Where it denotes the location of the layers of the earth. But people initially likened the social distances and partitions existing between them to layers of the earth, floors of located buildings, objects, tiers of plants, etc.
Stratification- this is the division of society into special layers (strata) by combining various social positions with approximately the same social status, reflecting the prevailing idea of social inequality in it, built horizontally (social hierarchy), along its axis along one or more stratification criteria (indicators of social status). The division of society into strata is carried out on the basis of the inequality of social distances between them - the main property of stratification. Social strata are lined up vertically and in strict sequence according to indicators of wealth, power, education, leisure, consumption.
AT social stratification a certain social distance is established between people (social positions) and a hierarchy is built from social strata. Thus, the unequal access of members of society to certain socially significant scarce resources is fixed by establishing social filters on the borders separating social strata. For example, the allocation of social strata can be carried out according to the levels of income, education, power, consumption, the nature of work, spending free time. The social strata identified in society are evaluated in it according to the criterion of social prestige, which expresses the social attractiveness of certain positions.
The simplest stratification model is a dichotomous one - the division of society into elites and masses. In some of the earliest, archaic social systems, the structuring of society into clans is carried out simultaneously with the implementation of social inequality between them and within them. This is how the "initiates" appear, i.e. those who are initiated into certain social practices (priests, elders, leaders) and the uninitiated are "profane" (profane - from lat. pro fano- deprived of holiness, uninitiated; profane - all other members of society, ordinary members of the community, fellow tribesmen). Within them, society can further stratify if necessary.
As society becomes more complex (structuring), a parallel process occurs - the embedding of social positions into a certain social hierarchy. This is how castes, estates, classes, etc. appear.
Modern ideas about the stratification model that has developed in society are quite complex - multi-layered (polychotomous), multidimensional (carried out along several axes) and variable (sometimes allow the existence of many stratification models): qualifications, quotas, attestation, status determination, ranks, benefits, privileges, other preferences.
The most important dynamic characteristic of society is social mobility. According to the definition of P. Sorokin, "social mobility is understood as any transition of an individual, or a social object, or a value created or modified through activity, from one social position to another" . However, social agents do not always move from one position to another, it is possible to move the social positions themselves in the social hierarchy, such a movement is called "positional mobility" (vertical mobility) or within the same social stratum (horizontal mobility). Along with social filters that establish barriers to social movement, there are also "social lifts" in society that significantly accelerate this process (in a crisis society - revolutions, wars, conquests, etc.; in a normal, stable society - family, marriage, education , property, etc.). The degree of freedom of social movement from one social stratum to another largely determines whether a society is closed or open.
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See what "Social Stratification" is in other dictionaries:
- (social stratification) The study of classes and strata in society, especially the social gradation of professions. Sometimes relations to the means of production are taken as the basis (See: class - class). However, more often stratification is carried out on the basis of a combination of ... ... Political science. Dictionary.
- (from lat. stratum layer and facio do), one of the main. bourgeois concepts. sociology, denoting a system of signs and criteria of social stratification, inequality in society, the social structure of society; bourgeois industry. sociology. Theories of S. s. ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Modern Encyclopedia
A sociological concept denoting: the structure of society and its individual strata; a system of signs of social differentiation; branch of sociology. In theories of social stratification based on such features as education, living conditions, ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
The concept by which sociology denotes the uneven distribution of material wealth, power functions and social prestige between individuals and social groups (see STRATA) in a modern industrial society, ... ... The latest philosophical dictionary
A sociological concept that denotes the structure of society and its strata, a system of signs of social differentiation (education, living conditions, occupation, income, psychology, religion, etc.), on the basis of which society is divided into classes and ... ... Glossary of business terms
social stratification- SOCIAL STRATIFICATION, a sociological concept that denotes the structure of society and its strata, a system of signs of social differentiation (education, living conditions, occupation, income, psychology, religion, etc.), on the basis of which society ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION- (social stratification) hierarchically organized structures of social inequality (ranks, status groups, etc.) that exist in any society (cf. class, especially 1 5). As in geology, the term refers to layered structuring or... ... Big explanatory sociological dictionary
A sociological concept denoting: the structure of society and its individual layers; a system of signs of social differentiation; branch of sociology. In theories of social stratification based on such features as education, living conditions, ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
social stratification- (according to Pitirim Sorokin) differentiation of a given set of people (population) into classes in a hierarchical rank (including upper and lower strata). Its essence lies in the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and ... ... Geoeconomic dictionary-reference book
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- Theoretical sociology. Textbook, Bormotov Igor Vladimirovich. The textbook is devoted to the basics of theoretical sociology. It outlines the history, methods, basic concepts and categories, analyzes such social phenomena as: social structure, ...
1. INTRODUCTION
Social stratification is a central theme in sociology. It explains social stratification into the poor, the wealthy and the rich.
Considering the subject of sociology, we found a close connection between the three fundamental concepts of sociology - social structure, social composition and social stratification. We expressed the structure in terms of a set of statuses and likened it to empty cells of a honeycomb. It is located, as it were, in a horizontal plane, but is created by the social division of labor. In a primitive society there are few statuses and a low level of division of labor, in a modern society there are many statuses and a high level of organization of the division of labor.
But no matter how many statuses there are, in the social structure they are equal and functionally related to each other. But now we have filled the empty cells with people, each status has turned into a large social group. The totality of statuses gave us a new concept - the social composition of the population. And here the groups are equal to each other, they are also located horizontally. Indeed, in terms of social composition, all Russians, women, engineers, non-party people and housewives are equal.
However, we know that in real life the inequality of people plays a huge role. Inequality is the criterion by which we can place some groups above or below others. Social composition turns into social stratification - a set of vertically arranged social strata, in particular, the poor, the wealthy, the rich. If we resort to a physical analogy, then the social composition is a disorderly collection of iron filings. But then they put a magnet, and they all lined up in a clear order. Stratification is a certain way "oriented" composition of the population.
What "orients" large social groups? It turns out that there is an unequal assessment by society of the meaning and role of each status or group. A plumber or a janitor is valued below a lawyer and a minister. Consequently, high statuses and people occupying them are better rewarded, they have more power, the prestige of their occupation is higher, and the level of education should also be higher. Here we got four main dimensions of stratification - income, power, education, prestige. And that's it, there are no others. Why? But because they exhaust the range of social benefits that people strive for. More precisely, not the goods themselves (there may just be many of them), but access channels to them. A home abroad, a luxury car, a yacht, a vacation in the Canary Islands, etc. - social goods that are always in short supply (i.e. highly respected and inaccessible to the majority) and are acquired through access to money and power, which in turn are achieved through high education and personal qualities.
In this way, social structure arises from the social division of labor, and social stratification arises from the social distribution of the results of labor, i.e. social benefits.
And it's always uneven. So there is an arrangement of social strata according to the criterion of unequal access to power, wealth, education and prestige.
2. MEASURING STRATIFICATION
Imagine a social space in which vertical and horizontal distances are not equal. P. Sorokin, the man who was the first in the world to give a complete theoretical explanation of the phenomenon, and who confirmed his theory with the help of a huge empirical material stretching throughout human history, thought this way or something like this.
Points in space are social statuses. The distance between the turner and the miller is one, it is horizontal, and the distance between the worker and the master is different, it is vertical. The master is the boss, the worker is the subordinate. They have different social ranks. Although the case can be presented in such a way that the master and worker will be located at an equal distance from each other. This will happen if we consider both of them not as a boss and a subordinate, but only as workers performing different labor functions. But then we will move from the vertical to the horizontal plane.
Curious fact
Among the Alans, the deformation of the skull served as a sure indicator of the social differentiation of society: among the leaders of the tribes, the elders of the clans and the priesthood, it was elongated.
The inequality of distances between statuses is the main property of stratification. She has four measuring rulers, or axes coordinates. All of them arranged vertically and next to each other:
income,
power,
education,
prestige.
Income is measured in rubles or dollars that an individual receives (individual income) or family (family income) over a specified period of time, say one month or one year.
