ASSIGNMENT: SOCIOLOGY

TITLE:
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY

SUBMITTED TO:
MAM MOBINA FARASAT

SUBMITTED BY:
SANA SHAHID (32)
BISMA ZUBAIR (11)

CLASS:
BBA (Business Administration)

SEMESTER:
FIVE

SESSION:
2018-2022
 SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based

on socioeconomic factorslike wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, 
social status, or derived power (social and political). As such, stratification is the relative
social position of persons within a social group, category, geographic region, or social unit.
Social stratification is typically defined in terms of three social classes:
 upper class
  middle class
  lower class
each class can be subdivided into the upper-stratum, the middle-stratum, and the lower
stratum. Moreover, a social stratum can be formed upon the bases of kinship, tribe, or caste.
Max Weber determined that the three dimensions of social stratification :
 social standing
 social prestige
 power
The concept of social stratification is interpreted differently by various theoretical
perspectives of sociology.Social stratification is based on four basic principles which
includes Social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual
differences; Social stratification carries over from generation to generation; Social
stratification is universal but variable; Social stratification involves not inequality but beliefs
as well .

TYPES OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION :

Sociologists generally distinguish four main types of social stratification ‘

1. slavery
2. estate
3. caste
4. social class and status

Regardless of the form it takes, social stratification can manifest as the ability to make rules,
decisions, and establish notions of right and wrong. Additionally, this power can be
manifested as the capacity to control the distribution of resources and determine the
opportunities, rights, and obligations of others

There is no society on this world which is free from stratification. stratification is social by
nature. Stratification system is very old. It was present even in the small wondering bonds. In
the modern world class, caste and estate are the general forms of stratification. Social
stratification has two important consequences one is “life chances” and the other one is
“life style”. A class system not only affects the “life- chances” of the individuals but also
their “life style”.

SOCIAL CLASS:
A social class is a set of concepts in the social sciences and political theory centered on models of social
stratification which occurs in class society. Social class is defined as statum of people of the similar
position in socil status continuum . The member of social class view one nother as social class as
social class,while holding themselves to be socially superior to some socially inferior to
thers.

Social status veies along a continuum a grdul slope from top to bottom rather than series of
steps .

EXAMPLE:As youth ,middle age and old age are point along n age continuum ,social
classes may be viewed as points along status continuum .

Socil classesc are not fixed ,and have no boundary and sharp status interval separate them

UPPER- UPPER CLASS:

 It is composed of wealthy old families

 They are socially prominent

LOWER UPPER CLASS:

 They have much money but not for long

 They are no sociallyy prominent
UPPER MIDDLE:

 They include successful businessmn

 They have good family background

LOWER MIDDLE :

 They include clerks and some collar workers

UPPER LOWER:

 They include employed workers

LOWER LOWER:

 It includes irregular emolyess.

The number of social class vary from place to place. Social class is a significant social
reality not just as theoretical construct for people do classify others as equal superior and
inferiors .

DETERMINANTS OF SOCIAL CLASS:

Besides wealth, occupation and education, there are certain other criteria which help a
person to attain higher social status in the society. These are family background, kinship
relations, location of residence etc., but education, occupation and expanded income are the
most fairly visible clues of social class

 WEALTH AND INCOME:

 OCCUPATION
 EDUCATION
 SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIAL CLASS

When sociologists talk of social class, they refer to a group of individuals who occupy a
similar position in the economic system of production. Within that system occupation is
very important because it provides financial rewards, stability and benefits like
healthcare.

The six significance of social classes are as follows: (1) Determining Life Opportunities
(2) Hapiness and social class (3) Shaping Life styles (4) Explaining Many Group
Differences (5) Defining the Conventional Morality (6) Cultivating Class Ethnocentrism.

DETRMINE LIFE OPPORTUNITIES:

Opportunities and rewards of a person are greatly affected by his class position. Wealth and
income confers power and members of the upper class have more power than lower class
people. This helps them attaining leading positions in the political, educational and cultural
spheres. Major types of mental disorder and physical illness, including heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, pneumonia and bronchitis, are all move common at lower levels of the class
structure than towards the top . Life chances are affected by a number of factors. Some of
which include: income, social class, and occupational prestige. These factors all affect the
availability of resources to an individual. For example, when one has low income, they have
low life chances. Opportunities to achieve what you want in life are coming to you more
often than you realize. The reason those opportunities don't always turn into the experiences
you hoped for often has to do with whether or not you are ready for them. Most people live
ready for what they expect in life, not what they want.

