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Global Stratification: Understanding Inequality and Poverty Worldwide

Explore the concepts of social stratification and global inequality, including the classification of economies, wealth and poverty, theories of global inequality, and the impact on human development. Learn about open and closed systems of stratification, slavery and caste systems, and how globalization has shaped the distribution of wealth and resources on a global scale.

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Global Stratification: Understanding Inequality and Poverty Worldwide

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  1. Chapter 7 Global Stratification

  2. Chapter Outline • What Is Social Stratification? • Global Systems of Stratification • Wealth and Poverty in Global Perspective • Problems in Studying Global Inequality • Classification of Economies by Income • Measuring Global Wealth and Poverty • Global Poverty and Human Development Issues • Theories of Global Inequality • Global Inequality in the Future

  3. Social Stratification • Hierarchy of social groups based on their control over resources. • Sociologists examine social groups that make up the hierarchy in a society and seek to determine how inequalities persist over time.

  4. Life Chances • Access to social resources such as food, clothing, shelter, education, and health care. • Affluent people have greater access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, nutrition and health care, police protection, and other goods and services. • Persons with low- and poverty-level incomes tend to have limited access to these resources.

  5. Open and Closed Systems of Stratification • In an open system, boundaries between levels in the hierarchies are flexible and may be influenced by people’s achieved statuses. • In a closed system, boundaries between levels in the hierarchies are rigid, and people’s positions are set by ascribed status.

  6. Slavery • Extreme form of stratification in which some people are owned by others. • Throughout recorded history 5 societies have been slave societies: ancient Greece, Roman Empire, United States, Caribbean and Brazil. • Today, there are an estimated 27 million people held as slaves worldwide – most are held in bonded labor in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

  7. Caste System • Status is determined at birth based on parents’ ascribed characteristics. • Cultural beliefs and values sustain caste systems and caste systems grow weaker as societies industrialize. • Vestiges of caste systems often remain for hundreds of years beyond the period in which they are “officially” abolished.

  8. Income Gap Between the World’s Richest and Poorest People • 1960 - Highest income 20% of the world’s population received $30 for each dollar received by the lowest income 20%. • 2000 - Disparity had increased: $74 to $1.

  9. Classification of Economies by Income • The World Bank focuses on people, the environment, and the economy. • Classifies nations into 3 categories: • Low-income - GNI per capita of $755 or less in 2000 • Middle-income - GNI per capita between $756 and $9,265 in 2000 • High-income - GNI per capita of more than $9,266 in 2000

  10. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) • All goods and services produced within a country’s economy during a given year. • Changes in GDP can be attributed to: • Stable economic conditions worldwide. • Low inflation and interest rates. • Surging flows of foreign capital and expertise into emerging markets.

  11. Hunger and Global Inequality • People in the U.S. spend more than $5 billion per year on diet products • The world’s poorest 600 million suffer from chronic malnutrition, over 40 million die each year from hunger-related diseases. • Number of people worldwide dying from hunger is equal to 300 jumbo-jet crashes per day with no survivors, half are children.

  12. Theories of Global Inequality • Modernization - Low-income, less-developed nations can improve standard of living by a period of economic growth and changes in beliefs, values, and attitudes toward work. • Dependency - Partially attributes global poverty to the fact that low-income countries have been exploited by high-income countries.

  13. Theories of Global Inequality • World Systems– The capitalist world economy is divided into a hierarchy of core, semiperipheral, and peripheral nations. • New International Division Of Labor - Commodity production is split into fragments that can be assigned to whichever part of the world can provide the best combination of capital and labor.

  14. Maquiladora Plants Corporations establish plants in Mexico so they can reduce wages and increase profits: • Parts are manufactured in the United States. • The parts are shipped tax free to a factory in Mexico, and assembled into a finished product. • The completed product is sent back to the U.S. Taxes are assessed only on the value added in Mexico.

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