Social stratification is society’s differentiation of members according to their socioeconomic statuses based on aspects, such as income, wealth, race, education, and political authority level. In contrast, social mobility refers to the ability of an individual of one social class to move to the next or lower system or status, catapulted by advantages, such as acquisition of higher education or attainment of a well-paying job. In the contemporary society, social classes may be categorized into lower working class strata, middle-income class, and upper, wealthy class of individuals. The lower working class’s members are primarily unemployed or earn minimum wage, have low education levels, do not own any wealth, and struggle to afford housing. In contrast, the middle-income class have high education levels and a stable income that allows them to focus on self-improvement, while the upper class own the most material resources in a country, have elite members who are highly educated, besides owning wealth and means of production ( Kraus, 2016) . Society maintains stratification systems primarily through schools, where learners study models mirror their socioeconomic backgrounds. For instance, children who attend learning institutions for middle income earners tend to learn through expressive means, which reinforce the need for continuously seeking self-improvement instead of worrying concerning trivial matters, such as employment and housing. In the contemporary society, poverty is defined as the struggle for basic amenities, such as food, housing, electricity, decent education, and engagement in low income jobs. Alternatively, poverty may be described as the willful refusal to rise from lower working classes to middle-income or upper classes because of laziness or lack of self-drive to achieve a better education for securing of better paying jobs.
Erik Olin Wright’s model of social class predicts and explains individuals’ material interests, living conditions, lived encounters, organizational capacities, and incomes. Wright reports that workers who have superior technical and non-technical skills who are considered scarce by employers have a higher “privilege” because even though they may not be capitalists, they enjoy a relation with the owner a means of production. Therefore, the employee category mentioned above can exploit the system to embed themselves as middle-income persons solely based on their skills. In contrast, members of the lower income classes have widely available skills, and hence, they have a limited social mobility because corporation do not overcompensate them; they can be easily replaced, which incapacitates the latter’s ability to exploit the system to move to middle income social classes. Similarly, Joseph Kahl and Dennis Gilbert suggested a social class model that deviates from Karl Marx’s social stratification system based on ownership of factors of production. According to Gilbert and Kahl, society comprises six social classes, namely the capitalist class, underclass, working class, upper middle class, working poor, and upper middle class. The capitalists’ class constitutes of super-wealth persons who own Fortune 500 companies, have millions of dollars invested in labor, and only interact with persons from their social class. In contrast, the upper middle class are mainly shaped by high education levels, with a college degree being the most significant identifier of its members. Most individuals from the upper middle class are professionals, managers, and small business owners who are highly successful ( Ahari & Sattarzadeh, 2017) . The lower middle class comprises person with a high school diploma as their highest education levels, and have lower-executive and semi-trained positions in most corporates. Further, the working class constitutes of persons who are semi-skilled technicians, sales people, and clerks, while working poor class comprises individuals who provide unskilled labor and lower-income factory employees. Finally, the underclass constitutes persons who are under employed, with extremely low or zero education levels, or disabled persons regularly discriminated for their condition at work. In my opinion, society should not have social classes because the notion mentioned above promotes social injustices, discrimination, and prejudice.
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People can move from one social class to another if they strive to attain higher education levels or acquire the opportunity to secure a high paying job. Sadly, pride and prejudice exist in the contemporary society as evinced by persons’ attitudes towards individuals of lower social classes, where middle income class and upper class members discriminate those from the lower working class because of their low income levels, struggle to have decent housing, lack of wealth, and general high poverty levels ( Manstead, 2018) . Similarly, individuals from lower working classes tend to discriminate immigrants and ethnic minorities, viewing them as economic threats because they compete for the scarcely available unskilled job opportunities, which, ideally, should be a preserve for the low-income households. In my opinion, persons from one social class can connect with those from a lower class by viewing them as victims of unfair distribution of public resources and social injustices, which are difficult to overcome even when the lower-working class members have the will to do so. Persons within a minority tend to be interdependent and viewers of their harsh living circumstances as results of external stressors, which significantly deflates their perception of control and ability to overcome social injustices. I think poverty plays the role of reducing the sense of its victims’ control over external factors, and increases susceptibility to income and health inequalities. Finally, individuals from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds tend to be more expressive, aggressive, and empathetic, compared to their counterparts from upper social classes who are more composed, calm, and emotionally intelligent.
References
Ahari, A. S., & Sattarzadeh, D. (2017). "Third Place", A Place for Leisure Time and its Relationship with Different Social Setting in Tabriz, Iran. Int. J. Architect. Eng. Urban Plan , 27 (2), 95-105. http://ijaup.iust.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-11-1161-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1
Kraus, M. W. (2016). Signs of social class: The experience of economic inequality in everyday life. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qye9a
Manstead, A. S. (2018). The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. The British Journal of Social Psychology , 57 (2), 267-291. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12251
