8.1: Systems of Stratification

8.1.1: Stratification

Global stratification refers to the hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups in societies around the world.

Learning Objective

Analyze the three dominant theories that attempt to explain global stratification

Key Points

Society is stratified into social classes based on individuals’ socioeconomic status, gender, and race.
Stratification results in inequality when resources, opportunities, and privileges are distributed based on individuals’ positions in the social hierarchy.
Stratification and inequality can be analyzed as micro-, meso-, and macro-level phenomena, as they are produced in small group interactions, through organizations and institutions, and through global economic structures.
There are three dominant theories that consider why inequality exists on a global scale. First, some sociologists use a theory of development and modernization to argue that poor nations remain poor because they hold onto traditional attitudes and beliefs, technologies and institutions.
Second, dependency theory blames colonialism and neocolonialism (continuing economic dependence on former colonial countries) for global stratification.
Lastly, world systems theory suggests that all countries are divided into a three-tier hierarchy based on their relationship to the global economy, and that a country’s position in this hierarchy determines its own economic development.

Key Terms

Global Stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups in societies around the world.
socioeconomic status: One’s social position as determined by income, wealth, occupational prestige, and educational attainment.
inequality: An unfair, not equal, state.

Examples

When thinking about micro-, meso-, and macro-level social stratification, consider the following example: in a job interview, the candidate with the most charisma may have an advantage that makes him or her likely to get hired; when submitting a resume for a job, the person who is connected to the most prestigious educational or professional institutions is most likely to be called in for an interview; when searching for job openings, a person in a wealthy, developed nation is more likely than a person in a poor nation to find positions seeking applicants.
A sociologist might use the following types of evidence to support modernization and development theory, dependency theory, and world systems theory respectively: Poor, rural areas of India have seen increased local wealth and income with the introduction of mobile ATMs, suggesting that access to modern capitalism and technology can reduce economic inequality. A significant percentage of Indian jobs, however, are tied to American and Japanese technology firms, indicating that India’s economy suffers from being dependent on foreign, dominant nations. While India provides cheap labor to foreign corporations, however, it also uses cheaper labor from poorer nearby nations as it develops its own industry, showing that it benefits from its semiperipheral position in the global hierarchy.

Global stratification refers to the hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups in societies around the world. Sociologists speak of stratification in terms of socioeconomic status (SES). Socioeconomic status is a measure of a person’s position in a class structure. For example, a person may be designated as “lower class” or “upper class” based on their SES. A person’s SES is usually determined by their income, occupational prestige, wealth, and educational attainment, though other variables are sometimes considered.

Inequality occurs when a person’s position in the social hierarchy is tied to different access to resources. Inequality largely depends on differences in wealth. For example, a homeowner will have access to consistent shelter, while a person who cannot afford to own a home may have substandard shelter or be homeless. Because of their different levels of wealth, they have different access to shelter. Likewise, a wealthy person may receive higher quality medical care than a poor person, have greater access to nutritional foods, and be able to attend higher caliber schools. Material resources are not distributed equally to people of all economic statuses .

Global Stratification Indicators – Inequality and Income

Globally, the poorest 20% of the population, or lowest tier of the stratified economic order, makes a disproportionately small percentage of global income and lives off of a meager amount.

While stratification is most commonly associated with socioeconomic status, society is also stratified by statuses such as race and gender. Together with SES, race and gender shape the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges among individuals. For example, within a given social class, women are less likely to receive job promotions than men. Similarly, within American cities with heavily racially segregated neighborhoods, racial minorities are less likely to have access to high quality schools than white people.

Perspectives on Stratification

Stratification is generally analyzed from three different perspectives: micro-level, meso-level, and macro-level.

Micro-level analysis focuses on how prestige and personal influence create inequality through face-to-face and small group interactions. For example, the more physically attractive a person is, the more likely they are to achieve status in small groups. This effect happens on a small-scale and is difficult to analyze as a uniform, widespread occurrence. Thus, stratification based on levels of physical attractiveness is analyzed as a micro-level process.

Meso-level analysis of stratification focuses on how connections to organizations and institutions produce inequality. For example, parents, teachers, and friends convey expectations about one’s class position that teach different skills and values based on status. These educational disparities occur in the small setting of a classroom, but are consistent across a wide range of schools. Thus, they are analyzed as meso-level phenomena that reinforce systems of inequality.

Macro-level analysis of stratification considers the role of international economic systems in shaping individuals’ resources and opportunities. For example, the small African nation of Cape Verde is significantly indebted to European nations and the U.S., and the majority of the nation’s industry is controlled by foreign investors. As the nation’s economy has ceded control of once public services, such as electricity, its citizen have lost jobs and the price of electricity has increased. Thus, the nation’s position in the world economy has resulted in poverty for many of its citizens. A global structure, or a macro-level phenomenon, produces unequal distribution of resources for people living in various nations.

Theories of Macro-Level Inequality

There are three dominant theories that sociologists use to consider why inequality exists on a global scale. First, some sociologists use a theory of development and modernization to argue that poor nations remain poor because they hold onto traditional attitudes and beliefs, technologies and institutions. According to this theory, in the modern world, the rise of capitalism brought modern attitudes, modern technologies, and modern institutions which helped countries progress and have a higher standard of living. Modernists believe economic growth is the key to reducing poverty in poor countries.

Second, dependency theory blames colonialism and neocolonialism (continuing economic dependence on former colonial countries) for global stratification. Countries have developed at an uneven rate because wealthy countries have exploited poor countries in the past and today through foreign debt and transnational corporations (TNCs). According to dependency theory, the key to reversing inequality is to relieve former colonies of their debts so that they can benefit from their own industry and resources.

Lastly, world systems theory suggests that all countries are divided into a three-tier hierarchy based on their relationship to the global economy, and that a country’s position in this hierarchy determines its own economic development. In this model nations are divided into core, semiperipheral, and peripheral countries. Core nations (e.g. the United States, France, Germany, and Japan) are dominant capitalist countries characterized by high levels of industrialization and urbanization. Semiperipheral countries (e.g. South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa) are less developed than core nations but are more developed than peripheral nations. Peripheral countries (e.g. Cape Verde, Haiti, and Honduras) are dependent on core countries for capital, and have very little industrialization and urbanization.

8.1.2: Slavery

Slavery is a system in which people are bought and sold as property, forced to work, or held in captivity against their will.

Learning Objective

Describe different types of slavery

Key Points

Slavery is a system of social stratification that has been institutionally supported in many societies around the world throughout history.
The Atlantic slave trade brought African slaves to the Americas from the 1600’s to the 1900’s, spurring the growth of slave use on plantations in the U.S., where the slave population reached 4 million before slavery was made illegal in 1863.
Human trafficking, or the illegal trade of humans, is primarily used for forcing women and children into sex industries.

Key Terms

slavery: an institution or social practice of owning human beings as property, especially for use as forced laborers
bonded labor: A form of indenture in which a loan is repaid by work, the worker being unable to leave until the debt is repaid
Atlantic Slave Trade: The enterprise through which African slaves were brought to work on plantations in the Caribbean Islands, Latin America, and the southern United States primarily.
debt bondage: A condition similar to slavery where human beings are unable to control their lives or their work due to unpaid debts.

Example

An example of modern slavery is much of the sex industry in Thailand. In particular, girls from the mountains in northern Thailand are sent into brothels in the southern cities to pay off loans to their families, but they are usually prevented from earning sufficient wages to pay back the loan and earn their freedom.

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth; and can also be deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Historically, slavery was institutionally recognized by many societies. In more recent times slavery has been outlawed in most societies, but continues through the practices of debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.

Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures. The number of slaves today is higher than at any point in history, remaining as high as 12 million to 27 million. Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, sometimes even for generations. Human trafficking, or the illegal trade of humans, is primarily used for forcing women and children into sex industries.

Types of Slavery

Chattel slavery, so named because people are treated as the personal property, chattels, of an owner and are bought and sold as commodities, is the original form of slavery. When taking these chattels across national borders, it is referred to as human trafficking, especially when these slaves provide sexual services.

Debt bondage or bonded labor occurs when a person pledges himself or herself against a loan. The services required to repay the debt and their duration may be undefined. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents’ debt. It is the most widespread form of slavery today.

Forced labor is when an individual is forced to work against his or her will, under threat of violence or other punishment, with restrictions on their freedom. It is also used as a general term to describe all types of slavery and may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription and penal labor.

History of Slavery

Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures. Prehistoric graves from about 8000 BCE in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people enslaved a San-like tribe. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as slavery is a system of social stratification. Mass slavery also requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.

In the United States, the most notorious instance of slavery is the Atlantic slave trade, through which African slaves were brought to work on plantations in the Caribbean Islands, Latin America, and the southern United States primarily. An estimated 12 million Africans arrived in the Americas from the 1600’s to the 1900’s. Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The usual estimate is that about 15 percent of slaves died during the voyage, with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself as the process of capturing and transporting indigenous peoples to the ships often proved fatal. Although the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended shortly after the American Revolution, slavery remained a central economic institution in the southern states of the United States, from where slavery expanded with the westward movement of population. By 1860, 500,000 American slaves had grown to 4 million. Slavery was officially abolished in 1863; but, even after the Civil War, many former slaves were essentially enslaved as tenant farmers .

African American Slaves

Depiction of Slaves on a Virginian Plantation

8.1.3: Caste Systems

Caste systems are closed social stratification systems in which people inherit their position and experience little mobility.

Learning Objective

Compare the caste system in ancient India with the estate system in feudal Europe

Key Points

Castes are most often stratified by race or ethnicity, economic status, or religious status.
Castes have been noted in societies all over the world throughout history, though they are mistakenly often assumed to be a tradition specific to India.
Historically, the caste system in India consisted of four well known categories: Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (commerce), Shudras (workmen). Some people left out of these four caste classifications were called “outcasts” or “untouchables” and were shunned and ostracized.

Key Terms

social stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of social classes, or castes, within a society.
endogamy: The practice of marrying or being required to marry within one’s own ethnic, religious, or social group.
estate: A major social class or order of persons regarded collectively as part of the body politic of the country and formerly possessing distinct political rights (w:Estates of the realm)

Example

The three estates used in France before the French Revolution were a caste system based on birth and religious standing: the first estate consisted of clergy, the second of nobility, and the third of commoners. These estates were endogamous and there was little mobility between them.

Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines some or all elements of endogamy, hereditary transmission of occupation, social class, social identity, hierarchy, exclusion, and power. Caste as a closed social stratification system in which membership is determined by birth and remains fixed for life; castes are also endogamous, meaning marriage is proscribed outside one’s caste, and offspring are automatically members of their parents’ caste.

Although Indian society is often associated with the word “caste,” the system is common in many non-Indian societies. Caste systems have been found across the globe, in widely different cultural settings, including predominantly Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other societies. UNICEF estimates that identification and sometimes discrimination based on caste affects 250 million people worldwide.

In colonial Spain, throughout South America and Central America, castas referred to a method of stratifying people based on race, ethnicity, and social status and was in common usage since the 16^th century. The term caste was applied to Indian society in the 17^th century, via the Portuguese. The Dutch also used the word caste in their 19^th century ethnographic studies of Bali and other parts of southeast Asia. In Latin American sociological studies, the word caste often includes multiple factors such as race, ethnicity, and economic status. Multiple factors were used to determine caste in part because of numerous mixed births during the colonial times between natives, Europeans, and people brought in as slaves or indentured laborers .

Colonial Mexican Caste System

After the Spanish colonized Mexico, one’s position in a caste system depended on how European or indigenous one seemed. Both biological and sociocultural indicators were used to measure ethnicity.

Some literature suggests that the term caste should not be confused with race or social class. Members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race or class, as in India, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, Yemen, or Europe. Usually, but not always, members of the same caste are of the same social rank, have a similar group of occupations, and typically have social mores which distinguish them from other groups. Some sociologists suggest that caste systems come in two forms: racial caste systems and non-racial caste systems.

India

Caste is often associated with India. Historically, the caste system in India consisted of four well known categories (Varnas): Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (commerce), Shudras (workmen). Some people left out of these four caste classifications were called “outcasts” or “untouchables” and were shunned and ostracized. Ancient Indian legal texts, such as Manusmṛti (ca. 200 BCE-200 CE), suggest that caste systems have been part of Indian society for millennia.

Other Indian scriptures suggest ancient Indian law was not rigid about endogamy within castes. For example, Nāradasmṛti, another text on ancient Indian law, written after Manusmṛti and dated to be over 1400 years old, approves of many, but not all marriages across caste lines. The Nāradasmṛti set out categories of approved marriages between castes. Several statutes recognized offsprings of mixed castes, much like caste system of colonial Spain. Ancient Indian texts also suggest that India’s social stratification system was controversial, a topic of profound historical debates within the Indian community, and inspired efforts for reform.

Europe

Social systems identical to caste systems found elsewhere in the world have historically existed in Europe as well. European societies were historically stratified according to closed, endogamous social systems with groups such as the nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie, and peasants. These caste groups had distinctive privileges and unequal rights, which were not a product of informal advantages such as wealth and were not rights enjoyed as citizens of the state. These unequal and distinct privileges were sanctioned by law or social mores, were exclusive to each distinct social subset of society, and were inherited automatically by offspring. In some European countries, these closed social classes or castes were given titles, followed mores and codes of behavior specific to their caste, and even wore distinctive dress. Nobility rarely married commoners, and if they did, they lost certain privileges. Caste endogamy wasn’t limited to royalty; in Finland, for example, it was a crime—until modern times—to seduce and defraud into marriage by declaring a false social class. In parts of Europe, these closed social caste groups were called estates.

Along with the three or four estates recognized in various European countries, an additional group existed below the bottom layer of the hierarchical society. This bottom social strata with limited rights was understood to serve those with recognized social status. Prominent for centuries throughout Europe, and enduring through the mid-19^th century in some areas, members of this numerically large caste were called serfs. In some countries such as Russia, the 1857 census found that over 35 percent of the population could be categorized as a serf. Serf mobility was heavily restricted, and in matters of marriage and living arrangements, they were subject to rules dictated by the State, the Church, by landowners, and by often rigid local custom and tradition.

8.1.4: Class

Social class refers to the grouping of individuals in a stratified social hierarchy, usually based on wealth, education, and occupation.

Learning Objective

Compare and contrast Marx’s understanding of ‘class’ with Weber’s class model

Key Points

Sociologists may analyze social class using a simple three-stratum model of stratification, Marxist theory, or a structural-functionalist approach.
Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification that saw political power as an interplay between “class”, “status” and “group power. ” Weber theorized that class position was determined by a person’s skills and education, rather than by their relationship to the means of production.
The three-stratum model of stratification recognizes three categories: a wealthy and powerful upper class that owns and controls the means of production; a middle class of professional or salaried workers; and a lower class who rely on hourly wages for their livelihood.
In Marxist theory, the class structure of the capitalist mode of production is characterized by two main classes: the bourgeoisie, or the capitalists who own the means of production, and the much larger proletariat (or working class) who must sell their own labor power for wages.
Social class often has far reaching effects, influencing one’s educational and professional opportunities and access to resources such as healthcare and housing.

Key Terms

class consciousness: A term used in social sciences and political theory to refer to the beliefs that a person holds regarding one’s social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests.
class mobility: Movement from one class status to another–either upward or downward.
socioeconomic status: One’s social position as determined by income, wealth, occupational prestige, and educational attainment.

Examples

The British aristocracy is an instance where wealth, power, and prestige do not necessarily align–the aristocracy is upper class and generally has significant political influence, but members are not necessarily wealthy.
The British aristocracy is an instance where wealth, power, and prestige do not necessarily align — the aristocracy is upper class and generally has significant political influence, but members are not necessarily wealthy.
The concentration of high quality schools in wealthy districts is an example of how social class impacts one’s educational attainment and eventual career prospects.

Social class refers to the grouping of individuals into positions on a stratified social hierarchy. Class is an object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and social historians. However, there is not a consensus on the best definition of the term “class,” and the term has different contextual meanings. In common parlance, the term “social class” is usually synonymous with socioeconomic status, which is one’s social position as determined by income, wealth, occupational prestige, and educational attainment.

Common models used to think about social class come from Marxist theory: common stratum theory, which divides society into the upper, middle, and working class; and structural-functionalism.

Class in Marxist Theory

According to the class social theorist Karl Marx, class is a combination of objective and subjective factors. Objectively, a class shares a common relationship to the means of production. Subjectively, the members will necessarily have some perception of their similarity and common interests, called class consciousness. Class consciousness is not simply an awareness of one’s own class interest but is also a set of shared views regarding how society should be organized legally, culturally, socially and politically.

In Marxist theory, the class structure of the capitalist mode of production is characterized by two main classes: the bourgeoisie, or the capitalists who own the means of production, and the much larger proletariat (or working class) who must sell their own labor power for wages. For Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the situation that control over social production necessarily entails control over the class which produces goods—in capitalism this is the domination and exploitation of workers by owners of capital.

Weberian Class

The class sociologist Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification that saw political power as an interplay between “class”, “status” and “group power. ” Weber theorized that class position was determined by a person’s skills and education, rather than by their relationship to the means of production.

Weber derived many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social structure of Germany. He noted that contrary to Marx’s theories, stratification was based on more than simply ownership of capital. Weber examined how many members of the aristocracy lacked economic wealth yet had strong political power. Many wealthy families lacked prestige and power, for example, because they were Jewish. Weber introduced three independent factors that form his theory of stratification hierarchy: class, status, and power: class is person’s economic position in a society; status is a person’s prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society; power is a person’s ability to get his way despite the resistance of others. While these three factors are often connected, someone can have high status without immense wealth, or wealth without power.

The Common Three-Stratum Model

Contemporary sociological concepts of social class often assume three general categories: a very wealthy and powerful upper class that owns and controls the means of production; a middle class of professional or salaried workers, small business owners, and low-level managers; and a lower class, who rely on hourly wages for their livelihood.

The upper class is the social class composed of those who are wealthy, well-born, or both. They usually wield the greatest political power.

The middle class is the most contested of the three categories, consisting of the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socioeconomically between the lower class and upper class. One example of the contestation of this term is that In the United States middle class is applied very broadly and includes people who would elsewhere be considered lower class. Middle class workers are sometimes called white-collar workers.

The lower or working class is sometimes separated into those who are employed as wage or hourly workers, and an underclass—those who are long-term unemployed and/or homeless, especially those receiving welfare from the state. Members of the working class are sometimes called blue-collar workers.

Consequences of Social Class

A person’s socioeconomic class has wide-ranging effects. It may determine the schools he is able to attend, the jobs open to him, who he may marry, and his treatment by police and the courts. A person’s social class has a significant impact on his physical health, his ability to receive adequate medical care and nutrition, and his life expectancy.

Class mobility refers to movement from one class status to another–either upward or downward. Sociologists who measure class in terms of socioeconomic status use statistical data measuring income, education, wealth and other indexes to locate people on a continuum, typically divided into “quintiles” or segments of 20% each. This approach facilitates tracking people over time to measure relative class mobility. For example, the income and education level of parents can be compared to that of their children to show inter-generational class mobility.