On the coordinate axis, we plot equal intervals, for example, up to $5,000, from $5,001 to $10,000, from $10,001 to $15,000, and so on. up to $75,000 and above.
Education is measured by the number of years of study at a public or private school or university.
Let's say elementary school means 4 years, junior high means 9 years, high school means 11, college means 4 years, university means 5 years, graduate school means 3 years, doctoral studies means 3 years. Thus, a professor has more than 20 years of formal education behind him, while a plumber may not have eight.
power is measured by the number of people affected by the decision you make (power- possibility
Rice. Four dimensions of social stratification. People occupying the same positions in all dimensions constitute one stratum (the figure shows an example of one of the strata).
impose their will or decisions on other people, regardless of their desire).
The decisions of the President of Russia apply to 150 million people (whether they are implemented is another question, although it also concerns the issue of power), and the decisions of the brigadier - to 7-10 people. Three scales of stratification - income, education and power - have completely objective units of measurement: dollars, years, people. Prestige is outside this range, as it is a subjective indicator.
Prestige - respect for status, prevailing in public opinion.
Since 1947, the US National Public Opinion Research Center has periodically polled ordinary Americans, selected from a national sample, in order to determine the social prestige of various professions. Respondents are asked to rate each of 90 professions (occupations) on a 5-point scale: excellent (best),
Note: the scale has from 100 (the highest score) to 1 (the lowest score) points. The second column "points" shows the average score received by this type of occupation in the sample.
good, average, slightly worse than average, the worst occupation. List II included almost all occupations from the supreme judge, minister and doctor to plumber and janitor. Having calculated the average for each occupation, the sociologists obtained a public assessment of the prestige of each type of work in points. Arranging them in a hierarchical order from the most respected to the most unprestigious, they received a rating, or a scale of professional prestige. Unfortunately, periodic representative surveys of the population about professional prestige have never been conducted in our country. Therefore, we will have to use American data (see table).
Comparison of data for different years (1949, 1964, 1972, 1982) shows the stability of the prestige scale. The same types of occupations enjoyed the greatest, average and least prestige in these years. Lawyer, doctor, teacher, scientist, banker, pilot, engineer received invariably high marks. Their position on the scale changed slightly: the doctor in 1964 was in second place, and in 1982 - in first place, the minister, respectively, occupied 10th and 11th places.
If the upper part of the scale is occupied by representatives of creative, intellectual labor, then the lower part is occupied by representatives of predominantly physical unskilled: a driver, a welder, a carpenter, a plumber, a janitor. They have the least status respect. People occupying the same positions on the four dimensions of stratification constitute one stratum.
For each status or individual, you can find a place on any scale.
A classic example is the comparison between a police officer and a college professor. On the scales of education and prestige, the professor ranks higher than the policeman, and on the scales of income and power, the policeman ranks higher than the professor. Indeed, the professor has less power, the income is somewhat lower than that of a policeman, but the professor has more prestige and years of study. Noting both with points on each scale and connecting them lines, we get a stratification profile.
Each scale can be considered separately and denoted by an independent concept.
In sociology, there are three basic types of stratification:
economic (income),
political (power)
professional (prestige)
and many non-basic, for example, cultural and speech and age.
Rice. Stratified profile of a college professor and police officer.
3. BELONGING TO A STRATE
Affiliation measured by subjective and objective indicators:
subjective indicator - feeling of belonging to this group, identification with it;
objective indicators - income, power, education, prestige.
So, a large fortune, high education, great power and high professional prestige are the necessary conditions for you to be classified as the highest stratum of society.
A stratum is a social stratum of people who have similar objective indicators on four scales of stratification.
concept stratification (stratum- layer, facio- do) came to sociology from geology, where it denotes the vertical arrangement of layers of various rocks. If we make a cut of the earth's crust at a certain distance, it will be found that under the layer of chernozem there is a layer of clay, then sand, etc. Each layer consists of homogeneous elements. So is the stratum - it includes people with the same income, education, power and prestige. There is no stratum that includes highly educated people in power and powerless poor people in low-prestige jobs. The rich are in the same stratum with the rich, and the average with the average.
In a civilized country, a big mafioso cannot belong to the highest stratum. Although he has a very high income, perhaps a high education and strong power, his occupation does not enjoy high prestige among citizens. It is condemned. Subjectively, he may consider himself a member of the upper class and even fit the objective criteria. However, he lacks the main thing - the recognition of "significant others."
Under "significant others" are two large social groups: members of the upper class and the general population. The highest stratum will never recognize him as "their" because he compromises the entire group as a whole. The population will never recognize mafia activity as a socially approved occupation, as it contradicts the mores, traditions and ideals of this society.
Let's conclude: belonging to a stratum has two components - subjective (psychological identification with a certain layer) and objective (social entry into a certain layer).
Social entry has undergone a certain historical evolution. In primitive society, inequality was insignificant, so stratification was almost absent there. With the emergence of slavery, it suddenly intensified. slavery- a form of the most rigid fixing of people in unprivileged strata. castes- lifelong assignment of an individual to his (but not necessarily unprivileged) stratum. In medieval Europe, lifelong ownership is weakening. Estates imply legal attachment to the stratum. Rich merchants bought noble titles and thus moved to a higher class. Estates were replaced by classes - open to all strata, not implying any legitimate (legal) way of securing one stratum.
4. HISTORICAL TYPES OF STRATIFICATION
Known in sociology four main types of stratification - slavery, castes, estates and classes. The first three characterize closed societies and the last type is open.
Closed is a society where social movements from lower to higher strata are either completely prohibited, either significantly limited.
open called a society where movement from one stratum to another is not officially restricted in any way.
Slavery- an economic, social and legal form of enslavement of people, bordering on complete lack of rights and an extreme degree of inequality.
Slavery has historically evolved. There are two forms of it.
At patriarchal slavery (primitive form) a slave had all the rights of a younger member of the family: he lived in the same house with the owners, participated in public life, married free people, inherited the owner's property. It was forbidden to kill him.
At classic bondage (mature form) the slave was finally enslaved: he lived in a separate room, did not participate in anything, did not inherit anything, did not marry and had no family. He was allowed to be killed. He did not own property, but he himself was considered the property of the owner ("talking tool").
Antique slavery in ancient Greece and plantation slavery in the United States before 1865 is closer to the second form, and servitude to the Geese of the 10th-12th centuries is closer to the first. The sources of slavery differ: the ancient was replenished mainly through conquests, and servitude was debt, or bonded slavery. The third source is criminals. In medieval China and in the Soviet GULAG (non-legal slavery), criminals were in the position of slaves.
At a mature stage slavery turns into slavery. When people talk about slavery as a historical type of stratification, they mean its highest stage. Slavery - the only form of social relations in history when one person acts as the property of another, and when the lower stratum is deprived of all rights and freedoms. There is no such thing in castes and estates, not to mention classes.
caste system not as ancient as the slave system, and less common. If almost all countries went through slavery, of course, to varying degrees, then castes were found only in India and partly in Africa. India is a classic example of a caste society. It arose on the ruins of the slaveholding in the first centuries of the new era.
Castoycalled a social group (stratum), membership in which a person owes solely to his birth.
He cannot move from his caste to another during his lifetime. To do this, he needs to be born again. The caste position is fixed by the Hindu religion (now it is clear why castes are not widespread). According to its canons, people live more than one life. Each person falls into the appropriate caste, depending on what his behavior was in a previous life. If bad, then after the next birth he should fall into a lower caste, and vice versa.
In India 4 main castes: Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (merchants), Shudras (workers and peasants) and about 5 thousand minor castes and podcasts. The untouchables are especially worthy - they are not included in any caste and occupy the lowest position. In the course of industrialization, castes are replaced by classes. The Indian city is becoming more and more class-based, while the village, in which 7/10 of the population lives, remains caste-based.
Estates precede classes and characterize the feudal societies that existed in Europe from the 4th to the 14th centuries.
estate- a social group that has fixed custom or legal law and inherited rights and obligations.
