded the greatest power in the United States. • Throughout our history, upward mobility has sometimes meant converting to a higher-ranking religion © 2006 Alan S. Berger 16

Social Mobility • Education – Impact of formal schooling is even greater than that of family background – Important means of intergenerational mobility – Critical factor in development of cultural capital © 2009 The Mc. Graw Hill Companies 17

Social Mobility • Occupational Mobility – Common among males – Most mobility is minor

The Shrinking Middle Class • Contributing factors: – Disappearing opportunities for those with little education – Global competition and rapid advances in technology – Growing dependence on temporary workforce – Rise of new-growth industries and nonunion workplaces © 2009 The Mc. Graw Hill Companiesr 19

What Difference Does Class Make • Health • Richer people live, on average, seven years longer • because they eat more nutritious food, • live in safer and less stressful environments, and receive better medical care. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 20

• Values. Affluent people with greater education and financial security are more tolerant of controversial behavior, while working-class people tend to be less tolerant. • Politics. • Well-off people tend to be more conservative on economic issues but more liberal on social issues. The reverse is true for those people of lower social standing. • Higher-income people are more likely to vote and join political organizations than people in 21 the lower class. © 2006 Alan S. Berger

What Difference Does Class Make Family and gender. • Most lower-class families are somewhat larger than middle-class families. • Working-class parents encourage conventional norms and respect to authorities • whereas parents of higher social standing transmit a different “cultural capital” to their children, stressing individuality and imagination. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 22

Life Chances • Max Weber saw class as being closely related to people’s life chances: their opportunities to provide themselves with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences – In times of danger, affluent and powerful have a better chance of surviving than people of ordinary means – Digital divide is recent aspect of social inequality © 2009 The Mc. Graw Hill 23 Companies

The Shrinking Middle Class • Only about 22 percent of American households qualified as middle class in 2006, compared to 28 percent in 1967 – About half rose to higher ranking, and half dropped to lower position – Suggests broadly based middle class is being replaced by two growing groups of rich and poor © 2009 The Mc. Graw Hill Companies 24

Poverty • In 2012, 16 percent of the U. S. population—were living in poverty

Defining Poverty • Absolute poverty: • minimum level of subsistence that no family should

Who Are the Poor? • Our stereotypes about poverty are flawed • Likelihood of being in poverty is shaped by factors such as age, race, ethnicity, and family type • Feminization of poverty is a worldwide phenomenon • Underclass: long-term poor who lack training and skills © 2009 The Mc. Graw Hill Companies 27

Who Are the Poor in the United States? Note: Data for 2006, as reported

People Below Poverty Level Source: 2006 census data presented in Bureau of the Census

Education Pays: Full-Time, Year-Round Workers, Ages 25– 64, 2006 Source: U. S. Census 2007

• Myth versus reality. • Four general conclusions about social mobility in the United States: • Social mobility over the course of the last century has been fairly high. • The long-term trend in social mobility has been upward. • Within a single generation, social mobility is usually small. • Social mobility since the 1970 s has been uneven. • Mobility varies by income level. • Mobility varies by race, ethnicity and gender. • The "American Dream: " Still a reality? • For many workers, earnings have stalled. • Multiple job-holding is up. • More jobs offer little income. • Young people are remaining at home. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 31

• CEOs Get Richer: • The Great Mansions Return – The Global Economy and U. S. class structure. Much of the industrial production that gave U. S. workers high-paying jobs a generation ago has moved overseas. In their place, the economy now offers “service work, ” which often pays far less. © 2006 Alan S. Berger 32

• Explaining poverty. • One view: The poor are mostly responsible for their own poverty. • The poor become trapped in a culture of poverty, a lower-class subculture that can destroy people’s ambition. • Another view: Society is primarily responsible for poverty. • Most of the evidence suggests that it is society • William Julius Wilson points out that while people continue to talk about welfare reform, neither major political party has said anything about the lack of work in central cities. He didn’t say the same problem exists in rural communities © 2006 Alan S. Berger 33

In 1999 16% of families non rural Maine earned less than $25, 000 a year. In rural Maine families that number was 26%. 15% of rural Maine’s children live in poverty compared to 12% of non rural Maine. A family’s socioeconomic status is the best predictor of school readiness, academic success, physical, social, emotional development and future occupational choices Making Kids Count in Rural Northern New England – prepared by Northern NE Kids Count collaborative (2004) © 2006 Alan S. Berger 34

1930 s Elm Grove, CA © 2006 Alan S. Berger 35

Maine 2001, Adam waiting for his mom © 2006 Alan S. Berger 36

Social Mobility • Race and Ethnicity – Class system more rigid for African Americans than for other racial groups – Typical Hispanic has less than 10 percent of the wealth that a White person has • Gender – Traditional mobility studies have ignored gender – Women especially likely to be trapped in poverty © 2009 The Mc. Graw Hill Companies 37