SOCIAL MOBILITY

Sociologists interested in stratification also focus on social mobility, movement within the stratification system from one position, or strata, to an-other. This movement can be upward or downward. It can be studied at the col-lective level using characteristics such as ascribed status (e.g., the upward mobility of African Americans in the United States since the end of slavery, the status of women) or even at the level of entire nations (e.g., ranking by economic factors such as gross domestic product). However, social mobility is usually ad-dressed at the micro level by examining individual or family level movement within the social structure. Interestingly, these micro-level patterns of mobility are “considered a core characteristic of a society’s social structure,” even though structure which is typically considered a macro-level area of study (Riain and Evans 2000). (Chapter 2 provides a discussion of micro and macro perspectives.) Mobility can be examined by how much time it takes to occur. Intra-generational mobility is movement that occurs within the lifetime of an indi-vidual. Individuals that change their social position over the course of their lifetime achieve this type of mobility (e.g., an employee that starts in the mail room and becomes corporate vice president). Intergenerational mobility is movement that occurs from generation to generation (e.g., the mail-room clerk’s son becomes the corporate officer).

Mobility can also be examined by the factors behind the change. Mo-bility that occurs as a result of changes in the occupational structure of a soci-ety is structural mobility. A strong economy can create new options for upward

mobility. The so-called dot-com businesses that arose with the growth of the In-ternet provided new, often high-paying employment opportunities during the late 1990s. When the dot-com bust came at the end of the decade, the occupational structure once again changed, and many workers lost their jobs. Positional mo-bility is movement that occurs due to individual effort (e.g., hard work, winning the lottery). This type of mobility does not depend on structural changes.

Because stratification persists over the long term, it results in limited social mobility. People generally remain in the social class in which they are born (Frank and Cook 1995). Movements within the social structure tend to be incremental as opposed to large leaps. Although cases do occur in which people go from rags to riches and make big moves across several strata, this is an ex-ception rather than the rule.

In the United States, when mobility does occur, upward mobility has tra-ditionally been more common than downward mobility (Featherman and Hauser 1978). It has been especially pronounced for minorities in white-collar occupa-tions (Cose 1993). Additionally, the decades of the 1980s and 1990s saw an in-crease in the capitalist class (Stanley 1996). However, upward mobility is not always the pattern. For example, women tend to experience downward mobility after divorce (Weitzman 1985, 1996). Women divorcing powerful or well-connected men lose their husband’s income as well as his status.

Research has shown that the structure of society can limit those who try to get ahead in spite of educational and occupational aspirations (MacLeod 1995; Solorzano 1991). Jonathan Kozol (1991) examined wealthy schools and poorly funded schools. He found that these schools provided different elements of success to their students, ranging from differences in physical structure and educational resources (e.g., computers, sports equipment) to the messages they sent students about their self-worth and value to society.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977), profiled in chapter 5, studied how orga-nizational structures limit women’s mobility. She found that women in largely male-dominated organizations were highly visible and readily criticized. They became “tokens” representing all women. The power structures in these organi-zations devalued women’s styles of leadership and largely placed women in jobs with no opportunity for advancement. These structural factors limited positional mobility and made moving up the corporate structure difficult for women re-gardless of their individual talents and abilities.

The factors behind lack of mobility are not always clear-cut. An ongo-ing debate about the influence of race and class provides an illustration. To some sociologists and others, racism is a factor that has a huge, limiting impact on mo-bility and achievements (e.g., Feagin and Sykes 1994). Another controversial ar-gument by William Julius Wilson (1987, 1996), profiled below, offered the position that class is a more important factor than race in limiting social mobil-ity. He argued that inner-city black poverty increased since 1970 largely as a re-sult of urban changes. Although racism and discrimination do exist from Wilson’s perspective, factors such as poor job training, limited job skills among inner-city youth, and little opportunity to obtain education and job skills

perpet-uate poverty. Other structural factors, such as the relocation of industries, the changing job market, and the relocation of African Americans who could afford to follow whites to the suburbs or more upscale urban areas, were important fac-tors in this situation.

Although there is general agreement among researchers about the in-creasing concentration of urban poverty, they debate the reasons behind this change (Small and Newman 2001). They note that a number of structural fac-tors may be at work, such as poorly enforced fair-housing laws that keep blacks in poor neighborhoods or the exodus of manufacturing jobs leaving the inner city. An examination of factors including demographic patterns (e.g., looking at the cities that are growing and increasing numbers of immigrants, birthrates of various racial/ethnic groups), changing urban housing markets, and the digital divide (the gap between those who have access to, and can effectively use, in-formation and collaborative technologies such as the Internet and those who are unable to do so) that exist in the United States is necessary to better understand the processes at work.

GLOBALIZATION AND THE INTERNET

The digital divide also plays a role in patterns of global stratification.

Sociologist Paul DiMaggio and his colleagues cite several studies that show that a digital divide exists globally (DiMaggio et al. 2001, 312–14). Less developed countries have less physical access to Internet connections and less diffusion of the economic development and skills needed for people to benefit from such technologies than more developed countries have.