Social Class and Living Conditions

In the United States, neighborhoods are stratified by class such that the lower class is often made to live in crime-ridden, decaying areas.

French Estates

In France before the French Revolution, society was divided into three estates: the clergy, nobility, and commoners. In this political cartoon, the Third Estate (commoners) is carrying the other two on its back.

8.1.5: Gender

Along with economic class and race, society is stratified by gender, with women often holding a lower social position than men.

Learning Objective

Describe the effects of gender discrimination on women’s employment and wealth

Key Points

In the labor force, women are often relegated to lower status jobs, lower wages, and fewer promotions and raises than their male counterparts.
Sexism is discrimination against a person on the basis of their sex, and tends to result in disadvantages for women who do not embrace their traditional gender role as mother and household overseer.
Women’s participation in the labor force also varies depending on marital status and social class.

Key Terms

Informal Economies: Employment domains that are not regulated by governments and law enforcement.
Motherhood Penalty: The loss of pay and promotions among women due to the perceived association between women and the demands of childrearing.
sexism: The belief that people of one sex or gender are inherently superior to people of the other sex or gender.

Examples

Women are more likely than men to live in poverty or to work in often exploitative informal economies, such as child and eldercare or sex work.
An example of how women are disproportionately represented in low status jobs is the high concentration of women in low wage pink-collar jobs, such as secretary, waitress, and nanny.

Economic class, race, and gender shape the opportunities, the privileges, and the inequalities experienced by individuals and groups. The United States continues to be greatly stratified along these three lines.

Capitalism also takes advantage of gender inequality. Women workers are often used as a source of cheap labor in informal economies, or employment domains that are not regulated by governments and law enforcement. For example, women work for low wages without health benefits as nannies and maids in New York, in clothing sweatshops in Los Angeles, and on rose farms in Ethiopia. In formal economies, women often receive less pay and have less chances for promotion than men. This phenomenon is referred to as the gender gap in employment.

Current U.S. labor force statistics illustrate women’s changing role in the labor force. For instance, since 1971, women’s participation in the labor force has grown from 32 million (43.4% of the female population 16 and over) to 68 million (59.2% of the female population 16 and over). Women also make, on average, $17,000 less than men do. Women tend to be concentrated in less prestigious and lower paying occupations than men, particularly those that are traditionally considered women’s jobs or pink-collar jobs. Women’s participation in the labor force also varies depending on marital status and social class.

Sociological research shows that women are not paid the same wages as men for similar work. Women tend to make between 75% and 91% of what men make for comparable work, with the highest inequality between men and women found among those with college and graduate degrees. The fact that women earn less than men with equal qualifications helps explain why women are enrolling in college at higher rates than men — they require a college education to make the same amount as men with a high school diploma. The income gap between genders used to be similar between middle-class and affluent workers, but it is now widest among the most highly paid. A woman earning in the 95^th percentile in 2006 would earn about $95,000 per year; a man in the 95^th earning percentile would make about $115,000, a 28% difference.

Average Earnings of Full-Time, Year-Round Workers by Educational Attainment in 2006, Constant Dollars

Wages based upon gender and education point to a distinctive glass ceiling as it pertains to women in the workplace.

The most common explanation for the wage gap between men and women is the finding that women pay a motherhood penalty, regardless of whether or not they are actually mothers. This can be explained from the perspective of a potential employer: assuming you have two equally qualified candidates for a position, both are in their mid-twenties, married, and straight out of college, but one is a male and the other is female, which would you choose? Many employers choose men over women because women are “at risk” of having a child, even though they may not want to have children. The employer considers women who have children to be cumbersome, based on the expectation that women will take maternity leave and will be primarily responsible for childrearing. If women do actually take time off to bear and raise children, this further reduces the likelihood that they will be considered for raises or promotions.

Sexism

Sexism is discrimination against people based on their sex or gender, and can result in lower social status for women. Sexism can refer to three subtly different beliefs or attitudes: the belief that one sex is superior to the other; the belief that men and women are very different and that this should be strongly reflected in society, language, and the law; the simple hatred of men (misandry) or women (misogyny). Many peoples’ beliefs about sex equality range along a continuum. Some people believe that women should have equal access with men to all jobs, while others believe that while women are superior to men in a few aspects, in most aspects men are superior to women.

Sexist beliefs are an example of essentialist thought, which holds that individuals can be understood (and often discriminated against) based on the characteristics of the group to which they belong–in this case, their gender.

Sexism has been linked to widespread gender discrimination. One example is the disparity in wealth between men and women in the U.S. Sociological research has shown that there are fewer wealthy women than there are wealthy men and that they are less likely to control the management of their own wealth. Up until the 19^th Century most women could not own property and women’s participation in the paid labor force outside the home was limited. It is possible that wealth among the elite may be redistributed toward a more equal balance between the sexes with increasing numbers of women entering the workforce and moving toward more financially lucrative positions in major corporations.

8.2: Global Stratification

8.2.1: Global Stratification and Inequality

Stratification results in inequality when resources, opportunities, and privileges are distributed based on position in social hierarchy.

Learning Objective

Discuss the three dominant theories of global inequality

Key Points

Society is stratified into social classes based on an individual’s socioeconomic status, gender, and race.
Stratification and inequality can be analyzed as micro-, meso-, and macro-level phenomena, as they are produced in small group interactions, through organizations and institutions, and through global economic structures.
Sociologists use three primary theories to analyze macro-level stratification and inequality: development and modernization theory, dependency theory, and world systems theory.

Key Terms

Global Stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups in societies around the world.
Macro-Level Stratification: The role of international economic systems in shaping individuals’ resources and opportunities by privileging certain social stratas.
Modernization Theory: Argues that poor nations remain poor because they hold onto traditional attitudes, beliefs, technologies, and institutions.

Examples

A sociologist might use the following types of evidence to support modernization and development theory, dependency theory, and world systems theory respectively: Poor, rural areas of India have seen increased local wealth and income with the introduction of mobile ATMs, suggesting that access to modern capitalism and technology can reduce economic inequality. A significant percentage of Indian jobs, however, are tied to American and Japanese technology firms, indicating that India’s economy suffers from being dependent on foreign, dominant nations. While India provides cheap labor to foreign corporations, however, it also uses cheaper labor from poorer nearby nations as it develops its own industry, showing that it benefits from its semiperipheral position in the global hierarchy.
In American society, children born to well-educated parents have greater educational attainment than their peers — a recent Harvard study found that legacy students were 45% more likely than other applicants to be admitted to Ivy League colleges. Educational attainment is associated with increased wealth, health, and social status. Thus, a child’s social class has longterm effects on their access to resources and opportunities.
When thinking about micro-, meso-, and macro-level social stratification, consider the following example: in a job interview, the candidate with the most charisma may have an advantage that makes him or her likely to get hired; when submitting a resume for a job, the person who is connected to the most prestigious educational or professional institutions is most likely to be called in for an interview; when searching for job openings, a person in a wealthy, developed nation is more likely than a person in a poor nation to find available positions.
A sociologist might use the following types of evidence to support modernization and development theory, dependency theory, and world systems theory respectively: Poor, rural areas of India have seen increased local wealth and income with the introduction of mobile ATMs, suggesting that access to modern capitalism and technology can reduce economic inequality. A significant percentage of Indian jobs, however, are tied to American and Japanese technology firms, indicating that India’s economy suffers from being dependent on foreign, dominant nations. While India provides cheap labor to foreign corporations, however, it also uses cheaper labor from poorer nearby nations as it develops its own industry, showing that it benefits from its semiperipheral position in the global hierarchy.

Global stratification refers to the hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups in societies around the world.

Global inequality refers to the unequal distribution of resources among individuals and groups based on their position in the social hierarchy. Classic sociologist Max Weber analyzed three dimensions of stratification: class, status, and party. Modern sociologists, however, generally speak of stratification in terms of socioeconomic status (SES). A person’s SES is usually determined by their income, occupational prestige, wealth, and educational attainment, though other variables are sometimes considered.

Stratification and Inequality

Stratification refers to the range of social classes that result from variations in socioeconomic status. Significantly, because SES measures a range of variables, it does not merely measure economic inequality. For example, despite earning equal salaries, two persons may have differences in power, property, and prestige. These three indicators can indicate someone’s social position; however, they are not always consistent.

Inequality occurs when a person’s position in the social hierarchy is tied to different access to resources, and it largely depends on differences in wealth . For example, a wealthy person may receive higher quality medical care than a poor person, have greater access to nutritional foods, and be able to attend higher caliber schools. Material resources are not distributed equally to people of all economic statuses.

US Wealth Held by Top 1% of Population (1913-2008)

This graph illustrates the percentage of all US wealth held by the top 1% of the population. This percentage has shifted over time, but has consistently been a significant portion of total US wealth, indicating that wealth is not equally distributed between all US citizens.

While stratification is most commonly associated with socioeconomic status, society is also stratified by statuses such as race and gender. Together with SES, these shape the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges among individuals. For example, within a given social class, women are less likely to receive job promotions than men. Similarly, within American cities with heavily racially-segregated neighborhoods, racial minorities are less likely to have access to high quality schools than white people.

Perspectives Towards Stratification

Stratification is generally analyzed from three different perspectives: micro, meso, and macro. Micro-level analysis focuses on how prestige and personal influence create inequality through face-to-face and small group interactions. Meso-level analysis focuses on how connections to organizations and institutions produce inequality. Macro-level analysis considers the role of economic systems in shaping individuals’ resources and opportunities.

Macro-level analyses of stratification can include global analyses of how positions in the international economic system shape access to resources and opportunities. For example, the small African nation of Cape Verde is significantly indebted to European nations and the U.S., and the majority of its industry is controlled by foreign investors. As the nation’s economy has ceded control of once-public services, such as electricity, its citizens have lost jobs and the price of electricity has increased. Thus, the nation’s position in the world economy has resulted in poverty for many of its citizens.

A global structure, or a macro-level phenomenon, produces unequal distribution of resources for people living in various nations.

Theories of Macro-Level Inequality

There are three dominant theories that sociologists use to consider why inequality exists on a global scale .

Firstly, some sociologists use a theory of development and modernization to argue that poor nations remain poor because they hold onto traditional attitudes and beliefs, technologies and institutions, such as traditional economic systems and forms of government. Modernists believe large economic growth is the key to reducing poverty in poor countries.

Secondly, dependency theory blames colonialism and neocolonialism (continuing economic dependence on former colonial countries) for global poverty. Countries have developed at an uneven rate because wealthy countries have exploited poor countries in the past and today through foreign debt and transnational corporations (TNCs). According to dependency theory, wealthy countries would not be as rich as they are today if they did not have these materials, and the key to reversing inequality is to relieve former colonies of their debts so that they can benefit from their own industry and resources.

Lastly, world systems theory suggests that all countries are divided into a three-tier hierarchy based on their relationship to the global economy, and that a country’s position in this hierarchy determines its own economic development.

According to world systems theory as articulated by sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, core countries are at the top of the global hierarchy as they can extract material resources and labor from less developed countries. These core countries own most of the world’s capital and technology, and have great control over world trade and economic agreements. Semiperipheral countries generally provide labor and materials to core countries, which benefits core countries but also increases income within the semiperipheral country. Peripheral countries are generally indebted to wealthy nations, and their land and populations are often exploited for the gain of other countries.

Because of this hierarchy, individuals living in core countries generally have higher standards of living than those in semiperipheral or peripheral countries.

8.2.2: Industrialized Countries

Industrialized countries have greater levels of wealth and economic development than less-industrialized countries.

Learning Objective

Describe the characteristics of industrialized countries

Key Points

Industrialized countries are at the top of the global socioeconomic hierarchy, and their populations generally enjoy a high standard of living.
Most commonly, the criteria used to evaluate a country’s level of development is its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.
One measure of a nation’s level of development is the Human Development Index (HDI), a statistical measure developed by the United Nations that gauges a country’s level of human development.

Key Terms

gross domestic product: (GDP) The market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a year, or over a given period of time; often used as an indicator of a country’s material standard of living.
Human Development Index (HDI): A composite statistic used to rank countries by level of “human development,” taken as a synonym of the older term “standard of living. “
Developed Country: A sovereign state with a highly developed economy relative to other nations.
Industrialized Country: A sovereign state with a highly developed economy relative to other nations.

Example

In countries such as the United States, with well-developed industries, residents have consistent access to electricity, roads, and other infrastructure that improves their standard of living.

An industrialized country, also commonly referred to as a developed country, is a sovereign state with a highly developed economy relative to other nations. Most commonly, the criteria used to evaluate a country’s level of development is its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. However, many other variables are frequently taken into account. Factors used to measure a country’s development can include: per capita income, level of industrialization, extent of infrastructure, life expectancy, literacy rate, and general standard of living. The criteria to use and the countries to classify as developed are contentious issues, as discussed below.

Characteristics of Industrialized Countries

In terms of global stratification, industrialized countries are at the top of the global hierarchy. Developed countries, which include such nations as the United States, France, and Japan, have higher GDPs, per-capita incomes, levels of industrialization, breadth of infrastructure, and general standards of living than less developed nations. Consequently, people living in developed countries have greater access to such resources as food, education, roads, and electricity than their counterparts in less developed nations.

Human Development Index

One measure of a nation’s level of development is the Human Development Index (HDI), a statistical measure developed by the United Nations that gauges a country’s level of development. Often, national income or gross domestic product (GDP) are used alone to measure how prosperous a nation’s economy is. HDI considers these factors, but also accounts for how income is invested in healthcare, education, and other infrastructure. Thus, HDI is often used to predict trends in a nation’s development.

United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) Rankings for 2011

Human Development Index (HDI) is a measure of how much of a nation’s wealth is invested into local services such as education and infrastructure. Countries with low HDI tend to be caught in a national cycle of poverty — they have little wealth to invest, but the lack of investment perpetuates their poverty. This map shows how disparate HDIs are around the world. Because nations have varying levels of wealth, income, and investment in infrastructure, individual populations experience inequality.

Criticisms

The Human Development Index, along with the entire concept of “developing” and “developed” countries, has been criticized on a number of grounds. The term “developing” implies inferiority compared to a developed country, and it also assumes a desire to develop along the traditional Western model of economic development. Critics argue that this is a rather Western-centric perspective. Critics also argue that it does take into account any ecological considerations and focuses almost exclusively on national performance and ranking.

8.2.3: Industrializing Countries

Industrializing countries have low standards of living, undeveloped industry, and low Human Development Indices (HDIs).

Learning Objective

Explain why some scholars use the term ‘less-developed country’ instead of ‘industrializing country’

Key Points

In the global hierarchy, industrializing countries are at the middle of the global economic order as measured by indicators such as income per capita, basic infrastructure, literacy rates, or HDI.
HDI is the measure of development that is used by the United Nations. HDI considers a country’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP), per capita income, rate of literacy, life expectancy, basic infrastructure, and other factors to determine how developed a country is.
Because so-called “industrializing countries” do not always have economic growth, some scholars prefer the descriptive term “less-developed country” to describe nations with smaller economies than developed countries.

Key Terms

Human Development Index (HDI): A composite statistic used to rank countries by level of “human development,” taken as a synonym of the older term “standard of living. “
Developing Country: A nation with a low living standard, undeveloped industrial base, and low Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries.
Industrializing Country: A nation with a low living standard, undeveloped industrial base, and low Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries.

Examples

Brazil is an example of a large industrializing country—its economy has grown substantially in the past few decades, but much of the population still does not have access to reliable transportation or healthcare, and many are illiterate. Brazil’s economy must continue to grow if the nation’s standards of living are to rise and if the nation is to become a more prominent figure in the world economy. While Brazil has not fully developed its industrial base and its economy has much room for expansion, it is a more powerful player in the global market than less developed nations, such as Haiti.
While Brazil has not fully developed its industrial base and its economy has much room for expansion, it is a more powerful player in the global market than nations that are less developed, such as Haiti.
Afghanistan is considered an industrializing nation, but recent wars and droughts have stalled economic growth. Thus, it might more aptly be labeled a “less-developed country. “

An industrializing country, also commonly referred to as a developing country or a less-developed country, is a nation with a low standard of living, undeveloped industrial base, and low Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. HDI is the measure of development that is used by the United Nations. HDI considers a country’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP), per capita income, rate of literacy, life expectancy, basic infrastructure, and other factors affecting standard of living to determine how developed a country is. Industrializing countries have HDIs between the most and least industrialized countries in the world .

Map of GDP Per Capita (2008)

The GDP of economies across the globe.

Considering global stratification, industrializing nations are at the middle of the hierarchy. Standards of living in industrializing nations are lower than in developed countries, but range widely depending on whether a nation is rapidly industrializing or is in decline. For example, India is considered a industrializing country. Many Indians, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, live in extreme poverty and have little access to healthcare, education, and paid employment. However, standards of living in India have greatly improved in recent decades as a result of a rapidly expanding economy. By contrast, in Afghanistan, which is also considered an industrializing nation, war and drought has halted economic growth and standards of living have not been rising substantially.

“Industrializing” versus “Less-developed”

Many scholars and social theorists have criticized the term “industrializing country” for being misleading. First, it implies that a country’s economy is growing; some partially industrialized countries are stagnant or in decline. Second, critics claim the term masks the inequality within each country. In other words, saying that India is an industrializing country hides the fact that within India some people are very wealthy and have a high standard of living, while some Indians are very poor and have few resources and opportunities. Because of such critiques, some scholars use the term less-developed country to describe the present circumstances in countries with relatively small economies and little infrastructure .

Developed and Developing Countries

This map shows what stage of economic development various countries are in. It also includes which nations are in a transitional moment between stages of development.

8.2.4: Least Industrialized Countries

The world’s least industrialized countries have low income, few human resources, and are economically vulnerable.

Learning Objective

Describe the characteristics of Least Developed Countries

Key Points

Least industrialized countries are more likely than more developed countries to have authoritarian governments, uncontrolled epidemics, and low access to services such as healthcare and education.
According to the UN, and least industrialized countries meet three standards:1. Low income (a three-year average gross national income of less that $905 USD per capita) 2. Human resource weakness3. Economic vulnerability.
Modern sociologists consider the world’s least industrialized countries to play a peripheral role in the world economy, and therefore refer to them as peripheral nations.

Key Terms

Least Industrialized Countries: The countries at the bottom of a stratified global economic order, which play only a peripheral role in the international economy.
Third World Countries: Those countries not aligned with the west or the east during the Cold War, especially the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Human Development Index (HDI): A composite statistic used to rank countries by level of “human development,” taken as a synonym of the older term “standard of living. “

Example

The Pacific island country of Samoa illustrates the distinction between least industrialized countries that receive international aid from the UN and industrializing countries that do not necessarily receive significant assistance from the UN. Samoa has been characterized as a least developed country by the UN because of its small economy and the vulnerability of its agricultural industry. After years of political stability and reduced poverty, the UN sought to relabel Samoa as a developing nation, rather than a least developed country. However, when a tsunami ravaged the islands industry and population, the UN put off talks of changing the country’s status. While LDCs can expand their economies and improve standards of living, they are vulnerable to economic setbacks and often require international support.

