Social Stratification

Name: Rao Rashid Zulfiqar, Muhammad Ishfaq, Muhammad

Arif
Roll No: M1F17-BS-PH-0015-0016-0013
Submitted to: Prof. Zia-ur-Rahman
Subject: Sociology
Date: 16-02-2018
Campus: University of Central Punjab, Multan Campus
Table of Contents
Topics Page no.

Definition and Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..3

Historical .………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3

Conflict Theories………………………………………………………………………………………………4

Functionalist Theory .……………………………………………………………………………………….5

Global Stratification………………………………………………………………………………………….5

Social stratification, development and health in Pakistan…………………………………6

Pakistan Social Structure…………………………………………………………………………………..6

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………….7

References………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
Social Stratification

Definition and Introduction

Social inequality is a universal phenomenon in all societies. It
can exist either in form of a hierarchy of groups or individuals or it may exist without the
creation of a hierarchy. In the former case it is called social hierarchy. While in the latter case it
is known as social differentiation for in almost all societies men and women are treated
unequally. If social inequality manifests itself in the form of a hierarchy involving ranking of
groups then it is known as social stratification, thus social stratification is a case of the social
inequality. Social stratification is essentially a group phenomenon. According to Ogburn and
Minkoff the process by which individuals and groups are ranked in a enduring hierarchy of status
is known as stratification. Melvin Tumen defines social. Stratification as an arrangement of any
social group or society into a hierarchy of positions that are unequal about power, property,
social evaluation and psychic gratification. According to Lundberg a stratified society is one
marked by inequality by differences among people that are evaluated by them as being lower and
higher.

Historical:

Karl max
In Marxist theory, the modern mode of production consists of two main economic parts: the base
and the superstructure. The base encompasses the relations of production: employer–employee
work conditions, the technical division of labor, and property relations. Social class, according to
Marx, is determined by one's relationship to the means of production. There exist at least two
classes in any class-based society: the owners of the means of production and those who sell
their labor to the owners of the means of production. At times, Marx almost hints that the ruling
classes seem to own the working class itself as they only have their own labor power ('wage
labor') to offer the more powerful to survive. These relations fundamentally determine the ideas
and philosophies of a society and additional classes may form as part of the superstructure.
Through the ideology of the ruling class throughout much of history, the land-owning aristocracy
false consciousness is promoted both through political and non-political institutions but also
through the arts and other elements of culture. When the aristocracy falls, the bourgeoisie
become the owners of the means of production in the capitalist system. Marx predicted the
capitalist mode would eventually give way, through its own internal conflict, to revolutionary
consciousness and the development of more egalitarian, more communist societies.

Marx also described two other classes, the petite bourgeoisie and the lump proletariat. The petite
bourgeoisie is like a small business class that never really accumulates enough profit to become
part of the bourgeoisie, or even challenge their status. The lumpenproletariat is the underclass,
those with little to no social status. This includes prostitutes, beggars, and the homeless or other
untouchables in a given society. Neither of these subclasses has much influence in Marx's two
major classes, but it is helpful to know that Marx did recognize differences within the classes.

According to Marvin Harris and Tim Ingold, Lewis Henry Morgan's accounts of egalitarian
hunter-gatherers formed part of Karl Marx' and Friedrich Engels' inspiration for communism.
Morgan spoke of a situation in which people living in the same community pooled their efforts
and shared the rewards of those efforts equally. He called this "communism in living." But when
Marx expanded on these ideas, he still emphasized an economically oriented culture, with
property defining the fundamental relationships between people. Yet, issues of ownership and
property are arguably less emphasized in hunter-gatherer societies. This, combined with the very
different social and economic situations of hunter-gatherers may account for many of the
difficulties encountered when implementing communism in industrialized states. As ingold
points out: "The notion of communism, removed from the context of domesticity and harnessed
to support a project of social engineering for large-scale, industrialized states with populations of
millions, eventually came to mean something quite different from what Morgan had intended:
namely, a principle of redistribution that would override all ties of a personal or familial nature,
and cancel out their effects. "The counter-argument to Marxist's conflict theory is the theory of
structural functionalism, argued by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, which states that social
inequality places a vital role in the smooth operation of a society. The Davis–Moore hypothesis
argues that a position does not bring power and prestige because it draws a high income; rather,
it draws a high income because it is functionally important and the available personnel is for one
reason or another scarce. Most high-income jobs are difficult and require a high level of
education to perform, and their compensation is a motivator in society for people to strive to
achieve more.

