Aspects Of Stratification Research Articles

Social trust and well-being inequality according to social stratification

Subjective well-being (SWB) has attracted a considerable amount of attention in a wide variety of research areas, and previous research has demonstrated the existence of well-being inequality according to social stratification, such as class and status. However, whether class and status have distinctive effects on SWB, even when each is controlled, and whether class and status inequalities in SWB vary depending on social trust remain ambiguous. To fill these gaps, this study focuses on both class and status—two dimensions of social stratification—to examine whether social trust affects class and status disparities in SWB. This analysis employs repeated cross-sectional international comparative data from nine waves of the European Social Survey (ESS) from 2002 to 2019 and a two-way fixed-effects model to examine the moderation effects of social trust on the impacts of the two dimensions of social stratification on SWB. Via an international comparative analysis, this study reveals that class and status have significant positive effects on SWB even after each factor is controlled and that social trust has significant moderation effects on the association between social stratification and SWB. These results indicate that the two aspects of social stratification, i.e., class and status, have differing impacts on SWB and that social trust reduces well-being inequality according to social stratification.

STUDY THE LIFESTYLE OF KAZAKHSTANI SOCIETY IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

This article is devoted to the study of lifestyle in the aspect of social stratification. The purpose of this article is to expand and systematize the definition of the concept of "lifestyle" in relation to Kazakhstani society. The article discusses the basic theories and approaches to the study of lifestyle, as a separate concept of sociological science, and as a factor determining the socio-status group of society.

How do trends in mortality inequalities by deprivation and education in Scotland and England & Wales compare? A repeat cross-sectional study

ObjectiveTo compare the trends in mortality inequalities by educational attainment with trends using area deprivation.SettingScotland and England & Wales (E&W).ParticipantsAll people resident in Scotland and E&W between 1981 and 2011...

Social Determinants of Risk and Outcomes for Cardiovascular Disease: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.

An Institute of Medicine report titled U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health documents the decline in the health status of Americans relative to people in other high-income countries, concluding that “Americans are dying and suffering from illness and injury at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary.”1 The report blames many factors, “adverse economic and social conditions” among them. In an editorial in Science discussing the findings of the Institute of Medicine report, Bayer et al2 call for a national commission on health “to address the social causes that have put the USA last among comparable nations.” Although mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the United States has been on a linear decline since the 1970s, the burden remains high. It accounted for 31.9% of deaths in 2010.3 There is general agreement that the decline is the result, in equal measure, of advances in prevention and advances in treatment. These advances in turn rest on dramatic successes in efforts to understand the biology of CVD that began in the late 1940s.4,5 It has been assumed that the steady downward trend in mortality will continue into the future as further breakthroughs in biological science lead to further advances in prevention and treatment. This view of the future may not be warranted. The prevalence of CVD in the United States is expected to rise 10% between 2010 and 2030.6 This change in the trajectory of cardiovascular burden is the result not only of an aging population but also of a dramatic rise over the past 25 years in obesity and the hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and physical inactivity that accompany weight gain. Although there is no consensus on the precise causes of the obesity epidemic, a dramatic change in the underlying biology of Americans is …

La valutazione sociale delle occupazioni: questioni di metodo

In sociological literature occupation is widely acknowledged as the best proxy of social stratification. Much research has been carried out on this subject and better techniques to reproduce the distributive aspects of social stratification have been developed over time. There are three main measures of occupational stratification: distributive, relational and based upon socio-economic indexes; any of them arises some relevant methodological issues. The paper aims to depict some of these issues and, focusing on the distributive approach, it addresses some main questions: the concern for the validity of occupational hierarchies, the choice between data collection techniques (Likert-vs-Thurstone) and the preference towards stratification of single occupations rather than of occupational groups. Throughout the paper, the contribution of the Italian sociologist to the development of national and international debate on occupational stratification is underlined.

Ethnicity, Migration and the ‘Social Determinants of Health’ Agenda*

One of the most promising recent developments in health policy has been the emergence of a global 'health equity' movement concerned with the social determinants of health. In European research and policy-making, however, there is an strong tendency to reduce 'social determinants' to 'socioeconomic determinants' and to ignore the role of ethnicity, migration and other factors in the creation of inequities. This threatens to hold up the development of work on ethnicity and migration and thus to perpetuate inequities linked to these factors. The present article sets out to illustrate this tendency and to investigate the reasons which may underlie it. The justifications often put forward for neglecting ethnicity and migration are shown to be erroneous. An integrated approach, simultaneously taking account of socioeconomic status, migration and ethnicity as well as other determinants of inequity, is essential if work on the social determinants of health is to make progress. Equity is indivisible; researchers investigating different aspects of social stratification should not treat each other as rivals, but as indispensible allies. An integrated, intersectional, multivariate and multilevel approach will improve our understanding of health inequities and make available more resources for tackling them.