In contrast to industrialized and industrializing countries, the world’s least industrialized countries exhibit extremely poor economic growth and have the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) measures in the world. HDI is the measure of development that is used by the United Nations. HDI considers a country’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP), per capita income, rate of literacy, life expectancy, basic infrastructure, and other factors affecting standard of living to determine how developed a country is. To be considered a least industrialized country, or least developed country (LDC) as they are commonly called, a country must have a small economy and low standards of living .

Map of GDP Per Capita (2008)

This map shows countries’ gross domestic products (GDP) per capita. Countries in the 1–10,000 international dollar range roughly correspond to least industrialized countries.

Defining an LDC

By the United Nations’ standards, a country must meet three specific criteria to be classified as an LDC:

Low income (a three-year average gross national income of less that $905 USD per capita)
Human resource weakness, based on indicators of nutrition, health, education, and literacy
Economic vulnerability, based on instability of agricultural production, instability of exports of goods and services, and a high percentage of population displaced by natural disaster, for example.

The UN uses such specific standards for defining LDCs because the UN provides support and advocacy services to LDCs. Thus, the definition of LDCs is more rigid than the definition of developing/industrializing and developed/industrialized countries .

Map of Least Developed Countries

Least developed countries tend to be concentrated in areas with ongoing conflict, a high rate of natural distasters, or industries that are vulnerable to climate instability.

Characteristics

Not all LDCs are alike, but many characteristics are shared. For example, the majority of LDCs are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. LDCs in this region are particularly likely to have authoritarian governments such as dictatorships. Similarly, for many LDCs AIDS is a major issue, overwhelming unstable medical infrastructures. In all LDCs, populations have a low standard of living. People living in LDCs are unlikely to have consistent access to electricity, clean water, healthcare, education, and in many cases food and shelter.

The “Third World”

In the past, countries that are now labeled as LDCs were known as “third world” countries. Third world countries were undeveloped countries that were neither major players in the capitalist world market nor communist states under the USSR. Most current scholars consider the term “third world” to be outdated. Modern sociologists are more likely to describe the world’s least industrialized nations as “peripheral,” referring to their marginalized position in the world economy. Least industrialized nations are likely to be exploited by more developed nations for material and human resources, such as oil and cheap labor. They participate in the world economy, but do not greatly benefit from it. Least industrialized nations are at the bottom of a stratified global economic order, and play only a peripheral role in the international economy .

8.2.5: Growing Global Inequality

There is a wide gap between the wealth of the world’s richest countries and its poorest.

Learning Objective

Describe the development of global inequality in the 20th century

Key Points

Global inequality is thought to have peaked around the year 1970, but inequality remains significant and persistent.
According to social reproduction theory, rich and powerful individuals benefit from being at the top of the economic hierarchy and have the influence needed to protect their status, so they contribute to the persistence of global inequality.
Even though global inequality has decreased in recent decades, inequality is persistent and shows no signs of disappearing.

Key Terms

Twin Peaks: Opposite clusters of the world’s richest and poorest countries.
Social Reproduction Theory: According to this theory of inequality, rich and powerful individuals and institutions perpetuate inequality to protect their high status.
divergence: The degree to which two or more things separate or move in opposite directions.

Examples

Researchers have found that the top 10% of Americans have a combined income equal to that of the poorest 43% of the world, demonstrating the wide gap that exists been the inhabitants of wealthy countries and those of poorer ones.
Countries with large populations that were once at the bottom of the economic hierarchy, such as India and China, have rapidly expanding middle classes and growing national economies. Consequently, the proportion of the world’s population that lives in countries that are neither extremely rich nor extremely poor has grown substantially.
In America, the extremely wealthy owners of Walmart, the Walton family, contributed $3.2million to political campaigns in 2004 to protect their business interests. The Waltons are able to use their wealth to further increase their earnings and protect their position at the top of the economic hierarchy.

There is a vast gap between the wealth of the world’s richest countries and its poorest, resulting in different access to resources and opportunities for each country’s population. To discuss this global inequality, sociologists may refer to the world’s “twin peaks,” or two groups of its richest and poorest countries. At the top of the hierarchy, a group of countries that includes the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia has 13% of the world’s population but receives 45% of its income (adjusted for international purchasing power). At the bottom of the hierarchy, a group of countries including India, Indonesia, and China has 42% of the world’s population but receives only 9% of income (adjusted for international purchasing power). The existence of these twin peaks demonstrates that there is a wide gap between the world’s wealthiest and poorest nations.

Throughout most of the 20^th century, there was a trend towards divergence between the economies of richer and poorer countries. In other words, the gap between wealthy, developed nations and poorer, developing nations widened — global inequality increased. Current research indicates, however, that global inequality peaked around 1970. Around the year 1970, world income was distributed between extremely rich and extremely poor countries, with little overlap. Since the 1970s, trends show that an increasing percentage of the world’s population lives in middle-income countries. Thus, there is a broader spectrum of incomes, with fewer people living at the extremes of wealth and poverty than in the past. Since 1970, global inequality has decreased.

Global inequality

As of 2009, there was still a stark divide between the wealth of the world’s richest countries and its poorest, but an increased number of countries had middle-incomes as compared to the years prior to 1970. Global inequality remained persistent but had decreased somewhat.

Even though global inequality has decreased in recent decades, inequality is persistent and shows no signs of disappearing. Evidence used by researchers to demonstrate the presence of global inequality includes: the poorest 10% of Americans have a higher standard of living than 2/3 of the world’s population; the richest 1% of the world’s population holds as much wealth as the poorest 10% of the population; and the three richest individuals in the world possess greater wealth than the poorest 10% of the population. These statistics are small glimpses of the big picture of global economy, but begin to illustrate the great inequality that exists.

Sociologists who study global inequality have proposed social reproduction theory as one way to explain the persistence of inequality. According to social reproduction theory, rich and powerful individuals and institutions perpetuate inequality to protect their high status. The rich and powerful control the means of production (such as factories, land, and transportation) and often have strong influence in government. Moreover, they often control the media, schools, and courts, extending their influence in various social realms. Because individuals and institutions at the top of the economic hierarchy benefit from their status, they use their influence to protect their positions.

A related explanation for the persistence of inequality is the idea that culture teaches acceptance of the extant economic hierarchy. According to this view, individuals are taught to believe that the rich and powerful are more talented, hardworking, and intelligent than the poor. This explanation holds that the misconception that poor people are lazy or irresponsible is widespread, and that people are therefore likely to accept that poor people deserve to be poor. People who ascribe to the cultural belief that the rich are deserving of their wealth are unlikely to challenge economic inequality, so they thereby perpetuate it.

8.3: Stratification in the World System

8.3.1: Colonialism and Neocolonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition, and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory.

Learning Objective

Differentiate between dependency theory, world-systems theory, and the Marxist perspective on colonialism

Key Points

The colonial period ranges from the 1450s to the 1970s, beginning when several European powers (Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France especially) established colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Decolonization took place after the First and Second World Wars as former colonies established independence from colonial powers.
Neocolonialism refers to the unequal economic and power relations that currently exist between former colonies and former colonizing nations.
Marx viewed colonialism as part of the global capitalist system, which has led to exploitation, social change, and uneven development.
Dependency theory argues that countries have developed at an uneven rate because wealthy countries have exploited poor countries in the past through colonialism and today through foreign debt and trade.
World-systems theory splits the world economic system into core, peripheral, and semi-peripheral countries.

Key Terms

Age of Discovery: A period in history starting in the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contact with Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania and mapping the planet.
decolonization: The freeing of a colony or territory from dependent status by granting it sovereignty.
Scramble for Africa: A process of invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the New Imperialism period, between 1881 and World War I in 1914.
colonialism: the establishment, exploitation, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of territories (or colonies) in one geographic area by people from another area

Examples

India is an example of a British colony that did not achieve independence until the mid-20th century, remaining mired by foreign debts and lack of capital for decades after.
India is an example of a British colony that did not achieve independence until the mid-20th century and that remained mired by foreign debts and lack of capital for decades after.
The United States is an example of a core country, with immense capital and relatively high wage labor; Mexico is a semiperipheral country, where the economy has grown rapidly and there is significant technology manufacturing, but where most capital still comes from foreign nations; Liberia is an example of a peripheral country, where virtually all investment is foreign and many wage laborers earn less than $1/day.

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition, and expansion of colonies in one territory, imposed by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole, or parent state, claims sovereignty over the colony, and the social structure, government, and economy of the colony are changed by colonizers from the metropole. Colonialism is a set of unequal relationships between the metropole and the colony, and between the colonists and the indigenous, or native, population .

Map of Empires and Colonies: 1800

By the end of the 19th century, most of the Americas were under the control of European colonial empires. At present, much of South and Central America is still economically dependent on foreign nations for capital and export markets.

History of Colonialism

Modern colonialism started with the Age of Discovery, during which Portugal and Spain discovered new lands across the oceans (including the Americas and Atlantic/South Pacific islands) and built trading posts. According to some scholars, building these colonies across oceans differentiates colonialism from other types of expansionism. These new lands were first divided between the Portuguese Empire and Spanish Empire, though the British, French, and Dutch soon acquired vast territory as well.

The 17^th century saw the creation of the French colonial empire, the Dutch Empire, and the English colonial empire, which later became the British Empire. It also saw the establishment of some Swedish overseas colonies and a Danish colonial empire.

The spread of colonial empires diminished in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, largely due to the American Revolutionary War and Latin American wars for independence. However, many new colonies were established after this period, including the German colonial empire and Belgian colonial empire. In the late 19^th century, many European powers were involved in the so-called Scramble for Africa, in which many African colonies were established.

Decolonization

After the First World War, the victorious allies divided up the German colonial empire and much of the Ottoman Empire according to League of Nations mandates. These territories were divided into three classes based on how quickly they would be ready for independence. Decolonization outside the Americas lagged until after World War II. In ideal cases, decolonized colonies were granted sovereignty, or the right to self-govern, becoming independent countries.

Neocolonialism

The term “neocolonialism” has been used to refer to a variety of contexts since the decolonization that took place after World War II. Generally, it does not refer to any type of direct colonization, but colonialism by other means. Specifically, neocolonialism refers to the theory that former or existing economic relationships—the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement—are used to maintain control of former colonies after formal independence was achieved. In broader usage, neocolonialism may simply refer to the involvement of powerful countries in the affairs of less powerful countries; this is especially relevant in modern Latin America. In this sense, neocolonialism implies a form of economic imperialism.

Colonialism and Neocolonialism in the World System

One approach sociologists take to colonialism and neocolonialism is a Marxist perspective. Marx viewed colonialism as part of the global capitalist system, which has led to exploitation, social change, and uneven development. He argued that it was destructive and produced dependency. According to some Marxist historians, in all of the colonial countries ruled by Western European countries, indigenous people were robbed of health and opportunities. From a Marxist perspective, colonies are considered vis-à-vis modes of production. The search for raw materials and new investment opportunities is the result of inter-capitalist rivalry for capital accumulation.

Dependency theory builds upon Marxist thought, blaming colonialism and neocolonialism for poverty within the world system. This theory argues that countries have developed at an uneven rate because wealthy countries have exploited poor countries in the past and today through foreign debt and foreign trade.

World-Systems Theory

The world-systems theory suggests that the aftermath of colonialism and the continuing practice of neocolonialism produces unequal economic relations within the world system. Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein elaborated on these forms of economic inequality. In this theory, the world economic system is divided into a hierarchy of three types of countries: core, semiperipheral, and peripheral. Core countries (e.g., U.S., Japan, Germany) are dominant capitalist countries characterized by high levels of industrialization and urbanization. Peripheral countries (e.g., most African countries and low income countries in South America) are dependent on core countries for capital, and have very little industrialization and urbanization. Peripheral countries are usually agrarian and have low literacy rates and lack Internet connection in many areas. Semiperipheral countries (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil, India, Nigeria, South Africa) are less developed than core nations but are more developed than peripheral nations.

French Pith Helmet

The pith helmet is a symbol of French colonialism in tropical regions, as it was worn by colonial officers.

8.3.2: Multinational Corporations

A multinational corporation (MNC) is a business enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country.

Learning Objective

Reconstruct the debate between critics and proponents of economic globalization

Key Points

Multinational corporations affect local and national policies by causing governments to compete with each other to be attractive to multinational corporation investment in their country.
Multinational corporations often hold power over local and national governments through a monopoly on technological and intellectual property. Because of their size, multinationals can also have a significant impact on government policy through the threat of market withdrawal.
Economic globalization refers to increasing economic interdependence of national economies across the world through a rapid increase in cross-border movement of goods, services, technology and capital. Multinational corporations play a key role in this process.
Those who view economic globalization positively cite evidence of per capita GDP growth, decrease in poverty, and a narrowing gap between rich and poor nations.
Those who view economic globalization negatively cite evidence of exploitation of the local labor force, funneling of important resources away from the country itself into foreign exports, and overall dependency of developing countries upon wealthy countries.
Those who view economic globalization positively cite evidence of per capita GDP growth, decrease in poverty, and a narrowing gap between rich and poor nations.
Those who view economic globalization negatively cite evidence of exploitation of the local labor force, funneling of important resources away from the country itself into foreign exports, and overall dependency of developing countries upon wealthy countries.

Key Terms

tax break: A deduction in tax that is given in order to encourage a certain economic activity or a social objective.
Economic Imperialism: The geopolitical practice of using capitalism, business globalization, and cultural imperialism to control a country, in lieu of either direct military control or indirect political control.
Market Withdrawal: The act or threat of removing one’s goods or services from the consumer market, potentially reducing the supply of a product, or of jobs.

Examples

Walmart is an example of a large multinational corporation that often exerts influence on political processes through lobbying, contributions to campaigns, and threats of market withdrawal.
India is an example of a country that, economically, has benefitted from globalization — it has seen rapid GDP growth and has a growing middle class with a rising standard of living.
Certain parts of Mexico illustrate the drawbacks of globalization — farmers in northwestern states sell produce to California while suffering from malnutrition and poor labor conditions.

A multinational corporation (MNC) or multinational enterprise (MNE) is a corporate enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country.

A MNC differs slightly from a transnational corporation (TNC), because while MNC’s are traditionally national companies with foreign subsidiaries, a TNC does not identify itself with one national home. However, these terms are often used interchangeably. Multinational corporations can have a powerful influence in local economies, and even the world economy.

Influence on Local and National Economies

National and local governments often compete with one another to attract MNC facilities, with the expectation of increased tax revenue, employment, and economic activity. To compete, political entities may offer MNCs incentives such as tax breaks, pledges of governmental assistance or subsidized infrastructure, or lax environmental or labor regulations.

Besides holding the promise of economic growth for local and national governments, multinational corporations also exert power over political entities once they are established, through their control over technical and intellectual property. For example, Adidas holds patents on shoe designs, Siemens A.G. holds many patents on equipment and infrastructure and Microsoft benefits from software patents. These patents often allow multinational corporations to exercise a monopoly in the local economy, preventing local enterprises from developing. This also functions to keep labor costs low, sometimes exploitatively so.

Because of their size, multinational corporations can also have a significant impact on government policy through the threat of market withdrawal.

Influence on the World Economy

Multinational corporations play an important role in the world economy through the process of economic globalization; in other words, the increasing economic interdependence of national economies across the world through a rapid increase in cross-border movement of goods, services, technology and capital.

Multinational corporations have played a leading role in this globalization, establishing multiple links between the economies of various countries. Using capital from developed countries, MNCs establish factories and plants in developing countries, where they can access raw materials and labor more cheaply. The finished products are then shipped back to wealthy countries where there is a consumer market.

These multiple links lead to an increasing economic integration between various economies, resulting in the emergence of a global marketplace or a single world market.

A Positive View of Economic Globalization

Those who view this phenomenon positively cite the evidence of per capita GDP growth, decrease in poverty, and a narrowing gap between rich and poor nations. Proponents of economic globalization argue that the economic benefits are widely shared between different parts of society, discounting critics who point to rising inequality between the rich and poor within nations who have joined the global market.

Those in favour of globalization also cite evidence of overall improvement of living standards and poverty reduction in globalizing countries. For example, there has been a 5.4 percent annual growth in income for the poorest fifth of the population of Malaysia. Even in China, where inequality continues to be a problem, the poorest fifth of the population saw a 3.8 percent annual growth in income in 2001. Finally, there is evidence that the gap has narrowed between rich and poor countries, which is often touted as a positive benefit of economic globalization.

Critical Views of Economic Globalization

Not all observers of economic globalization have a positive evaluation. As discussed above, multinational corporations exert powerful influence over local and national governments, often prompting them to enact policies that benefit business, rather than protecting the rights of local people. Thus, economic globalization in the form of MNCs can lead to exploitation of the local labor force, funneling of important resources away from the country itself into foreign exports, and overall dependency of developing countries upon wealthy countries.

In addition to the uneven distribution of benefits that often occurs, critics also point to the ways that resources are diverted from the local population into foreign exports. For example, some of the land in Cape Verde could be planted and harvested to feed people but is planted instead with cash crops for foreign exchange. Fresh produce is regularly sold or changed to a nonperishable type, such as canned tuna for export, rather than consumed by the population. Widespread malnutrition is one of the effects of this foreign dependency.

Finally, economic globalization may result in unequal economic relations of dependency between developing and developed countries. Instead of acting independently on behalf of the people in the country, governments of developing countries may act more in the interests of MNCs and of other nations on whom they rely on for aid. They may feel that without these forms of economic connection, their country cannot survive.

Thus, dependent relations that were formed in the colonial period continue on today in the form of what many scholars call neocolonialism or economic imperialism.

Walmart in Quanzhou, China

Walmart is an example of a large multi-national corporation, with stores and manufacturing facilities all over the world.

8.3.3: Poverty

Poverty is the condition of not having access to material resources, income, or wealth.

Learning Objective

Compare the definitions of poverty, absolute poverty, and extreme poverty

Key Points

The U.S. officially defines poverty using the poverty line, which is the measure of those whose incomes are less than three times the approximate cost of a subsistence level food budget.
Absolute poverty is the level of poverty where individuals and families cannot meet food, shelter, warmth, and safety needs, while relative poverty refers to economic disadvantage compared to wealthier members of society.
Extreme poverty is a severe lack of material possessions or money, defined by the World Bank as living on less than US $1.25 a day.
Poverty may correspond not only to lack of resources, but to lack of opportunity to improve one’s standard of living and acquire resources.
Globally, countries are stratified in an economic hierarchy that is often measured by GNI PPP, or gross national income converted to international dollars. Individuals in wealthy countries are less likely to live in poverty than those in poor countries.

