“Evaluate if social stratification is functional for society.” (2018)
To call stratification “functional” is to say that its consequences help society survive and work efficiently. Robert K. Merton (Social Theory and Social Structure, 1949) added the questions that decide this evaluation: functional for whom, and what is the net balance of functions and dysfunctions?
The case that it is functional
- Role allocation and motivation: Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore (1945) argued that higher rewards attract scarce talent into important positions and compensate for long training.
- Integration: Talcott Parsons saw ranking as an expression of shared values, so hierarchy reinforces consensus.
- Coordination: complex organisations need graded authority.
- Dynamism: Peter Saunders (Social Class and Stratification, 1990) argued that unequal market rewards spur effort and innovation, and that equalising rewards would require coercion.
The ledger of dysfunctions
Melvin Tumin (1953) answered that stratification systems produce the following dysfunctions:
| Claimed function | Dysfunction |
|---|---|
| Discovers talent | Limits the discovery of talent through unequal access to schooling and recruitment |
| Raises productivity | Caps productive resources by wasting ability |
| Motivates all | Gives favourable self-images, and so motivation, mainly to the privileged |
| Integrates society | Encourages hostility, suspicion and distrust between strata |
| Serves collective goals | Lets elites promote an ideology that presents the status quo as natural |
Further objections sharpen the ledger:
- Dennis Wrong (“The Functional Theory of Stratification: Some Neglected Considerations”, 1959) noted that even open competition carries costs of anxiety and status insecurity.
- Marxists and Frank Parkin (Marxism and Class Theory, 1979) show rewards following power and social closure, not contribution.
- Joan Acker (1973) criticised stratification theory for ignoring women’s own positions. Feminists add that indispensable domestic and care work goes unpaid, which breaks any link between importance and reward.
Indian evidence
- Wasted talent: in a field experiment by Sukhadeo Thorat and Paul Attewell (2007), equally qualified Dalit applicants to private-sector jobs had 0.67 times, and Muslim applicants 0.33 times, the odds of a positive response enjoyed by high-caste Hindu applicants.
- Blocked mobility: Sam Asher, Paul Novosad and Charlie Rafkin (2024) found intergenerational mobility in India low and largely unchanged since before liberalisation. It rose for Scheduled Caste sons, helped by affirmative action, and fell for Muslims.
- Some functional reward: returns to education and skill in the post-1991 service economy show incentives still at work, as Davis and Moore expect.
Evaluation
The balance turns on type and degree:
- Modest, achievement-based differentials in an open system can serve motivation and coordination.
- Ascribed and inherited inequality, such as caste, fails the functional test on the theory’s own terms, because it assigns positions without regard to talent.
- Past a threshold, inequality becomes dysfunctional for the whole, eroding trust and wasting human capability.
Conclusion
Stratification is functional mainly for those at the top, and for society only when opportunity is genuinely equal and rewards are tied to contribution. Tumin’s point that differential reward can be defended only under full equality of opportunity remains the decisive test. India’s reservation policies can be read as an attempt to meet that condition.