The estate system, which includes several strata, is characterized by a hierarchy, expressed in the inequality of position and privileges. Europe was a classic example of a class organization, where at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries society was divided into upper classes(nobility and clergy) and unprivileged third estate(artisans, merchants, peasants). In the X-XIII centuries there were three main estates: the clergy, the nobility and the peasantry. In Russia, from the second half of the 18th century, a class division into nobility, clergy, merchants, peasantry and philistinism (middle urban strata) was established. Estates were based on landed property.
The rights and obligations of each estate were determined by legal law and consecrated by religious doctrine. Membership in the estate was determined inheritance. Social barriers between classes were quite rigid, therefore social mobility existed not so much between as within the estates. Each estate included many layers, ranks, levels, professions, ranks. So, only nobles could engage in public service. The aristocracy was considered a military class (chivalry).
The higher in the social hierarchy an estate stood, the higher was its status. In contrast to castes, inter-class marriages were quite allowed. Sometimes individual mobility was allowed. A simple person could become a knight by purchasing a special permit from the ruler. As a relic, this practice has survived in modern England.
5. Social stratification and prospects for civil society in Russia
Russia in its history has experienced more than one wave of restructuring of the social space, when the old social structure collapsed, the world of values changed, guidelines, patterns and norms of behavior were formed, entire layers perished, new communities were born. On the threshold of the XXI century. Russia is once again going through a complex and controversial process of renewal.
In order to understand the changes taking place, it is first necessary to consider the foundations on which the social structure of Soviet society was built before the reforms of the second half of the 1980s.
The nature of the social structure of Soviet Russia can be revealed by analyzing Russian society as a combination of various stratification systems.
In the stratification of Soviet society, permeated with administrative and political control, the etacratic system played a key role. The place of social groups in the party-state hierarchy predetermined the volume of distributive rights, the level of decision-making and the scope of opportunities in all areas. The stability of the political system was ensured by the stability of the position of the ruling elite (“nomenklatura”), in which the key positions were occupied by the political and military elites, and the economic and cultural elite occupied a subordinate place.
A etacratic society is characterized by a fusion of power and property; the predominance of state property; state-monopoly mode of production; dominance of centralized distribution; militarization of the economy; class-layer stratification of a hierarchical type, in which the positions of individuals and social groups are determined by their place in the structure of state power, which extends to the vast majority of material, labor, and information resources; social mobility in the form of organized from above selection of the most obedient and loyal people to the system.
A distinctive characteristic of the social structure of a Soviet-type society was that it was not class-based, although in terms of the parameters of professional structure and economic differentiation it remained outwardly similar to the stratification of Western societies. As a result of the elimination of the basis of class division - private ownership of the means of production - the classes gradually destructured.
The monopoly of state property, in principle, cannot give a class society, since all citizens are employees of the state, differing only in the amount of powers delegated to them. Distinctive features of social groups in the USSR were special functions, formalized as a legal inequality of these groups. Such inequality led to the isolation of these groups, the destruction of "social lifts" that serve for upward social mobility. Accordingly, the life and consumption of elite groups acquired an increasingly significant character, reminiscent of a phenomenon called “prestigious consumption”. All these signs form a picture of a class society.
Class stratification is inherent in a society in which economic relations are rudimentary and do not play a differentiating role, and the main mechanism of social regulation is the state, which divides people into legally unequal estates.
From the first years of Soviet power, for example, the peasantry was formed into a special estate: its political rights were limited until 1936. The inequality of the rights of workers and peasants manifested itself for many years (attachment to collective farms through the system of a passportless regime, privileges for workers in obtaining education and promotion, propiska system, etc.). In fact, employees of the party and state apparatus have become a special class with a whole range of special rights and privileges. The social status of the mass and heterogeneous class of prisoners was fixed in the legal and administrative order.
In the 60-70s. in conditions of chronic shortages and limited purchasing power of money, the process of leveling wages is intensifying with a parallel splitting of the consumer market into closed “special sectors” and an increase in the role of privileges. The material and social situation of groups involved in distribution processes in the sphere of trade, supply, and transport has improved. The social influence of these groups increased as the shortage of goods and services worsened. During this period, shadow socio-economic ties and associations arise and develop. A more open type of social relations is being formed: in the economy, the bureaucracy acquires the ability to achieve the most favorable results for itself; the spirit of entrepreneurship also covers the lower social strata - numerous groups of private traders, manufacturers of "left" products, builders - "shabashniks" are being formed. Thus, there is a doubling of the social structure, when fundamentally different social groups coexist in a bizarre way within its framework.
Important social changes that took place in the Soviet Union in 1965 - 1985 are associated with the development of the scientific and technological revolution, urbanization and, accordingly, an increase in the general level of education.
From the early 60s to the mid 80s. More than 35 million people migrated to the city. However, urbanization in our country had a clearly deformed character: mass movements of rural migrants to the city were not accompanied by a corresponding deployment of social infrastructure. A huge mass of superfluous people, social outsiders, has appeared. Having lost contact with the rural subculture and unable to join the urban one, the migrants created a typically marginal subculture.
The figure of a migrant from the countryside to the city is a classic model of the marginal: no longer a peasant, not yet a worker; the norms of the rural subculture have been undermined, the urban subculture has not yet been assimilated. The main sign of marginalization is the rupture of social, economic, and spiritual ties.
The economic reasons for marginalization were the extensive development of the Soviet economy, the dominance of outdated technologies and primitive forms of labor, the discrepancy between the education system and the real needs of production, etc. This is closely related to the social causes of marginalization - the hypertrophy of the accumulation fund to the detriment of the consumption fund, which gave rise to an extremely low standard of living and a shortage of goods. Among the political and legal reasons for the marginalization of society, the main one is that during the Soviet period in the country there was a destruction of any kind of social ties “horizontally”. The state strove for global dominance over all spheres of public life, deforming civil society, minimizing the autonomy and independence of individuals and social groups.
In the 60-80s. an increase in the general level of education, the development of an urban subculture gave rise to a more complex and differentiated social structure. In the early 80s. specialists who received higher or secondary specialized education already accounted for 40% of the urban population.
By the beginning of the 90s. in terms of their educational level and professional positions, the Soviet middle stratum was not inferior to the Western “new middle class”. In this regard, the English political scientist R. Sakwa noted: “The communist regime gave rise to a kind of paradox: millions of people were bourgeois in their culture and aspirations, but were included in the socio-economic system that denied these aspirations.”
Under the influence of socio-economic and political reforms in the second half of the 80s. big changes have taken place in Russia. Compared to Soviet times, the structure of Russian society has undergone significant changes, although it retains many of its former features. The transformation of the institutions of Russian society has seriously affected its social structure: property and power relations have changed and continue to change, new social groups are emerging, the level and quality of life of each social group is changing, and the mechanism of social stratification is being rebuilt.
As an initial model of the multidimensional stratification of modern Russia, we will take four main parameters: power, prestige of professions, income level and level of education.
Power is the most important dimension of social stratification. Power is necessary for the sustainable existence of any socio-political system; the most important public interests intersect in it. The system of power bodies of post-Soviet Russia has been substantially restructured - some of them have been liquidated, others have only been organized, some have changed their functions, their personal composition has been updated. The previously closed upper stratum of society opened up to people from other groups.
The place of the monolith of the nomenklatura pyramid was occupied by numerous elite groupings that are in competition with each other. The elite has lost a significant part of the levers of power inherent in the old ruling class. This led to a gradual transition from political and ideological methods of management to economic ones. Instead of a stable ruling class with strong vertical ties between its floors, many elite groups have been created, between which horizontal ties have intensified.
The sphere of administrative activity, where the role of political power has increased, is the redistribution of accumulated wealth. Direct or indirect involvement in the redistribution of state property is in modern Russia the most important factor determining the social status of management groups.