Key Terms

The Poverty Line: The threshold of poverty, below which one’s income does not cover necessities.
GNI PPP: The GNI PPP is the gross national income of a country converted to international dollars using a factor called the purchasing power parity, and is a commonly used measure of national economic well-being.
Economic Stratification: Economic stratification refers to the condition within a society where social classes are separated, or stratified, along economic lines, with distinct economic strata, or levels.

Examples

People who are homeless, hungry, or ill without access to treatment are examples of people who do not have access to the material resources they need to survive — they live in poverty as the term is used colloquially, and likely fall under formal income thresholds that designate individuals as officially poor.
Liberia has a substantially lower GNI PPP than the United States, meaning that the nation’s wealth is much lower. Consequently, someone with an average income in Liberia has a substantially lower standard of living and much less access to resources than someone with an average income in the U.S.
By a local measure of relative poverty, the wealthiest person in a town in Liberia is well-off, but measured on a global scale that person is likely to be relatively poor.

Poverty describes the state of not having access to material resources, wealth, or income. The U.S. officially defines poverty using the poverty line, which is the official measure of those whose incomes are less than three times the approximate cost of a subsistence level food budget. This definition has been in use in the U.S. to track demographic changes and allocate welfare aid since the 1960s. Near poverty is when one earns up to 25% above the poverty line; put otherwise, a person near poverty has an income below 125% of the current poverty line. Absolute poverty is the level of poverty where individuals and families cannot meet food, shelter, warmth, and safety needs, while relative poverty refers to economic disadvantage compared to wealthier members of society. Extreme poverty is a severe lack of material possessions or money, defined by the World Bank as living on less than US $1.25 a day.

Poverty may correspond not only to lack of resources, but to lack of opportunity to improve one’s standard of living and acquire resources. Life chances are an individual’s access to basic opportunities and resources in the marketplace. Someone who is living in poverty but has high life chances may be able to improve their economic standing, while someone with low life chances will likely have a consistently low standard of living.

Billions of people around the world live in poverty, and often experience hunger, preventable illness, and low life expectancy as a result. A commonly used measure of national economic well-being is the GNI PPP. The GNI PPP is the gross national income of a country converted to international dollars using a factor called the purchasing power parity. In other words, GNI PPP lets you understand how much a person could buy with a given amount of money (in other words, a person’s annual income), regardless of the country’s currency. It enables comparisons between the relative wealth and poverty of countries — the higher a country’s GNI PPP is, the better off the average person in that country is.

Comparing GNI PPPs makes clear that there is global economic stratification, or that countries are arranged in a hierarchy based on the unequal distribution wealth.The developed world is over 6 times wealthier than the less developed world. Globally, Africa has the highest level of poverty, with the average person earning less than 10% of what the average US citizen earns.

Percentage of Population Living on Less than $1/day

This map shows the percentage of national populations living on less than $1/day, adjusted for international purchasing power. This is a commonly used measure of poverty to allow international comparisons.

United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) Rankings for 2011

8.3.4: Modernization and Technology

Modernization deals with social change from agrarian societies to industrial ones, with new technologies playing an important role.

Learning Objective

Discuss some problems with modernization theory, especially for poorer countries

Key Points

The Renaissance period (14th-17th centuries) was an important era of introducing new technologies of mechanization and efficient production which paved the way for the Industrial Revolution.
The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenburg in the 15th century, is regarded as one of the most important Renaissance inventions because it allowed the rapid spread of information across borders.
The mass production technologies perfected during the Industrial Revolution led to a dramatic change in production processes, which in turn spurred on patterns of urbanization, wage labor, and nuclear family life.
The Information Revolution refers to the most recent era of technological developments, including cell phones and the Internet.
The assumption that it is always beneficial to adopt new technologies in order to modernize must be questioned, because it can sometimes lead to value judgments against societies and groups who do not use the latest technologies.

Key Terms

modernization: A model of an evolutionary transition from a “pre-modern” or “traditional” society to a “modern” society, including the adoption of new industry and technology.
Industrial Revolution: The major technological, socioeconomic, and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th century, resulting from the replacement of an economy based on manual labor to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing.
Information Revolution: Refers to the most recent era of technological developments, including cell phones and the Internet.

Examples

With the introduction of mechanized textile production in New England during the Industrial Revolution, many women who previously earned wages by sewing or weaving in their homes took positions at textile mills, working outside of the home for the first time. This changed family structures and social norms.
With the introduction of mechanized textile production in New England during the Industrial Revolution, many women who previously earned wages by sewing or weaving in their homes took positions at textile mills, working outside of the home for the first time. This changed family structures and social norms.
Fears that nations without access to modern communications technology will be left out of the global economic order have spurred activist efforts to distribute cell phones and computers in developing nations.

Background

New technology is a major source of social change. Modernization deals with social change from agrarian societies to industrial ones, so it is important to look at technology changes across contexts. New technologies do not change societies by themselves. Rather, it is the response to technology that causes change. Frequently, a new technology will be recognized but not put to use for a very long time. Later, it may be taken up on large scale such that an entire society is revolutionized by it.

From the perspective of Western societies, one of the most important epochs for technological innovation was the Renaissance, which spanned roughly the 14^th through 17^th centuries starting from Italy and spreading throughout the rest of Europe. Many technologies which had profound impact of social life were either invented or popularized during this time. For example, the compound crank and connecting rod converted circular motion into reciprocal motion and was of utmost importance for the mechanization of work processes, later becoming integrated into machine design. The mariner’s astrolabe played an important role in sea navigation, aiding in the discovery of the Americas and other overseas lands. Other technologies introduced during this time include the cranked reel (used to wind skeins of yarn), the blast furnace (enhanced iron production), and the rotary grindstone with treadle.

The Printing Press

Of extreme significance during this period was the invention of the printing press in the mid-1400s by Johannes Gutenburg. Paving the way for mass production of printed material, the printing press is widely regarded as one of the most important inventions of the Renaissance. It made possible the relatively free flow of information, which transcended borders and induced a sharp rise in Renaissance literacy, learning, and education. It also allowed for greater circulation of (sometimes revolutionary) ideas among the rising middle classes and peasants and threatened the traditional power monopoly of the ruling nobility. The printing press became a key factor in the rapid spread of the Protestant Revolution and is thought to have enabled the development of national identities.

The Renaissance

The technologies of the Renaissance period, which introduced methods of mechanization, were the predecessors of the mass-production techniques that fueled the Industrial Revolution during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, which started in Great Britain and emanated outwards. Key technologies developed during this period included the steam engine, new iron smelting methods, and the water frame, spinning Jenny, and spinning mule (in the textile industry). As a result of these developments, new factories sprung up everywhere and production shifted from homes or small workshops to factories. These developments also shaped new patterns of urbanization, labor, and family life, all of which may be deemed a process of modernization. For example, people moved from the countryside into the city in search of new work opportunities, more people were employed as wage-laborers doing repetitive tasks in a factory, and nuclear families became disconnected from the more extended kinship networks found in rural areas as people moved into cities.

Modernization continues apace today as technologies spread into areas that were previously less technologically advanced and as new innovations are introduced almost daily. Cell phones, for example, have changed the lives of millions throughout the world. This is especially true in Africa and parts of the Middle East where there is a low cost communication infrastructure. Spread of Internet connection is another powerful factor which facilitates rapid flows of information and interconnection between people in all corners of the globe. These processes may be considered the phase of technological innovation following the Industrial Revolution, which some have labeled the Information Revolution.

Modernization through technological innovation is seen by modernization theorists as a key way that poor countries can “catch up” to the developed world. The converse may also prove to be true though, if nations that do not adopt cutting edge technology at the same pace as developed nations are shut out of the global economy. This can lead to ethnocentric bias and prejudice against poorer countries who do not develop the new technologies that higher income countries do. Another flaw with modernization theory is its failure to recognize that if poorer countries adopt the technologies of higher-income countries, this may foster dependence. Poorer countries will rely on higher-income countries for support and guidance, thus widening (rather than narrowing) the power differential.

8.4: Global Diversity

8.4.1: World Health Trends

World health research considers global patterns of interaction between people, products, money and information as they affect health trends.

Learning Objective

Explain why health interventions must not just address diseases but also structural factors

Key Points

Global illnesses are often classified into the categories “diseases of affluence” and “diseases of poverty,” reflecting the impact of national economic development on health conditions and outcomes.
Diseases of affluence refer to physical and mental health conditions for which personal lifestyles and societal conditions associated with economic development are believed to be an important risk factor, and they include many non-communicable diseases.
Diseases of poverty are usually infectious diseases that are often related to poor sanitation, low vaccination coverage, inadequate public health services, and weak enforcement of environmental health and safety regulations.
Because health trends are impacted by social, economic, and political conditions, global health interventions must address not just diseases themselves, but also the structural factors which prevent certain groups from accessing adequate healthcare.

Key Terms

diseases of affluence: Refers to diseases that are caused by personal lifestyles and social conditions associated with affluence, such as high fat diets and environmental pollution.
diseases of poverty: A group of conditions largely consisting of infectious diseases that are related to poor sanitation, low vaccination coverage, and inadequate health and safety regulations.
World Health Organization (WHO): A specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that is concerned with international public health.

Examples

Type II diabetes is an example of a disease of affluence, as it is thought to develop from high-sugar and high-fat diets, rather than from genetic predispositions or contagions. Cholera, on the other hand, is a disease of poverty, because it usually develops from poorly protected drinking water sources and is treatable but highly communicable.
Type II Diabetes is an example of a disease of affluence, as it is thought to develop from high-sugar and high-fat diets rather than from genetic predispositions or contagions.
Cholera is a disease of poverty, because it usually develops from poorly protected drinking water sources and is treatable but highly communicable.
Global health interventions are needed when individual interventions will not control the spread of a disease — for example, even if one person’s Type II Diabetes is managed, that will not impact the general consumption of unhealthy foods in a developed country. Similarly, while one country may effectively treat cholera and thereby prevent deaths, individuals who cross national borders may spread the disease to countries that do not have the infrastructure to treat it.

As flows of people, money, products, and information increasingly transcend national boundaries, it becomes important to study health trends not just within nations, but from a worldwide perspective. World (or global) health as a research field emerged out of this necessity and lies at the intersection of the medical and social science disciplines, including the fields of demography (the study of population trends), economics, epidemiology (the study of the distribution of health events in a population), political economy, and sociology.

Historically, global health studies rose to prominence in the 1940s, after World War II reconfigured geopolitical alignments and international relations. In 1948, the member states of the newly formed United Nations gathered together to create the World Health Organization (WHO). The organization began with a focus on prevention and eradication of contagious diseases, such as cholera, smallpox, and malaria. WHO initiatives have evolved and expanded throughout the years, however. For example immunization initiatives were launched in the 1970’s, HIV/AIDs initiatives in the 1980’s, and violence awareness initiatives in the 2000’s. While the WHO is the key international agency for monitoring and promoting global health, many other groups also participate.

Diseases of Affluence and Diseases of Poverty

The main diseases and health conditions prioritized by global health initiatives are sometimes classified under the terms diseases of affluence and diseases of poverty, although the impacts of globalization are increasingly blurring any such distinction.

Diseases of affluence refer to physical health conditions for which personal lifestyles (such as lack of exercise or eating a high-fat diet) and societal conditions (such as stressful work arrangements or environmental pollution) associated with economic development are believed to be an important risk factor. Examples of diseases of affluence include Type II diabetes, asthma, coronary heart disease, obesity, hypertension, cancer, and alcoholism. Depression and other mental health conditions may also be included as conditions associated with increased social isolation and lower levels of psychological well being observed in many developed countries. Many of these conditions are interrelated. For example, obesity can be linked to many other illnesses and deaths in high-income nations.

So-called diseases of affluence are predicted to become more prevalent in developing countries, as diseases of poverty decline, longevity increases, and lifestyles change. In 2008, nearly 80% of deaths due to non-communicable diseases, including heart disease, strokes, chronic lung diseases, cancers, and diabetes, occurred in low- and middle-income countries.

In contrast, the diseases of poverty tend to consist largely of infectious diseases, often related to poor sanitation, low vaccination coverage, inadequate public health services, and weak enforcement of environmental health and safety regulations. At the global level, the three primary poverty-related diseases are AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Developing countries account for 95% of the global AIDS prevalence and 98% of active tuberculosis infections. Furthermore, 90% of malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Together, these three diseases account for 10% of global mortality.

Treatable childhood diseases are another set of illnesses that are seen at disproportionately high rates in poor countries, despite the existence of cures for the diseases for decades. These illnesses include measles, pertussis, diarrheal diseases, pneumonia, and polio. Among children under the age of 5 in the developing world, malnutrition, which results from either a lack of food or an inadequately diversified diet, contributes to 53% of deaths associated with infectious diseases. Malnutrition impairs the immune system, thereby increasing the frequency, severity, and duration of childhood illnesses. Micronutrient deficiencies also compromise intellectual potential, growth, development, and adult productivity.

Health Interventions

As the above discussion of diseases of poverty and diseases of affluence reveals, health trends are closely related to social, political, and economic patterns. Thus, health interventions must likewise address not just diseases themselves, but the structural factors which prevent certain groups from accessing adequate healthcare or from having adequate information with which to practice healthy habits and prevent disease. These interventions could include addressing issues of structural inequality, that is, the highly unequal distribution of global wealth that results in conditions of extreme poverty which are difficult if not impossible to escape. It could also mean addressing the global economic patterns which result in healthcare workers having more incentive to work in developed countries and leaving developing countries short staffed. Finally, health interventions could advance by considering the relationship of national and international politics to the establishment of adequate education and healthcare systems.

Maternal health clinic in Afghanistan

Maternal health is one of the priorities of global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization.

8.4.2: Hunger, Malnutrition, and Family

Those with weak support structures are more vulnerable to hunger and starvation than those with strong family networks.

Learning Objective

Describe different attempts to understand world hunger

Key Points

Globally, hunger, malnutrition, starvation, and related health problems cause a significant number of deaths, particularly in the developing world.
Conflicting perspectives on global hunger attribute the problem to food shortages, poor food distribution, and economic policies that favor export over local consumption.
Amartya Sen won his 1998 Nobel Prize, in part for his work in demonstrating that hunger in modern times is not typically the product of a lack of food, but rather of problems in food distribution networks and governmental policies in the developing world.

Key Terms

food sovereignty: A policy framework advocated for by a number of farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, rural youth, and environmental organizations, which consists of the right of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock, and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international market forces.
Malthusianism: The idea that population growth will outpace food production, resulting in widespread famine and population reduction.

Examples

Critics of the role of free trade in food distribution have used agricultural regions of Mexico as an example of its negative effects in some areas, Mexican farm workers live in hunger and suffer from malnutrition, while the crops they produce are exported to wealthy markets in the United States and Europe, which are more profitable for landowners.
Critics of the role of free trade in food distribution have used agricultural regions of Mexico as an example of its negative effects — in some areas, Mexican farmworkers live in hunger and suffer from malnutrition while the crops they produce are exported to wealthy markets in the U.S. and Europe, which are more profitable for landowners.

“Hunger” is the most commonly used term to describe the social condition of people who frequently experience the physical sensation of desiring food. “Malnutrition” is a general term for conditions caused by improper diet or nutrition, and can occur in conjunction with under- or overconsumption of calories. Undernutrition is the result of chronic underconsumption of food.

Two terms frequently associated with hunger are “famine” and “starvation. ” Famine is the widespread scarcity of food, and it is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Starvation describes a state of exhaustion of the body caused by lack of food and may be fatal.

World Statistics

While statistics vary based on measurements used, it is generally agreed that the number of malnourished or undernourished people in the world was around 1 billion people in 2010, about a sixth of the world’s total population. Hunger is particularly devastating for children. Approximately six million children die of hunger every year.

Hunger

This map shows the percentage of a country’s population that is undernourished.

Understanding Hunger

Attempts to understand why hunger exists are not new. Thomas Malthus, in the six editions of his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population, published from 1798 to 1826, argued that the explosive population growth happening in his time could not continue indefinitely. He claimed population growth would eventually be checked by famine and disease, because the earth’s ability to produce food would not be able to keep up with the size of the population. His dire predictions are widely known as “Malthusianism. “

Current population growth, which is still on the rise, seems to disprove Malthus’ theory, hunger problems notwithstanding. In fact, many believe that the earth is more than capable of sustaining the current world population. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations purports that the world already produces enough food to feed everyone–over 6 billion people–and could feed double that number of people. Amartya Sen won his 1998 Nobel Prize in part for his work in demonstrating that hunger in modern times is not typically the product of a lack of food, but rather problems in food distribution networks and governmental policies in the developing world.

Today, there is a wide range of opinions as to why the hunger problem is so persistent. Some organizations raise the issue of food sovereignty and claim that every country on earth (with the possible minor exceptions of some city-states) has sufficient agricultural capacity to feed its own people, but that the free trade economic order prevents this from happening. These advocates argue that free trade policies transfer economic decision-making power into the hands of multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and transnational corporations, so that local people are unable to determine what is done with food that is locally produced.

At the other end of the spectrum, transnational organizations like the World Bank claim to be part of the solution to hunger, maintaining that the best way for countries to succeed in breaking the cycle of poverty and hunger is to build export-led economies that will give them the financial means to buy foodstuffs on the world market.

The Role of the Family in Hunger Problems

The family plays an important role in understanding patterns of hunger. Those who have a weak or non-existent family support structure are more likely than those with strong family networks to go hungry. Children and seniors are the most vulnerable to going hungry for lack of familial support.

Children, since they are less able to provide for themselves than adults, are more likely to go hungry if they live in unstable families or on the streets. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause (at least partially) 60% of children’s deaths in the developing world.

Seniors are another at-risk population for hunger. According to one 2007 study, over 11.4% of seniors in the United States experience some form of food insecurity. The most at-risk segments of the senior population include those who lack a strong family structure (i.e., those who were never married), live alone, or live with a grandchild (but with no adult child present).

8.4.3: The Health of Infants and Children

Childhood mortality is high in developing countries where malnutrition, infectious diseases, and unsanitary conditions are widespread.

Learning Objective

Describe the most common causes of child mortality

Key Points

International organizations have worked to improve maternal and childhood health conditions around the world, and have helped to reduce the number of childhood deaths from 17 million annually in the 1980s to 10 million annually in the 2000s.
Without diagnosis and treatment, about 35% of HIV-infected pregnant women will transmit HIV to their infants. As a result, approximately 1,000 HIV-infected children are born every day.
Birth defects are among the leading global causes of infant and child mortality, with an estimated 4.9 million birth defect pregnancies worldwide each year. The majority of these occur in low- and middle-income countries.
The World Health Organization has estimated that about 1.5 million children under age 5 years continue to die annually from diseases that are preventable via the administration of vaccines, making up approximately 20% of overall childhood mortality.
Spreading technology, health information, and nutrition and medication may held reduce rates of infant and child mortality in developing countries.

