In any, the most democratic society, there is social inequality. Not all members of society may have the same access to public resources. Therefore, there is a stratification of society into separate levels, with a hierarchical relationship relative to each other. But what are the main reasons that a person belongs to a particular stratum?
There are many theories of a person's belonging to a particular stratum. But they are all based on approximately the same criteria: economic, political and professional. Economic depends on what place a person occupies in the results of the distribution of social income. Political on what is the access of the individual to the resources of power, what is his influence on political decision-making. Professionals depend, first, on a person's contribution to a social product, on the importance of his profession for society; and secondly, on the intellectual level, which is necessary to perform a particular type of professional activity.
On this basis, in modern society, it is customary to distinguish three main layers: upper, middle and lower. But these layers themselves are not homogeneous. In them, some scientists also distinguish sublayers.
In order to better understand what determines social stratification in modern society, let us dwell in more detail on the criteria of modern sociology. The main criteria in it are: income, wealth, power, education and prestige.
A person's income is determined by the number of receipts of new economic resources during a certain period of time. Income can be in the form of wages, income from an annuity agreement, social benefits, income from the results of intellectual labor, creativity (fees), etc.
Wealth is determined by the amount of an individual's accumulated income. It can depend directly on income, if there are no other sources in the form of inherited or donated. Accumulated income can be in the form of cash (both real and virtual), and in the form of materialized money, in the form of movable and immovable property.
The level of a person's power is determined by the number of people on whose activities he can influence. This number can vary from just the person himself, his family, to the whole enterprise, or even the state.
The level of education is determined by what kind of education a person received:, general secondary. initial vocational, secondary special, higher, postgraduate. But here we must admit one more fact. The level of education also depends on the intellectual abilities of the individual. And in some cases, even on the level of income, wealth. Moreover, the level of education itself does not always determine the level of education.
Prestige is determined by the attitude of society to the place occupied by a person in a particular social class. And also to his professional affiliation, income level, education level.
Summarizing all of the above, we can draw the following conclusion. All these criteria cannot unambiguously determine whether a person belongs to a particular stratum. For example, a person of an old, noble family, who has a large income, wealth, may not have a postgraduate education, may be unemployed at all. And a person with a scientific degree, a prestigious job, may have relatively low incomes. And such paradoxes are quite real for modern Russian society.