These researchers point out that sociologists also need to examine the unequal attention given to Internet users. They argue that simply assessing ac-cess, although important, does not give a complete picture of the digital divide.

A fuller picture is “not just whether or not one has ‘access’, but inequality in lo-cation of access (home, work, public facilities); the quality of hardware, soft-ware, and connections; skill in using the technology; and access to social support networks” are also factors to consider (DiMaggio et al. 2001, 314). Additionally, they urge researchers to show how such structural factors as government pro-grams and pricing policies impact access.

This digital divide is but one, albeit important, aspect of global stratifica-tion. Just as for the United States, looking at income inequality globally shows that world income is distributed unequally, and this inequality is growing. By one cal-culation, in 1993 the richest 1 percent of people received as much income as the entire bottom 57 percent did; or, “in other words, less than 50 million income-richest people receive as much as 2.7 billion poor.” Additionally, the top 10 percent of the U.S. population, approximately 25 million people, had aggregate incomes roughly equal to the poorest 43 percent of the world population, or almost 2 billion people (Milanovic 2002, 88–89). Another report finds that three-quarters of the world is poor, and the middle class is very small—8–11 percent of the world’s pop-ulation, depending on the calculation used (Milanovic and Yitzhaki 2002).

Sociologists turn to their basic theoretical perspectives to address global stratification and inequality. Functionalist ideas gave rise to modernization the-ory. Emerging in the 1950s, modernization theory argued that countries break-ing with tradition and embracbreak-ing capitalist industrialization would lead to economic, social, cultural, political, and technological development. Poor na-tions could improve their condina-tions by following Western examples. This is one of a school of market-oriented theories that support the idea that capitalist pro-cesses and institutions will lead poorer countries to embrace modernization.

A well-known proponent of this perspective was W. W. Rostow, an ad-visor to President John F. Kennedy. Using an airplane analogy, Rostow (1960) offered a model of modernization for poor countries that had four stages: a focus on traditional patterns of life; a takeoff stage when society starts to move away from traditionalism; the airplane becoming airborne during a drive to techno-logical maturity as the economy begins to diversify, technology develops, and reinvestment occurs; and high mass consumption as standards of living improve and people buy more goods. In this fourth stage, the airplane levels out and con-tinues cruising along. Rich nations help these poorer countries throughout the process in ways such as providing aid, technology, and guidance.

To critics, modernization theory is ethnocentric. It expects the entire world to conform to Western standards. It also does not account for the uneven development that has occurred around the world, with some countries remain-ing quite poor. It roots the causes of poverty within the poor countries them-selves (Bradshaw and Wallace 1996). This perspective also fails to recognize that rich countries may have their own interests that are at odds with the full devel-opment of poorer countries. This final point, in particular, provides the starting point for the opposing perspectives of dependency theory.

Rooted in conflict theory, dependency theory focuses on the reliance of poor nations on the wealthy. This dependence arises from exploitation of the poor countries by the richer, more powerful countries. Colonialism was a crucial factor in shaping this situation.

World-systems theory emerged in the 1970s. It was developed by Im-manuel Wallerstein (1974), who is profiled below, and rooted in classical sociol-ogy. World-systems theory focuses on the capitalist world economy in which countries are linked by economic and political ties. Development of this system began in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and grew with capital-ism. The theory divides the world into three types of regions: core, periphery, and semiperiphery. Core countries are the powerful industrial countries that domi-nate the global capitalist system. Peripheral countries are poor countries that are exploited for their raw materials and inexpensive labor by core countries.

This is largely a result of colonialism. Because these peripheral countries do not trade with other poor countries, they have to buy from rich nations. Semiperiph-eral countries are those countries that are somewhat industrialized. They are able to exploit peripheral countries but are, in turn, exploited by core countries.

The result of this world system is unequal trading patterns in which poor nations depend on rich nations. As summarized by Christopher Chase-Dunn, the

whole process is a “stratification system composed of economically and politi-cally dominant core societies (themselves in competition with one another) and dependent peripheral and semiperipheral regions, some of which have been suc-cessful in improving their positions in the larger core-periphery hierarchy, while most have simply maintained their relative positions” (2001, 590). Critics of world-systems theory argue that, while it has been successful in modeling “the long-term dynamics of capitalism,” its weakness lies in “its attempt to derive all long-run state processes from economic processes” (Collins 1999, 41).

The concept of globalization is now replacing world-systems theory.

The concern now is with shaping “the emerging world society into a global dem-ocratic commonwealth based on collective rationality, liberty, and equality”

(Chase-Dunn 2001, 610). Feminist scholars also urge consideration of the im-pact of globalization processes on women. The inequalities in the global econ-omy impact women especially hard. However, women are becoming empowered and learning to organize into networks that can improve their own positions and the positions of other labor in the globalized economy (Moghadam 1999). In-deed, the United Nations’ Human Development Report for 2003 finds that, al-though discrimination against women persists, some poorer countries are actually doing better than some richer countries in terms of women’s political and economic participation.

BIOGRAPHIES