Key Terms

Diarrheal Diseases: The condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day, which is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide.
dengue: An acute febrile disease of the tropics caused by a flavivirus, transmitted by mosquitoes, and characterized by high fever, rash, headache, and severe muscle and joint pain.
birth defect: Any of several medical disorders that are present at birth.

Examples

Spreading information about the link between breastfeeding and HIV contraction is one way to reduce the transfer of HIV infections between generations.
Spreading information about the link between breastfeeding and HIV contraction is one way to reduce the transfer of HIV infections between generations.

In the 1980’s, the United States increased funding for maternal and childhood health programs. At that time, it was estimated that 17 million children under the age of 5 died every year. By 2006, largely due to the efforts of many international aid organizations, the annual number of deaths of children under the age of 5 was 10 million. Even with the great advances in childhood health that have occurred in recent decades, many health problems still afflict infant and child populations.

HIV/AIDS

Without diagnosis and treatment, about 35% of HIV-infected pregnant women will transmit HIV to their infants. As a result, approximately 1,000 HIV-infected children are born every day, accounting for about 370,000 new pediatric infections annually, 85% of which are in 25 sub-Saharan African countries. Without antiretroviral drugs, half of these children die by age 2. Of the estimated 2.3 million children worldwide with HIV, 1.27 million are estimated to need treatment and only 356,000 (28%) receive it.

Birth Defects

Birth defects are among the leading global causes of infant and child mortality, with an estimated 4.9 million birth defect pregnancies worldwide each year. The majority of these occur in low and middle income countries.

Birth defect trends and risk factors are difficult to monitor because many countries do not have systems that can accurately track the prevalence of birth defects. International organizations have been working to expand monitoring systems and improve laboratory capacity. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researches and tracks birth defects and coordinates the surveillance and research activities of about 40 member programs of the International Clearing House for Birth Defects Surveillance and Research.

Infectious Diseases

In Asia, dengue fever, an infectious tropical disease, is a major cause of child mortality. Global research teams have been working to improve methods for diagnosing and treating dengue. A 2011 CDC report found that the incidence of dengue has increased worldwide in recent decades, but little is known about its incidence in Africa.

Diarrheal diseases cause an estimated 1.4 million deaths per year in children under 5 years old. In developing countries, diarrheal diseases are also a leading cause of death from infections among persons with HIV. Lack of access to water and sanitation and poor hygiene are responsible for most of these deaths. Poor nutrition is also an important factor in diarrheal disease risk.

The World Health Organization has estimated that about 1.5 million children under age 5 years continue to die annually from diseases that are preventable via the administration of vaccines, making up approximately 20% of overall childhood mortality. Vaccines can prevent pneumonia and diarrhea, the two leading causes of death among children under age 5. Other immunizations that can improve maternal and child health are tetanus immunization of pregnant women and polio immunization. Moreover, an estimated 4 million newborns die in the first four weeks of life, accounting for 40% of all deaths among children under the age of 5. Improved pre- and post-natal care, as well as more accessible information about infant health, could help reduce the infant mortality rate.

Child Hunger and Infection

Hunger is one of the basic needs of a human, or on the ERG, a need of existence.

Interventions

Infant mortality rates are reduced by increasing availability of safe emergency pregnancy care and training doctors and nurses to promote safe breast feeding for HIV infected women and other support and guidance related to pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum periods. Globally, untreated maternal syphilis still causes more than 650,000 adverse pregnancy outcomes, including about 350,000 pre-birth deaths, each year. The overwhelming majority of these are in countries with limited laboratory capacity for syphilis testing as part of basic pregnancy care. Congenital syphilis, passed from mother to child, can be eliminated through universal screening of pregnant women early in pregnancy, and prompt treatment with at least one injection of penicillin. International organizations are working to make these interventions available.

African American Midwives and Infant Mortality

This poster from a museum exhibit illustrates how in impoverished communities without access to technologically advanced medical facilities, the first intervention used to reduce rates of infant mortality is often improving sanitation or hygienic standards.

8.4.4: HIV and AIDS

HIV/AIDS results in high infection and mortality rates amidst inadequate distribution of preventative information and treatment.

Learning Objective

Describe how HIV/AIDS affects different regions on a global scale

Key Points

HIV/AIDS is primarily transferred through sexual contact, blood transfusions and needle sharing, and mother-child contact during pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding.
HIV/AIDS has disproportionately impacted low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, with high proportions of infected women and children and low access to adequate healthcare and anti-retroviral drugs there.
Governmental and non-profit organizations have developed to improve HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and social services, but many populations continue to be ravaged by the disease.

Key Term

pandemic: A disease that hits a wide geographical area and affects a large proportion of the population.

Examples

AIDS was recognized in the United States after high numbers of homosexual men were suddenly contracting severe viral infections and dying. Partly because homosexual men were a marginalized and socially stigmatized community, funding for research was slow to materialize and high proportions of the urban, male homosexual population became infected before the disease began to be understood. While some of AIDS’ initial destruction can be attributed to the slow process of scientific research, the initial surge in infections also illustrates how poor government response and slow flow of knowledge have exacerbated the spread of the pandemic.
A red ribbon has been used as a symbol to show solidarity with HIV/AIDS patients, and is an example of an activist attempt to overturn the stigma associated with the infection.

Human immunodeficiency virus infection / acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The illness interferes with the immune system, making people with AIDS much more likely to get infections, including opportunistic infections and tumors that do not usually affect people with working immune systems. This susceptibility increases as these disease gets worse.

HIV is transmitted primarily via sexual intercourse (including oral sex and anal sex), contaminated blood transfusions and hypodermic needles, and from mother to child during pregnancy, delivery, or breastfeeding. Prevention of HIV infection, primarily through safe sex and needle-exchange programs, is a key strategy to control the disease. There is no known cure for or vaccine against HIV, but antiretroviral treatment can slow the course of the disease and may lead to a near-normal life expectancy for people with HIV. Antiretroviral treatment reduces the risk of death and complications from the disease. However, these medications are expensive and may be associated with side effects of their own.

HIV/AIDS and World Health

HIV/AIDS is a major health problem in many parts of the world, and is considered a pandemic—a disease outbreak which is present over a large area and is actively spreading. In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that there are 33.4 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, with 2.7 million new HIV infections per year and 2.0 million annual deaths due to AIDS. Of the approximately 34 million people infected with HIV/AIDS, approximately 16.8 million are women and 3.4 million are younger than 15 years old. AIDS was first recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1981 and its cause, HIV, was identified in the early 1980s.

Map of AIDS Prevalence Among Young Adults

AIDS prevalence is distributed unequally across the world, with sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia experiencing the worst of the pandemic.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected by the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. In 2010, an estimated 68% (22.9 million) of all HIV cases and 66% of all deaths (1.2 million) occurred in this region. About 5% of the sub-Saharan African adult population is infected and HIV/AIDS is believed to be the cause of 10% of all deaths in children. Women compose nearly 60% of cases in the region. South Africa has the largest population of people with HIV of any country in the world, at 5.9 million.

South and Southeast Asia is the second most affected region in the world. In 2010, this region had an estimated 4 million cases, or 12% of all people living with HIV, resulting in approximately 250,000 deaths. Approximately 2.4 million of these cases are in India.

Prevalence is lowest in Western and Central Europe at 0.2% and East Asia at 0.1%. In 2008 in the United States, approximately 1.2 million people were living with HIV, resulting in about 17,500 deaths. The CDC estimated that in 2008 20% of infected Americans were unaware of their infection.

Prevention

Many international organizations are working to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and its mortality rate. Campaigns have attempted to distribute condoms to HIV/AIDS stricken regions–consistent condom use reduces the risk of HIV transmission by approximately 80% over the long-term. Circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa has been found to reduce the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men by between 38% and 66% over two years. Based on these studies, the World Health Organization has recommended male circumcision as a method of preventing female-to-male HIV transmission. Additionally, early treatment of HIV-infected people with antiretrovirals protected 96% of sexual partners from infection.

Treatment

People infected with HIV/AIDS can be treated with anti-retroviral drugs. This medication can relieve many of the symptoms associated with the infection, such as increased susceptibility to other viral infections. Moreover, benefits of treatment include a decreased risk of progression from HIV to AIDS and a decreased risk of death. Medication can also include a decreased risk of transmission of the disease to sexual partners and a decrease in mother to child transmission. However, these drugs often have significant side effects and they are expensive, making them difficult to access in low-income countries.

8.4.5: Population Trends

The world population has been growing continuously since the 14th century, but the growth rate has been decreasing in the last few decades.

Learning Objective

Evaluate scenarios of over and underpopulation

Key Points

The demographic transition describes countries’ shifts from high population growth— fueled by high birth rates and low death rates—to population stability or shrinkage— brought about by low birth and death rates. This transition occurs in tandem with economic development.
Human overpopulation is a state where the population exceeds the available material and social resources; underpopulation occurs when the birth rate is not sufficient to maintain a stable population.
Overpopulation can lead to many problems, including famine, disease, conflict, and underdevelopment of national economic and social potential; underpopulation can lead to reductions in the GDP and slowed economic growth.
Proposed solutions to global overpopulation include a survival of the fittest attitude, economic development to stimulate the demographic transition in countries with growing populations, and a combination of population control and self-sufficiency methods.

Key Terms

demographic transition: The shift from high birth rates and death rates to low birth rates and death rates, usually occurring alongside economic development.
Malthusianism: The idea that population growth will outpace food production, resulting in widespread famine and population reduction.
laissez-faire: Describes a policy of governmental non-interference in economic affairs.

Examples

Countries in Africa that have had an influx of wealth and international aid in recent decades are example of countries towards the beginning of the demographic transition—death rates have fallen with better access to nutrition and healthcare, but birth rates are still high, so populations have grown rapidly. Most European nations are examples of countries at the end of the demographic transition: both birth and death rates are low, so populations are static or shrinking.
A potential consequence of overpopulation is a high unemployment rate or low wages for labor, since the workforce exceeds the demand for laborers. By contrast, in countries with underpopulation there are often insufficient labor pools to support economic growth, but employment tends to be stable.

The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Great Famine and the Black Death in 1350, when it stood at around 370 million. Between October 2011 and March 2012, it was estimated that the world population exceeded 7 billion. The world population growth rate was estimated at 1.1% per year as of 2011, a rate which has declined since its peak during the 1950s–1970s.

The Demographic Transition

Despite an overall pattern of growth, population trends are not even across countries. The demographic transition helps explain the differences between countries. The demographic transition refers to the shift from high birth rates and death rates to low birth and death rates; this occurs as part of the economic development of a country. The basic premises of the theory are as follows: in pre-industrial societies, population growth is relatively slow because both birth and death rates are high; as countries develop, death rates fall faster than birth rates do, resulting in large population growth; as development stabilizes, birth rates drop off and the population stabilizes .

The Demographic Transition

This model illustrates the demographic transition, as birth and death rates rise and fall but eventually reach equilibrium.

Overpopulation at a National Level

Overpopulation indicates a scenario in which the population of a living species exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche. Overpopulation is not a function of the number or density of the individuals, but rather the number of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive. In other words, it is a ratio—population:resources. Resources important in measures of overpopulation include clean water, food, shelter, healthcare, etc.

Most of the population growth in the world today comes from developing countries, most notably African countries, where birth rates have remained high. Many of these countries are struggling to provide food and resources necessary to support a young, growing population. Overpopulation can result in a variety of problems, including famine, shortage of natural resources, spread of communicable disease due to dense populations, and conflict over scarce resources.

Underpopulation at a National Level

Once countries pass through the demographic transition, some experience fertility rate decreases so substantial that they fall well below replacement level—the birth rate needed to maintain a stable population—and their populations begin to shrink. About half the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility. A new fear for many governments, particularly those in countries with very low fertility rates, is underpopulation—a state in which the declining population reduces the GDP and economic growth of the country, as population growth is often a driving force of economic expansion. To combat extremely low fertility rates, some of these governments have introduced pro-family policies, such as payments to parents for having children and extensive parental leave for parents.

Debates about Overpopulation on a Global Level

Despite concerns of underpopulation in individual countries, overpopulation is still the most pressing concern for those who track global population trends. Presently, the world’s population grows by approximately 80 million annually. The United Nations projects that the world population will stabilize in 2075 at nine billion due to declining fertility rates.

Concerns about overpopulation are not new; early in the 19^th century, Thomas Malthus argued in “An Essay on the Principle of Population” that, if left unrestricted, human populations would continue to grow until they would become too large to be supported by the food grown on available agricultural land. Once the population exceeded the planet’s carrying capacity, the population would be restrained through mass famine and starvation. Malthus argued for population control—policies intended to lower the birth rate—to avoid this happening. His arguments are widely known as Malthusianism, and present-day proponents of this theory are called Neo-Malthusians. Critics of Malthus point to the fact that the widespread famines he predicted have not occurred, even though the world population has continued to expand.

Possible Solutions to Overpopulation

Some approach overpopulation with a laissez-faire attitude, arguing that if the earth’s ecosystem becomes overtaxed, it will naturally regulate itself. In this mode of thought, disease or starvation are natural means of decreasing the population. Objections to this argument include that a huge number of plant and animal species would go extinct; terrible pollution would arise in some areas, and it would be difficult to abate; and moral problems would be created—great suffering for the people who do not have access to resources.

Others argue that economic development is the best way to reduce population growth because economic development can spur demographic transitions that lead to reduced fertility rates. Where women’s status has improved, for example, there has generally been a drastic reduction in the birth rate, resulting in more sustainable growth levels.

Population Growth According to Development

The majority of world population growth today is occurring in less developed countries.

8.4.6: Global Aging

On average, global life expectancies have been increasing and birth rates declining, resulting in global aging.

Learning Objective

Examine aging as a global issue

Key Points

Developments in healthcare, lifestyle, and political stability have led to longer life expectancy worldwide.
While global life expectancy is increasing, the rate at which the world population is aging is not uniform across countries—life expectancies are higher in wealthier, developed countries than in poorer, developing ones.
Growing life expectancy is not the only factor contributing to global aging. As nations develop, average birth rates decline.
As more people in a nation’s population reach old age, the nation’s healthcare and social security system will be strained.

Key Terms

life expectancy: The amount of time one is expected to live.
life span: the length of time for which a person lives, or for which something exists or is current or valid

Example

The current strain on America’s social security system is largely the result of an aging population. The people who were born during a population surge in the 1950s–1960s are beginning to reach old age, draining the country’s Medicare and social security reserves as they claim their benefits.

Globally, most countries are seeing the average life expectancy of their populations increase. This trend translates to a greater percentage of the world’s population over the age of 65. However, the rate at which the world’s population is aging is not uniform across the world—some countries have actually seen decreasing life expectancies.

Economic circumstances are one factor that affects life expectancy. Citizens living in wealthier, more developed countries or regions tend to have higher life expectancies. For example, in the United Kingdom, life expectancy in the wealthiest areas is several years longer than in the poorest areas. Wealth may be correlated to factors such as diet and lifestyle as well as better access to medical care—many wealthy European countries offer universal healthcare. As more people in a nation’s population reach old age, its healthcare and social security system will be strained. This strain is occurring in the United States, where people born into the baby boomer generation of the 1950s–1960s are aging and reaching retirement age, thus tapping into Medicaid and social security funds at unprecedented rates.

People living in poorer, less developed countries tend to have lower life expectancies. Much of the higher death rates in poorer nations is due to war, starvation, infant deaths, diseases, and lack of access to adequate health care. The presence of one risk factor is often related to another—war torn countries, for example, are likely to have more instances of starvation. Likewise, people with diseases may have a difficult time getting or sustaining a job, making them vulnerable to starvation. The impact of AIDS on life expectancy is particularly significant in many sub-Saharan African countries. As nations develop, their life expectancy generally rises.

Growing life expectancy is not the only factor contributing to global aging. As nations develop, the average number of children per parent drops. There are several possible reasons for this trend: first, in poorer countries, it may be important to have many children because infant mortality is high and children provide financial support for households and support for their parents in retirement. As a population gets richer, these reasons will become less important. Second, as women become more educated, they tend to delay having children until later in life. This naturally leads to fewer childbirths.

A drop in the birth rate means that the percentage of people in a society who are young will decline. This, combined with higher life expectancies, means that the ratio of old to young people will grow and the population as a whole will age. These two trends, stemming from the growing global economy, cause global aging.

Percentage of Population Above 65: 2005

This map illustrates global trends in aging by depicting the percentage of each country’s population that is over the age of 65. More developed countries have older populations because their citizens live longer. Less developed countries have much younger populations.

8.5: A Comparative Analysis of Global Stratification in Mexico

8.5.1: Distribution of Wealth and Income

The distribution of wealth and income reveals inequalities among and within countries and the ways in which wealth is redistributed.

Learning Objective

Discuss methods and policies of wealth redistribution

Key Points

The distribution of wealth compares the assets—including income, land, stocks, and other investments—held by the richest and poorest members of society, while the distribution of income compares only how much money each group earns per year.
Since the 1970s, the gap in wealth between the highest and lowest brackets of earners has grown, with 2 percent of the population owning a majority of global wealth and the bottom half of the population owning less than 1 percent of global wealth in the year 2000.
Policies aimed at redistributing wealth may attempt to either increase the wealth of the upper class or decrease inequality. These policies may include the adoption of national economic systems or the operation of small scale charitable organizations.

Key Terms

wealth: the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions
Pareto Distribution: A statistical measure that is often used to model the distribution of wealth.
distribution of wealth: A measure of how assets are divided throughout the population.
income distribution: In economics, income distribution is how a nation’s total GDP is spread amongst its population.

Examples

Competing political ideologies in America lead to differing public policy attempts to redistribute wealth. Conservative economic policy may provide tax cuts to wealthy business owners in attempt to increase their profits, on the basis that doing so will improve the country’s overall economy. By contrast, liberal economic policy may provide increased welfare to the poor in an attempt to raise their standard of living and directly decrease economic inequality.
On a national scale, countries may adopt socialist policies to ensure that every citizen has a minimum standard of living, as with countries that have universal healthcare and entirely public education systems — this type of policy aims to lessen the gap in opportunity that can result from the unequal distribution of wealth.

The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It differs from the income distribution in that it looks at the distribution of asset ownership in a society, rather than the current income of members of that society. There are many ways in which the distribution of wealth can be analyzed. One commonly used method is to compare the wealth of the richest ten percent with the wealth of the poorest ten percent. In many societies, the richest ten percent control more than half of the total wealth. A Pareto distribution is a statistical measure that is often used to model the distribution of wealth, though other mathematical models are also used. The Gini coefficient measures the amount of wealth or income inequality in a society by plotting the proportion of total income (or wealth) earned by the bottom x percent of the population.

Recent Measures of Distribution

At the end of the 20^th century, wealth was concentrated among the G8 nations (France, Italy, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Russia) and Western industrialized nations, along with several Asian and OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) nations. A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the United Nations reports that the richest 1 percent of adults owned 40 percent of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85 percent of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned 1 percent of global wealth. Moreover, another study found that the richest 2 percent of the population owned more than half of global assets as of the year 2000. In terms of distribution of income, a May 2011 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stated that the gap between rich and poor in OECD countries (most of which are “high income” economies) was at its highest level since the 1970s.