The Social Epidemiology of Bisphenol A Exposure

ISEE-0385 Background and Objective: Socioeconomic disparities in exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) have not been well characterized, nor has the complex relationship between socioeconomic position (SEP) and race/ethnicity. Studying these differences may reveal that certain groups bear a disproportionate burden of exposure and may generate useful hypotheses about sources of exposure. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 2,517 participants in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with urinary BPA measurements. Using multiple regression models and controlling for age, gender, and creatinine, we investigated the association between log-transformed BPA levels and numerous self-reported socioeconomic indicators, which capture slightly different aspects of social stratification. We attempted to disentangle effects of race/ethnicity and SEP. Results: Measuring SEP by income, education, and occupation revealed somewhat similar inverse relationships with BPA levels. Income showed the strongest association; people with poverty income ratios (PIR) less than one had BPA levels 23% (95% CI 11-37%) higher than those with PIRs greater than three. Income measures incorporating household size were better predictors, as was education compared to occupation. Education effects remained after controlling for income. Other indicators such as food security also had residual effects. In models not adjusted for SEP, Non-Hispanic Blacks had BPA levels that were 10% higher than Non-Hispanic Whites. With SEP adjustment, this difference dropped to 5%. Mexican Americans, on the other hand, had lower BPA levels than Non-Hispanic Whites, a difference that increased from 21 to 27% with control for SEP. Conclusion: Lower SEP, measured in different ways, was associated with higher urinary BPA levels. Dietary patterns, known to differ by SEP, may contribute to this disparity. For Non-Hispanic Blacks, SEP appeared to mediate some of the observed difference by race/ethnicity, but not for Mexican Americans, indicating possibly different sources of exposure in these two groups.

Historical Studies of Elite Groups in the Age of Computer Science: The Case of Post-Feudal Hungary

This essay addresses the issue of social stratification, which is the basic organizing factor of life in human communities, since it defines one’s position in any societal environment as well as the fabric or the internal structure of societal togetherness. It deals with one essential aspect of social stratification, namely that of elite formation, taking as a relevant example the case study of Hungary. It is argued that new computer technologies make possible large-scale surveys of elite formation, opening up new vistas for the interpretation of major process of social change that took place in Central European societies. The first part of the essay provides a historical overview of processes of elite formation in modern Hungary. The second part presents an ambitious program of research on the evolution of Hungarian elites from the 1867 “Compromise” with Austria to the beginning of the Communist regime (1948). This unprecedented vast survey was initiated in 2005 and will be completed in 2009. The main target concerns educated elites, but the project also deals with other elite clusters, on a selective basis. The method employed is prosopographical, covering some 200,000 individual biographies. The essay provides a comprehensive description of the technical side of the survey and of the socio-historical scope of the problems it highlights.

Динамічні аспекти соцальної стратифікації: специфіка соціальної мобільності

Динамічні аспекти соцальної стратифікації: специфіка соціальної мобільності

Loosening Links? School-to-Work Transitions and Institutional Change in Russia since 1970

The article analyzes variation in the association between education and first occupational class (the association) among Russians from four consecutive labor force entry cohorts spanning 1970-2000 and by sex. Cross-national comparative research suggests that national institutions affect the magnitude of the EC association. However, loglinear models provide no support for the view that the institutional changes associated with the demise of the Soviet system influenced the pattern or magnitude of the EC association in Russia. The only changes in the EC association predated the major institutional changes. The findings confirm research showing continuity in other aspects of stratification in post-Soviet Russia despite rapid institutional changes connected with market transition. Although there are several alternative explanations for the lack of change in the EC association, the null results suggest that the relationship between institutional arrangements and patterns of stratification is not as straightforward as cross-sectional analyses might suggest. Structural forces and policies also shape patterns of stratification, both independently of and in conjunction with institutions.

