Social Stratification Analysis
Part I
There are many forms of classification in today’s society. That is one of the main reason sociologists believe that stratification is apparent in all societies. Different levels of stratifications exist, such as social differentiation, social institutions, or social structure. Each country approaches stratification differently, specifically in the United States. There are different types of stratification, each has a different category that it fits in. The categories depend on class, gender, and race. Mainly the systems that it depends are on class, slavery, estate, and caste. The main goal of this paper is to shed light on different types of systems in today’s society. This paper will be about the caste system, slavery system, class system, and their social mobility. It will also focus on effect and gender stratification.
The caste system is based on hereditary. That is the main purpose this stratification focus on. It means that whoever is born into their caste, that is the caste the person will belong to for the rest of their life. It is a specific label primarily used in India to determine the social class of a person. In India, there are four main castes one can be born into. In no particular order, we have the Farmers, merchants, warriors, and the priests. (Larkin 2015). Now, these are the majority four main castes in India. There are several others such as the untouchables. The members of these castes are placed so low into the systems that they cannot hold a place in the stratification system. They are just mentioned or known. Although, in developed countries, we do not see caste systems a lot, in places like India they do matter. India has a very strict guideline about the caste system. They have rules and obligations for each system such as members can only marry inside their caste system and not outside. The jobs they can have are the ones that are laid out for them. The ones that are fitted for their caste, this stops them from socially mixing with any other people who are not in their caste. Their entire lifetime they are bound to the caste they are born into. So, their social mobility will be limited because the rules and restrictions that are placed upon them and the caste they belong too. So they must adhere to the strong and strict rules or face the consequences. (Larkin, 2015)
There are several stratifications in society, one stratification we saw in the old days was slavery. Slavery was a big deal in sociology because it is proof of social inequality in society. Slavery is one of the greatest examples of social inequality. For the slavery system, humans were kidnapped and forced against their will by people to work for them. They would enslave millions of people because of their caste or because of their familial status. Some were captured because of the military, but the majority were captured for slavery and to be sold to the highest bidder. A person that is captured and put into slavery is believed to belong to the person that captured them. They are the property of that person and since they are the property of their captures, it is it is up to the person to determine how to treat them and what to do with them. In this system, there was little to no room for social mobility because people weren’t people. They were deemed property, they had next to none opportunity to move up or down in this system. They were trapped into this system for the rest of their lives. (Larkin, 2015)
The system had various social stratifications throughout, another way a population was stratified through this system was an economic position. It means that you group people together by their social class or by how much money they make. This group wasn’t ideal because it wasn’t very flexible. However, it did allow people to have social mobility. This type of system let people move up or down and it wasn’t very strict. This type of system can be compared to India’ caste system since a person’s value or social status is determined by the person’s position in this system. (Larkin, 2015). Since there are social mobility and not a lot of strict rules like the caste system, a person can have a lot of accomplishments and different types of characteristics for which allows them to navigate through this system. Therefore, people are put into this type of system based on their status in the economic world. How much money they make and how well they are doing for themselves gives them a great spot in this system. However, if you are doing the opposite then the positions drop. Where their family originated from, their race, gender, and their achievements. (Larkin, 2015). Since this system does allow for more mobility than the others, there are still hierarchies, classes, and separation among each other. This system can be characterized as an “unequal access to goods, services, and life options”. (Larkin, 2015, para. 17) for the people in this system or classification.
Part II
Stratification comes in many shapes and forms, gender is one of them. Gender goes hand and hand with racial stratification because they both divide and conquer. In the book, Our Social World: An Introduction to Sociology written by Anthony Brown, David Claerbaut, and Timothy Larkin. They used some very great examples in chapter 8. The examples showed via charts and tables explained the differences between men and women. The differences were in different categories regarding education, class, and race. The charts explained that men were typically placed higher on the social stratification hierarchy than women were. Race-based on figure 8.7, which explains that the median house income from 1967 to 2010 shows that households would get based on their race. After this analyzing this chart and comparing the two genders. One can conclude that the women of minority groups, like Hispanics and blacks, they are not paid nearly as much as women or men that were Asian or white.
Figure 8.10, the data tells us that women with certain jobs that have a four-year degree or higher, based on the figures it shows that women are more likely to gravitate towards less majority male occupied jobs such as teaching or nursing. The chart shows how women stray away from the fields like engineering and computer programming. In the book, it showed us how men and women were classified based on their degree in 2009 in Figure 8.12. Each category explained that there was double the amount of men earning degrees than women. One of the main reasons that there were more men earning degrees was that it was believed that only men could get a higher education after high school than women. They believed being educated after high school was a masculine trait and that women shouldn’t be able too. So it left men to get an education while the women were forced into their typical gender roles. (Larkin, 2015). In the book, they showed us great statistics and with those statics came examples about how men and women were placed differently in society. In figure 8.7, it states that men of any race are proven to be the most powerful. It says that households with Asian or white races seemed to make most of the money annually than their counterparts. In figure 8.4, it shows that women, men, and children had a poverty rate based on their race. White had a poverty rate of 31.6% and Asian men had a poverty rate of 24%, While female-headed households had a poverty rate of 39%. It shows that men are more powerful in their households based on income.
In Conclusion, after analyzing the data and information. It is easy to conclude that stratification can make various divisions among the population of the United States. From racial stratification, all the way to gender stratification. It can make a lot of tension among individuals. In India, a lot of individuals rely on being anonymous in order to keep their social mobility. They form relationships outside of their caste private due to strict boundaries. Although it is not strict in the United States, however, it does create racial tension and tension among individuals in classes or genders. Racial stratification can cause a lot of problems, especially in people who are considered minorities. They are often neglected from having opportunities while the same opportunities go to the people who are white. This is reflected highly in income and social status. Especially for women, since they are not men and they are a minority. Since they are already paid less than their male counterparts, stratification can cause a major difference in salary. Stratification creates inequality between races and between men and women.