Real Estate

One form of wealth is land or real estate. As with general wealth distribution, land is also distributed unequally. Sizable numbers of households own no land, while a small percentage of people at the top of the economic hierarchy own most of the world’s privately held land. For example, 10 percent of land owners in Baltimore, Maryland own 58 percent of the taxable land value. The bottom 10 percent of those who own any land own less than 1 percent of the total land value.

World Distribution of Financial Wealth

In 2007, 147 companies controlled nearly 40 percent of the monetary value of all transnational corporations. On an international level, wealth is distributed unequally between nations, which are stratified in a world economic order.

Redistribution of Wealth and Public Policy

In many societies, attempts have been made to redistribute wealth through property redistribution, taxation, or regulation. Sometimes these policies are engineered to favor the upper class, while in other cases they are intended to diminish inequality between the upper and lower classes. Examples of this practice go back at least to the Roman republic in the third century B.C., when laws were passed limiting the amount of wealth or land that could be owned by any one family. Motivations for such limitations on wealth include the desire for equality of opportunity, a fear that great wealth leads to political corruption, the belief that limiting wealth will gain the political favor of a voting bloc, or fear that extreme concentration of wealth results in rebellion.

Various forms of socialism, an economic system in which the state exerts significant control over wealth distribution, attempt to diminish the unequal distribution of wealth and the conflicts that arise from it. Communism, an economic system that (in its ideal form) consists of state ownership of assets and industry and the equal distribution of resources among the population, can be seen as an attempt to eradicate wealth inequality through government policy. An idea taken from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is that wealth should be distributed as according to the precepts of, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. ” While states such as the Soviet Union and China have implemented communist systems to varying degrees, Marxism has never been realized in its ideal form, and no country has had a totally equal distribution of wealth.

In addition to government efforts to redistribute wealth, the tradition of individual and organizational charity is a voluntary means of wealth transference. Many voluntary charitable organizations make concerted efforts to aid those in need by redistributing wealth and material resources.

Global Distribution of Wealth by Country (2000)

This pie chart shows the global distribution of wealth among countries, illustrating the point that a small number of countries hold the majority of global assets.

8.5.2: Social Mobility

Social mobility is the extent to which individuals can move between social positions, either in their lifetime or between generations.

Learning Objective

Compare the various types of social mobiliy, the status systems they exist in, and their status between countries and over time.

Key Points

Social mobility is most often discussed in terms of vertical mobility, which refers to movement between higher and lower status positions, or movement up and down the social ladder.
Social mobility varies between countries and over time, with status more or less tied to social position at birth in different cultural contexts.
Public policy may attempt to regulate the extent to which people are socially mobile, as when public school systems attempt to evenly distribute educational opportunities or religious bodies attempt to limit the movement of women.

Key Terms

ascribed status: The social status of a person that is given from birth or assumed involuntarily later in life.
cultural capital: Non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means, such as education, intellect, style of speech, dress, and even physical appearance.
meritocratic: Used to describe a type of society where wealth, income, and social status are assigned through competition.

Examples

When a person born to poor parents becomes a well-educated, wealthy businessperson, this is an example of upward vertical social mobility.
Downward vertical social mobility occurs when a person loses status, which may occur through disgrace — Bernie Madoff was a successful, high status Wall Street executive until he was indicted and sentenced to prison time, at which point he fell from his high social position.
In the United Kingdom in the early 20th century, a clear aristocracy existed and had high social status; after World Wars I and II, the aristocracy was largely dismantled and a greater degree of social mobility arose. Historical events can thus alter the extent of social mobility seen in countries.
Affirmative action programs can be considered public policy attempts to increase social mobility in the United States. These programs aim to increase educational and professional opportunities for underrepresented minorities in order to decrease inequality between gender and race groups.

Social mobility refers to the movement of individuals or groups in social position over time. Most commonly, social mobility refers to the change in wealth and social status of individuals or families. However, it may also refer to changes in health status, literacy rate, education, or other variables among groups, such as classes, ethnic groups, or countries.

Types of Social Mobility

Social mobility typically refers to vertical mobility—movement of individuals or groups up or down from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marriage. Nonetheless, social mobility can also refer to horizontal mobility—movement from one position to another within the same social level, as when someone changes between two equally prestigious occupations.

In some cases, social mobility is intergenerational, as when children attain a higher or lower status than their parents held. Other times, social mobility is intra-generational, meaning that a person changes status within their lifetime. A high level of intergenerational mobility is often considered praiseworthy, and can be seen as a sign of equality of opportunity in a society.

Social mobility can be enabled to varying extents by economic capital, cultural capital, human capital, and social capital. Economic capital includes a person’s financial and material resources, such as income and accumulated wealth. Cultural capital includes resources ranging from holding a graduate degree to having a grasp of a group’s customs and rituals, both of which may confer an advantage in job markets and social exchanges. Human capital refers to such individual traits as competence and work ethic, which may enable increased educational or professional attainment. Social capital includes the advantages conferred by one’s social network, such as access to professional opportunities and insider knowledge. These types of capital facilitate mobility by providing access to opportunities and the tools to acquire wealth and status.

Status Systems

Societies present different opportunities for mobility depending on their system of values. For example, Western capitalist countries are generally meritocratic, in which social standing is based on such personal attributes as educational attainment, income, and occupational prestige. In such countries, highly skilled jobs pay better than low-skilled jobs. This type of society has an open status system, which functions on the basis of achieved status, or status gained through one’s own merit. Thus, the degree of mobility in Western capitalist states ideally depends on the extent to which individuals have access to educational and economic opportunity, rather than their position at birth. On the other hand, closed status systems are based on ascribed status. Ascribed status is a fixed position a person is born into, not based on their performance. When this ascriptive status rule is used (for example, in Medieval Europe), people are placed in a position based on personal traits beyond their control.

The ability of an individual to become wealthy out of poverty does not necessarily indicate that there is social mobility in his or her society. Some societies with low or nonexistent social mobility afford free individuals opportunities to initiate enterprise and amass wealth, but wealth fails to “buy” entry into a higher social class. In feudal Japan and Confucianist China, wealthy merchants occupied the lowest ranks in society. In pre-revolutionary France, a nobleman, however poor, was from the “second estate” of society and thus considered superior to a wealthy merchant (from the “third estate”). These examples demonstrate how social mobility is not simply based on economic capital, but also social and cultural capital.

A Comparative View of Social Mobility

Several studies have been conducted to compare social mobility between countries. Recent data shows that of nine developed countries, the United States and United Kingdom have the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility, with about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income passed on to the next generation. The four developed countries with the the highest social mobility are Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Canada, with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children.

Intergenerational Mobility in a Sample of Developed Countries

This graph shows the results of a study on how much intergenerational social mobility there is in a sample of developed countries. Countries with higher intergenerational income elasticity have lower social mobility — in countries on the left of the graph, children are likely to attain the same social status as their parents.

Not only does social mobility vary across types of countries, it can also change over time. For example, social mobility in the United States has varied widely since the 19^th century. In the United States in the mid-19^th century, inequality was low and social mobility was high. In the 19^th century, the U.S. had much higher social mobility than comparably developed nations like the U.K., due in part to the common school movement and open public school system, a large farming industry, and high geographic mobility. However, during the latter half of the 20^th century and the early 21^st century, social mobility has decreased and social inequality has grown in the U.S. In other words, in the U.S. an individual’s family background may be more predictive of social position today than it was in 1850.

8.5.3: Mexico’s Economy

Mexico’s rapid economic changes have led to huge gains in GDP, but have caused social problems such as stratification and inequality.

Learning Objective

Discuss poverty and economic growth in Mexico

Key Points

Mexico’s economy has expanded in recent years, but the benefits of economic growth have not reached all sectors of the workforce, resulting in economic stratification, a significant proportion of the population living in poverty, and high rates of underemployment.
Mexico’s entry into free trade agreements has solidified its position in world market and aided its national economic growth, but has arguably failed to improve standards of living for much of it’s population.
Mexico’s industrial and agricultural sectors illustrate the uneven nature of economic development, which often benefits individuals and groups who have financial capital and assets, while not significantly improving the situation of lower classes, particularly those in poverty.

Key Terms

Developed Nations: a sovereign state which has a highly developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure in comparison to other, less developed nations.
social stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of social classes, or castes, within a society.
poverty: The state of one who lacks material possessions, wealth, or access to social resources and opportunities.

Example

Some social scientists have found that poorly-compensated Mexican farm laborers are made to work under potentially unsafe conditions to meet the demand for produce in wealthier trading nations, such as the United States. For example, some critics suggest that Mexican farm laborers are exposed to pesticides that are banned in many developed nations. If substantiated, this would be evidence that international trade has not improved the standard of living for all Mexicans..

Mexico’s economy has undergone significant changes in the past century, with implications for the country’s economic position and its population. After the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) overturned the previous land distribution system, in which a few hacienda owners overworked and underpaid millions of peasants, the new Mexican leaders instituted a nominally socialist democracy. The years from 1930-1970, during which Mexico instituted its new protectionist economic policy, have been dubbed by economic historians as the “Mexican Miracle,” a period of economic growth and capital accumulation. While population doubled from 1940 to 1970, gross domestic product (GDP), the sum of national production and a common measure of economic growth, increased sixfold during the same period.

After the international oil and interest rate crisis in 1982, which had a profoundly negative impact on the Mexican economy, Mexican leaders changed economic directions. They instituted neoliberal reforms which increasingly integrated Mexico’s economy with that of other nations. Trade liberalization continued after that, with several free trade agreements with Latin American and European countries, Japan, and Israel signed during former President Vincente Fox’s leadership (2000-2006). Thus, Mexico became one of the most open countries in the world to trade, and the economic base shifted accordingly to exports and imports .

Map of Mexican Free Trade Agreements

Since liberalizing its trade policies beginning in the 1980s, Mexico has entered into Free Trade Agreements with many countries. This trend has greatly increased the amount of Mexico’s economy that depends on imports and exports.

Social Stratification, Poverty, and Unemployment

Mexico’s economic development has been substantial. However, general GDP growth obscures some pervasive problems that have persisted and even worsened in recent years, including social stratification, poverty, and unemployment.

Social stratification, or the grouping of individuals into a hierarchy based on socioeconomic status, is highly present in Mexico and can be traced back to the colonial period. During the colonial period, before Mexico’s independence, the upper class was composed of those who owned the land and the lower class was made of those who worked the land. After the Mexican Revolution, the government ceded an estimated 50% of the land to the general population. Though this slightly reduced the gap between the wealthy and the poor, land ownership continued to be main source of wealth for Mexicans and has dictated the hierarchy of wealth distribution among the population.

After the country entered its economic industrial transformation, industrialists, businessmen, and politicians have controlled the direction of wealth in Mexico and have remained among the wealthy. The monopoly that the wealthy have over resources in Mexico is evidenced in OECD statistics: Mexico is the country with the second highest degree of economic disparity between the extremely poor and extremely rich, after Chile, although this gap has been diminishing over the last decade. The bottom 10% of income earners possess 1.36% of the country’s assets, whereas the upper 10% possesses almost 36%. 85% of national wealth is concentrated in a few families of entrepreneurs, corporate magnates, and politicians. Thus, economic industrialization has not necessarily led to an improved standard of living for a significant portion of the Mexican population, many of whom live in poverty.

The gap between the rich and poor has not only remained large between classes, but also has been growing between northern and southern regions. As reforms have taken place, the southern states, such as Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero, have remained isolated from the rest of the country. The national government provides less funding to these southern regions than to northern regions. Consequently, infrastructure, social development, education, and economic growth have lagged behind in southern states. These states hold the highest levels of illiteracy, unemployment, lack of basic services such as running water and sanitation, overall urban infrastructure, and government stability.

Poverty

Poverty in Mexico is characterized as lack of access to basic human needs such as nutrition, clean water, and shelter. Poverty can also include lack of access to extends to social services such as education, healthcare, security, and income. Current figures indicate that as much as 44.2% of Mexico’s population lives below the poverty line as defined by the country’s National Council of Social Development Policy Evaluation.

While causes of poverty are multiple, many social scientists have posited that the government’s emphasis on national economic growth has neglected the needs of the country’s poorer citizens. For example, Mexico’s heavy dependency on foreign influences, particularly the United States, has led it to adopt policies that do not favor its own citizens. Similarly, many critics claim that while the NAFTA agreement proved effective in increasing Mexico’s economic performance, foreign trade policies have not done enough to promote social advancement and reduce poverty. To remain competitive in the international market, Mexico has had to offer low wages to its workers while allowing high returns and generous concessions to international corporations. Nonetheless, the government’s current administration has made attempts to reduce poverty by providing improved education, healthcare, and job opportunities to citizens. In recent years, a middle class, once virtually nonexistent, has begun to emerge.

8.5.4: Race Relations in Mexico: The Color Hierarchy

Mexican society still shows traces of the racial and ethnic caste system that was instituted by the Spanish during the colonial period.

Learning Objective

Explain how racial relations in Mexico have been influenced by the colonial caste system

Key Points

With regards to Mexican population groups, processes of identity formation and social stratification can be analyzed both in terms of race and of ethnicity. This is because definitions of each depend upon biological and socio-cultural traits.
The large majority of Mexicans can be classified as “mestizos,” meaning that they neither identify fully with any indigenous culture nor with a European heritage. Rather, they identify as having cultural traits and heritage that combine elements from indigenous and European traditions.
Mexican officials intentionally spread a racial ideology, known as mestizaje, that encouraged miscegenation between European and indigenous people. This was intended to distribute European descent throughout the population and create a new mestizo national identity.

Key Terms

Caste System: an elaborate and complex social system that combines some or all elements of endogamy, hereditary transmission of occupation, social class, social identity, hierarchy, exclusion and power
indigenous: native to a land or region, especially before an intrusion
miscegenation: the mixing or blending of race in marriage or breeding; interracial marriage

Examples

In Mexico, indigenous groups are formally defined as people that speak one of 62 officially recognized indigenous languages. While indigeneity is associated with Native American biological descent, it is defined culturally rather than genetically.
Indigenous groups are formally defined in Mexico as groups that speak one of sixty-two officially recognized indigenous languages; while indigeneity is associated with Native American biological descent, it is defined culturally rather than genetically.

Race Relations in Mexico

Generally speaking, Mexican ethnic and racial relations can be arranged on an axis between two extremes, European and Native American heritage. This division is a remnant of the colonial Spanish caste system, which categorized individuals according to their perceived level of biological mixture between these two groups. Along this axis, a color hierarchy emerged that persists in importance today. In this hierarchy, those who are viewed as being more European, or “white,” are generally endowed with higher social status. Those who are viewed as being more “indigenous,” or “dark,” are typically given less social prestige.

The color hierarchy is utilized for more than simply classifying people based on their phenotypical traits, or physical appearance. It is also a way to racialize socio-cultural traits. For example, because upward social mobility is generally correlated with “whitening,” if persons with indigenous biological and cultural roots rise to positions of power and prestige, they tend to be viewed as more “white” than if they belonged to a lower social class.

The racial hierarchy is complicated by the presence of considerable numbers of people with partly African and Asian heritage. Nonetheless, these groups are often categorized on the color hierarchy somewhere between indigenous and European.

Indigenous Groups

As a classifier, indigenous identity was constructed by the dominant European and Mestizo majority and imposed upon indigenous people as a pejorative. This identity was associated with a lack of assimilation into modern Mexico. This identity therefore became socially stigmatizing, and contrary to social expectations and ideals. In early post-revolutionary Mexico, cultural policies were paternalistic towards indigenous people, and contained efforts to completely assimilate indigenous peoples into Mestizo culture.

The category of “indigena” (indigenous) can be defined according to linguistic criteria as people who speak one of Mexico’s 62 indigenous languages. This categorization method is used by the National Mexican Institute of Statistics. Conversely, indigenous identity can also be defined broadly to include all persons who self-identify as having an indigenous cultural background, whether or not they speak an indigenous language.

Blancos/Güeros

Mexicans of European descent, often called “blancos” (“whites”) or “güeros” in Mexican Spanish, have light skin and predominantly European features. These people are typically associated with Mexico’s upper and middle socioeconomic classes. Because “Mestizos” are also people with varying amounts of European ancestry, the differentiation between “mestizos” and “blancos” is often based on socio-cultural rather than biological boundaries.

Europeans began arriving to Mexico after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The descendants of the conquistadors, along with new arrivals from Spain, formed a new elite class of the population. Intermixing eventually produced a Mestizo group that would become the nation’s demographic majority by the time of Independence. That being said, during this time, power remained firmly in the hands of the elite, called “criollo. “

Today, most blancos are still associated with the Spanish colonial order. Although some would not be considered “white” by U.S. or European standards, one way blancos distinguish themselves is by keeping separate from the Mestizo and other classes in Mexico. In popular conception, blancos are closely associated with ideas of modernity, which supposedly means that they are the closest culturally to Americans and Europeans (both are idealized as white).

Mestizos

The large majority of Mexicans are classified as “mestizos,” meaning that they neither identify fully with any indigenous culture nor with a particular non-Mexican heritage. Instead, they identify as having cultural traits and heritage that combine elements from indigenous and European traditions. By the deliberate efforts of post-revolutionary governments, the “mestizo identity” was constructed as the basis of the modern Mexican national identity, through a process of cultural synthesis referred to as mestizaje.

The term “mestizo” is not widely used in Mexican society today, and it has been dropped as a category in population censuses. That being said, it is still used in social and cultural studies when referring to the non-indigenous part of the Mexican population. The word has somewhat pejorative colloquial connotations. Most people who would be defined as mestizos in the sociological literature would probably self-identify simply as Mexicans. In addition, people will self-identify as “gente de razón” (“people of reason”), in contrast to “gente de costumbre” (“people of tradition”), thus further differentiating themselves from the status of indigeneity, which is considered superstitious and backward.

The Process of “Mestizaje”

In the Mexican post-revolutionary period, mestizaje was a racial ideology that combined ideologies of white superiority with the social reality of a postcolonial, multiracial setting. It promoted the use of planned miscegenation (the mixing of racial groups through reproduction) as a eugenic strategy to improve the overall quality of the population. In the logic of “mestizaje,” the distribution of white genetic material throughout the population would improve citizens.

Map of Indigenous Languages in Mexico

This map shows the regions where there are over 100,000 speakers of particular indigenous languages. These areas are concentrated in the poorer southern states. Thus, the areas that have not been heavily economically modernized have not been as significantly affected by ethnic mestizaje.

Spanish Caste System in Mexico

This artist’s rendering of the Spanish racial/ethnic caste system imposed in Mexico during the colonial period illustrates the hierarchy from white Europeans to dark-skinned Native Americans or indigenous people.

8.5.5: The Status of Women in Mexico

In spite of purported economic growth, both women and men in Mexico have to deal with social stratification, poverty, and unemployment.

