Social Stratification in Southeast Asia: A Comparison of 5 countries

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse social stratification in 5 Southeast Asian countries, i.e., Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Specifically the following topics regarding social inequality were examined in each country: 1) the structure of inequality in terms of educational attainment, occupational status, income, property and other economic indicators; 2) major fators for the formation of stratification system; 3) social mobility and status attainment; 4) social consequences of the stratification hierarchy. Data for this analysis were mainly from secondary sources including various statistical reports and previous studies done by others. Due to the uneven availability and uneven quality of such data, each country report was often inconsistent to the point of being devoid of comparison. Still it was possible to compare, at the most general and macroscopic level, the nature of stratification system among the 5 countries. A major conclusion drawn from the comparison was that the level of industrialization and economic development has played a significant role in shaping the stratification hierarchy, which is commonly known as the industrialization thesis. For example, Singapore economically most advanced among the 5 countries, has experienced high vertical mobility and seems to have moved toward a "middle class society" at least for the past two decades, while in the least developed Indonesia and the Philippines, mobility rates were very low and their stratification systems resemble a pyramid, a typical preindustrial type with a small upper and middle class and the vast majority in the bottom. However there were also national variations in the shape of the stratification hierarchy, indicating the particular socio-cultural and other factors unique to each country countervailing to a certain extent the industrialization effect. Among the unique factors, ethnic composition in Malaysia and Singapore, regional differences in Indonesia and the Philippines, and traditional economic structure in Thailand were found to be important