Stratification

Instructions: Social stratification is the systematic study of inequality –the distribution of valued goods and opportunities. Inequality is a feature of all societies and sociologists have studied both the mechanisms through which inequality operates, as well as how these mechanisms and overall measures of inequality vary between societies and across history. In primitive hunting and gathering societies, inequality was relatively low as the few goods and opportunities were distributed relatively equally across society. In the Middle Ages, inequality rose as a tiny group of elites lived entirely apart from the rest of the population with no significant middle class. Inequality in the United States dropped significantly between the 1940s to the 1970s, and the middle classes enjoyed more prosperity than they had historically or experience today. In recent years in the United States, sociologists and others have pointed to a dramatic increase in inequality, as compared to countries with similar levels of economic development, education and political systems. Inequality has also increased in countries other than the United States, suggesting that some factors influencing inequality are shared in the industrial world. However, inequality has risen more quickly in the U.S. than other countries, suggesting that several factors may be unique to our society. Write an essay that shows your understanding of the factors that explain the increase in economic inequality in the last two decades in the United States. Please provide specific examples from your book or the real world to support your arguments.