Conflict Theories
According to Karl Marx in all stratified societies there are two major social
groups: a ruling class and a subject class. The ruling class derives its power from its ownership
and control of the forces of production. The ruling class exploits and oppresses the subject class.
As a result, there is a basic conflict of interest between the two classes. The various institutions
of society such as the legal and political system are instruments of ruling class domination and
serve to further its interests. Marx believed that western society developed through four main
epochs-primitive communism, ancient society, feudal society and capitalist society.

Primitive communism is represented by the societies of

pre-history and provides the only example of the classless society. From then all societies are
divided into two major classes - master and slaves in ancient society, lords and serfs in feudal
society and capitalist and wage laborers’ in capitalist society. Weber sees class in economic
terms. He argues that classes develop in market economies in which individuals compete for
economic gain. He defines a class as a group of individuals who share a similar position in
market economy and by that fact receive similar economic rewards. Thus, a person's class
situation is basically his market situation. Those who share a similar class situation also share
similar life chances. Their economic position will directly affect their chances of obtaining those
things defined as desirable in their society. Weber argues that the major class division is between
those who own the forces of production and those who do not. He distinguished the following
class grouping in capitalist society:

 The propertied upper class.

 The property less white-collar workers.
 The petty bourgeoisie.
 The manual working classes.

Classes of Social Stratification:

As such, stratification is the relative social position of persons within a social group, category,
geographic region, or social unit. In modern Western societies, social stratification typically is
distinguished as three classes.
(i) THE UPPER CLASS
(ii) THE MIDDLE CLASS
(iii) THE LOWER CLASS

These classes can be subdivided into strata, e.g. the

 The Upper-stratum
 The middle-stratum,
 The lower stratum.

Moreover, a social stratum can be formed upon the bases of kinship, clan, tribe or caste, or all four.The
categorization of people by social strata occurs in all societies, ranging from the complex, state-
based or polycentric societies to tribal and feudal societies, which are based upon socio-
economic relations among classes of nobility and classes of peasants. Historically, whether or
not hunter-gatherer societies can be defined as socially stratified or if social stratification began
with agriculture and common acts of social exchange, remains a debated matter in the social
sciences. Determining the structures of social stratification arises from inequalities of status
among persons; therefore, the degree of social inequality determines a person's social stratum.
Generally, the greater the social complexity of a society, the more social strata exists, by way of
social differentiation.

More Explanation and usage:

Social stratification is a term used in the social sciences to describe the relative social position of
persons in a given social group, category, geographical region or other social unit. It derives
from the Latin stratum (plural strata; parallel, horizontal layers) referring to a given society’s
categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth,
income, social status, occupation and power. In modern Western societies, stratification is often
broadly classified into three major divisions of social class: upper class, middle class, and lower
class. Each of these classes can be further subdivided into smaller classes (e.g. "upper
middle").Social strata may also be delineated on the basis of kinship ties or caste relations.

The concept of social stratification is often used and interpreted differently within specific
theories. In sociology, for example, proponents of action theory have suggested that social
stratification is commonly found in developed societies, wherein a dominance hierarchy may be
necessary in order to maintain social order and provide a stable social structure. So-called
conflict theories, such as Marxism, point to the inaccessibility of resources and lack of social
mobility found in stratified societies. Many sociological theorists have criticized the extent to
which the working classes are unlikely to advance socioeconomically while the wealthy tend to
hold political power which they use to exploit the proletariat (laboring class). Talcott Parsons, an
American sociologist, asserted that stability and social order are regulated, in part, by universal
values. Such values are not identical with "consensus" but can as well be an impetus for ardent
social conflict as it has been multiple times through history. Parsons never claimed that universal
values, in and by themselves, "satisfied" the functional prerequisites of a society. Indeed, the
constitution of society is a much more complicated codification of emerging historical factors.
Theorists such as Ralf Dahrendorf alternately note the tendency toward an enlarged middle-class
in modern Western societies due to the necessity of an educated workforce in technological
economies. Various social and political perspectives concerning globalization, such as
dependency theory, suggest that these effects are due to change in the status of workers to the
third world.

Four underlying principles:

Four principles are posited to underlie social stratification.

 First, social stratification is socially defined as a property of a society rather than

individuals in that society.

 Second, social stratification is reproduced from generation to generation.

 Third, social stratification is universal (found in every society) but variable (differs across
time and place).