SHAPING POLITICALL ATTITUDE AND LIFE STYLE

Social class affects the way people deal with virtually every aspect of reality. The way people
handle life situations varies with social class. The lower class tends to be radical in political
action connected with economic benefits. But this class is conservative in accepting social
changes while the opposite tends to be true of the upper class.

CULTIVATING CLASS ETHNOCENTRSM.

Social class directly or indirectly helps in developing stereotypes and prejudices against other
than one’s own class. People at every class level tend to see those above themselves as
snobbish, pretentious, exploiters and those beneath as either disgusting or pathetic,
delinquents etc.
Members of one class judge members of other classes in terms of their own expectations and
values. The feeling of ‘us’ and ‘them’ begins with the family which later on paves the way
for the formation of class ethnocentrism.

DEFINIG THE CONVENTIONAL MORALITY

Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions

concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's
norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience.
Social classes do not merely differ in etiquette or mode of behaviour; they also differ in more
judgments. In his study of sex behaviour, Kinsey (1948) has shown how sex mores differ
between classes. Premarital sex experience, which is viewed as ‘natural’ by the lower classes,
is generally condemned by the middle classes. For them it is degenerating and ‘unnatural’.
On almost every point of moral conduct, class-typed mores differ.

EXPLAINING MANY GROUP DIFFERNCES

Group Differences Defined. Consistently observed differences (averages) among

diverse groups of students (e.g., gender or ethnic background)
Social class affects the style of life of its members. As said above, social classes act
like subcultures and, therefore, the groups which live differently, also think and
behave differently. This is why, we see great diversity in the outlook and behaviour of
different social classes. A band of sociologists are of this view that many other kinds
of group differences—racial, religious, regional—are really class differences.

HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL CLASS:

Social classes act like sub-cultures, the personality development of the child is affected in
many ways by social classes. His goals, interests and habits are affected by the needs of
social world he lives in. His moral standards are equally class-typed. Studies of child
development and socialisation show that there is a lot of difference in the personality make-
up of lower-class and middle-class groups.
 FUNCTIONAL THEORY OF SOCIAL CLASS:

The functional theory of social class provided by Davis and Moore suggests that social
inequalities are functional for society because they provide an incentive for the most talented
individuals to occupy jobs that are essential to the orderly maintenance of a society. Critics of
Davis and Moore's theory suggest that stratification actually undermines the stability within a
society due to unequal access to opportunities, the disproportionate amount of power given to
elites, and the institutionalization of social distance between diverse members of a society .

Functionalists claim that societ requires variety of occupational roles nd that the superior
rewards fothe upper class are needed to persuade people to accept the responsibility and
undergo the training which is required for important position . Generally speaking, functional
theory of social change is analysis of the mechanism which changes society, rather than by
which society changes. Sociologicalfunctionalism, therefore, does not analyze the naturally
and spontaneously developing process of history.

Davis and Moore stated that, in most cases, the degree of skill required for a job determines
that job’s importance. They also stated that the more skill required for a job, the fewer
qualified people there would be to do that job. Certain jobs, such as cleaning hallways or
answering phones, do not require much skill. The employees don’t need a college degree.
Other work, like designing a highway system or delivering a baby, requires immense skill.
They recognize that thi would not hold true in non competitive society where ocuupational
roles are ascribed ad not achieved .Rewards include prestige and social recognition but
money is the main reward .The Davis-Moore thesis, though open for debate, was an early
attempt to explain why stratification exists. The thesis states that social stratification is
necessary to promote excellence, productivity, and efficiency, thus giving people something
to strive for. Davis and Moore believed that the system serves society as a whole because it
allows everyone to benefit to a certain extent.
 CONFLICT THEORY:

Conflict theory focuses on the competition between groups within society over limited
resources. Conflict theory views social and economic institutions as tools of the struggle
between groups or classes, used to maintain inequality and the dominance of the ruling class.
For example, conflict theory can be used to look at wars, violence, revolutions, and forms of
injustice and discrimination by explaining that there is a natural disparity in society that
causes these problems.

