Social Class in the U.S.: Inequality, Mobility, and Gender

A Composite Map of Social Class in the U.S.

The upper class
Wealthiest Americans earning more than $180,800 a year, owning large suburban homes, driving new luxury cars. Wealth comes from investment income (usually). About 5% of all American households.
The upper middle class
Well-off professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, professors, with incomes ranging from about $100,000 to about $180,000 or so. About 15% of all American households.
Lower Middle Class
Skilled services, office workers, skilled craftsmen, with household incomes from about $38,000 to about $100,000. About 40% of American households.
Working Class
Factory workers, mechanics, office workers, etc. About 20% of American households. Income from about $20,000 to $38,000.
The lower class
People who work full time at low wages, part time, or not at all. About 20% of households. Income is below $20,000.

Inequality: Social Mobility
In unequal societies, it is possible, but comparatively rare, to experience social mobility, the movement of individuals or groups between different social positions. Mobility can happen in a few basic ways: Intergenerational mobility (children move up or down relatively to their parents), Intragenerational mobility (over the course of a “personal career,” or one’s working life and dotage), Exchange mobility (“one-for-one” mobility where people must “exchange” positions in a system of fixed resources and size), Structural mobility (as the system as a whole gets richer or poorer, people have more or fewer opportunities).

Inequality and Social Mobility

Since the end of World War II, the American economy has been expanding steadily, allowing enormous structural social mobility. After the great recession, there has been limited but significant downward social mobility, especially among lower-middle-class and working-class people. One third of middle class people (30th-70th percentile of income) fall out of the middle class during their lifetimes (as of 2011). The great recession as “mancession” (the industries worst hit predominantly employed men). Divorce. Since the 1980s, young and displaced workers have struggled to continue upward social mobility.

Determinants of Mobility

The “cultural capital” you receive during socialization is enormously important. Cultural capital = the facets of upbringing valued and recognized in wider society as components to success. Cultural capital determines whether you can “make the most” of an opportunity. Wealthy parents can make sure their children have every advantage in education, healthcare, physical development. Poorer parents can’t. Examples: SAT/ACT prep. Analogy: playing a video game on easy.

Sex, Gender, and Identity

Sex = the biological and anatomical differences distinguishing females from males. “Male” and “female”. There is a third biological category, “intersex,” which runs as high as about 1.5% of births, where about 0.1 or 0.2% of births (depending on the study) require specialist attention and gender assignment surgery. Gender = social expectations about behavior regarded as appropriate for the members of each sex. “Masculine” and “feminine”. Several cultures allow fluid movement between genders and have “inter-” gendered categories. Example: the nadleehi in Navajo culture. A core anchor of social and self-identity in contemporary societies is your gender, which is socialized and usually roughly related to your sex.

How do sex, gender, and identity relate?

Much ink is spilled on which of the two aspects (sex, gender) determines the other. At one extreme, sociobiologists argue that biological sex and genetics determines important parts of social behavior (aggression, empathy, etc.), usually via the mechanisms of hormones like testosterone and estrogen. Key evidence: basic dichotomy in hunter-gatherer societies; FMRIs and hormone levels correlate with gender-stereotyped behaviors. At another extreme, proponents of the “social construction of gender” argue that there is essentially NO relationship between gender identity and underlying biological sex (or intersex). Key evidence: “performance” of gender studies; key limit cases like early gender reassignment surgery for babies and young children.

Poverty

How do you measure poverty? Absolute poverty = the minimal requirements necessary to sustain a healthy existence. Relative poverty = poverty defined in terms of the standards of mainstream society. Compared to ordinary people in a society, you are deprived and may suffer adverse effects to your health and welfare because of this deprivation. Government poverty line. Three times the assumed cost of a nutritionally-adequate diet per person. In 2023, for a single person, the Federal Poverty line is $14,580, and for a family of 4 it is $30,000 (source). That means if it is just you, you must feed, clothe, and house yourself on $39.94 a day, or a family of 4 for $82.19 ($20.54 pp). NOT regionally or purchasing-power-parity adjusted.

Poverty

The “working poor”. About 1/3 of people 16 and older who fall below the poverty line worked in the past year. About 7% of the workforce can’t earn high enough wages to stay out of poverty. Many “working poor” jobs (e.g., fast food, some retail) are “precarious”—a single life emergency can result in being fired. Poverty is disproportionately black and latino. A growing proportion of the poor are women (this is the “feminization of poverty”) and children. Very few old people are poor (relatively), but this rate is poorly measured and affects women and minorities disproportionately. White married elderly men: 3.1%; Black women living alone: 31.4%.

Culture(s) of Poverty

In U.S. politics and public opinion, people blame the poor for not working hard enough. Sociology: culture of poverty/dependency culture vs. structural inequality. Technical problem: are poor people passive objects of structures OR culture? Moral/values problem: What is the role of society and government to ameliorate poverty?

