2.5 Social Stratification in Families
Elizabeth B. Pearce
In order to understand family life in the United States, it can be helpful to identify the various levels of socioeconomic status, which include a person’s or family’s education level, income, career, and overall social status. The first chapter of this text identified some of the differences that individuals and families experience based on gender, sex, sexuality, race, immigration status, and ethnicity. Here we will focus on what the definitions and meanings are of socioeconomic status.
Geologists also use the word “stratification” to describe the distinct vertical layers found in rock (figure 2.13). Social stratification, or society’s layers, made of people, represent the uneven distribution of society’s resources. Society views the people with more resources as the top layer of the social structure of stratification. Other groups of people, with fewer and fewer resources, represent the lower layers. An individual’s place within this stratification is called socioeconomic status.
Most people and institutions in the United States indicate that they value equality, a belief that everyone has an equal chance at success. In other words, hard work and talent—not inherited wealth, prejudicial treatment, institutional racism, or societal values—determine social mobility, an individual’s or family’s movement through the class hierarchy due to changes in income, occupation, or wealth. This emphasis on choice, motivation, and self-effort perpetuates the American belief that people control their own social standing.
However, it is easy to see inequalities in social class. While inequalities exist between individuals, it’s also important to be aware of larger social patterns. Sociologists look to see if individuals with similar backgrounds, group memberships, identities, and location in the country share the same social stratification. No individual, rich or poor, can be blamed for social inequalities, but all of us participate in a system where some rise and others fall. Most Americans believe the rising and falling is based on individual choices. But we will see how the structure of society affects a person’s social standing and therefore is created and supported by society.
One key determinant of social standing is our parents. Parents tend to pass their social position on to their children. People inherit not only social standing but also the cultural norms, values, and beliefs that accompany a certain lifestyle. They share these with a network of friends and family members that provide resources and support. This is one of the reasons first-generation college students may not fare as well as other students (and that many colleges and universities currently focus on supporting these students). They lack access to the resources and support commonly provided to those whose parents have gone to college.
Other determinants are found in a society’s occupational structure. Teachers, for example, ofte