Roles do not carry different expectations only, but they also carry different rewards. You must have noticed that in a society different occupations carry different levels of prestige and different economic rewards. This system of inequality is called social stratification and it is an important element of most societies. Social stratification is related in part to society’s division of labour.
Some people, including sociologists argue that certain jobs require more skills and specialised training and are more difficult to learn than others. Such jobs are rewarded as they are difficult require long periods of training etc., rewards have to be given to encourage them. Sociologists like Davis and Moore belong to this variety of thinking; they belong to what is called the functionalist school.
The functionalist school, to which Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore belong, argues that ‘economic stratification exists because it meets societies needs for productivity by motivating people’. They start with the notion that some jobs are more important than others. Such jobs also carry greater responsibility, require greater skills, longer hours, in other words, they are difficult and, therefore, they are rewarded better.
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And only those who are willing to make the sacrifices that the job entitles are opting for such jobs. The conflict theorists acknowledge that socioeconomic inequality occurs in almost all societies. They do not behave like the fundamentalists that it is because of the social need for productivity.
In general, conflict theorists argue that inequality exists because the wealthy and powerful make the social system work in such a way that it protects their interest. Criticising Davis and Moore’s functionalist theory of stratification, Tumin points out that some of the better paying jobs are not necessarily crucial to the society.
The society needs a farmer, a garbage collector much more than a lawyer. Secondly, wealth is distributed unequally than income. A large share of wealth is inherited rather than earned. It is easier for a person born in wealthy family to train either as a doctor or a lawyer or become a businessman than it is for a person who is born in a low income family.
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So it is not motivation alone that drives people to choose seemingly difficult professions which enjoy a high pay and prestige. The ascribed status of caste system in India works in the same fashion. If you are born in the wealthy upper caste family then you are likely to have greater wealth, prestige, etc.
The stratification system of most societies endures as a pattern for a long time. Hence, we often talk about the status of an individual in relation to the structure of that system. Thus, when we refer to the low status of woman, we are looking at the overall situation of women and how her low position is a result of a structural arrangement of the society when trying to understand the possible origins of social stratification.