 Fourth, social stratification involves not just quantitative inequality but qualitative beliefs

and attitudes about social status.
Complexity:
Although stratification is not limited to complex societies, all complex societies exhibit features
of stratification. In any complex society, the total stock of valued goods is distributed unequally,
wherein the most privileged individuals and families enjoy a disproportionate share of income,
power, and other valued resources. The term "stratification system" is sometimes used to refer to
the complex social relationships and social structure that generate these observed inequalities.
The key components of such systems are: (a) social-institutional processes that define certain
types of goods as valuable and desirable, (b) the rules of allocation that distribute goods and
resources across various positions in the division of labor (e.g., physician, farmer, ‘housewife’),
and (c) the social mobility processes that link individuals to positions and thereby generate
unequal control over valued resources.

Social Mobility:
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, social groups or categories of people between
the layers or strata in a stratification system. This movement can be intergenerational (within a
generation) or intergenerational (between two or more generations). Such mobility is sometimes
used to classify different systems of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those
that allow for mobility between strata, typically by placing value on the achieved status
characteristics of individuals. Those societies having the highest levels of intergenerational
mobility are considered to be the most open and malleable systems of stratification. Those
systems in which there is little to no mobility, even on an intergenerational basis, are considered
closed stratification systems. For example, in caste systems, all aspects of social status are
ascribed, such that one's social position at birth is the position one holds for a lifetime.

Theories of stratification:
Karl Marx:

In Marxist theory, the modern mode of production consists of two main economic parts: the base
and the superstructure. The base encompasses the relations of production: employer employee
work conditions, the technical division of labor, and property relations. Social class, according to
Marx, is determined by one's relationship to the means of production. There exist at least two
classes in any class based society: the owners of the means of production and those who sell their
labor to the owners of the means of production. At times, Marx almost hints that the ruling
classes seem to own the working class itself as they only have their own labor power ('wage
labor') to offer the more powerful in order to survive. These relations fundamentally determine
the ideas and philosophies of a society and additional classes may form as part of the
superstructure. Through the ideology of the ruling class throughout much of history, the land-
owning aristocracy false consciousness is promoted both through political and non-political
institutions but also through the arts and other elements of culture. When the aristocracy falls, the
bourgeoisie become the owners of the means of production in the capitalist system. Marx
predicted the capitalist mode would eventually give way, through its own internal conflict, to
revolutionary consciousness and the development of more egalitarian, more communist societies.

Marx also described two other classes, the petite bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. The
petite bourgeoisie is like a small business class that never really accumulates enough profit to
become part of the bourgeoisie, or even challenge their status. The lumpenproletariat is the
underclass, those with little to no social status. This includes prostitutes, beggars, and the
homeless or other untouchables in a given society. Neither of these subclasses has much
influence in Marx's two major classes, but it is helpful to know that Marx did recognize
differences within the classes.
According to Marvin Harris and Tim Ingold, Lewis Henry Morgan's accounts of egalitarian
hunter-gatherers formed part of Karl Marx' and Friedrich Engels' inspiration for communism.
Morgan spoke of a situation in which people living in the same community pooled their efforts
and shared the rewards of those efforts fairly equally. He called this "communism in living." But
when Marx expanded on these ideas, he still emphasized an economically oriented culture, with
property defining the fundamental relationships between people. Yet, issues of ownership and
property are arguably less emphasized in hunter-gatherer societies. This, combined with the very
different social and economic situations of hunter-gatherers may account for many of the
difficulties encountered when implementing communism in industrialized states. As in gold
points out: "The notion of communism, removed from the context of domesticity and harnessed
to support a project of social engineering for large-scale, industrialized states with populations of
millions, eventually came to mean something quite different from what Morgan had intended:
namely, a principle of redistribution that would override all ties of a personal or familial nature,
and cancel out their effects."

The counter-argument to Marxist's conflict theory is the theory of structural functionalism,

argued by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, which states that social inequality places a vital
role in the smooth operation of a society. The Davis–Moore hypothesis argues that a position
does not bring power and prestige because it draws a high income; rather, it draws a high income
because it is functionally important and the available personnel are for one reason or another
scarce. Most high-income jobs are difficult and require a high level of education to perform, and
their compensation is a motivator in society for people to strive to achieve more.

