Social Stratification

According to sociology, social inequality would be defined as a situation in which valued resources and desired outcomes are distributed in such ways that people have unequal amounts and/or access to them. And one of the main ways they would be affected, is because of social stratification, the systematic process of ranking people on a scale of social worth, leaving many either in a situation of absolute poverty or relative poverty.

We can see every society in the world stratify itself people, any criterion could be used to distinguish them, the most common being social status - which is determined by your profession - the kind of job you do and the money you earn as a result of it.

This chapter on social stratification reminded me of the all time epic Hollywood love story, The Notebook, where the main focus of the movie is the separation of this poor and young man who falls in love with a rich young woman and gives her a sense of freedom. They get separated because of nothing else but their social differences. Her family rejects the guy because of his un-wealthy family, and instead gets her engaged to a soldier, to maintain the same social status. More or less, that’s the laws of the universe.