Class Matters: Three heart attacks, three classes

Jean Miele, Architect (upper middle class). End of story: healthier than ever, retired comfortably. Will Wilson, Con Ed worker (middle class). End of story: o.k. health, preparing to retire on pension. Ewa Gora, Janitor. End of story: very poor health (and deteriorating), attempting to get back to work from precarious disability. A matter of structural opportunity and cultural capital (and how the two combine). Miele is around knowledgeable friends for his heart attack, who immediately put him in an ambulance that gives him a choice of the very best hospital nearby or a public city hospital. Very quickly gets the best standard of care (and angioplasty). Wilson also gets an ambulance quickly, but goes to the second- best hospital. Wilson gets angioplasty only after trying cheaper de-clotting drugs. Gora only gets an ambulance after trying a home remedy (vodka) to the most crowded and poorest hospital of the three. Gora never gets angioplasty and suffers permanent heart damage. Miele is able (thanks also to his wife) to focus exclusively on his health. Loses a huge amount of weight, retires on favorable terms, spends time relaxing on his huge Brookhaven estate. Wilson also gets help, but struggles with diet and exercise. His fiancée helps, and Wilson is able to lower his responsibilities at work. Gora faces stupendous structural and cultural-capital obstacles. At first doesn’t even understand that she’s had a heart attack until a follow-up appointment. Has to balance arguing with insurance, traveling on public transit for appointments, and trying to return to work with a husband working double shifts. Miele: “Healthier than ever.” Wilson: “Heart function remained impaired, though improved somewhat.” Gora: “’You’re becoming a full-time patient, aren’t you?’” Punchline: class, through it’s structural inequality and unequally-distributed cultural capital, massively affects the outcomes of people stricken with the same health problem.

Between sex and gender

Biological extreme: genes/hormones/brain activity determine “gender”. Epigenetics: social environments significantly shape biological factors over time, which remain the key determinant of behavior. Structure-as-accelerant: there are underlying biological differences, but they are minor compared to the effects of social structure, which vary considerably (either naturally or by design). Today, most sociologists accept this position. Constructivist extreme: gender is a free-floating, postmodern signifier unattached to underlying material or biological conditions.

From Sex to Gender

We are socialized into a gender identity from the moment we are born. ‘IS IT A BOY OR A GIRL?!?!?!?!?!?!’. Gender reveal parties. Early gendered interaction. In an ongoing way, we “do” gender in interactions. Recall: power-posing, tone of voice. Differences in educational interaction. A boy calls out the answer and is recognized; a girl is told “we don’t call out!”

What is women’s position in society, especially relative to men?

The answer to that question is similar, but varies considerably whether we’re talking about the contemporary west or the developing world. In the contemporary west, women’s position has been improving by many measures. Marriage is occurring later (source). 1960: 20 for women, 22 for men. 1990: 23 for women, 26 for men. 2010: 27 for women, 29 for men. Increasing ages are an indirect sign of better education and career prospects. MORE women than men graduate college (20.1 million women in 2011 had bachelor’s degrees, compares to 18.7 million men; source). A woman born in the 1980s now has a 33 percent better chance than a man of getting their BA by the time they turn 27 (source).

Developing world

Marriage ages have also been rising, but from a much lower “floor” (source). Western/Middle Africa. 1970-89: 53% of women ages 15-19 had been married at least once. 1990-2000: 38.4%. Southeast Asia. 1970-89: 39% of women 15-19. 1990-2000: 32.3%. (Education follows the same pattern).

Persistent Inequality

Housework. Women save husbands an hour of housework a week, but being in a household means that women themselves do seven hours more housework a week. In BOTH the developing and contemporary world, sexual harassment and violence remains shockingly high. Sexual harassment and violence is difficult to measure, and is almost certainly undercounted. The best stats we have suggest that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have been subject to “attempted” or “completed” rape. In the developing world and places in the midst of war, rape can be systematic and a tool for terrorizing whole populations.

Theories of gender inequality

Functionalism. Gender inequality persists because society “needs” a sexual division of labor. Murdock (1949): women are “best suited” to childrearing and housework. Modern day: “family first!” (i.e., women stay at home) (familyfirst.net). Liberal feminism. Gender inequality is a civil rights issue! Radical feminism. Gender inequality is a result of patriarchy, or the dominance. Black feminism. “Speaking for ‘all women’ covers up the specific plight of black and other minority women, for whom solutions might look very different and whose relationship to femininity might not be like yours!” Postmodern feminism. “womanhood” at all. There is no shared basis of “femininity,” or even. Instead, the boundaries between feminine/masculine, and even male/female, are constantly reconstructed through performances.

Occupational segregation

Women earn less than men because the kinds of work the do is devalued. Gender typing. Glass ceiling for women. Glass escalator for men.

Solutions?

UN Commission on the Status of Women (founded 1946). “Comparable worth policies”. Use a bureaucratic procedure to set wages for different jobs, indifferent to men and women. Equal rights amendment. Proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights for women. Passed in 1972, but failed ratification by states in 1979. More general: educate women everywhere.