Features of social stratification

Social stratification is a universal social phenomenon. Everywhere society is stratified into various stratas.

• It is universal: No society exists without a system of stratification. Member of a simple society is stratified on the basis of physical strength. Similarly, the member of the modern society is stratified on the basis of income.
• It is social: Social stratification is a sociological construct.
• It has different form: Social stratification has different forms on the basis of different criterias. Some forms of social stratification are ascribed such as age, sex, colour where as others are achieved based on skill, education and income etc.
• It is ancient: It has been existing from the very beginning of human civilization. Of course, the basis and nature of ranking and rating of different groups was not the same for all the times.
• Permanence of structure: Social stratification is defined as structured inequalities. There seems to be high degree of Permanence.
• Cultural continuity: Under a stratification system, the members of the same stratum generally share similar life style and life chances which distinguish them from the members of other strata.
• Unequal distribution of power, privileges, prestige reward and resources and formation of social ranks and groups on the above basis.

Forms of Stratification

Broadly speaking, different types of social stratification based on the different criteria have been known to exist. These criterions often exist as various dimensions in any stratification system. For example criteria like age, sex, income etc are considered to operate in all stratification systems.

The important ones include the age-set system, Slave system, Estate system, Caste system, Class system, and Race/ethnic system.

Age-Set System

Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (1940) identified Societies, which have been described as stateless type or which lack centralized government. They have no office of chief, or if they have such an office, it holds more ritual than secular power. Still such societies are found to be stratified on the basis of age. The phenomenon is most prevalent in East Africa, central Brazil and parts of New Guinea. The principle of age is most prominent among the Masai and Nandi in East Africa, where ranking on the basis of age, is put together with the exercise of authority, on the basis of seniority. The ranks determined on the basis of age are called age-sets. All persons (basically/men) born within a range of a number of years belong to one set. The first age-set may comprise as short as six or seven years or as long as fifteen.

In most cases, usually around adolescence, the membership of the first age-set closes and recruitment to the next set takes place. At this stage, entry to the new age-set generally involves an initiation rite, such as circumcision or other body-marks. Each person, thus, belongs to an age-set, to which he remains attached throughout his life. Along with other members, he moves to the next age-set. The age-sets in these societies, determine their social organization, because membership of these sets covers all areas of life. It directs a person to decide whom he may marry, what land he can own, and in which ceremonies he can take part etc. Thus, membership of each stratum tells a person about his ranking in society.

In most cases, where age-sets operate, a member of an age-set also belongs to a particular age-grade. These grades are clearly marked out from one another, so that a person belongs to only one grade at a time. Generally, a person after childhood would move from junior warrior hood to senior warrior hood. Then he would graduate from junior elder hood to senior elder hood. The warriors fight and defend their tribe from attack, while the elders take decisions and settle disputes. They also communicate with the ancestral spirits. All the members of use particular age-set move into one grade all at once. In the kinds of societies we belong to, each person usually makes his or her own natural transition from childhood to adulthood and finally to old age. But in age-societies, these transitions are made on a corporate basis as members of large age-sets.

In terms of a system social stratification, the age-set system provides for a society, in which no one is allocated a particular position for life. Everybody in this time does become old, and therefore may get a chance to hold decisive authority. Thus, this is a system in which personnel change within the system, without changing the pattern of stratification itself.

Slave System

The slave system of stratification does not exist any more. Slavery was abolished in 1833 by Britain and 1865 by USA. The main emphasis in this system was on economic inequality, which rendered certain groups of people without rights. The article ‘Slavery’ in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (1968) makes a distinction between primitive, ancient, medieval and modern slavery.

Ancient slavery was prevalent in ancient Rome and Greece. Here slaves were usually foreign prisoners of war.

In medieval slavery, the bases of development of slavery were colonial expansion ideology. In this system, the slave was designated as the master’s property. The slave had no political and social rights. He was compelled to work. Living upon slave labour, the masters formed an aristocracy. It is said that the decline of slavery was primarily brought about, by the inefficiency of slave labour. Some other scholars hold that slavery declined, because of continued opposition to the slave system by educated and enlightened public in general, and the antislavery struggles organised by the slaves themselves in different parts of the world at different times. The ancient slavery was somewhat reformed, by limiting the owner’s right of punishment and giving personal rights to the slave. The Christian Church in the Roman Empire also supported the provision of manumission[1] to the slave. Karl Marx[2] has detailed the slave system in his theory of historical materialism. He refers to slave system in his ancient mode of production.