In the social structure of modern Russia, the features of the former etacratic society, built on power hierarchies, are preserved. However, at the same time, the revival of economic classes on the basis of privatized state property begins. There is a transition from stratification based on the basis of power (appropriation through privileges, distribution in accordance with the place of the individual in the party-state hierarchy) to stratification of the proprietary type (appropriation by profit and market-valued labor). Next to the power hierarchies, an "entrepreneurial structure" appears, which includes the following main groups: 1) large and medium-sized entrepreneurs; 2) small entrepreneurs (owners and managers of firms with minimal use of hired labor); 3) independent workers; 4) employees.
There is a tendency for the formation of new social groups claiming high places in the hierarchy of social prestige.
The prestige of professions is the second important dimension of social stratification. We can talk about a number of fundamentally new trends in the professional structure associated with the emergence of new prestigious social roles. The set of professions is becoming more complex, their comparative attractiveness is changing in favor of those that provide more substantial and faster material rewards. In this regard, assessments of the social prestige of various types of activity change, when physically or ethically "dirty" work is still considered attractive in terms of monetary reward.
The newly emerged and therefore "deficient" in terms of personnel, the financial sector, business, and commerce are filled with a large number of semi- and non-professionals. Entire professional strata are lowered to the "bottom" of social rating scales - their special training turned out to be unclaimed and the income from it is negligible.
The role of the intelligentsia in society has changed. As a result of the reduction of state support for science, education, culture and art, there was a drop in the prestige and social status of knowledge workers.
In modern conditions in Russia, there has been a tendency to form a number of social strata belonging to the middle class - these are entrepreneurs, managers, certain categories of the intelligentsia, and highly skilled workers. But this trend is contradictory, since the common interests of various social strata, potentially forming the middle class, are not supported by the processes of their convergence on such important criteria as the prestige of the profession and the level of income.
The level of income of various groups is the third essential parameter of social stratification. Economic status is the most important indicator of social stratification, because the level of income affects such aspects of social status as the type of consumption and lifestyle, the opportunity to do business, advance in the service, give children a good education, etc.
In 1997, the income received by the top 10% of Russians was almost 27 times higher than the income of the bottom 10%. The 20% of the wealthiest strata accounted for 47.5% of total cash income, while the 20% of the poorest received only 5.4%. 4% of Russians are super-wealthy - their income is approximately 300 times higher than the income of the bulk of the population.
The most acute problem in the social sphere today is the problem of mass poverty - the beggarly existence of almost 1/3 of the country's population is being conserved. Of particular concern is the change in the composition of the poor: today they include not only the traditionally low-income (disabled, pensioners, large families), the ranks of the poor have been joined by the unemployed and employed, whose wages (and this is a quarter of all employed in enterprises) are below the subsistence level. Almost 64% of the population has incomes below the average (average income is considered to be 8-10 times the minimum wage per person) (see: Zaslavskaya T.I. The social structure of modern and certain society // Social sciences and modernity. 1997 No. 2. S. 17).
One of the manifestations of the declining standard of living of a significant part of the population was the growing need for secondary employment. However, it is not possible to determine the real scale of secondary employment and additional earnings (bringing even higher income than the main job). The criteria used today in Russia give only a conditional characterization of the income structure of the population, the data obtained are often limited and incomplete. Nevertheless, social stratification on an economic basis testifies to the ongoing process of restructuring of Russian society with great intensity. It was artificially limited in Soviet times and is being developed openly
The deepening of the processes of social differentiation of income groups is beginning to have a noticeable impact on the education system.
The level of education is another important criterion for stratification; education is one of the main channels of vertical mobility. During the Soviet period, higher education was accessible to many segments of the population, and secondary education was compulsory. However, such an education system was ineffective; higher education trained specialists without taking into account the real needs of society.
In modern Russia, the breadth of educational offerings is becoming a new differentiating factor.
In the new high-status groups, receiving a scarce and high-quality education is considered not only prestigious, but also functionally important.
Newly emerging professions require more qualifications and better training, and are better paid. As a consequence, education becomes an increasingly important entry factor into the professional hierarchy. The result is increased social mobility. It depends less and less on the social characteristics of the family and is more determined by the personal qualities and education of the individual.
An analysis of the changes taking place in the system of social stratification according to four main parameters speaks of the depth and inconsistency of the transformation process experienced by Russia and allows us to conclude that today it continues to retain the old pyramidal form (characteristic of a pre-industrial society), although the content characteristics of its constituent layers have changed significantly.
In the social structure of modern Russia, six layers can be distinguished: 1) the upper one - the economic, political and power elite; 2) upper middle - medium and large entrepreneurs; 3) medium - small entrepreneurs, managers of the production sector, the highest intelligentsia, the working elite, military personnel; 4) basic - the mass intelligentsia, the main part of the working class, peasants, trade and service workers; 5) lower - unskilled workers, long-term unemployed, single pensioners; 6) "social bottom" - the homeless, released from places of detention, etc.
At the same time, a number of significant clarifications should be made related to the processes of changing the stratification system in the process of reforms:
Most social formations are mutually transitional in nature, have fuzzy, vague boundaries;
There is no internal unity of the newly emerging social groups;
There is a total marginalization of almost all social groups;
The new Russian state does not ensure the security of citizens and does not alleviate their economic situation. In turn, these dysfunctions of the state deform the social structure of society, give it a criminal character;
The criminal nature of class formation gives rise to a growing property polarization of society;
The current level of income cannot stimulate the labor and business activity of the bulk of the economically active population;
Russia retains a stratum of the population that can be called a potential resource for the middle class. Today, about 15% of those employed in the national economy can be attributed to this layer, but its maturation to a "critical mass" will require a lot of time. So far, in Russia, the socio-economic priorities characteristic of the "classical" middle class can only be observed in the upper strata of the social hierarchy.
A significant transformation of the structure of Russian society, which requires the transformation of the institutions of property and power, is a long process. Meanwhile, the stratification of society will continue to lose rigidity and unambiguity, taking the form of a blurred system in which layer and class structures are intertwined.
Undoubtedly, the formation of a civil society should become the guarantor of the renewal of Russia.
The problem of civil society in our country is of particular theoretical and practical interest. In terms of the nature of the dominant role of the state, Russia was initially closer to the eastern type of societies, but in our country this role was even more pronounced. According to A. Gramsci, "in Russia, the state represents everything, and civil society is primitive and vague."
In contrast to the West, a different type of social system has developed in Russia, based on the efficiency of power, and not the efficiency of property. One should also take into account the fact that for a long time in Russia there were practically no public organizations and such values as the inviolability of the person and private property, legal thinking, which constitute the context of civil society in the West, remained undeveloped, the social initiative belonged not to associations of individuals, but to bureaucratic apparatus.
From the second half of the XIX century. the problem of civil society began to be developed in Russian social and scientific thought (B.N. Chicherin, E.N. Trubetskoy, S.L., Frank, etc.). The formation of civil society in Russia begins during the reign of Alexander I. It was at this time that separate spheres of civil life arose that were not related to military and court officials - salons, clubs, etc. As a result of the reforms of Alexander II, zemstvos, various unions of entrepreneurs, charity institutions, and cultural societies arose. However, the process of formation of civil society was interrupted by the revolution of 1917. Totalitarianism blocked the very possibility of the emergence and development of civil society.
The era of totalitarianism led to a grandiose leveling of all members of society before the all-powerful state, washing out any groups pursuing private interests. The totalitarian state significantly narrowed the autonomy of sociality and civil society, securing control over all spheres of public life.
The peculiarity of the current situation in Russia is that the elements of civil society will have to be created largely anew. Let us single out the most fundamental directions of the formation of civil society in modern Russia:
Formation and development of new economic relations, including pluralism of forms of ownership and the market, as well as the open social structure of society caused by them;
The emergence of a system of real interests adequate to this structure, uniting individuals, social groups and strata into a single community;
The emergence of various forms of labor associations, social and cultural associations, socio-political movements that make up the main institutions of civil society;
Renewal of relationships between social groups and communities (national, professional, regional, gender and age, etc.);
Creation of economic, social and spiritual prerequisites for the creative self-realization of the individual;
Formation and deployment of mechanisms of social self-regulation and self-government at all levels of the social organism.
