What are some of the features of social stratification?
Features of social stratification:
(i) Social stratification is a society-wide system that unequally distributes social resources among categories of people.
(ii) It is closely linked to the family and to the inheritance of social resources from one generation to the next.
(iii) It is supposed by patterns of belief or ideology.
In activities like hunting and food gathering, little is produced therefore, there exists rudimentary stratification but in technologically advanced socities, advance system of stratification is seen. Here, social resources are unequally distributed among categories of people. Secondly, it is birth that dictates birth occupational opportunities. For example, a dalit is likely to confined to occupations like agriculture labour, scavenging etc. and there are little chances of his being able to get white-collar jobs or professional work. Thirdly, caste system is justified in terms of opposition of purity and pollution. Nobody thinks a system of inequality as legitimate but people with the greatest social privileges like Brahmans express the strongest support for caste and race.
It is an interesting fact that discrimination has the least bearing with economical status and it is more because of gender, religion, ethnicity, language, caste and disability.
Eg. A women from a privileged background may face sexual harrassment.
