An aggregated socio-economic status

As various stratification models show, numbers of criteria to grouping people may vary. But their authors share the opinion that such parameters as income, power, education and prestige must be considered as the basic ones.

Income as an economic status is an amount of money a person or family makes for a definite period of time (month or year). Income is spent to satisfy needs but if it is high, it is accumulated and turns to wealth.

Wealth is accumulated income in the form of cash or materialized money. The later can be movable property (car, yacht, securities) and real estate (house, masterpieces of art). Wealth can be inherited. It differs from income in the way that wealth can be inherited by those who work and who don’t, and income is earned only by those who work. Pensioners and unemployed have income but rags – don’t. The rich either can or cannot work as they are owners of wealth. Accumulated property is the parameter used to differentiate the high class from middle and low classes who live on income.

Wealth and income are distributed unequally and means economic inequality. Sociologists interpret economic inequality to show unequal chances of different groups of the population. Those who have more money have better food, live in more comfortable houses, prefer going by private car to public transport, can afford an expensive holiday etc. Besides having economic advantages, the rich possess a number of hidden privileges: they live longer than the poor even if the latter use the same medical achievements, children from poor families are less educated even if they go to the same public schools as children from wealthy families etc.

Power is a possibility to impose one’s will or decision on others regardless of their desire. It is measured by a number of people who have to follow one’s will or decision. Decisions made by the President or Prime-Minister of the country should be accepted by the whole population of the given country, and decisions by a sole proprietor – by his employees only.

In a highly stratified society power is guarded by law and tradition, it means privileges, a wider access to social wealth, and possibility to make decisions which are most essential to the society, laws for the benefit of the higher class being among them. People possessing power (political, economic or religious) constitute the elite of the society.

Education is measured by a number of years studied in state or private school, university etc. For instance, a professor has studied for more than 20 years (11 years at school, 5 – university, 3 – post-graduate courses, 3 – doctorate courses), a low qualified worker – not more than 11. A weak point of the criterion is that quality of education is not taken into account. Establishments of learning located in the capital of the country are likely to provide better quality than those located on the periphery. Another distinction is character of knowledge a person can get – theoretic, fundamental or branch.

Income, power and education are objective parameters, and they have units of measure, correspondingly local currency, people, years; unlike them prestige is of subjective character.

Prestige is respect that public opinion gives to a certain job, profession or occupation. No doubt, the profession of a banker is more prestigious than that of a cleaner or plumber. All professions, occupations and jobs existing in the society can be ranked from top to bottom according to their prestige. Although professional prestige is very often defined by intuition, approximately, in some countries, for instance in the USA sociologists measure it with special methods.

Income, power, education and prestige combined together define an aggregated socio-economic status, or position and place of a person in the society. In its sense the status is a generalized parameter of stratification. An ascribed status characterizes a strictly fixed system of stratification or closed society where transition from one stratum to another is practically forbidden. Examples of a closed society are caste and slave-owning systems. An achieved status characterizes a mobile system of stratification, or open society with people’s free ascending and descending on the social ladder. An example is a capitalist society with its class differentiation. A feudal society is an intermediate type as it belongs to a relatively closed system: transitions are formally forbidden but in practice they are not excluded. Such are the historic types of stratification.

I Vocabulary

1. income – доход

2. power – власть

3. to accumulate – аккумулировать, копить

4. to turn to – превращаться

5. property – собственность

6. estate – недвижимость

7. rags – нищие

8. to measure – мерить, измерять

9. to take into account – принимать во внимание

10. intuition – интуиция

11. aggregated socio-economic status – сводный показатель социально-экономического статуса

II COMPREHENSION CHECK

1. What parameters of grouping people are the basic ones?

2. What is income?

3. How does wealth differ from income?

4. What is power?

5. What people constitute the elite of the of the society?

6. How can education be measured?

7. What is prestige?

8. What defines an aggregated socio-economic status?

9. What is the difference between a fixed and a mobile system of stratification?

Text 4

Stratification profile

Four parameters of stratification are made use of to create analytical models and instruments which can be applied to define not only the status of separate individuals but groups as well, i.e. dynamics and structure of the society in general.

Sociologists distinguish the stratification profile which enables to apply a deeper consideration of the problem of status incompatibility. Status incompatibility is a contradiction between statuses in the person’s set or between status characteristics in his status set. If some parameters of a definite status set go beyond the boundaries of a class, status incompatibility turns to stratification incompatibility.

Here is an example. As practice shows, in transitive societies like those on the post-soviet area a professor belongs to the lower class according to his income, and to the upper one – according to his prestige. It means a large dispersion of parameters extending the boundaries of the middle class to which a professor belongs in developed societies and testifies about stratification incompatibility. There are two ways to liquidate it and make status characteristics more or less equal: either to raise a professor’s salary to the level of the middle class or to decrease the level of education. Both things can hardly be done in a transitive society: the first one – due to economic reasons, the second one – due professional reasons.

Stratification incompatibility may entail a feeling of social discomfort which may turn to frustration, the latter – to dissatisfaction with one’s place in the society. That’s why the fewer are the cases of status and stratification incompatibility in the society the more stable and sustainable is the society. Russia of 1995-2000 is a typical example of a transitive society characterized by both status and stratification incompatibility.

As far as the society is concerned, its stratification profile, or a profile of social inequality, should be distinguished. A stratification profile is defined as structural distribution of wealth and income. As a rule, it shows a ratio of the upper, middle and lower classes in the country’s population, or the level of social inequality in the given society. If the ratio is in interest, the table is made up.

The stratification profile is also easily viewed graphically. It can have three forms – that of a rhombus or diamond, and a pyramid with either broad or narrow footing. For instance, in modern highly developed countries the profile is a rhombus.