The ideas of civil society found themselves in post-communist Russia in that peculiar context that distinguishes our country both from Western states (with their strongest mechanisms of rational legal relations) and from Eastern countries (with their specifics of traditional primary groups). Unlike Western countries, the modern Russian state does not deal with a structured society, but, on the one hand, with rapidly emerging elite groups, and on the other, with an amorphous, atomized society dominated by individual consumer interests. Today, civil society in Russia is not developed, many of its elements have been forced out or "blocked", although over the years of reform there have been significant changes in the direction of its formation.
Modern Russian society is quasi-civil, its structures and institutions have many formal features of civil society formations. There are up to 50 thousand voluntary associations in the country - consumer associations, trade unions, environmental groups, political clubs, etc. However, many of them, having survived at the turn of the 80-90s. a short period of rapid growth, in recent years they have become bureaucratic, weakened, and lost their activity. An ordinary Russian underestimates group self-organization, and the most common social type has become an individual, closed in his aspirations for himself and his family. In overcoming such a state, due to the process of transformation, is the specificity of the current stage of development.
1. Social stratification - a system of social inequality, consisting of a set of interconnected and hierarchically organized social strata (strata). The stratification system is formed on the basis of such characteristics as the prestige of professions, the amount of power, income level and education level.
2. The theory of stratification makes it possible to model the political pyramid of society, identify and take into account the interests of individual social groups, determine the level of their political activity, the degree of influence on political decision-making.
3. The main purpose of civil society is to reach consensus among various social groups and interests. Civil society is a set of social formations united specifically by economic, ethnic, cultural, etc. interests realized outside the sphere of state activity.
4. The formation of civil society in Russia is associated with significant changes in the social structure. The new social hierarchy differs in many ways from the one that existed in the Soviet era and is characterized by extreme instability. The mechanisms of stratification are being rebuilt, social mobility is increasing, and many marginal groups with an indefinite status are emerging. Objective possibilities for the formation of a middle class are beginning to take shape. For a significant transformation of the structure of Russian society, it is necessary to transform the institutions of property and power, accompanied by a blurring of the boundaries between groups, a change in group interests and social interactions.
Literature
1. Sorokin P. A. Man, civilization, society. - M., 1992.
2. Zharova L. N., Mishina I. A. The history of homeland. - M., 1992.
3. HessAT., Markgon E., Stein P. sociology. V.4., 1991.
4. Vselensky M.S. Nomenclature. - M., 1991.
5. Ilyin V.I. The main contours of the system of social stratification of society / / Frontier. 1991. No. 1. P. 96-108.
6. Smelzer N. Sociology. - M., 1994.
7. Komarov M.S. Social stratification and social structure // Sotsiol. research 1992. No. 7.
8. Giddens E. Stratification and class structure // Sotsiol. research 1992. No. 11.
9. Political science, ed. Prof. M.A. Vasilika M., 1999
9. A.I. Kravchenko Sociology - Yekaterinburg, 2000.
Social stratification: concept, criteria, types
To get started, watch the video tutorial on social stratification:
The concept of social stratification
Social stratification is the process of arranging individuals and social groups in horizontal layers (strata). This process is associated primarily with both economic and human causes. The economic reasons for social stratification is that resources are limited. And because of this, they must be rationally disposed of. That is why the ruling class stands out - it owns the resources, and the exploited class - it obeys the ruling class.
Among the universal causes of social stratification are:
psychological reasons. People are not equal in their inclinations and abilities. Some people can concentrate on something for long hours: reading, watching movies, creating something new. Others do not need anything and are not interested. Some can go to the goal through all obstacles, and failures only spur them on. Others give up at the first opportunity - it's easier for them to moan and whine that everything is bad.
biological reasons. People are also not equal from birth: some are born with two arms and legs, others are disabled from birth. It is clear that it is extremely difficult to achieve something if you are disabled, especially in Russia.
Objective causes of social stratification. These include, for example, place of birth. If you were born in a more or less normal country, where you will be taught to read and write for free and there are at least some social guarantees, that's good. You have a good chance of being successful. So, if you were born in Russia even in the most remote village and you are a kid, at least you can join the army, and then stay to serve under the contract. Then you may be sent to a military school. It's better than drinking moonshine with your fellow villagers, and by the age of 30 to die in a drunken brawl.
Well, if you were born in some country in which statehood does not really exist, and local princes come to your village with machine guns at the ready and kill anyone at random, and whoever they hit are taken into slavery, then write your life is gone, and together with her and your future.
Criteria of social stratification
The criteria of social stratification include: power, education, income and prestige. Let's analyze each criterion separately.
Power. People are not equal in terms of power. The level of power is measured by (1) the number of people who are under your control, and also (2) the amount of your authority. But the presence of this criterion alone (even the greatest power) does not mean that you are in the highest stratum. For example, a teacher, a teacher of power is more than enough, but the income is lame.
Education. The higher the level of education, the more opportunities. If you have a higher education, this opens up certain horizons for your development. At first glance, it seems that in Russia this is not the case. But that's just how it seems. Because the majority of graduates are dependent - they should be hired. They do not understand that with their higher education they may well open their own business and increase their third criterion of social stratification - income.
Income is the third criterion of social stratification. It is thanks to this defining criterion that one can judge which social class a person belongs to. If the income is from 500 thousand rubles per capita and more per month - then to the highest; if from 50 thousand to 500 thousand rubles (per capita), then you belong to the middle class. If from 2000 rubles to 30 thousand then your class is basic. And also further.
Prestige is the subjective perception people have of your , is a criterion of social stratification. Previously, it was believed that prestige is expressed solely in income, because if you have enough money, you can dress more beautifully and better, and in society, as you know, they are met by clothes ... But even 100 years ago, sociologists realized that prestige can be expressed in the prestige of the profession (professional status).
Types of social stratification
Types of social stratification can be distinguished, for example, by spheres of society. A person in his life can make a career in (become a famous politician), in the cultural (become a recognizable cultural figure), in the social sphere (become, for example, an honorary citizen).
In addition, types of social stratification can be distinguished on the basis of one or another type of stratification systems. The criterion for singling out such systems is the presence or absence of social mobility.
There are several such systems: caste, clan, slave, estate, class, etc. Some of them are discussed above in the video on social stratification.
You must understand that this topic is extremely large, and it is impossible to cover it in one video tutorial and in one article. Therefore, we suggest that you purchase a video course that already contains all the nuances on the topic of social stratification, social mobility and other related topics:
Sincerely, Andrey Puchkov
Social inequality- a form of differentiation, in which individual individuals, social groups, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy and have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs. In its most general form, inequality means that people live in conditions in which they have unequal access to limited resources of material and spiritual consumption. As of 2006, the richest 1% own more than 40% of the world's wealth. According to other estimates, the top 2% own more than 50% of the world's wealth.
The most dangerous is the grassroots inequality of opportunities, not associated with the personal efforts of members of society, when talented people from birth cannot realize their talents due to unfavorable socio-economic conditions in childhood and adolescence. For example, bright children from poor families do not have the opportunity to receive a good education and, as a result, find themselves in the "poverty trap" .
Social inequality is perceived and experienced by many people (primarily the unemployed, economic migrants, those who are at or below the poverty line) as a manifestation of injustice. Social inequality, property stratification of society, as a rule, lead to an increase in social tension, especially in the transition period.
The main principles of social policy implementation are:
- protection of living standards by introducing various forms of compensation for price increases and indexation;
- providing assistance to the poorest families;
- issuance of assistance in case of unemployment;
- ensuring social insurance policies, establishing a minimum wage for workers;
- development of education, protection of health, environment mainly at the expense of the state;
- pursuing an active policy aimed at ensuring qualifications.