Max Weber

Max Weber was strongly influenced by Marx's ideas but rejected the possibility of effective
communism, arguing that it would require an even greater level of detrimental social control and
bureaucratization than capitalist society. Moreover, Weber criticized the dialectical presumption
of a proletariat revolt, maintaining it to be unlikely. Instead, he develops a three-component
theory of stratification and the concept of life chances. Weber held there are more class divisions
than Marx suggested, taking different concepts from both functionalist and Marxist theories to
create his own system. He emphasizes the difference between class, status and power, and treats
these as separate but related sources of power, each with different effects on social action.
Working half a century later than Marx, Weber claims there to be four main social classes: the
upper class, the white collar workers, the petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class.
Weber's theory more-closely resembles contemporary Western class structures, although
economic status does not currently seem to depend strictly on earnings in the way Weber
envisioned.

Weber derives many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social structure
of Germany. He notes that, contrary to Marx's theories, stratification is based on more than
simple ownership of capital. Weber examines how many members of the aristocracy lacked
economic wealth yet had strong political power. Many wealthy families lacked prestige and
power, for example, because they were Jewish. Weber introduced three independent factors that
form his theory of stratification hierarchy, which are; class, status, and power.

Class: A person's economic position in a society, based on birth and individual achievement.
Weber differs from Marx in that he does not see this as the supreme factor in stratification.
Weber notes how corporate executives control firms they typically do not own; Marx would have
placed these people in the proletariat despite their high incomes by virtue of the fact they sell
their labor instead of owning capital.
Status: A person's prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society. Weber notes that political
power is not rooted in capital value solely, but also in one's individual status. Poets or saints, for
example, can have extensive influence on society despite few material resources.

Power: A person's ability to get their way despite the resistance of others, particularly in their
ability to engage social change. For example, individuals in government jobs, such as an
employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or a member of the United States Congress,
may hold little property or status but still wield considerable social power.

 Wright Mills

Wright Mills, drawing from the theories of Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca, contends that
the imbalance of power in society derives from the complete absence of countervailing powers
against corporate leaders of the Power elite. Mills both incorporated and revised Marxist ideas.
While he shared Marx's recognition of a dominant wealthy and powerful class, Mills believed
that the source for that power lay not only in the economic realm but also in the political and
military arenas. During the 1950s, Mills stated that hardly anyone knew about the power elite's
existence, some individuals (including the elite themselves) denied the idea of such a group, and
other people vaguely believed that a small formation of a powerful elite existed. "Some
prominent individuals knew that Congress had permitted a handful of political leaders to make
critical decisions about peace and war; and that two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan in
the name of the United States, but neither they nor anyone they knew had been consulted."
Mills explains that the power elite embody a privileged class whose members are able to
recognize their high position within society. In order to maintain their highly exalted position
within society, members of the power elite tend to marry one another, understand and accept one
another, and also work together. The most crucial aspect of the power elite's existence lays
within the core of education. "Youthful upper-class members attend prominent preparatory
schools, which not only open doors to such elite universities as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton but
also to the universities' highly exclusive clubs. These memberships in turn pave the way to the
prominent social clubs located in all major cities and serving as sites for important business
contacts." Examples of elite members who attended prestigious universities and were members
of highly exclusive clubs can be seen in George W. Bush and John Kerry. Both Bush and Kerry
were members of the Skull and Bones club while attending Yale University. This club includes
members of some of the most powerful men of the twentieth century, all of which are forbidden
to tell others about the secrets of their exclusive club. Throughout the years, the Skull and Bones
club has included presidents, cabinet officers, Supreme Court justices, spies, captains of industry,
and often their sons and daughters join the exclusive club, creating a social and political network
like none ever seen before.

The upper class individuals who receive elite educations typically have the essential background
and contacts to enter into the three branches of the power elite: The political leadership, the
military circle, and the corporate elite.

The Political Leadership: Mills held that, prior to the end of World War II, leaders of
corporations became more prominent within the political sphere along with a decline in central
decision-making among professional politicians.

The Military Circle: During the 1950s-1960s, increasing concerns about warfare resulted in top
military leaders and issues involving defense funding and military personnel training becoming a
top priority within the United States. Most of the prominent politicians and corporate leaders
have been strong proponents of military spending.

The Corporate Elite: Mills explains that during the 1950s, when the military emphasis was
recognized, corporate leaders worked with prominent military officers who dominated the
development of policies. Corporate leaders and high-ranking military officers were mutually
supportive of each other.

Mills shows that the power elite has an "inner-core" made up of individuals who are able to
move from one position of institutional power to another; for example, a prominent military
officer who becomes a political adviser or a powerful politician who becomes a corporate
executive ". These people have more knowledge and a greater breadth of interests than their
colleagues. Prominent bankers and financiers, who Mills considered 'almost professional go-
betweens of economic, political, and military affairs,' are also members of the elite's inner core.

