ABSTRACT
Urbanization and industrialization radically altered the social divisions of Latin American society, making some, such as possession of land, less salient and others, such as professional qualifications, more important. Argentina in 1947 was the most highly urbanized and industrialized Latin American country and the patterns of stratification found there were unlikely to be replicated elsewhere in Latin America at that time. The industrialization and economic growth of the period after the 1940s reinforced these regional differences in social stratification. Economic, demographic and social changes resulted by the 1970s in a pattern of urban stratification that in certain crucial respects is increasingly similar throughout Latin America. A distinctive characteristic of educational levels in Latin America affecting occupational stratification and income inequality is their polarization. The size and complexity of the urban economies, increasingly externally linked through investment and technology, make the family-type enterprise of the 1930s difficult to sustain.