Learning Objective

Discuss the causes of poverty in Mexico

Key Points

Mexico’s primary, secondary, and tertiary economic sectors have all expanded in recent years, but the benefits of economic growth have not reached all sectors of the workforce, resulting in economic stratification.
Mexico’s entry into free trade agreements (like NAFTA) has solidified its position in the world market and has aided its national economic growth, but has arguably failed to improve standards of living for much of its population.
Mexico’s industrial and agricultural sectors illustrate the uneven nature of economic development, which often benefits individuals and groups who have financial capital and assets, while not significantly improving the situation of lower classes, particularly those in poverty.

Key Terms

Developed Nations: a sovereign state which has a highly developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure in comparison to other, less developed nations.
social stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of social classes, or castes, within a society.
underemployment: the condition of having employment for which one is overqualified, or employment that does not meet the desired hours of work and wages desired by the employee

Examples

Some social scientists have found that poorly-compensated Mexican farm laborers are made to work under potentially unsafe conditions to meet the demand for produce in wealthier trading nations, such as the United States. For example, some critics suggest that Mexican farm laborers are exposed to pesticides that are banned in many developed nations. If substantiated, this would be evidence that international trade has not improved the standard of living for all Mexicans.
Some social scientists have found that poorly-compensated Mexican farm laborers are made to work under potentially unsafe conditions to meet the demand for produce in wealthier trading nations, such as the United States. For example, some critics suggest that Mexican farm laborers are exposed to pesticides that are banned in many developed nations. If substantiated, this would be evidence that international trade has not improved the standard of living for all Mexicans.

In the wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), the prevailing land distribution system, in which a handful of hacienda owners overworked and underpaid millions of peasants, was overturned by new Mexican leaders, who replaced it with a nominally socialist democracy. From 1930 until 1970, Mexico instituted this new economic policy. During these forty years, a time period economic historians have dubbed the “Mexican Miracle,” the nation experienced dramatic economic growth and capital accumulation. The nation adopted policies of economic protectionism, which contributed to an economic boom in which industries rapidly expanded their production. Important changes in the economic structure included the following:

free land distribution to peasants
the nationalization of the oil and railroad companies
the introduction of social rights into the constitution
the birth of large and influential labor unions
the upgrading of infrastructure.

As a result of these changes, between 1940 to 1970, the population of Mexico doubled, and the gross domestic product (GDP), the sum of national production and a common measure of economic growth, increased sixfold.

Social Stratification, Poverty, and Unemployment

Social stratification, or the grouping of individuals into a hierarchy based on socioeconomic status, is highly present in Mexico and can be traced back to the colonial period. During the colonial period, before Mexico’s independence, the upper class was composed of those who owned land, and the lower class was composed of those who worked the land. After the Mexican Revolution, the government ceded an estimated 50% of the land to the general population. Though this slightly reduced the gap between the wealthy and the poor, land ownership continued to be a main source of wealth for Mexicans, and it dictated the hierarchy of wealth distribution amongst the population.

The gap between the rich and poor has not only remained large between classes, but also has been growing between northern and southern regions. As reforms have taken place, the southern states, such as Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero, have remained isolated from the rest of the country. The national government provides less funding to these southern regions than to northern regions. Consequently, infrastructure, social development, education, and economic growth have lagged behind in southern states. These states have the highest levels of illiteracy and unemployment, and the lowest levels of urban infrastructure, government stability, and basic services, like running water and sanitation.

Poverty

Poverty in Mexico is characterized as a lack of access to basic human needs, such as nutrition, clean water, and shelter. Poverty can also include a lack of access to social services such as education, healthcare, security, and income. Current statistics indicate that as much as 44.2% of Mexico’s population lives below the poverty line, as defined by the country’s National Council of Social Development Policy Evaluation. In 2008, 33.7% of the population lived in moderate poverty, and at least 10.5% suffered from extreme poverty.

While the causes of poverty are multiple, many social scientists have posited that the government’s emphasis on national economic growth has neglected the needs of the country’s poorer citizens. For example, Mexico’s heavy dependency on foreign influences, particularly the United States, has led it to adopt policies that do not favor its own citizens. Similarly, many critics claim that while the NAFTA agreement proved effective in increasing Mexico’s economic performance, foreign trade policies have not done enough to promote social advancement and reduce poverty. To remain competitive in the international market, Mexico has had to offer low wages to its workers, while at the same time allowing high returns and generous concessions to international corporations.

Unemployment

Unemployment, or the rate of potential members of the labor force who are unable to find or maintain employment, has been at continuously high levels in Mexico. In spite of splendid macroeconomic indicators, low levels of inflation, and stable currency, job creation has not kept pace with a growing population and labor pool.

Underemployment refers to an employment situation that is insufficient in some important way for the worker, such as holding a part-time job despite desiring full-time work, or being over-qualified for a position. Over-qualification occurs when an employee has education, experience, or skills beyond the requirements of the job.

In Mexico, underemployment results largely from over-qualification. There are few high paying jobs available for university graduates. Often, college graduates search for years to find a job that is suitable for their qualifications, while working low-paying jobs that do not utilize their skills in the meantime. Situations like this have caused the standard of living among the urban middle class to deteriorate and has also resulted in emigration from this sector to other countries, especially the United States and Canada. The situation also depicts how Mexico’s economy has failed to provide the structural opportunities for social mobility that industrialization and economic development purportedly promise.

Mexican Economic Growth

In recent decades, the Mexican economy has experienced growth in its primary sector (including agriculture and oil extraction), secondary sector (auto manufacturing), and tertiary sector (including tourism).

8.6: Sociological Theories and Global Inequality

8.6.1: The Functionalist Perspective: Motivating Qualified People

From a functionalist point of view, inequality plays a role in holding society together and encouraging efficiency.

Learning Objective

Review the functionialist perspective on inequality

Key Points

According to a functionalist perspective, differences in power, wealth, and other rewards within the social structure are justified, because they motivate the most qualified people to exercise their talents in the most important jobs.
Society is unequally structured because of people’s inherent inequality in functional importance.
A problem with this view is that it is difficult to determine the functional importance of any job.
Another problem with this view is that it assumes that the current system of stratification is fair and rational, which is not always the case.

Key Terms

functional importance: The degree to which a job is unique and requires skill.
social stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of social classes, or castes, within a society.

Examples

Nurses are an example of people who are not highly compensated and do not have notably high prestige, but who work long hours and are essential to the functioning of healthcare systems. The high stress of their job, and low incentives to do it, seem to contradict the theory of functionalism.
Nurses are an example of people who are not highly compensated and do not have notably high prestige, but who work long hours and are essential to the functioning of healthcare systems. The high stress of their job and low incentives to do it seem to contradict the theory of functionalism.

The structural-functional approach to stratification asks the same question that it does of the other components of society: What function or purpose does it serve? The answer is that all aspects of society, even poverty, contribute in some way to the larger system’s overall stability.

According to structural-functionalists, stratification and inequality are inevitable and beneficial to society. The layers of society, conceptualized as a pyramid, are the inevitable sorting of unequal people. The layering is useful because it ensures that the best people are at the top and those who are less worthy are further down the pyramid, and therefore have less power and are given fewer rewards than the high quality people at the top. The Davis-Moore hypothesis, advanced by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore in a paper published in 1945, is a central claim within the structural functionalist paradigm, and purports that the unequal distribution of rewards serves a purpose in society. Inequality ensures that the most functionally important jobs are filled by the best qualified people. In other words, it makes sense for the CEO of a company, whose position is more important functionally, to make more money than a janitor working for the same company.

A job’s functional importance is determined by the degree to which the job is unique and requires skill, meaning whether only a few, or many other people, can perform the same function adequately. Garbage collectors are important to public sanitation, but do not need to be rewarded highly because little training or talent is required to perform their job. For example, according to this theory doctors should be rewarded highly, because extensive training is required to do their job. It is logical that society must offer greater rewards (e.g., income, vacations, promotion) to motivate the most qualified people to fill the most important positions.

Critiques of the Functionalist Perspective

There are several problems with this approach to stratification. First, it is difficult to determine the functional importance of any job, as the accompanying specialization and inter-dependence make every position necessary to the overall operation. According to this critique, the engineers in a factory, for example, are just as important as the other workers in the factory to the success of a project. In another example, a primary school teacher in the U.S. earns $29,000 per year, whereas a National Basketball Association player can earn as much as $21 million per year. Are basketball players more essential to society than teachers? Are basketball players more functionally important than teachers? In 2009, comedian Jerry Seinfeld earned $85 million. Do his earnings demonstrate his contribution to society? If NBA players or famous comedians went on strike and decided not to work, most people would not notice. However, if teachers, bus drivers, nurses, cleaners, garbage collectors, or waitresses stopped working, society would close down. Thus, functionalism can be critiqued on the basis that there is little connection between income and functional importance.

Second, functionalism assumes that the system of social stratification is fair and rational, and that the “best” people end up on top because of their superiority. But in real life, the system does not work so easily or perfectly. For example, some would argue that former U.S. president George W. Bush was not the smartest or most politically talented individual, but he was well connected and born at the top of the stratification system (white, male, wealthy, American), and therefore was elected to a position with great power—the U.S. presidency.

The Legal Field

Lawyers and judges tend to work very long hours and are often subject to high stress situations; for example, as they determine the fate of individuals’ freedom and the allocation of large sums of money. Functionalists hold that the high pay and status granted to lawyers acts as incentive to motivate qualified people to accept these drawbacks.

8.6.2: The Conflict Perspective: Class Conflict and Scarce Resources

Conflict theory of stratification holds that inequality is harmful to society because it creates a fixed system of winners and losers.

Learning Objective

Compare the conflict theory of inequality to the funcionalist theory of inequality

Key Points

According to conflict theory, capitalist economic competition unfairly privileges the rich, who have the power to perpetrate an unfair system that works to their advantage.
“Losers” who are at the bottom of the social stratification have little opportunity to improve their situation, since those at the top tend to have far more political and economic power.
Functionalists argue against the conflict theory approach by contending that people don’t always act out of economic self-interest, and that people who want to succeed can do so through hard work.

Key Terms

conflict theory: A social science perspective that holds that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society, with inequality perpetuated because it benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor.
social stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of social classes, or castes, within a society.
tax break: A deduction in tax that is given in order to encourage a certain economic activity or a social objective.

Example

Nannies, who are employed as informal, unregulated labor, are an example of lower class employees with little chance of upward mobility and few protections against exploitation. Conflict theorists cite this type of employee as evidence that capitalism results in winners and losers, but allows for little crossover in between.

Conflict theorists argue that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society. According to conflict theory, social stratification benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. Thus, it creates a system of winners and losers that is maintained by those who are on the top. The people who are losers do not get a fair chance to compete, and thus are stuck on the bottom. For example, many wealthy families pay low wages to nannies to care for their children, to gardeners to attend to their rose gardens, and to maids to pick up their dirty socks. These low wage workers do not make enough to move beyond a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, and have no means to move ahead. Therefore, conflict theorists believe that this competitive system, together with the way the game is “fixed”, ends up creating and perpetuating stratification systems.

According to conflict theory, capitalism, an economic system based on free-market competition, particularly benefits the rich by assuming that the “trickle down” mechanism is the best way to spread the benefits of wealth across society. Governments that promote capitalism often establish corporate welfare through direct subsidies, tax breaks, and other support that benefit big businesses. They assume that the market will allow these benefits to the rich to make their way to the poor through competition. For example, the Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart, receives enormous tax breaks. Whether the benefits of these tax breaks have made their way down to ordinary people through better business practices or better working conditions for Wal-Mart employees is questionable. Conflict theorists would argue that they haven’t, but rather have been used by the Walton family to solidify the patterns of stratification that keep the family rich.

Functionalists criticize this approach by arguing that people do not always act largely out of economic self-interest. For example, Chuck Feeney, the creator of Duty Free Shoppers, has given $4 billion to charities. Bill Gates has given 58% of his wealth to charity. Functionalists also argue that conflict theorists underestimate people’s ability to move upward in society. They argue that if people really want to succeed, they can do so through hard work.

Nanny with European Children

Nannies, who are often minority women, are one example of lower class workers with little chance for upward mobility.

8.6.3: The Interactionist Perspective

The interactionist perspective on social inequality focuses on the way that micro-interactions maintain structural inequality.

Learning Objective

Design a scenario which illustrates the interactionist perspective on inequality in action

Key Points

Interactionists often consider the question of how power is exchanged in a situation.
The interactionist perspective on inequality looks at how certain social roles have more power or authority than others.
Micro-interactions all have the ability to reinforce or undermine power and status differentials. Thus, social stratification is a result of these individual interactions.

Key Terms

Social Roles: One’s position and responsibilities in society, which are largely determined in modern developed nations by occupation and family position.
Interactionist Perspective: An approach to inequality that focuses on how micro-interactions reflect and create unequal power dynamics.

Example

In studies of gender dynamics, interactionists may focus on the day-to-day exchanges between husbands and wives to study how male superiority is enacted. For example, when a wife cleans up after her husband or leaves unquestioned an opinion of his that she disagrees with, it is an example of how inequality is reiterated in micro-interactions.

The interactionist perspective on inequality focuses on how micro-interactions reflect and create unequal power dynamics. Interactionists consider the question of how power is exchanged in a situation. For example, when a child and an adult engage in conversation, the adult establishes their power by claiming knowledge and authority that the child cannot. When considering larger systems of inequality, interactionists look at the inequality between social roles. Social roles refer to one’s position and responsibilities in society, which are largely determined in modern developed nations by occupation. The interactionist perspective on inequality looks at how certain social roles have more power, or authority, than others.

An example using real social roles can help illustrate the interactionist perspective: A CEO has more power than a receptionist. Macro-sociologists may explain this disparity by pointing to the unequal education of the two employees, the unequal salaries they earn, or the differing skill levels required to fulfill each job. Interactionists, on the other hand, would focus on the way that day-to-day exchanges demonstrate and reinforce the gap between the CEO and receptionist. When the receptionist hangs up the CEO’s jacket, he takes on a subservient position; when the receptionist makes excuses for the CEO missing a deadline, he accepts responsibility for the CEO’s mistake; when the receptionist laughs at jokes that he does not find funny, he flatters the CEO because he recognizes that his job depends on doing so. All of these micro-interactions, which may seem trivial at the time, add up to status inequality, according to the interactionist.

Wal-Mart’s CEO

Interactionalists would argue that Walmart’s CEO maintains his status and power through the accumulation of interactions with others.

8.6.4: Lenski’s Synthesis

In Lenski’s view, inequality is a natural product of societal development.

Learning Objective

Paraphrase the process which led to inequality, according to the Gehard Lenski’s theory, including different levels of society

Key Points

As societies moved from hunter/gatherer to pastoralist/horticulturalist to agricultural to industrial and then to post-industrial structures, more surplus goods were created.
Surplus goods created the possibility for some people to accumulate more possessions than others.
Individuals with more goods have an economic advantage relative to those with less good because they have greater bargaining power, creating social inequality.

Key Terms

Hunter-gatherer: Describes societies with no division of labor in which people hunt and gather food and materials to meet their basic needs.
Societal Development: The process of transitioning from a hunter/gatherer economic model to an industrialized one.
surplus: That which remains when use or need is satisfied, or when a limit is reached; excess.

Example

People who farm for subsistence often have no surplus goods—they consume all of the crops they produce. By contrast, cash crop farmers produce crops that fetch a high price on the market, such as grain and corn, and sell them rather than consuming them. The crops they produce are surplus goods, traded for economic gain.

In sociologist Gerhard Lenski’s view, inequality is a product of societal development. Lenski differentiated societies based on their level of technology, communication, and economy. Human groups begin as hunter-gatherers, move toward pastoralism and/or horticulturalism, develop toward an agrarian society, and ultimately end up industrializing (with the potential to develop a service industry following industrialization). While this is a common progression, not all societies pass through every stage.

Hunting, Gathering, Subsistence

The origins of inequality can be found in the transition from hunter/gatherer societies to horticultural/pastoralist societies. In hunter/gather societies (around 50,000 B.C.), small groups of people gathered what they could find, hunted, and fished. People collected enough food to satisfy all of their needs, but no more—there was no surplus of goods. There was little trading between the groups, and there was not much inequality between groups because everyone possessed basically the same goods as everyone else. Division of labor was virtually non-existent—people working for subsistence completed all steps of each job. Food gathering and food production were the focus of work.

Horticulture, Pastoralism, Surplus

In horticultural/pastoralist societies (around 12,000 B.C.), groups grew very large, and humans began to settle in one place. For the first time, people had more time to do work other than producing food, such as making leather and weapons. This new division of labor led to surplus goods and the accumulation of possessions. Groups traded these surplus goods with each other, and trade led to inequality because some people accumulated more possessions than others. As societies developed more advanced technologies and underwent industrialization, more surplus was created, increasing the potential for social inequality. According to Lenski, inequality is the result of increasing surplus—some individuals will have ownership of surplus goods, others will not. Those with more goods have an economic advantage relative to those with less goods because they have greater bargaining power, creating social inequality.

Modern-day Hunter/gatherer Societies

Nearly all societies have become industrialized to varying extents, but a few continue to function based on hunting and gathering. In these societies, there are few surplus goods. According to Lenski, this means that such societies do not exhibit inequality.

8.6.5: Marx’s View of Class Differentiation

In the Marxist perspective, social stratification is created by unequal property relations, or unequal access to the means of production.

Learning Objective

Diagram the relationship between the owners of production, the proletariat, the substructure and the superstructure according to Marx’s view

Key Points

In capitalist societies, the bourgeoisie class owns the means of production while the proletariat class sells their labor to the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie have power and status, which they use to maintain the society’s superstructure—it’s values, ideologies, and norms.
In an ideal Marxist communist society, everyone would share access to the means of production and social stratification would be nonexistent.

Key Terms

substructure: The base of society, which in Marxist terms includes relations of production.
superstructure: The ideas, philosophies, and culture that are built upon the means of production.
egalitarian communist society: A society in which the state owns the means of production and equally distributes resources.

Example

Marxist inequality is exemplified by the relationship between a factory owner and factory employee—a factory owner is concerned only with financial profits and earns material wealth, while the assembly line employee is concerned with the conditions of production and is unlikely to accumulate material wealth.

In Marx’s view, social stratification is created by people’s differing relationship to the means of production: either they own productive property or they labor for others.

In Marxist theory, the capitalist mode of production consists of two main economic parts: the substructure and the Superstructure. In a capitalist society, the ruling class, or the bourgeoisie, owns the means of production, such as machines or tools that can be used to produce valuable objects. The working class, or the proletariat, only possess their own labor power, which they sell to the ruling class in the form of wage labor to survive. These relations of production—employer-employee relations, the technical division of labor, and property relations—form the base of society or, in Marxist terms, the substructure. From this material substructure, the superstructure emerges. The superstructure includes the ideas, philosophies and culture of a society. In a capitalist society, the ruling class promotes its own ideologies and values as the norm for the entire society, and these ideas and values are accepted by the working class.