The perception of modern slavery is referred to as bonded laborers (because of the debts owed their masters). Modern-day slaves may be or may not be actually held in physical bondage. The slave trade in Africa was officially banned in the early 1880s, but forced labor continues to be practiced in West and Central Africa today. UNICEF estimates that 200,000 children from this region are sold into slavery each year. Modern-day slaves can be found laboring as servants in Sudan, as child "carpet slaves" in India, or as cane-cutters in Haiti and southern Pakistan, to name but a few instances.

Estate System

This type of social stratification was characteristic of feudal societies of medieval Europe. In this system we find hierarchy of social strata, which are distinguished and rigidly set off from one another by law and custom. The defining feature of the estate system was that the position held in the society, depended entirely in terms of ownership of land. Though this system was less rigid than the caste system, it was also characterized by hereditary transmission of social position. Each estate had a clearly defined set of rights by law.

The First Estate consisted of the clergy, which was in itself stratified into higher clergy, such as the cardinal, the arch­bishops, the bishops and the abbots. They lived a life of luxury and gave very little attention to religion. In fact, some of them preferred politics to religion.

The Second Estate consisted of the nobility. There were to kinds of nobles, the nobles of the sword and the nobles of the robe. The nobles of the sword were big landlords. They were the protectors of the people in principle but in reality they led a life of a parasite, living off the hard work of the peasants. The nobles of the robe were nobles not by birth by title. They were the magistrates and judges. Among those nobles, some were very progressive and liberal, as they had moved to their positions from common citizens who belonged to the third estate.

The Third Estate comprised the rest of the society and included the peasants, the merchants, the artisans, and others. There was a vast difference between the condition of the peasants and that of the clergy and the nobility. The peasants worked day and night but were overloaded with so many taxes that they lived a hand to mouth existence. They produced the food on which the whole society depended. Yet they could barely survive due to the failure of any kind of protection from the government. The King, in order to maintain to good will of the other two estates, the clergy and the nobility, continued to exploit the poor. The poor peasants had no power against him. While the clergy and the nobility kept on pampering and flattering the King. As compared to the peasants, the condition of the middle classes, comprising the merchants, bankers, lawyers, manufacturers, etc. was much better. Thus, this class was rich and secure. But it had no social status as compared with the status of the members of the first and the second estates.

The nobility was supposed to protect everybody, the clergy to pray for everybody and the commoner to produce food for everybody, the estates may be referred to as a system of division of labour. Lastly, the estates also represented political groups. In classical feudalism, there were only two estates, the nobility and the clergy. It was only after the 12th century that European feudalism has a third estate of the burghers, who first remained as a distinct group and later changed the system itself.

The clergy and the nobility both constituted only two per cent of the population but they owned about 35 per cent of the land. The peasants who formed 80 per cent of the population owned only 30 per cent of the land. The first two estates payed almost no taxes to the government. The peasantry, on the other hand, was burdened with taxes of various kinds. It payed taxes to the state.  They were virtually carrying the burden of the first two estates on their shoulders. On top of it all the prices had generally risen by about 65 per cent during and period 1720-1789.

Caste System[3]

Indian caste system as a social stratification, is uniquely associated with Indian agrarian society. It consists of essentially closed social groups arranged in a fixed hierarchical order of superiority and inferiority. It represents the most rigid type of social stratification in terms of ascribed as well as socially accepted stratification. The membership is hereditary and fixed for life. Each caste is an endogamous group. Social distance is encouraged by the restrictions of contact and commensality with members of other castes. Caste consciousness is stressed by the caste names as well as by conformity to the particular customs of the particular caste, and Occupational specialization. The system is rationalized by religious belief.

Caste operates at two levels. Firstly in terms of an abstract classification into four types of ‘varna’: Brahmin (priests), Kshatriya (kings), vaishya (merchants) and shudra (workers). Secondly at the operational village level, there is a division of local communities into groupings called jati. The rigidity of this system is unchangeable. Marginal upward social mobility is possible by a process called Sanskritisation. In this process, members of a lower caste adopt the manners and customs of a higher caste, and sever their ties with their original caste.

