Status

Social status is the "standing", the honour or prestige attached to one's position in society. Note that social status is influenced by social position.

In modern societies, occupation is usually thought of as the main dimension of status, but even in modern societies other memberships or affiliations (such as ethnic group, religion, gender, voluntary associations, fandom, hobby) can have an influence. A doctor will have higher status than a factory worker, for instance, but in some societies a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant doctor will have higher status than an immigrant doctor of minority religion.

In pre-modern societies, status differentiation is widely varied. In some cases it can be quite rigid and class based, such as with the Indian caste system. In other cases, status exists without class and/or informally, as is true with some Hunter-Gatherer societies such as the Khoisan, and some Indigenous Australian societies. In these cases, status is limited to specific personal relationships. For example, a !Kung man is expected to take his mother-in-law (his wife's mother) quite seriously; but the mother-in-law has no "status" over anyone but her son-in-law--and only then in certain contexts. All societies have a form of social status.

Status is a key idea in social stratification. Max Weber distinguishes status from social class, but some contemporary empirical sociologists fuse the two ideas into "Socio-Economic Status," usually operationalised as a simple index of income, education and occupational prestige.

Status inconsistency is a situation when an individual's social positions have both positive and negative influences on his social status. For example, a teacher has a positive societal image (respect, prestige) which increases his status but may earn little money, which simultaneously decreases his status. A criminal, on the other hand, may have low social position but high income.

Statuses that are inborn are called ascribed statuses while statuses that individuals gained their own effort are called achieved statuses. Certain behaviors carry social stigmas that can affect status.

Books

 * Michael Marmot (2004), The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity, Times Books
 * Botton, Alain De (2004), Status Anxiety, Hamish Hamilton