Causes of inequality
From the point of view of the theory of conflict, the cause of inequality is the protection of the privileges of power, who controls society and power, he has the opportunity to benefit personally for himself, inequality is the result of tricks of influential groups seeking to maintain their status. Robert Michels deduced the iron law of the oligarchy: an oligarchy always develops when the size of the organization exceeds a certain value, because 10 thousand people cannot discuss the issue before each case, they entrust the discussion of the issue to the leaders.
Changing the degree of social inequality in the process of history
Gerard Lensky compared the stages of development of society in terms of inequality and found:
Inequality criteria
Max Weber
Max Weber identified three criteria for inequality:
The first criterion can be used to measure the degree of inequality in terms of income differences. With the help of the second criterion - by the difference in honor and respect. With the help of the third criterion - by the number of subordinates. Sometimes there is a contradiction between the criteria, for example, a professor and a priest today have a low income, but enjoy great prestige. The leader of the mafia is rich, but his prestige in society is minimal. Rich people statistically live longer and get sick less. A person's career is influenced by wealth, race, education, parental occupation, and personal ability to lead people. Higher education makes it easier to move up the corporate ladder in large companies than in small ones.
Figures of inequality
The horizontal width of the figure indicates the number of people with a given amount of income. At the top of the figure is the elite. Over the past hundred years, Western society has evolved from a pyramidal structure to a diamond-shaped one. In the pyramidal structure, there is a vast majority of the poor and a small handful of oligarchs. The diamond-shaped structure has a large share of the middle class. A diamond-shaped structure is more preferable than a pyramidal structure, since a large middle class will not allow a handful of poor people to arrange a civil war. And in the first case, the vast majority, consisting of the poor, can easily overturn the social system.
see also
Notes
- Guardian 6 December 2006 World’s richest 1% own 40% of all wealth, UN report discovers
- BBC , 5 December 2006 Richest 2% own "half the wealth"
- Arnold Khachaturov. Country of Inequality // Novaya Gazeta. - 2018. - No. 107. - S. 8-9.
- Carnegie Moscow Center September 19-20, 2018 Russian Economic Challenge 2018 Sergey Guriev on economic inequality
- Smelser Neil Sociology. - M., 1994 p. 278
Table of contents.
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………2-4
1.1 The nature of social inequality and its consequences… …….……… …….5-11
1.2 Inequality trend…………………………………. ……...12-15
CHAPTER 2. THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY
2.1 Theoretical aspect of the concept of poverty…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
2.2. Quantitative assessments, causes and consequences of poverty in Russia…...24-34
2.3 Ways to overcome poverty in modern Russian society.....34-39
Conclusion………………………………………………………………..............40-41
List of used sources and literature………………...................... ...... 42-43
INTRODUCTION
Social stratification is one of the central social and economic problems; a lot of scientific and ideological disputes have been and are being conducted around it. Differences in this case are the main ones in property, status and power. Social researchers have asked questions: why are some groups in society wealthier or more powerful than others; what is the manifestation of inequality in modern societies; why poverty persists in today's wealthy society.
Stratification - a synonym for the term "stratification" recognized in world sociology - reflects the process of development of social inequality and hierarchical grouping of people at social levels that differ in prestige, property and power.
The term "stratification" means a vertical cut of the social structure, which reveals the place of certain social groups in the system of social hierarchy. A stratum is a social stratum of people who have similar objective indicators on four scales of stratification. Each stratum includes only those people who have approximately the same income, education, prestige, power. Societies are seen as consisting of "strata" arranged in a certain hierarchy: groups with the highest status at the top and the lowest status at the bottom.
Russian scientists Zhuravleva G.P., Vidyapin V.I., Dobrynin A.I., poverty is a situation in which needs cannot be sufficiently satisfied. Poverty is a complex social phenomenon with economic, cultural and psychological roots. Its features are also associated with the historical conditions of development of a particular country.
In Russia, the rapid increase in the level of poverty was due to the decline in employment and the emergence of unemployment and a sharp decline in labor incomes at the initial stage of cardinal socio-economic reforms of the late 20th century in the context of an inefficient system of social protection of the population. The situation is complicated by the fact that in recent years the level of poverty has remained high, and for some segments of the population the problem of life support has even worsened. Poverty is especially typical for those employed in the public sector of the economy, in rural areas and in small towns, for large families and families with incomplete composition.
Until the 90s. 20th century in Russia, the poor included people with certain individual or family characteristics: advanced age, poor health of the individual, loss of a breadwinner, absence of a spouse (for single mothers), large families. A certain role was played by territorial differences in the standard of living: inequality in the economic development of regions, as well as cities and villages; low qualifications, although the latter was not necessarily accompanied by low incomes. Over the past decade, Russia has experienced massive impoverishment of the population, caused by two factors: an unprecedented decline in output and the stratification of society.
Economic reforms have seriously changed the social structure of society. There was a rapid social stratification, there were layers of very rich and extremely poor citizens. The vast majority of people have lost the social protection of the state, and faced the need to adapt to life in conditions of market instability. Under these conditions, the emergence of a large number of poor people was inevitable. All this determined the choice of the topic and its relevance.
The purpose of this work is to study Russian poverty and inequality in the economic aspect, their features and ways to overcome them. The objectives of this course work:
· to explore the features and characteristics of poverty and social stratification in Russia;
consider the implications of poverty for the Russian economy;
identify possible ways out of the current situation.
Social stratification has become one of the most widespread and most painful phenomena in modern Russia. Currently, about 40% of citizens live below the poverty line. All this determined the choice of the topic and its relevance.
CHAPTER 1. SOCIAL GRADATION
1.1 The nature of social inequality and its consequences
Social inequality has existed throughout almost the entire reasonable history of mankind. However, differentiation in income and consumption of the population has been and remains one of the main characteristics of modern society. Moreover, income differentiation is seen by many economists as a factor that stimulates labor activity.
Before the revolution in Russia, the official division of the population was class, not class. It was divided into two main estates - taxable (peasants, petty bourgeois) and non-taxable (nobility, clergy). Within each estate there were smaller estates and layers. The state granted them certain rights enshrined in legislation. The rights themselves were guaranteed to the estates only insofar as they performed certain duties in favor of the state (they grew bread, were engaged in crafts, served, paid taxes). Officials regulated relations between estates, this was the benefit of bureaucracy. Naturally, the estate system was inseparable from the state. That is why we can define estates as social and legal groups that differ in the scope of rights and obligations in relation to the state.
According to the 1897 census, the entire population of the country, which is 125 million Russians, was divided into the following classes: nobles - 1.5% of the total population, clergy - 0.5%, merchants - 0.3%, burghers - 10, 6%, peasants - 77.1%, Cossacks - 2.3%. The first privileged estate in Russia was considered the nobility, the second - the clergy. The rest of the estates were not privileged. The nobles were hereditary and personal. Not all of them were landowners, many were in the public service, which was the main source of livelihood. But those nobles who were landowners constituted a special group - the class of landowners (among the hereditary nobles there were no more than 30% of landlords).
Many modern scientists see the sources of social inequality in the natural differences of people in physical data, personal qualities, internal energy, as well as in the strength of motivation aimed at satisfying the most significant, urgent needs. Initially emerging inequality is usually extremely unstable and does not lead to the consolidation of social status. One of the sources of social tension in any country is the difference in the levels of well-being of citizens, their level of wealth.
The level of wealth is determined by two factors:
1) the amount of property of all types owned by individual citizens;
2) the amount of current income of citizens.
People earn income as a result of creating their own business (becoming entrepreneurs) or providing the factors of production that they own (their labor, capital or land) for the use of other people or firms, and they use this property to produce the necessary goods. In such a mechanism of income formation, the possibility of their inequality was initially laid down.
The reason for this:
1) the different value of factors of production owned by people (capital in the form of a computer, in principle, is able to bring more income than in the form of a shovel);
2) different success in the use of factors of production (for example, an employee in a firm that produces a scarce product may receive higher earnings than his colleague of the same qualification working in a firm whose goods are sold with difficulty);
3) a different amount of factors of production owned by people (the owner of two oil wells receives, other things being equal, more income than the owner of one well).