Individual features of the caste system can be observed in other societies, which follow strict segregation of particular groups. But caste system in its entirely is of course, found in India, and outside India among Hindus settled abroad and within India among non-Hindu groups. The stronghold of caste and the trends towards change in its nature and functioning have affected the pattern of social stratification in India.

Class System

Social classes are neither legally defined nor religiously sanctioned groups. Rather, these are relatively open groups, which have developed industrial societies. The class system of social stratification basically implies, a social hierarchy based primarily upon differences in wealth and income. These differences are expressed in different life styles and hence different consumption patterns. In some cases we also find different manners in terms of speech and dress.

In studying the concept of class, we face two questions. Firstly, what criteria should be used to identify classes? Secondly, there is the subjective element, i.e., do people with identical tangible material assets form a class, even if they are not perceived by others and themselves as a conscious class? For the first problem of criteria, according to Max Weber, the dimensions of wealth, power and lifestyle are crucial in determining the class. Most sociologists generally use several criteria simultaneously in determining the class. For the second ‘subjective’ problem, it is generally agreed that the issue of class-consciousness should not be introduced as a definition of the class itself. This is a matter for individual empirical investigation in each case.

Generally, most sociologists agree that in all industrial societies we find the existence of the upper, middle and working classes. Sometimes, they mention a fourth class, the peasantry in some societies. On the questions of the role of classes in society and their intra-and inter-linkages, sociologists have adopted different approaches and developed different theories of social stratification. 

In industrial societies, we find that social classes coexist with status groups. This observation led Max Weber to distinguish between the two, and to look at their linkages with each other. Max Weber argued that social classes are ranked according to their relation to the ways of producing and acquiring goods. Status groups however are ranked according to the ways of consuming goods. This way of understanding the difference between classes and status groups is an over simplification. Since Weber’s formulation of this distinction, many sociologists have made studies of the notions of class and status. At this stage it will suffice to say that analyzing social stratification in industrial societies is a very difficult task. In the context of developing societies, it is an even more difficult task, because in these societies social class is only one component and the elements of status groups, castes or caste-like groups, racial and ethnic groups exist side by side.

Race and Ethnicity

The remaining type of social stratification is the one based on race and ethnicity. The discussion of race is fairly recent. Race, as a biological concept, refers to a large category of people who share certain inherited physical characteristics-colour of skin, type of hair, facial features, size of head etc. Anthropologists initially tried to arrive at a classification of races, but ran into problems, because more advanced studies of racial types showed the near absence of pure races. Thus, the latest thinking is that all humans belong to a common group. Recent genetic research indicates that 95 per cent of DNA molecules are the same for all humans. The remaining 5 per cent are responsible for differences in appearance. Outward differences are also seen as varying within a race rather than across the races. Thus, the classification of races floundered at the scientific level.

For sociologists, a race is a group of people who are perceived by a given society, as biologically different from the others. Thus, people are assigned to one race or another, by public opinion, which is molded by that society’s dominant group, rather than on any scientific basis. In racist societies, for example South Africa, physical characteristics are believed to be intrinsically related to moral, intellectual and other nonphysical attributes and abilities.

At the theoretical level, sociologists talk about race relations as forms of stratification. These are characterized by unequal access to wealth and power, on the basis of physical characteristics. We find in these situations the presence of racial ideologies in one form or the other.

Looking at ethnicity, it can be said that whereas race is based on popularly perceived physical traits ethnicity is based on cultural traits. Ethnic group is thus defined as a common group of peoples with a common cultural heritage (learned, not inherited). This group may share a common language, history, national origin, or lifestyle.

The factor of migration on a massive scale in the last century, provided sociologists an opportunity to examine the fate of ethnic identities. For example, the Chicago School of Sociologists found that over several generations, ethnic identities were lost and later revised. Gellner (1964) aptly describes the situation thus: the grandson tries to remember what the son tried to forget. However, sociologists also point out that disappearance of ethnic identities through the process of assimilation is often hampered when the dominant groups do not allow the flow of social benefits to certain groups, deemed to be powerless ethnic minorities. This situation gives rise to ethnic conflicts. All such situations of conflict make the study of social stratification very important and relevant for sociologists. That is why it is necessary to also look briefly, at the various theories of social stratification.