戦後日本の階層と階層意識

A history of postwar Japan in the aspect of social stratification or social inequality is presented by the data from the National Survey of Social Stratificaion and Social Mobility, called as “the SSM survey” in Japan, conducted in 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, and 1995. Just after the defeat of World War II in 1945, nearly about 50% of Japanese workers were engaged in farming and kindred occupations such as fishing and forestry. However, in the following 50 years, Japanese society has accomplished industrialization and already arrived at post-industrial stage. Also, the “affluent” society was realized through the high economic growth in 1960s and 1970s. Changes in inequality in possession of social resources and opportunities and in class consciousness from 1955 to 1995 are examined. Contrary to the self-image by the people, Japanese society did not become equal at least in economic or social spheres. There appears tendency toward expansion of inequality and immobility of social stratification since latter half of 1970s.However, class consciousness did not show corresponding change. Regarding those inequality and class consicousness, two turning points of Japanese society may be pointed out. One is the time of “the oil crisis” in 1973-74, and the other is the latter half of 1980s and 1990s, the period of low or stable economic growth. Changes at those turning points and their meanings are presented.

Ageing, Status Politics and Sociological Theory

As a feature of social change and as an aspect of social stratification, ageing and age groups have been seriously neglected by sociological theory. This article attempts to conceptualize age groups in a multi-dimensional model of stratification which considers ageing in relation to economic class, political entitlement, or citizenship, and cultural life-styles. This multi-dimensional model provides an analytical basis for rejecting functionalist theories of ageing, which emphasize the positive functions of social disengagement, activity theories, which show that self-esteem in ageing is an effect of continuing social involvement, and Marxist social gerontology, which argues that retirement is determined by labour-market requirements in capitalism. The article concludes by developing a reciprocity-maturation curve of ageing which explains age stigmatization through exchange theory as an effect of declining social reciprocity. Both young and elderly social groups in a period of economic recession are perceived to be socially dependent, and become the targets of 'the politics of resentment'. The processes of social ageing can be located in the core of sociological theory, because they are connected fundamentally to the conditions of social solidarity.

Reputational Status of Organizations in Technical Systems

An important, but relatively neglected, aspect of social stratification in modern societies is the reputational status associated with complex organizations in interdependent organizational fields. In this study, social factors influencing the reputational status of research organizations in large-scale, cognitively diverse, multisectoral "technical systems" are examined. Data are drawn from interviews with personnel from a national U.S. sample of 50 organizations engaged in research on nuclear-waste management and 47 organizations involved in photovoltaics research. The reputational status of each organization was assessed by knowledgeable respondents from other organizations in each system. A model is presented that characterizes reputational status as a function of organizational performance, organizational structure, and network position. Support is obtained for the model by the use of both subjective and objective indicators, including evidence of the mediating effects of network position. Further results obtained from a blockmodel analysis indicate that ties to specific blocks are a more important determinant of reputational status than block membership.

The Affluent Home Owner: Labour Market Position and the Shaping of Housing Histories

This article draws on research designed to explore aspects of social stratification within owner occupation. The research reconstructed and compared the housing, employment and family histories of two groups of home owners in two contrasting localities in Bristol. This article focuses on the top end of the owner occupied market, a neglected area in the sociology of housing, and explores the connections between bargaining power in the labour market and the shaping of housing histories. It is argued that core workers in the labour market exercise choice in the housing market within a framework of job determined constraints. These constraints are accompanied by a range of subsidies and benefits which are unavailable to the majority of households. As a consequence it is suggested that this group's housing histories are shaped by qualitatively distinct processes which go beyond the single fact that their earned incomes are relatively large.

Occupational similarities: Subjective aspects of social stratification

The main thesis of this paper has been that conceptions of the occupational structure differ in sociologically significant ways. We particularly question the assumption that consensus over occupational cognition is so marked that individual variation may be treated as purely idiosyncratic and hence ignored. On the contrary, we have argued that there are important and systematic differences in the ways in which different occupational groups view the occupational structure, and that any given occupational viewpoint is likely to be restricted and partial.

Social Stratification and Adolescent Academic Performance in a Lebanese Town

WHILE MUCH intuitive speculation has been devoted to the subject of class stratification and class consciousness in Lebanon as well as in the rest of the Near East, there has been little empirical research on the subject.' This present research proposes to study an aspect of social stratification as related to academic performance of adolescents in a community in north Lebanon where the social classes had already been established through a reputational system of ranking.2 Adopting the orientation and procedures of Hollingshead in his study of Elmtown,3 the authors sought to study the relationship of students' academic performance and behavior to the position their families occupy in the status system of the community. Specifically, the social class of the student's family was related to (1) his final grades in 1959-60 and (2) the results of his attainment as indicated by pass-failure decisions. The Setting of Cedarstown. The administrative system in Lebanon is divided into five major districts (muhafazat). Each in turn is sub-divided into Agdiyat (singular qada). Cedarstown,4 on the way to the famed Cedars of Lebanon, is the seat of a qada which belongs to the northern district whose capital is Tripoli. The town enjoys the advantage of a central position in its qada and serves as communication link for the local villages with each other and with the important market centers of Tripoli and Chekka. Either of these two market towns can be reached in twenty minutes by car or bus from Cedarstown. Though olive plantations in the area long formed the backbone of an agricultural economy, agriculture itself does not supply the major proportion of the town's wealth. Primarily the town depends upon service trades and professions.