Conflict theory suggest that that it is not functional utility but naked power creates social
stratification Class priviliges will change when lower classes challenge and change them
Many conflict theorists draw on the work of Karl Marx. During the nineteenth-century era of
industrialization, Marx believed social stratification resulted from people’s relationship to
production. People were divided by a single line: they either owned factories or worked in
them. In Marx’s time, bourgeois capitalists owned high-producing businesses, factories, and
land, as they still do today. Proletariats were the workers who performed the manual labor to
produce goods. Upper-class capitalists raked in profits and got rich, while working-class
proletariats earned skimpy wages and struggled to survive. With such opposing interests, the
two groups were divided by differences of wealth and power. Marx saw workers experience
deep alienation, isolation and misery resulting from powerless status levels (Marx 1848).
Marx argued that proletariats were oppressed by the money-hungry bourgeois.

Today, while working conditions have improved, conflict theorists believe that the strained
working relationship between employers and employees still exists. Capitalists own the
means of production, and a system is in place to make business owners rich and keep workers
poor. According to conflict theorists, the resulting stratification creates class conflict. If he
were alive in today’s economy, as it recovers from a prolonged recession, Marx would likely
have argued that the recession resulted from the greed of capitalists, satisfied at the expense
of working people.

SOCIAL MOBILITY:
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households, or other categories of
people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to
one's current social location within a given society. 
On the other words Social mobility refers to the shift in an individual's social status from one
status to another. The shift can either be higher, lower, inter-generational, or intra-
generational, and it cannot necessarily be determined if the change is for good or bad.

Example of Social Mobility:

An example of absolute social mobility is when a region's economic development provides
education to a social group that previously did not have access to education, thus raising the
group's literacy level and socioeconomic status.
 NATURE OF SOCIAL MOBILITY:

An open class society is one in which mobility is high, a closed class society is one in which
there is little mobility.
The Caste system in which people are confined to the occupation is the most extreme
example of the closed class society. INDIA is often cited as the worlds mostcaste-ridden
country. Its government now is opening higher status occupations to low caste-groups which
for centuries have been limites to low status work. It is trying to move india toward an open
class society.

People commonly hold beliefs about social mobility, that is, perceptions of the likelihood to
move up or down in society. What impact, if any, do these beliefs have on inequality, the
societal status quo, and people’s own lives? How accurate are these views of where people
end up in life and why? How can we characterize these beliefs? Through a review of
existing research, we clarify the nature of social mobility beliefs and conceptualize how
these beliefs affect society and individuals. For society, a consistent pattern emerges. Belief
in social mobility leads to defense of the status quo and tolerance for inequality, but as we
conceptualize, this occurs for abstract rather than concrete attitudes. On the personal level,
social mobility beliefs relate to well-being and can affect the attainment of status-related
goals, but this depends on individual difference factors, as well as the outcome being
considered.

