P.A. Sorokin held that people move in the social space. Methods appropriate to find their position in the social space are somewhat reminiscent of the system of coordinates used for locating an object in the geometrical space. So, to find one's position in the social space means to define his relations to other individuals and to other groups, the relation of these groups to each other within the population, and the relation of this population to other populations constituting the mankind. That's why the social space is defined as the population of the globe, and a social position - as the integrity of its relations with the other groups of the population. These relations - between groups and within a specific group - make up the system of coordinates enabling to locate a social position of any person in the social space. This approach helps to consider people holding different social positions.

People moving or transition from one social position to another in the social space, P.A. Sorokin defines as social mobility. There are two types of social mobility, horizontal and vertical. The first concerns movements from one social position to another situated on the same level, as in a movement from work as a foreman with Volvo to similar work with Ford. The second refers to transitions of people from one social stratum to one higher or lower in the social scale, as in ascendant movements from the rags to the riches.

Both ascending and descending movements occur in two principal forms. The first form deals with individuals and includes the penetration of individuals of a lower stratum into a higher one, called the ascent, and the descent of individuals from a higher social position to one lower on the scale. The second form deals with groups and includes the collective ascent or descent of whole groups relative to other groups in the social pyramid. But P.A. Sorokin considered that individual ascent and descent needs no explanation. What must be considered more carefully was the second form of social ascending and descending, or the rise and fall of groups. This main focus upon collective, not on individual phenomena distinguished P.A. Sorokin's approach from others on stratification and mobility.

The theory of social stratification developed by R. Dahrendorf takes into account the concept of political authority which most exactly characterizes the relations of power and struggle for power between social groups. He believes that distribution of property in production determines distribution of political power in the society. As classes are political groups cohered by common interests, the struggle between two classes is a political struggle. Within this approach, the society's structure is represented by those who manage and those who are managed. The first ones are further divided into owners and non-owners or bureaucrats-managers; the second ones - into a higher group of working aristocrats and a lower group of low qualified workers. Between them there is a new middle class.

Another example of a stratum class model was developed by the American sociologist William Lloyd Warner in his book, Social Class in America (1949). In the 1930-40s he studied the stratification structure of American cities. Based on social anthropology, W. Warner divided Americans into three classes (upper, middle, and lower), then further subdivided each of these into an upper and lower segment, with the following postulates:

· upper-upper class called “old money” is represented by people who have been born into and raised with wealth, for instance, Rockerfeller;

· lower-upper class or “new money” is represented by individuals who have become rich within their own lifetimes; known examples are Bill Gates in the USA, Richard Branson in the United Kingdom;

· upper-middle class comprises high-salaried professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, corporate executives;

· lower-middle class comprises lower-paid professionals, but not manual labourers, for instance, police officers, non-management office workers, small business owners;

· upper-lower class, also known as the “working class” comprises blue-collar workers and manual labourers;

· lower-lower class is represented by the homeless and permanently unemployed, as well as the “working poor.”

To W. Warner, American social class was based more on shared attitudes than on the actual amount of money an individual has made. Such attitudes are income, prestige of job, education and ethnicity. For example, the richest people in the United States belong to the lower-upper class like Bill Gates, but members of the upper-upper class tend to be more respected, as a simple survey of US presidents may demonstrate (for instance, the Roosevelts; John Kennedy; the Bushes).

Another observation concerns members of the upper-lower class who might make more than members of the lower-middle class, for instance, a well-salaried mechanic versus a secretarial worker, but the class difference is based on the type of work they perform.

There are also stratification theories developed by modern Russian sociologists. For instance, G.V. Osipov, V.V. Radaev, O.I. Shkaratan distinguished between essential and additional criteria of a social stratum. The essential criteria are people's economic position (private property, size of income, level of material wealth), division of labour (area of activities, character of labour, level of education and qualification), size of authority (types and forms of governance) and social prestige (impact, roles); the additional criteria are gender, age, ethnic qualities, religion, character of family relations, kinship relations and place of living.

At the same time a modern French theorist A. Touraine considers those criteria out-dated. His stratum model is based on the access to information: those who have an access to more information occupy dominant positions in the society.

Thus, elaborators of stratification conceptions do not postulate social equality. Moreover, they consider social inequality as a natural state of the society. Despite people's everlasting strive for equality that lead to revolutions and wars (for example, the October revolution and Civil war in Russia), a desired equality is impossible to achieve. Inequality did, does and will exist. The point is how to make inequality less painful to the members of the society. Here of importance are various social programmes aimed at supporting the population with low income. Such programmes are gaining more significance in a transitive society because stabilizing the standards of living and struggle against poverty are indispensable factors of success of political and socio-economic reforms in the society.

An aggregated socio-economic status

As various stratification models show, numbers of criteria to grouping people in each may vary. But their authors share the opinion that such parameters as income, power, education and prestige must be enlisted as the basic ones.

Income as an economic status is an amount of money a person or family makes for a definite period of time (month or year). Income is spent to satisfy needs but if it is high, it is accumulated and turns to wealth.

Wealth is accumulated income in the form of cash or materialized money. The later can be movable property (car, yacht, securities) and real estate (house, masterpieces of art). Wealth can be inherited. It differs from income in the way that wealth can be inherited by those who work and who don't, and income is earned only by those who work. Pensioners and unemployed have income but rags - don't. The rich either can or cannot work as they are owners of wealth. Accumulated property is the parameter used to differentiate the high class from middle and low classes who live on income.

Wealth and income are distributed unequally and means economic inequality. Sociologists interpret economic inequality to show unequal chances of different groups of the population. Those who have more money have better food, live in more comfortable houses, prefer going by private car to public transport, can afford an expensive holiday etc. Besides having economic advantages, the rich possess a number of hidden privileges: they live longer than the poor even if the latter use the same medical achievements, children from poor families are less educated even if they go to the same public schools as children from wealthy families etc.

Power is a possibility to impose one's will or decision on others regardless of their desire. It is measured by a number of people who have to follow one's will or decision. Decisions made by the President or Prime-Minister of the country should be accepted by the whole population of the given country, and decisions by a sole proprietor - by his employees only.

In a highly stratified society power is guarded by law and tradition, it means privileges, a wider access to social wealth, and possibility to make decisions which are most essential to the society, laws for the benefit of the higher class being among them. People possessing power (political, economic or religious) constitute the elite of the society.

Education is measured by a number of years studied in state or private school, university etc. For instance, a professor has studied for more than 20 years (11 years at school, 5 - university, 3 - post-graduate courses, 3 - doctorate courses), a low qualified worker - not more than 11. A weak point of the criterion is that quality of education is not taken into account. Establishments of learning located in the capital of the country are likely to provide better quality than those located on the periphery. Another distinction is character of knowledge - theoretic, fundamental or branch, applied - that a person can get.

Income, power and education are objective parameters, and they have units of measure, correspondingly local currency, people, years; unlike them prestige is of subjective character.

Prestige is respect that public opinion gives to a certain job, profession or occupation. No doubt, the profession of a banker is more prestigious than that of a cleaner or plumber. All professions, occupations and jobs existing in the society can be ranked from top to bottom according to their prestige. Although professional prestige is very often defined by intuition, approximately, in some countries, for instance in the USA sociologists measure it with special methods.

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