stratification in
industrial societies
As the technologies
of societies have advanced, their systems of stratification have grown more
complex. The increased productivity of
industrial technology has greatly expanded the range of possibilities for inequality,
and refinements in the division of labor have created numerous occupational
positions between the highest paid and the most respected, and the lowers paid
and least respected. There has also
been an increase in the degree to which different dimensions of inequality are
independent of one another. As a
result, it is no longer possible to characterize stratification as a simple
matter of a few “haves” and a huge majority of “have nots,” as was the case in
the typical advanced agrarian society (324).
Political
Stratification
Despite the
differences in the political system of industrial societies, one thing is true
of them all: their political elites
have the greatest influence in choosing among the wide range of options
available to industrial societies and in influencing the way their huge
economic surpluses will be apportioned.
In agrarian
societies, the governing elite was generally a small, homogeneous, and
well-defined group, and top positions were often hereditary. In industrial societies, there is a greater
openness of the political system that allows a somewhat more diverse set or
group to enter the ranks of the political elite through multiple channels, and
multiparty electoral systems produce and sustain competing groups of
elites. To complicate matters further,
constitutional principles in the democracies often provide a variety of checks
on executive authority, while federal systems divide political power between
national officials and regional officials (325).
In a number of
industrial societies, there is a strong symbiotic relation between politicians
and economic elites. This is especially
evident in societies with brokerage-type political parties (325-326).
Control of the
economic surplus in industrial societies is not simply a matter of elites
versus masses. Different sets of elites
often come into conflict with one another.
Another significant feature of the relation between elites and the
masses in western industrial societies is the amount of power that has been
acquired by organizations representing large blocs of ordinary citizens (326).
Today, because of the
productivity of industrial societies and their democratic polities, almost all
parts of the population share to some degree both in the control of the
economic surplus and in its benefits (327).
The Distribution
of Income
In industrial
societies, incomes vary enormously with the US and Canada having the most
unequal distributions. The highest
earning 20% of households receive 2.7 times the share of the lowest earning 40%
in the US, and 2.3 times their share in Canada. Nonetheless, incomes in industrial societies, including the US
and Canada, are more equal than in contemporary nonindustrial societies (328).
The Distribution
of Wealth
Wealth appears to be
more unequally distributed than income in industrial societies. In equalities in wealth are much more
closely linked to age than are inequalities in income. As individuals grow older, most accumulate
household furnishing and other possessions, pay off mortgages on their homes,
and build up equity in pension funds.
Turning to trends, however, there is no clear evidence that ownership of
wealth has consistently grown either more concentrated or more dispersed (331).
Occupational
Stratification
For most members of
industrial societies, their occupations are the chief determinant of their
income and wealth (332).
Educational
Stratification
One of the great
achievements of industrial societies has been the expansion of educational
opportunities. Formal education is no
longer a privilege limited to children of an affluent minority. Despite this increase, however, inequalities
in their utilization persist. The
amount of education an individual receives is a function of many things: intelligence, motivation, health, peer
influence, family tradition, and family resources.
Differences in
educational achievement have substantial consequences for subsequent
achievement in the occupational system of stratification. Most jobs in modern industrial societies
have educational prerequisites, and insufficient years of education or lack of
an appropriate diploma can bar otherwise qualified individuals from careers in
many fields (333). The importance of
educational stratification today is clearly evident in data on the relationship
between education and income. The most
highly educated young Americans, receive almost 3 times more income than their
least educated counterparts (334).
Racial and Ethnic
Stratification
Many industrial
societies have racial or ethnic divisions within them. Canada between French and English speaking
populations, Belgium between Flemings and Walloons, and the US between African
and European Americans. When membership
in an ethnic or racial group has an appreciable influence on an individual’s
access to the benefits a society offers, the group has become, in effect, a
class (334).
Classes of this
kinds, however, are different from most others in several respects:
1. the
resource that is involved in ethnic and racial systems of stratification is an
ascribed characteristic;
2. racial
and ethnic classes usually have a greater degree of class consciousness than
most others;
3. because
physical traits and primary relationships are involved, it is more difficult
for an individual to move into or out of an ethnic or racial class (335).
Age and Sex
Stratification
Inequalities based on
age and sex have been part of every human society. To some extent, these inequalities reflect genetic differences
among the members. These biologically based
differences have been reinforced and extended in most societies by cultural
norms. In this sense, modern industrial
societies resemble preindustrial societies (337).
In virtually all
industrial societies the income of women is substantially lower than that of
men. This is partly due to a heritage
when women seldom worked for long outside the home and when those who did were
assumed to be supplementing their husband’s or father’s income and therefore
less in need of high wages than men.
But it is also rooted in the present.
Married women in the paid labor force find that they must constantly balance
the demands of their jobs and careers against those of their families and
children. Nevertheless. this wage gap
has closed with advancing industrialization (338).
The legal and
political standing of women has also greatly improved as a result of
industrialization. Laws that once
restricted their right to own property have been eliminated, and women now own
much of the wealth in all western societies (339).
Vertical mobility
Compared with
agrarian societies, industrial societies offer many more opportunities for
individuals to improve their status. In
agrarian societies, high birthrates ensured an oversupply of labor in almost
every generation. At every level in
society, a substantial percentage of children were obliged to work in
occupations of lower status than their parents or to join the ranks of beggars,
outlaws, prostitutes, and vagabonds.
Although a few improved their situation, far more were downwardly mobile
(340).
In industrial
societies, conditions are strikingly different. Falling birthrates have reduced the oversupply of labor, while
technological advances have greatly increased the proportion of high-status,
high-income jobs. Furthermore, because
the upper classes have smaller families than the lower classes, opportunities
are created for many children of the latter to become upwardly mobile. Finally, flawed though they are, the systems
of free public education in industrial societies give talented and disciplined
children from the lower classes an opportunity to acquire skills that can help
them move up the social ladder (340).
As a result, there is
no industrial society in which the rate of downward mobility exceeds the rate
of upward mobility. This development
has undoubtedly been a factor in reducing the threat of a working-class revolution
predicted by Marx (341).
Social
inequality: 2 Basic Trends
In advanced
industrial societies, legally based hereditary status has been virtually
eliminated. In addition, opportunities
for participation in political decision making have substantially broadened in
industrial societies. The franchise has
been extended ever more widely until virtually the entire adult population is
now able to vote in all of them. Finally,
income inequality has bee greatly reduced and though inequalities exist, the
change has been significant (341).
Thus, the overall
level of inequality in industrial societies is considerably less than that in
agrarian societies of the past, or in most nonindustrial societies today. An important consequence of this is the rising
standard of living and improved life-chances of the average member of
industrial societies (342-343).
The gap between rich
and poor nations reveals the other side of the development coin: while on the one hand the advancing
technology of industrialization has helped reduce the level of inequality
within industrial societies, on the other it has increased inequality among
societies in the world system. This gap
has been widening ever since the start of the industrial era. For instance, between 1860 and 1990, the
wealthiest quarter of the world’s population increased its share of world
income fro 58-89% while the bottom share fell from 12.5 to 2%. With the new technology gradually eroding
the barriers between societies, the social impact of this trend is bound to
increase (343).