SOCIAL STRATIFICATION,

INEQUALITY AND JUSTICE:

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 Social
Stratification

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Cont’d…
◦ In nearly all societies, people are evaluated on the basis of some
characteristic and placed into higher or lower-ranking groups.
◦ Actors are sorted into social positions that carry unequal rewards,
obligations, and expectations.

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Social Stratification
3 characteristics:
1. They persist for a long time.
2. They are resistant to change (‘conservative’).
3. Each is supported by a ‘legitimating rationale’ or ideology.

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Causes of Social Stratification
 Inequality
 Conflict
 Power
 Wealth
 Instability

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Determinants of Social Stratification
◦ SLAVERY
◦ CASTE
◦ CLASS
◦ STATUS
◦ POWER
◦ EDUCATION
◦ ECONOMIC RRESOURCES
◦ OCCUPATION
◦ PRESTIGE
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SLAVERY
◦ Slavery is the earliest form of social stratification.
◦ It is the legally recognized division of society into slaves and citizens.
◦ Citizens have the citizenship rights whereas the slaves does not have citizenship
rights.
◦ It existed in most of the parts of Europe and other
ancient nations between 500 BC to 600 BC.

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CASTE
◦ Caste can be defined as a hereditary intermarrying group which determines the
individual’s status in the social stratification by his occupation, etc. caste system in
Pakistan is an important element in social stratification.
◦ Some castes are considered high, some are low e.g. Syed Rajput have the highest
place in social stratification of castes as compare to Kameen in Pakistan.
◦ Same condition is prevailing in India.

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Caste Systems
◦ In a caste system, one’s rank is determined at birth; based on ascribed
characteristics.
3 characteristics:
1. Separation in matters of marriage and contact
2. Division of labor
3. Hierarchy in which one group is regarded as superior to another

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Cont’d…
◦ Most famous is that founded in India about 4,000 years ago.
◦ Portuguese described these groups as ‘casta’ meaning ‘pure’; the groups were like
different races.
◦ In India, based on Hindu ideas of transmigration (reincarnation) of soul and
karma: ‘inexorable application of the law of cause and effect’.

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Traditional Castes of India
BRAHMANS

KSHATRIYAS

VAISYAS

SHUDRAS

HARIJANS

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CLASS
◦ Social stratification is also based on class.
◦ Class is a status group and in only society the social status of one group always
differs from that of another.
◦ Class is also a person’s economic position in a society.
◦ In a class system, social stratification is based
on individual achievement.

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Cont’d…
◦ In theory, a class system is a hierarchy based on achieved characteristics in a
society of equal opportunity, i.e. a meritocracy.
◦ Class systems are legitimized by the belief that rewards are proportional to effort
or talent, i.e. people get what they deserve.

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STATUS
◦ Status is the person’s prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society. Social
stratification is also based on status of person.
◦ Weber noted that political power was not rooted in capital value society, but also
in one’s individual status.
◦ Poets or saints can possess immense influence on society with often little
economic growth.

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POWER
◦ A person’s ability to get their way despite the resistance of others.
◦ For example, individuals in state jobs may hold little property or status but they
still hold immense power e.g. police man.

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EDUCATION
◦ Education like all other societies in the world, defines social status.
◦ Educated people are better rated and respected socially owing to their
occupations, professions and status while illiterate people always belong to lower
class.
◦ For example, Dr.Abdul Qadeer Khan has a great respect in Pakistan for his
education and great contribution in making Pakistan Nuclear Power.

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ECONOMIC RESOURCES
◦ The level of income is an important indicator of ones place in society.
◦ The size of landholding in rural areas is an important measure.
◦ Those who tenets and those who belong to serving class like carpenter,
blacksmith, cobbler, barber, washer man and other can be placed in lower class.
◦ In urban areas the big industrialists, whole sale and big businessmen, high class
officials belonging to government and other agencies, high class technicians and
other professions like advocates, medical practitioners and other belongs to upper
class.

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OCCUPATION
◦ Occupation is also an important indicator of stratification in every society.
◦ In Pakistani society the high class professionals are owners landlords, owner
cultivators, industrialists, big wholesale businessmen and high class government
and semi government officials.
◦ In lower class all manual workers like cobblers, carpenters, blacksmith, washer
man, peon, sweeper and unskilled labor etc.

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PRESTIGE
◦ If individual has high prestige in social life, he is regarded most
respectful person.
 Nobility of the individuals
 Participating generally in welfare works
 He is true to his words

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 Origins of
Social
Stratification

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SOCIAL MOBILITY
◦ Moving from one social class to another is called mobility.
◦ The ability of individual or groups to move upward or downward in status based
on wealth, occupation, education or some other social variable.

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Types of Mobility
◦ Horizontal
◦ Vertical
◦ Upward Mobility
◦ Downward Mobility
◦ Inter- Generation Mobility

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1) Horizontal Mobility
◦ Under this type of social mobility, a person changes his or her occupation but the
overall social standing remains the same.
◦ Certain occupations like Doctor, Engineers and professor may enjoy the some
status but when an engineer changes his occupation from engineer to teaching
engineering, he has horizontally moved from one occupational category to
another.

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2) Vertical Mobility
◦ Vertical mobility refers to any change in the occupational, economic or political
status of an individual or a group which leads to change of their position.
◦ The relations involved in transition of individual or a social object from one
social stratum to another.
◦ It may be upward mobility or downward mobility.

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3) Upward Mobility

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4) Downward Mobility
◦ Downward mobility indicates that one loses his higher position and occupies a
lower position.
◦ We can take the example of an individual, who is an Engineer and occupies a
respectable position in the society because of his occupational position, education
and may be caste.
◦ If he is caught for accepting bribe or has committed a son or has done something
wrong, he may be sentence to jail or members of his caste may outcaste him and
as a criminal or as an outcaste he may occupy a lower positions vis-a-vis position
he was occupying earlier.

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5) Inter-generational Mobility
◦ This type of mobility means that one generation changes its social status in
contrast to preceding generation.
◦ However, this mobility may be upward or downward e.g. people of lower caste or
class may provide facilities to their children to get higher education, training and
skills.

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Theorizing Social Stratification
◦ Are all social stratification systems based on a single salient
characteristic or many? If there are many ways of evaluating people,
can we regard one as being the most important in a society?
◦ Is there only one hierarchy or several overlapping hierarchies? Is social
stratification uni-dimensional or multi-dimensional?

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Theorizing Social Stratification
Karl Marx: argues that one’s relationship to the ‘means of production’ determines
the status hierarchy of a society. – In capitalism, this means that the most
important force of social change comes from the conflict of interest between
owners and workers.

Max Weber: argues that the most important aspect determining one’s position in
the status hierarchy is not one’s relationship to the means of production, but one’s
market situation.

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Cont’d…
Weber defines class as follows: – The term class refers to any group of people
… [who have the same] typical chance for a supply of goods, external living
conditions, and personal life experiences, insofar as this chance is determined by
the … power … to dispose of goods or skills for the sake of income in a given
economic order …. Class situation in this sense is ultimately market situation.
Social stratification is multi-dimensional.

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Cont’d…
Weber defines POWER as follows: ‘the chance of a man or a number of men to
realize their own will even against the resistance of others...’
 “Without exception every sphere of social action is profoundly influenced
by structures of domination”.
 Charismatic leaders use personal authority to generate mass followings that
challenge the traditional order.

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 Theorizing
Social
Stratification

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