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Unit 5: Forms of Social Stratification

and waged employment will not automatically eradicate gender inequality and might even have Notes
other adverse effects on women. Attempts must be made to engage the value of women’s domestic
labour into their development process.
Aggregate data regarding literacy disguise caste, religious and regional variations. 2001 Census
data shows that in some states, e.g. Bihar, female literacy has actually worsened over the last
decade.
Regional Variations
1. In Bihar, the number of female illiterates rose by 12.25% (2, 311,426 persons), while Andhra
Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh recorded 13.32% and 13.37% decreases in female illiteracy
respectively. Absolute numbers of illiterate females rose in a total of 10 states and union
territories, including Delhi, Gujarat and Nagaland.
2. Kerela had the highest female literacy rate (87.86%), while Bihar had the lowest (33.57%) - a
gap of 54.3%.
3. The overall gender gap between male and female literacy rates fell from 24.85% in 1991 to
21.68% in 2001.
4. In 1991, Rajasthan’s female literacy rate stood at only 20%, implying that 1 in 5 women in
Rajasthan couldn’t read. In rural areas of the state, the figure dropped even further to 11%. In
2001, however, female literacy has risen to 44.34%, which though still low, represents an
absolute increase of nearly 1,000,000 women.

5.2 Social Stratification in Urban–Industrial Settings

Several criteria have been used to understand urban-industrial social structure and stratification.
These include the extent of closure or openness and the nature of deprivations and gratifications.
Other criteria are : (i) the motivational structure, (ii) the opportunity structure, and (iii) the
communication structure or the extent of ‘visibility’ of opportunity. Based on these sets of criteria
of understanding urban-industrial social life, there are multiple references for an individual in
urban-industrial milieu because a person is evaluated in terms of his/her attributes like education,
income, occupation, style of life, etc. All these criteria are juxtaposed keeping in view the rural-
agrarian social structure and stratification as opposite of the urban-industrial world.
It becomes difficult to draw a strict line of demarcation between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’, and ‘individual’
and ‘corporate’ rankings. The rich and the poor are the same to a large extent in both the settings;
the difference is mainly a contextual one. An individual is a part of his family, and a family is
linked with a group, hence individual exists as a corporate entity to a considerable extent. Similarly,
a village is part of its region, and the region is linked with civilization, hence village is part of a
wider society and civilization.
A lot of changes are taking place in the countryside particularly in the caste stratification, agrarian
relations and power structure, but rural social stratification has not transformed itself into urban
stratification system. There are several common features of social stratification in the rural-agrarian
and the urban-industrial settings as the same principles determine social relations in the two. The
main difference is in terms of the extent of operation of a particular principle or a set of criteria/
attributes. Caste, class and power are common to both the settings, but they differ in social life
operationally because of the structural differences between the village and the town.

Defining Urban-Industrial Stratification
Urban industrial social stratification is characterized by ‘professional’ and ‘working’ classes to a
large extent. Professionalism requires training to acquire skills for performing specific roles. It
imparts values of rationality, objectivity and pragmatism. Professional classes reflect social and

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