6.3 Sociodemographic Structures

LO 6.3: Discuss how opportunities and barriers are stratified by race, gender, and social class.

In the United States, race, gender and social class are used to stratify groups of people hierarchically in the social structure. Among other factors, these characteristics can prevent or allow access to resources, including jobs, education, and social networks. Race, gender, and social class structure an individual’s chances in life. By life chances, sociologists mean opportunities to achieve a median living standard and to thrive.

Social categories produce advantages and disadvantages depending on how they come together in a person’s everyday life. This result is referred to as intersectionality (see Chapter 1) (Crenshaw, 1989; see also Collins & Bilge, 2020). In other words, a person is not simply a man but an upper-class White man or a middle-class Black man. While one man has multiple advantages given his race, class, and gender, another man may have disadvantages related to his class, race, or other factors, like sexual identity or educational qualifications (see Figure 6.3).