Global stratification:
The world and the pace of social change today are very different than in the time of Karl Marx,
Max Weber, or even C. Wright Mills. Globalizing forces lead to rapid international integration
arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.
Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the
telegraph and its posterity the Internet, are major factors in globalization, generating further
interdependence of economic and cultural activities.
Like a stratified class system within a nation, looking at the world economy one can see class
positions in the unequal distribution of capital and other resources between nations. Rather than
having separate national economies, nations are considered as participating in this world
economy. The world economy manifests a global division of labor with three overarching
classes: core countries, semi-periphery countries and periphery countries, according to World-
systems and Dependency theories. Core nations primarily own and control the major means of
production in the world and perform the higher-level production tasks and provide international
financial services. Periphery nations own very little of the world's means of production (even
when factories are located in periphery nations) and provide low to non-skilled labor. Semi
peripheral nations are midway between the core and periphery. They tend to be countries moving
towards industrialization and more diversified economies. Core nations receive the greatest share
of surplus production, and periphery nations receive the least. Furthermore, core nations are
usually able to purchase raw materials and other goods from noncore nations at low prices, while
demanding higher prices for their exports to noncore nations. A global workforce employed
through a system of global labor arbitrage ensures that companies in core countries can utilize
the cheapest semi-and non-skilled labor for production.

Today we have the means to gather and analyze data from economies across the globe. Although
many societies worldwide have made great strides toward more equality between differing
geographic regions, in terms of the standard of living and life chances afforded to their peoples,
we still find large gaps between the wealthiest and the poorest within a nation and between the
wealthiest and poorest nations of the world. A January 2014 Oxfam report indicates that the 85
wealthiest individuals in the world have a combined wealth equal to that of the bottom 50% of
the world's population, or about 3.5 billion people. By contrast, for 2012, the World Bank reports
that 21 percent of people worldwide, around 1.5 billion, live in extreme poverty, at or below
$1.25 a day. Zygmunt Bauman has provocatively observed that the rise of the rich is linked to
their capacity to lead highly mobile lives: 'Mobility climbs to the rank of the uppermost among
coveted values -and the freedom to move, perpetually a scarce and unequally distributed
commodity, fast becomes the main stratifying factor of our late modern or postmodern time.

Social stratification, development and health in Pakistan

There is a growing literature on an overall direct relationship between health and social position
in developed countries. The relationship, however, is less well documented in developing
countries where social hierarchies are changing more rapidly, demographic and health transitions
are less advanced, and this topic has received less attention from researchers than in some
developed countries. This paper presents an empirical investigation of the relationship between
social stratification and social development and population health using data on over 6000 adults
from the National Health Survey of Pakistan, a nationally representative health examination
survey of people in that country. We analyze four indicators of poor nutrition in adults from this
data set. The findings reveal complex relationships among social development, social
stratification and the consequences for the health of the people of Pakistan. Underweight is
related to economic status, anaemia to education and social development, and both severe dental
caries and a monotonous diet are related to both development and economic status which interact
with each other. These results suggest that continued conceptual refinement and the development
of standardized measures of stratification and development would contribute to building cross-
nationally comparable data sets addressing issues of the relationship among health and economic
development and health transitions.

Pakistan Social Structure

A social class is a homogeneous group of people in a society formed on the combined basis of

1. Education

2. Occupation

3. Income

4. Place of residence

And have who have similar social values similar interest in life and they behave alike have
approximately equal position of respect or status in a society. The social classes of Pakistan.

1. Upper social class

2. Middle social class

3. Working social class

Conclusion
Social stratification is a particular form of social inequality. All societies arrange their members
in terms of superiority, inferiority and equality. Stratification is a process of interaction or
differentiation whereby some people come to rank higher than others. In one word, when
individuals and groups are ranked, according to some commonly accepted basis of valuation in a
hierarchy of status levels based upon the inequality of social positions, social stratification
occurs. Social stratification means division of society into different strata or layers. It involves a
hierarchy of social groups. Members of a layer have a common identity. They have a similar life
style.

References:
 http://www.sociologyguide.com/social-stratification/index.php
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stratification#Global_stratification
 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14499511
 https://www.scribd.com/document/96991250/SOCIAL-STRUCTURE-OF-PAKISTAN
 http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/social-stratification-meaning-types-and-
characteristics-sociology-2446-words/6199