class structure
Society's ranked layers
Class structure is the hierarchical arrangement of social classes within a society, typically based on wealth, occupation, education, or inherited status.
Sociologists analyze class structure to understand how economic and social power is distributed: The country's rigid class structure limited upward mobility.
The term appears in discussions of inequality, social stratification, and Marxist theory.
- casteInherited social division
- bourgeoisieCapitalist ownership class
- wealth gapEconomic inequality measure
- aristocracyRule by hereditary elite
- rankPosition in hierarchy
nobility · feudalism · serfdom · peasantry · income inequality · social stratification · oligarchy · proletariat · slavery · social hierarchy · status · landed gentry · upper crust · rags to riches · upstairs downstairs · capitalism · old money · industrialization
- societysociety, social customs, citizen, social hierarchy, culture
- classificationcategory, group, cataloging, grouping, kind
- social classstratum, bourgeoisie, proletariat, underclass, elite
- social classesnobles, aristocrats, underclass, peasants, elite
- social historyeveryday life, social movements, labor history, family history, women's history
- sociologysocial institutions, social norms, social mobility, socialization, social change
class structureegalitarianism
Philosophy of universal equality
social equality · classless society · classlessness · communism · egalitarian society
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