A temporary status quo could be achieved by employing various methods of social control—consciously or unconsciously—by the bourgeoisie in various aspects of social life. Eventually, however, Marx believed the capitalist economic order would erode, through its own internal conflict; this would lead to revolutionary consciousness and the development of egalitarian communist society. In this communist society, the state would own the means of production, and it would equally distribute resources to all citizens. The means of production would be shared by all members of society, and social stratification would be abolished.

Marx Memorial in Moscow

This memorial to Karl Marx in Moscow reads, “Proletarians of all countries unite! ” Marxism is associated with a view of stratification that pits the owners of means of production against the laborers.

8.6.6: Weber’s View of Stratification

Max Weber formed a three-component theory of stratification in which social difference is determined by class, status, and power.

Learning Objective

Recall the three components of stratification in Weberian theory, including their definitions

Key Points

Class is a person’s economic position, based on birth and individual achievement.
Status is one’s social prestige or honor, which may or may not be influenced by class.
Power is one’s ability to get one’s way despite the resistance of others.

Key Terms

power: The ability to get one’s way even in the face of opposition to one’s goals.
status: A person’s social position or standing relative to that of others.
class: A person’s economic position in society, based on birth and individual achievement.

Example

According to Weberian theory, a member of the United States Congress is an example of someone who is high in the social hierarchy due to status and power, although they have relatively low economic status.

Classic sociologist Max Weber was strongly influenced by Marx’s ideas, but rejected the possibility of effective communism, arguing that it would require an even greater level of detrimental social control and bureaucratization than capitalist society. Weber criticized the dialectical presumption of proletariat revolt, believing it to be unlikely. Instead, he developed the three-component theory of stratification and the concept of life chances. Weber supposed there were more class divisions than Marx suggested, taking different concepts from both functionalist and Marxist theories to create his own system. Weber claimed there are four main classes: the upper class, the white-collar workers, the petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class. Weber’s theory more closely resembles theories of modern Western class structures embraced by sociologists, although economic status does not seem to depend strictly on earnings in the way Weber envisioned.

Working half a century later than Marx, Weber derived many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social structure of Germany. Weber examined how many members of the aristocracy lacked economic wealth, yet had strong political power. He noted that, contrary to Marx’s theories, stratification was based on more than ownership of capital. Many wealthy families lacked prestige and power, for example, because they were Jewish. Weber introduced three independent factors that form his theory of stratification hierarchy: class, status, and power. He treated these as separate but related sources of power, each with different effects on social action.

Three Sources of Power

Class is a person’s economic position in a society, based on birth and individual achievement. Weber differs from Marx in that he did not see this as the supreme factor in stratification. Weber noted that managers of corporations or industries control firms they do not own; Marx would have placed such a person in the proletariat.

Status refers to a person’s prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society. Weber noted that political power was not rooted solely in capital value, but also in one’s individual status. Poets or saints, for example, can possess immense influence on society, often with little economic worth.

Power refers to a person’s ability to get their way despite the resistance of others. For example, individuals in state jobs, such as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or a member of the United States Congress, may hold little property or status, but they still hold immense power.

US Congress in Present Times

Using Weber’s theory of stratification, members of the U.S. Congress are at the top of the social hierarchy because they have high power and status, despite having relatively little wealth on average.

8.6.7: Market-Oriented Theories

Market-oriented theories of inequality argue that supply and demand will regulate prices and wages and stabilize inequality.

Learning Objective

Evaluate the concept of the market-oriented theory of inequality

Key Points

When supply meets demand, prices reach a state of equilibrium and cease fluctuating.
According to market-oriented theories, over time the low wages earned by agricultural laborers will induce more people to learn other skills, thus reducing the pool of agricultural laborers.
The supply and demand model is commonly applied to wages, in the market for labor. The typical roles of supplier and consumer are reversed.

Key Terms

supply and demand: An economic model of price determination in a market based on the relative scarcity or abundance of goods and services.
equilibrium: In economics, the point at which supply equals demand and prices cease fluctuating.
free market: Any economic market in which trade is unregulated; an economic system free from government intervention.

Example

The wages earned by various employees can be used to illustrate market-oriented theories of inequality: Doctors are paid high wages because their services are widely needed and require extensive training that few have; by contrast, seasonal agricultural laborers are poorly compensated because the demand for their services is limited and a large pool of unqualified laborers is qualified for the job. According to market-oriented theories of inequality, the low wage earned by seasonal agricultural laborers will encourage members of the labor pool to acquire other skills, which in term will raise the wage earned by agricultural laborers.

Market-oriented theories of inequality are focused on the laws of the free market. The free market refers to a capitalist economic order in which prices are set based on competition. In a free market, prices are supposed to be regulated by the law of supply and demand. According to supply and demand, if a produce or service is scarce but desired by many, it will fetch a high price. Conversely, if a product or service is readily available and desired by few, it will fetch a low price. When the supply of a product exactly meets the demand for it, the price reaches a state of equilibrium and no longer fluctuates.

The model is commonly applied to wages, in the market for labor. The typical roles of supplier and consumer are reversed. The suppliers are individuals, who try to sell (supply) their labor for the highest price. The consumers of labors are businesses, which try to buy (demand) the type of labor they need at the lowest price. As populations increase, wages fall for any given unskilled or skilled labor supply. Conversely, wages tend to go up with a decrease in population. When demand exceeds supply, suppliers can raise the price, but when supply exceeds demand, suppliers will have to decrease the price in order to make sales. Consumers who can afford the higher prices may still buy, but others may forgo the purchase altogether, demand a better price, buy a similar item, or shop elsewhere. As the price rises, suppliers may also choose to increase production, or more suppliers may enter the business.

Considering inequality, market-oriented theories claim that if left to the free-market, all products and services will reach equilibrium, and price stability will reduce inequality. For example, in countries with huge pools of unskilled agricultural laborers but limited agricultural land, agricultural land is very poorly compensated. According to market-oriented theories, over time the low wages earned by agricultural laborers will induce more people to learn other skills, thus reducing the pool of agricultural laborers. With less supply and stable demand, the wage for agricultural labor will rise to a sustainable level. Thus, the status of agricultural laborers will rise, and inequality will be reduced. Generally, market-oriented theories hold that when supply of labor and goods meets demand, the economic order will reach equilibrium, and inequality will either be non-existent or will be stable.

8.6.8: Dependency Theories

Dependency theory states that colonialism and neocolonialism have created unequal economic relations between poor and wealthy countries.

Learning Objective

Explain malnourishment and hunger in the “third world” through dependency theory

Key Points

In the past, colonialism allowed wealthy countries to plunder their colonies for material benefits—raw materials like rubber, sugar, and slave labor.
Today, poor countries have taken enormous loans from wealthy countries in order to stay afloat. Paying off the compound interest from this debt prevents them from investing resources into their own country.
Foreign trade gets in the way of local governments’ ability to improve the living conditions of their people by encouraging the export of food and other raw materials to wealthy consumer markets.

Key Terms

dependency ratio: an age-population measurement of those typically not in the labor force (the dependent part) and those typically in the labor force (the productive part)
neocolonialism: The control or domination by a powerful country over weaker ones (especially former colonies) by the use of economic pressure, political suppression, and cultural dominance.
foreign trade: The exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories.
foreign debt: A debt that a country, an organization in a country, or a resident individual in a country owes to those in other countries.

Example

Brazil is an example of a nation with a rapidly growing economy that is nonetheless still mired by dependency on foreign nations. Long colonized by the Portuguese, Brazil continues to export most of its raw materials and agricultural production. Many Brazilians continue to live in poverty and are malnourished.

Dependency theories propose that colonialism and neocolonialism—continuing economic dependence on and exploitation of former colonial countries—are the main causes global poverty. Countries have developed at an uneven rate because wealthy countries have exploited poor countries in the past and continue to do so today through foreign debt and foreign trade.

Historical Dependency

Historically, wealthy nations have taken a great quantity of materials from poor countries, such as minerals and metals necessary to make automobiles, weapons, and jewelry. Large amounts of agricultural products that can only be grown in the hot climates of the poor countries, such as coffee, tea, sugar, and cocoa, have been exported to and manufactured in the wealthy countries. Wealthy countries would not be as rich as they are today if they did not have these materials. Wealthy countries increased their own profits by organizing cheap labor through slavery.

King Leopold II, for example, who was King of Belgium from 1865-1909, forced hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to work as slaves in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The invention of the bicycle tire in the 1890s and later the automobile tire meant that rubber was in high demand; wild rubber vines were widespread in the Congo, earning Leopold millions. The Democratic Republic of Congo is still suffering from the plunder of natural resources, torture, and killing that was endured during Leopold’s reign.

Modern Dependency

Today, poor countries are trapped by large debts which prevent them from developing. For example, between 1970 and 2002, the continent of Africa received $540 billion in loans from wealthy nations—through the World Bank and IMF. African countries have paid back $550 billion of their debt but they still owe $295 billion. The difference is the result of compound interest. Countries cannot focus on economic or human development when they are constantly paying off debt; these countries will continue to remain undeveloped. Dependency theorists believe large economic aid is not necessarily the key to reducing poverty and developing, but rather debt relief may be a more effective step.

In addition, foreign trade and business often mitigate local governments’ ability to improve the living conditions of their people. This trade often comes in the form of transnational corporations (TNCs). The governments of poor countries invite these TNCs to invest in their country with the hope of developing the country and bringing material benefit to the people. However, workers’ time and energy are often poured into producing goods that they themselves will not consume. For example, some of the land in Cape Verde could be planted and harvested to feed local people, but it is planted instead with cash crops for foreign exchange. Fresh produce is regularly sold or changed to a nonperishable type such as tuna canned for export rather than consumed by the population.

Malnutrition and Dependency

Widespread malnutrition is one of the effects of this foreign dependency. This is common around the globe. Brazil is the second largest exporter of agricultural products, but 50 percent of its population is malnourished. Although Ethiopia has one of the largest populations of cattle in Africa, much of the population suffers from malnutrition and the government continues to export large numbers of cattle to the Middle East. Even during the peak of the infamous 1985 famine, the government was sending dried meat to Egypt.

Through unequal economic relations with wealthy countries in the form of continued debts and foreign trade, poor countries continue to be dependent and unable to tap into their full potential for development.

Map of Empires and Colonies: 1800

8.6.9: World-Systems Theory

World Systems Theory posits that there is a world economic system in which some countries benefit while others are exploited.

Learning Objective

Produce a map of the world that shows some countries as core, peripheral, and semi-peripheral according to Wallerstein’s theory

Key Points

Immanuel Wallerstein developed World Systems Theory and its three-level hierarchy: core, periphery, and semi-periphery.
Core countries are dominant capitalist countries that exploit peripheral countries for labor and raw materials.
Peripheral countries are dependent on core countries for capital and have underdeveloped industry.
Semi-peripheral countries share characteristics of both core and peripheral countries.

Key Terms

core: Describes dominant capitalist countries which exploit the peripheral countries for labor and raw materials.
semi-peripheral: Countries that share characteristics of both core and periphery countries.
peripheral: Peripheral countries are dependent on core countries for capital and have underdeveloped industry.

Example

The United States is an example of a core country — it has vast amounts of capital and labor is relatively well compensated. India is an example of a semi-peripheral country — it is largely dependent on foreign investors for capital, but has a growing technology industry and emerging middle class consumer market. Cape Verde is a peripheral country — foreign investors allow for the extraction of raw materials and the production of cash crops, but all are for export to wealthier consumer markets.

World Systems Theory, like dependency theory, suggests that wealthy countries benefit from other countries and exploit those countries’ citizens. In contrast to dependency theory, however, this model recognizes the minimal benefits that are enjoyed by low status countries in the world system. The theory originated with sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, who suggests that the way a country is integrated into the capitalist world system determines how economic development takes place in that country.

According to Wallerstein, the world economic system is divided into a hierarchy of three types of countries: core, semiperipheral, and peripheral. Core countries (e.g., U.S., Japan, Germany) are dominant, capitalist countries characterized by high levels of industrialization and urbanization. Core countries are capital intensive, have high wages and high technology production patterns and lower amounts of labor exploitation and coercion. Peripheral countries (e.g., most African countries and low income countries in South America) are dependent on core countries for capital and are less industrialized and urbanized. Peripheral countries are usually agrarian, have low literacy rates and lack consistent Internet access. Semi-peripheral countries (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil, India, Nigeria, South Africa) are less developed than core nations but more developed than peripheral nations. They are the buffer between core and peripheral countries.

Core countries own most of the world’s capital and technology and have great control over world trade and economic agreements. They are also the cultural centers which attract artists and intellectuals. Peripheral countries generally provide labor and materials to core countries. Semiperipheral countries exploit peripheral countries, just as core countries exploit both semiperipheral and peripheral countries. Core countries extract raw materials with little cost. They can also set the prices for the agricultural products that peripheral countries export regardless of market prices, forcing small farmers to abandon their fields because they can’t afford to pay for labor and fertilizer. The wealthy in peripheral countries benefit from the labor of poor workers and from their own economic relations with core country capitalists.

11th Century World System

In the 11th century, international production and trade was dominated by the exchange of silk, and thus countries along the silk route were the dominant participants in the “world-system. ” Today, with vast communications and transportation technology, virtually every society participates in the world-system as either a source of raw materials, production, or consumption.

8.6.10: State-Centered Theories

According to state-centered theories of inequality, the government should regulate the distribution of resources to protect workers.

Learning Objective

Compare socialist and communist state-centered theories

Key Points

Socialist and communist economic systems operate on the premise that inequality is best addressed by the state, rather than through the free-market.
State-centered theories of inequality critique market-driven theories on the basis that capitalists embroiled in the free-market will act to increase their own wealth, exploiting the lower classes.
State-centered theories propose that states should enact policies to prevent exploitation and promote the equal distribution of goods and wages.

Key Terms

State-Centered Theories of Inequality: Theories that emphasize the role of governmental policy and economic planning in producing economic stratification. These theories assert that intentional state policies must be aimed at equitably distributing resources and opportunities.
Market-Oriented Theories of Inequality: Economic models that assert that the capitalist free-market will naturally regulate prices and wages.

Example

The laissez-faire era of United States economic history, which occurred around the turn of the 20th century—when the government generally left the economy unregulated—reflects a belief in market-driven theories of inequality. Laissez-faire policy led to corporate monopolies and a vast gap between the wealth of capitalist business owners and wage laborers. This era of loose regulation gave way to an era of tight regulation of the economy, including the introduction of “trust-busting” or anti-monopoly laws. This latter period reflects a belief in state-centered theories of inequality, as the state sought to regulate the economy to reduce the exploitation of workers.

State-centered theories of inequality emphasize the role of governmental policy and economic planning in producing economic stratification. In contrast to market-oriented theories of inequality, state-centered theories do not assert that the capitalist free-market will naturally regulate prices and wages. State-centered theories assert that intentional state policies must be aimed at equitably distributing resources and opportunities.

Socialism and Communism

Socialism and communism operate on the assumption that states can regulate (and potentially eliminate) inequality. Socialism is an economic and political system in which the state owns the majority industry, but resources are allocated based on a combination of natural rights and individual achievements. Communism operates on the principle that resources should be completely equally distributed, on the basis that every person has a natural right to food, shelter, and generally an equal share of a society’s wealth. Socialism includes a combination of public and private property, while under communist systems all property is publicly held and administered by the state.

A socialist economic system would consist of an organisation of production to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs. Goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital. Accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time. Distribution of output would be based on the principle of individual contribution.

State-centered theories of inequality critique market-driven ones on the basis that capitalists embroiled in the free-market will act to increase their own wealth, exploiting the lower classes. Accordingly, these theories propose that states should enact policies to prevent exploitation and promote the equal distribution of goods and wages.

Map of Socialist States

This map of all states to declare themselves officially socialist at some point in history illustrates the spread of state-centered theories of inequality.

8.6.11: Evaluating Global Theories of Inequality

Social theorists think differently about global inequality based on their sociological perspective.

Learning Objective

Differentiate between the positions on social inequality taken by functionalists, Marxists, modern liberalism, and social justice advocates

Key Points

Functionalists are likely to believe that inequality is beneficial to societies and is naturally regulated by market forces to foster economic growth.
Marxists, on the other hand, are likely to see inequality as detrimental to society and to advocate government regulation of the means of production and distribution of property.
In modern liberal societies, individuals tend to value human rights according to the idea that all people are born with equal value.
Social justice advocates generally argue that inequality is unfair, as it leaves some individuals with greater life chances and higher standards of living than others regardless of individual worth or merit.

Key Terms

Functionalist Approach: An approach that asserts that global inequality is not a problem at all, but rather benefits society as it produces an incentive structure to motivate highly capable individuals to pursue positions of power.
Market-Oriented Approach: A perspective on inequality that asserts that a free market will result in prices that benefit the smooth functioning and growth of economies.
State-Oriented Approach: A strategy for reducing inequality in which governments instate policies to equally distribute opportunities and resources.

Examples

Occupy Wall Street protesters approach inequality from a social justice perspective that holds that all Americans deserve equal life chances and have been denied them by market-oriented approaches to economic regulation (or lack thereof).
Occupy Wall Street protesters approach inequality from a social justice perspective that holds that all Americans deserve equal life chances and have been denied them by market-oriented approaches to economic regulation (or lack thereof).

There is significant debate among sociologists, other social scientists, and policy makers over the best approach to global inequality. Some theorists who embrace a functionalist approach assert that global inequality is not a problem at all, but rather benefits society as it produces an incentive structure to motivate highly capable individuals to pursue positions of power. Functionalists are likely to embrace market-oriented approaches to inequality, on the basis that a free market will result in prices that benefit the smooth-functioning and growth of economies. Marxists, by contrast, see global inequality as indicative of exploitation and consider it a detriment to society. These thinkers are likely to support state-oriented approaches to regulating inequality, with governments instating policies to equally distribute opportunities and resources. Interactionists recognize global inequality, but consider it only in the context of individual relations and, therefore, see no role for state intervention.

Whatever sociological theory one adopts to explain the existence of inequality, not all theorists consider inequality to be a problem that needs correction. The idea that all members of a society should be equal is often associated with modern liberalism. In modern liberal societies, individuals tend to value human rights according to the idea that all people are born with equal value. The logic of human rights does not necessarily imply that all people should achieve equal status, but it does assume that all should have equal opportunities to advance, or Weberian life chances. Those who evaluate global inequality and consider it to violate human rights may advocate for solutions to inequality using the language of social justice. Social justice advocates generally argue that inequality is unfair, as it leaves some individuals with greater life chances and higher standards of living than others, regardless of individual worth or merit.

Occupy Wall Street

Protestors at Occupy Wall Street adhere to the position that income inequality is a detriment to society. By protesting the financial institutions that provide capital to economic enterprises, “occupiers” suggest that the market-driven approach to inequality, embraced by financiers, has not resulted in a fair and equitable economic order.