Various indicators are used to quantify income differentiation. The degree of income inequality is reflected by the Lorenz curve (Fig. 1), in the construction of which the abscissa shows the shares of families (in % of their total number) with the corresponding percentage of income, and the ordinate shows the income shares of the families under consideration (in % of total income) . The theoretical possibility of a perfectly equal distribution of income is represented by the bisector, which indicates that any given percentage of families receive a corresponding percentage of income. This means that if 20, 40, 60% of families receive, respectively, 20.40.60% of the total income, then the corresponding points will be located on the bisector.
Figure 1. Lorenz curve
The Lorenz curve shows the actual distribution of income. For example, the 20% of the population with the lowest income received 5% of the total income, the 40% with the lowest income received 15%, and so on. The shaded area between the line of absolute equality and the Lorentz curve indicates the degree of income inequality: the larger this area, the greater the degree of income inequality. If the actual distribution of income were absolutely equal, then the Lorenz curve and the bisector would coincide. The Lorenz curve is used to compare the distribution of income over different time periods or between different populations.
In 1918, the first Soviet studies of the working budget and everyday life were carried out, as well as the first attempts to calculate the subsistence minimum. The subsistence minimum was calculated as a physiological one and the main item of expenditure in it was the cost of food. In the early 1930s, subsistence minimum calculations were discontinued for ideological reasons and resumed only in the 1960s.
Until 1990, socio-economic sciences, for ideological reasons, avoided using the term "poverty" and instead used the term "indigence". The severity of social tension in Russian society is not relieved by material subsidies to the poor or periodic wage increases for low-paid state employees. For the majority of society, the very model of social inequality, which has become established in modern Russia, is unacceptable. The negative consequences of growing social inequality continue to be reproduced in the political sphere. Large segments of the population are excluded from the political process and find themselves in a state of "political poverty". And not only the unemployed, the homeless or low-skilled workers, but also many representatives of the intellectual strata - teachers, doctors, university professors, scientists. They are not only consumed by concerns about survival, but also discouraged by the inattention of the authorities to their urgent needs. The consciousness and behavior of the masses of people is dominated by passive adaptation to the existing order, social pessimism and apathy, distrust of the ruling bureaucracy, focus on their own problems, dull hostility and intolerance towards the powerful worlds of this. All this determines their attitude to the state and society, the low level of civic engagement.
According to polls conducted at the end of 2004, during the previous three years, only 1.2% of citizens took part in political rallies, demonstrations or protests, and only 0.5% - in strikes. Discontent, sometimes bordering on indignation, accumulates under the shell of civic passivity, only from time to time it breaks to the surface, as was the case with the monetization of social benefits. In such an environment, the power structures and the parties supporting them seek to seize the initiative and put protest moods under their control within the framework of “managed democracy”. Rallies, demonstrations, marches, pickets and other mass actions are increasingly being held by "obedient" trade unions, youth and other organizations. The electoral activity of the population is declining, especially in the elections of regional structures and local governments. There is a widespread opinion in society about the uselessness of participating in elections - "the way people vote will not change anything in the country."
According to a survey of electoral behavior between the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, the proportion of Russians who share this opinion increased from 37.9% to 40%, while the proportion of those who hold the opposite point of view decreased from 42.9% to 35.9%. The social discontent of the poor and low-income strata often results in a protest vote "against all" or in a vote on the principle "the worse, the better." As a result, elections lose their significance as a means of seeking mutual understanding and achieving tolerant relationships in society. The abolition of the minimum threshold for the participation of citizens in elections is a confirmation of their transformation into a formality.
Poverty and inequality are closely related concepts. Inequality characterizes the uneven distribution of the scarce resources of society: money, power, education and prestige among different segments of the population - this is social inequality. The most common and easy-to-calculate way to measure inequality is to compare the lowest and highest incomes in a given country. Another way is to analyze the share of family income spent on food: the poorer the individual, the more he spends on food, and vice versa. Inequality characterizes society as a whole, while poverty concerns only part of the population. Thus, poverty is the economic and socio-cultural condition of people who have a minimum amount of liquid values and limited access to social benefits. The boundaries of the concept of poverty vary. If there are too many poor, then government spending increases, which will immediately affect the well-being of other segments of the population. The definition of poverty as a condition in which a person's essential needs exceed his ability to satisfy them is of a general nature, because it does not specify what essential needs are.
The stratification of society leads to the most negative consequences. Layers of people are being created who are below the poverty line, which is unacceptable in a developed society. There is a moral stratification of society into "us" and "them", the commonality of goals, interests, a sense of healthy patriotism is lost. As a result of the division of society, the population of regions and individual citizens into rich and poor, interregional and even interethnic contradictions arise, which leads to the destruction of the unity of Russia. There is an outflow of skilled workers to areas that do not require appropriate knowledge, abroad. As a result, the educational and professional potential of society is deteriorating, science-intensive industries are degrading. As a result of a low standard of living, the labor activity of the population decreases, health deteriorates, and the birth rate decreases, which leads to demographic crises.
1.2 Trend in inequality
Property and social inequality is a fact of social life in recent years. The destruction of the economic, and with it the value system of Soviet society, led to the construction of a new scale of significant attitudes and ideas, in the context of which inequality is perceived as a social norm. Different ages and life experiences, unequal personal adaptability and professional demand in the new labor market determine not only economic differentiation, but also the value heterogeneity of society. It is socially expedient and necessary from the point of view of preserving society so that the observed differentiation does not turn into a pronounced polarization, does not lead to a split and destructive, destructive consequences.
Sociologists have studied a wide variety of statistical data in order to identify historical patterns of fluctuations (fluctuations) of inequality in the distribution of various benefits (primarily economic, but also power) among members of society over several millennia. The result was somewhat unexpected: no distinct trends could be identified. Periods of growing inequality were accompanied by its smoothing, and then inequality increased again. The only curve that could approximate the studied trends was a sinusoid. This does not mean, however, that such tendencies cannot be revealed over the course of historical periods comparable to the life of several, and even more so of one or two generations. Two parameters can be considered a measure of inequality in different societies:
1. The height of stratification, which is understood as the social distance between the highest and lowest status of this particular society;
2. Stratification profile, which shows the ratio of the number of places (social positions) in the social structure of society as the status rises.
Numerous empirical studies reveal the following historical trends. The higher the level of development of society, the lower the height of stratification - that is, the social distance separating the highest levels of social positions in a given society from the lowest - is noted in the most backward societies. And vice versa - the higher the level of development of society as a whole, the smaller the size of the height of stratification. In other words, in backward societies, an abyss of impenetrable dimensions separates the social top from the social bottom, while in advanced societies, representatives of the lower strata can treat their elite, if not as equals, then not as unattainable "gods", then eat quite calmly.
There are different points of view on the development of differentiation processes and the strengthening of social inequalities in modern Russia. Some researchers talk about the consolidation of existing inequalities and the reduction of opportunities for social mobility, about the formation and hereditary transmission of a kind of "poverty subculture". Some scientists believe that the higher the social status of the family, the higher the adolescents rate their life chances and the more among them those who are willing to take responsibility for their lives. This leads to the notion that poverty is fundamentally insurmountable, which means that children are doomed to inherit the poverty of their parents. Real material inequality is fixed among low-income people at the level of consciousness. This is the beginning of the formation of a specific subculture of poverty. Family poverty narrows the number of life chances for children, and the likelihood of children "inheriting" the poverty of their parents is very high. This applies even to that stratum of the "new poor" who have some social and cultural resources.
The profile of stratification, that is, its shape, also reflects the level of inequality in a given society, although in a slightly different way. Thus, as this level rises, the profile becomes more and more “sharp”, and as the level of inequality decreases, it “flattens out”. In most traditional societies, where the level of inequality is extremely high, the stratification profile takes the form of a pyramid with steep slopes. For modern advanced societies, this shape approaches the diamond shape. In the pyramidal profile, as we approach the bottom, the number of layers increases. In the rhomboid layer, the middle layer is the most numerous, while the “bottom” stratum is inferior to it in size. Of course, the pyramidal and rhombic stratification profiles are rather "ideal types", while the real stratification profiles of advanced societies look somewhat different.
