Social Stratification

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Abstract
In all complex societies, the total stock of valued goods is distributed unequally, with the most privileged individuals and families enjoying a disproportionate share of income, power, and other valued resources. The term ‘stratification system’ refers to the complex of social institutions that generate observed inequalities of this sort. The key components of such systems are (a) the institutional processes that define certain types of goods as valuable and desirable, (b) the rules of allocation that distribute these goods across various positions in the division of labor (e.g., doctor, farmer, ‘housewife’), and (c) the mobility mechanisms that link individuals to positions and thereby generate unequal control over valued resources. There are of course many types of rewards that come to be attached to social positions. Given this complexity, one might expect stratification scholars to adopt a multidimensional approach, with the objective being to describe and explain the distribution of economic, political, cultural, social, and honorific goods. Although some scholars have indeed advocated an approach of this sort, most have instead opted to characterize stratification systems in terms of discrete classes or socioeconomic strata whose members are endowed with similar amounts and types of resources. The goal of stratification research has thus reduced to (a) describing the major forms of class inequality in human history, (b) specifying the structure of contemporary classes and strata, (c) modeling the processes by which individuals move between class and socioeconomic positions, and (d) examining the effects of race, ethnicity, and gender on such mobility processes.

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