MOBILITY DETERMINANTS:
Several reviews of the evidence on social mobility produce concise lists of the factors which
appear to explain the advantages and disadvantages which are passed between generations,
and therefore produce mobility or the lack of it on an individual basis. Data comparability
problems aside, differences in the way that social, economic or institutional factors shape
these factors in the domestic context might help to understand why levels of social mobility
appear to vary between different countries.
This section briefly discusses the types of advantages and disadvantages identified as being
transmitted between generations in the literature, drawing heavily on several prominent
secondary reviews of this literature. It also attempts to group these according to national
characteristics in the overall
The rate of mobility in modern societies is determined by
1: Structural Factors
2: Individual Factors
3: Social Factors
4: Family related Factors
5: Policy and institutional factors
Structural factors are those factors which determine the relative proportion of high status
position to be filled and the ease of getting them. Societies differ in the
relative proportion of high- and low-status positions to
be filled. A society with a primarily agricultural economy will have many low-status and few 
high-status
positions, and mobility will be low. The rate of mobility rises with the degree of industrializat
ion of the economy. In an industrial society there is expected to be an increase in the number
of occupations as well as in the number of jobs in each occupation. An increase in
the division of labor is expected and along with
it there is increasing specialization, hence the jobs multiply. As
the societies move from agricultural to industrial and to post industrial societies, there is
a change in the nature of jobs e.g. decline in
manufacturing jobs and an increase in service jobs. Such a change provides
new opportunities for employment, which thepeople avail and therebythe whole process beco
mesinstrumental to social mobility
Middle class children typically have learning experiences which are more helpful in gaining
upward mobility than the experiences of lower-class children.
Nevertheless, mobility may further depend upon the
prevalent policies, laws andother factors that may discriminate between groups and individua
ls on the basis of factors like race, gender,religion, age, and ethnicity.\
open society, upward mobility is not open equally to everyone. Middle class children
typically have learning experiences which are more helpful in gaining upward mobility than
the experiences of lower-class children.  Nevertheless, mobility may further depend upon the
prevalent policies, laws andother factors that may discriminate between groups and individua
ls on the basis of factors like race, gender,religion, age, and ethnicity.
Individual factors including luck, which determine which people get the position. While
structural factors may determine the proportion of high-status, well-paid positions in
a society,individual factors greatly affect which persons get them. It means that one has to lo
ok into the procedures of access and entry to the available positions. There could be
the possession of the entry based qualifications by the individuals and there could be number
of individual factors that influence the possession of necessary qualifications.
The individuals may have differences in their "mobility oriented behaviors". There
is much which persons can do
to increase their prospects for upward mobility by improving their educational qualifications. 
The
work habits learned in early childhood are very important for making efforts in improving on
e's position of course hard work carries no guarantee of upward mobility but not many
achieve upward mobility without it.

Social structure factors levels of original inequality and labour market practices among
employers and employees.
Family-related factors such as inherited genetic features, the impact of families in terms of
the transmission of social, cultural and informational capital and the role of family structure;
Policy and institutional factors such as the role of childcare, education systems and
employment regulation on the distribution of opportunities

MOBILITY PROSPECTS:
The increase in the proportion of higher status jobs is the most important single factor in the
amount of upward mobility. Automation, robots and computers are decreasinhg the demands
for unskilled and semi skilled workers and calling for more technicians who can operate
computers and complicated equipments. The multiplication of the service industries, sales
and services, recreation and resort and many others creates openings for persons with talent
and ambiguous including some without college degrees.

MOBILITY OF WOMEN:
Women-led creativity and innovation is undervalued. Messaging to women transport
workers has fitted into the ‘fix-the-woman’ category.  Women need mentors and women’s
networks in order to be more confident and daring at work. They need to be more innovative
and commercial. What transport leaders do not say is that the social and environmental
innovation often led by women in the sector has not been valued. Leaders in mobility rarely
explore the way social justice connects with their
business. They do not consider the philosophical or ethical questions that mobility raises
including underlying gender inequalities. This is an understandable consequence of
privatising public transport delivery. When the public policy and funding of mobility is
separated from operations and innovation, social justice reflections can slip between the
cracks. New mobility is moving too fast to ponder. To overcome this, governments must
impose specific social justice imperatives in their service contracts by including robust audit
and evaluation.  
MOBILITY OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES:

The lack of knowledge on social mobility in developing countries is surprising, given that
many countries in the Global South have undergone significant economic transformation and
rapid economic growth. Many people have left the farms on which their parents worked to go
to better jobs in cities, possibly rising up the occupational ranks to become doctors,
engineers, and managers. Yet we cannot say with confidence whether the chances of a child
growing up in China reaching higher income or occupational levels than their parents are any
higher than a child in India. ut in a low-income country, a downward movement in income is
not the same as an upward movement, as the former may signify a move into poverty for the
child, an outcome that cannot be considered to be socially desirable. This suggests that we
need to find better measures that are consistent with the reality of low-income societies,
where downward movements in income or occupation across generations are a common
phenomenon, one that does not necessarily correspond to higher social mobility.In developed
countries, it is common to have longitudinal data that track households over many decades,
allowing us to get accurate measures of average income for both the parent and child at
similar stages of their respective lifecycles. The data are granular enough for us to assess the
social mobility prospects of children born in different neighborhoods of the same country.