The social structure of Russia in 1992, despite the beginning of market reforms, on the whole reproduced the type of social structure common to all the countries surveyed. In general, this form of social profile corresponded to the “normal” one. The situation changed markedly after the default reform announced by the government in August 1998. The stratification profile noticeably “dipped”, approaching a cone, more characteristic of traditional societies. The “wings”, in which the middle class was localized, seemed to sink into those strata of the population that previously considered themselves to be the middle class, passed into the composition of the lower strata. As a result, the main characteristic feature of the newly emerged type of social structure was the "humiliation" of the social statuses of the bulk of Russians.
CHAPTER 2. THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY
2.1 Theoretical aspect of the concept of poverty
Poverty is the economic and socio-cultural condition of people who have a minimum amount of liquid values and limited access to social benefits. Poverty is not only a minimum income, but also a special way and style of life, that is, norms of behavior passed from generation to generation, stereotypes of perception and psychology. So sociologists talk about poverty as a special subculture.
The essence of social inequality, as already mentioned, lies in the unequal access of various categories of the population to socially significant benefits, scarce resources, and liquid values. The essence of economic inequality is that a minority of the population owns most of the national wealth. In other words, the smallest part of society receives the highest incomes, and the majority of the population receives medium and smaller incomes.
One of the first authors of the concept of poverty was the American scientist Peter Townsend. He took into account the satisfaction of not only physical, but also social needs. After all, often people are provided with vital items and services, but they cannot lead the way of life accepted in their society. The emphasis on the quality and conditions of life makes it possible to determine the gap between the social position of an individual (or family) and his standard of living.
There are two types of poverty:
1. Absolute poverty is associated with the need for vital resources that provide a person with biological survival. We are talking about the satisfaction of the most basic needs - food, shelter, clothing. The criteria for this type of poverty do not depend much on the time and place of a person's residence. The specific set of products consumed at the dawn of the development of human society and modern man differs significantly, but you can always unambiguously judge whether a person is starving or full. Thus, criteria for absolute poverty are related to biological characteristics.
2. Relative poverty is determined by comparison with the standard of living that is considered “normal” in a given society. The average standard of living in the developed countries of the West is obviously higher than in the developing countries. Therefore, what would be considered poverty in the countries of the developed West is regarded as a luxury for backward states. So, for example, those people who do not experience difficulties with food, but cannot afford to satisfy higher level needs (education, cultural recreation, etc.) fall into the category of relatively poor in the West. Thus, the criteria for relative poverty are based on social characteristics and vary greatly in different eras and in different countries.
In addition to this basic classification of types of poverty, there are other approaches. So, they distinguish primary poverty (these are families that lead a rational household, but do not have sufficient financial resources) and secondary poverty (families that have sufficient financial resources, but are in need because of irrational housekeeping). Finally, there is a division into “sustainable” poverty (“inherited poverty”) and “floating” poverty (some poor individuals find an opportunity to reach a higher standard of living, but at the same time people with average incomes go bankrupt and become poor).
Depending on the level of economic development of the country, poverty covers a significant or insignificant part of the population The share of the population living below the poverty line in Russia, according to preliminary estimates for 2011, rose to 12.8%, according to the head of Rosstat Alexander Surinov.
The highest level of poverty was recorded by Rosstat in 1992 - 33.5%; this figure fell below 20% only in 2004. Throughout the 2000s, the proportion of the poor has been declining rapidly. Then the crisis intervened, seriously hitting the level of salaries and incomes of Russians. The level of poverty increased in 2008, but already in the next crisis year, the department again recorded a decrease - the government indexed pensions several times, and inflation decreased.
In the next two years, those whose incomes do not reach the subsistence level, according to the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development, will become more and more. A break in the trend may come only in 2014.
To measure the scale of poverty, sociologists identify the proportion of that part of the country's population (usually expressed as a percentage) that lives near the official poverty line, or threshold. The terms “poverty rate”, “poverty ratio” and “poverty line” are also used to indicate the scale of poverty.
The poverty threshold is the amount of money officially set as the minimum income that an individual or family needs only to buy food, clothing and housing. It is also called the "poverty rate". In Russia, it was called the subsistence minimum. The latest available data on the cost of living in the country is 6,913 rubles for an adult, 6,146 rubles. - for a child, 5020 rubles. - for a pensioner.
This border is quite flexible. Even 40 years ago, a black-and-white TV in the USSR was considered a luxury item available to a few. In the 90s, color TV appeared in almost every family, and black-and-white is considered a sign of modest prosperity, or relative poverty. Already, those who cannot afford to buy a Japanese TV or computer have moved into the category of relative poverty.
The lower limit of relative poverty is the subsistence minimum and/or the poverty threshold, and the upper limit is the so-called decent standard of living. A decent standard of living reflects the amount of material wealth that allows a person to satisfy all reasonable needs, lead a fairly comfortable lifestyle, and not feel disadvantaged. The richer a person, the higher his claims. Poorer people have rather modest ideas about how much money they need to "live normally." The rich have ambitions and pretensions inevitably growing. Another trend: the younger the age, the more money is required in order to live normally. Another trend: the higher the education, the higher the level of claims. For those who do not have a secondary education, this level is 2 times lower than for those who have a diploma of higher education. Finally, residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg have a level of claims 3 times higher than residents of rural areas. Thus, rural residents believe that they need much less money than city dwellers. This is explained by the fact that life in the countryside is largely based on the products provided by subsistence farming - meat, vegetables from the garden. In addition, the farther from the direct production of vital goods, the more diverse intermediaries, and hence the higher the price of consumed goods. However, the traditionally lower level of claims of the inhabitants of the provinces and the lack of influence of the so-called conspicuous consumption due to the nature of the dominant subcultures (for example, visits to the theater, gym, cafes) play an equally important role here.
State funding for education is decreasing. If in 1992 the share of spending on education in the federal budget was 5.85%, then in recent years it has been steadily declining, amounting to only 2.45% in 2007. This means that education in Russia is increasingly moving to a paid level. In prestigious secondary special, secondary technical and higher educational institutions, there are up to 45 applicants for one budget place.
The national education is faced with the task of determining what kind of cultural competence is required by the current and subsequent generations of Russians, that is, what sociocultural type of society with the appropriate parameters of social solidarity and personal identity should be provided by our education. Russia's desire to enter the world community of developed industrial states should be supported by the high availability of quality education. Indeed, in modern society, for professions requiring low qualifications, it is declining, and the proportion of professions requiring high qualifications is increasing. The dynamics of increasing demands on a member of a modern developed society leads to the expansion of a cultural pattern characteristic of the most progressive social stratum through the educational system. At the same time, the traditional status markers of a person: social origin, nationality, religion are gradually losing their social significance for the formation of sociocultural identity.
The degree of accessibility of educational services to different segments of the population and the difference in consumer standards of social strata when using elementary educational services is approximately as follows:
- businessmen with a high level of income;
- small and medium entrepreneurs;
- professionals engaged in intellectual work;
- manual workers in industry;
- employed in agriculture;
- workers in the service sector;
- employed in temporary, casual work.
As shown by a survey of educational authorities on the problems of accessibility and effectiveness of educational services, conducted in 9 federal districts of Russia by employees of the laboratory for approbation and implementation of innovative educational technologies, there are already restrictions on access to high-quality preschool and school upbringing and education in the country.
Thus, the children of businessmen with a high level of income, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, professionals engaged in intellectual work are the main contingent of child development centers. In this type of preschool educational institutions, 100% of children are covered by medical and pedagogical diagnostics, and over 60% of children and parents receive qualified psychological assistance. The children of businessmen also make up the main conti
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