ABSTRACT
What are your chances of getting a good job after finishing your education? Do your parents play a role in your chances of success in education and the labor market? These are questions about inequality and in this chapter I will take a closer look at two subthemes of inequality, namely social stratification and social mobility. This chapter’s objective is to introduce you to some important concepts, empirical patterns and theories. I will start with research showing how strongly happiness, life-expectancy and standards of living differ across societies (9.1). I will continue with a discussion of stratification within societies, introducing the concepts of social class and social status (9.2). Then I will address stylized findings of contemporary stratification in income and wealth (9.3) and identify key long-term developments in stratification (9.4). Subsequently, I will introduce the concept of social mobility, which refers to the changing positions people can take in the stratification system (9.5). I will discuss Blau and Duncan’s well-known status attainment model, with which they examined the degree to which social mobility was due to “ascription” and “achievement” (9.6). Then I introduce the modernization process, which may have had significant impact on status attainment. I will review two ideas that make competing predictions about the role of modernization. These are: the modernization and mobility theory (9.7) and the cultural reproduction theory (9.8). At the end of this chapter I discuss the relationship between “social stratification” and “social mobility” (9.9).