Aspects of Social Stratification in a Changing Community

Aspects of Social Stratification in a Changing Community

The Use of Leisure and its Relation to Levels of Occupational Prestige

L UNDBERG'S observation made twenty years ago, that social scientists have paid little attention to the problems of leisure,' holds true today with few exceptions, even though living habits have been altered by the further reduction of the work week.2 Much of the previous research has been approached from a recreational, community, or welfare point of view. Many of these studies appeared in the middle thirties when the enforced leisure of the depression years stimulated communities to become increasingly concerned with the way in which people spent their hours away from work. Moreover, few studies have attempted to consider leisure in terms of the larger cultural context. For example, are the dominant values of the culture reflected in the differential use of leisure time? Is there a systematic relationship between social status and leisure styles? Does the occupational structure influence the ways in which workfree time is spent? Research evidence bearing on these and similar questions is extremely limited. In addition, the question can be raised whether present leisure-time patterns are accurately portrayed by past research. It would appear probable that in recent years increasing amounts of spare time, accompanied by rising income levels, might tend to equalize the frequency of participation in many spare-time activities among different segments of the population. Perhaps certain alleged differences in leisure behavior are more apparent than real. It may well be, as Denney and Riesman suggest, that mass leisure has emerged so suddenly that we tend to interpret it by drawing on the stereotypes of an earlier era.3 The present research views leisure activity as an aspect of social stratification. It focuses on the role of leisure as a part of the lifestyles of individuals occupying different prestige levels.

Class and Caste: A Definition and a Distinction

Recently, writers on aspects of social stratification have been thinking of social status in terms of a continuum of societies. At one end are societies in which the status of the individual tends to remain fixed for life; at the other are societies in which the opportunity for advancement of status of the individual is recognized and even encouraged. In other words, at the one end are caste systems, at the other open class systems. In 1498 the Portuguese adventurers who landed at Calicut with Vasco de Gama observed that in India society was organized in a number of endogamous groups with inferior and superior social positions held in perpetuity. They compared this with the social mobility familiar to them in the West, and called it caste. Since then, almost numberless writers have made the same observations. A recognition of relative rigidity of social status among different status systems, then, is no contribution of modern sociologists. What is new, however, is an insistent attempt by many students of social stratification to identify rigidity of social status, in whatever social context it is found, with caste; and to conceive of castes as mere petrified, rigid, or endogamous social classes. For instance, A. L. Kroeber says:

Social Stratification in the Urban Community

ANY DISCUSSION of stratification has to cope with the difficulty that the term social is not definitely fixed and uniformly understood in sociological literature. How can we rid it of ambiguities? (I) The term should not be used as a synonym for related concepts which haveassumed aunivocal meaning. Incomeclasses,occupational strata, races, interest groups or other clearly definable groupings should not be called classes. It is true that for merely technical reasons these groupings may serve as a convenient point of departure for an analysis of particular aspects of stratification; the analyst who tries to measure the size of classes or the degree of mobility among their members must use these concepts, since they are offered to him by census reports and similar statistics. He should be aware, however, that they are only auxiliary terms, and that their identification with classes is both unnecessary and confusing. (2) The theory of stratification should not refer to a specific society, but should be general enough to apply to various structures. We know of societies in which high rank is conferred by age, and others where it is conferred by physical strength. There are systems in which the classes tend to coincide with occupational groups, others where they conform rather with the income pyramid, cutting across all occupations. No theory which proceeds from a particular objective criterion or set of criteria can do more than describe stratification in a particular system; it must fail to explain the phenomenon of class as such. The Marxian concept of class may stand as an illustration of this kind of theory. According to the Marxian analysis, class depends on similarity of economic interest. The individual's relation to the means of production determines his decisive economic interests, and these are held to influence political behavior, create struggle and result in a historic trend toward freedom, provided