... in response to Stratas ?, posted by Kit on Feb 28, 2003I think the "Do Colombian women ever marry up" thread made too much out of strata. Simply put, strata is assigned by neighborhood and is used to determine billing rates for things like electricity, water, and telephone services. My wife was born and rasied in Cali and she's not even certain what strata the neighborhood she came from is. She also said that while some people may be selective about who they get involved with (e.g. professionals may prefer to date other educated people and rich people may stick to other rich families) they don't go around asking potential dates what strata they're from.
Strata will certainly be correlated with income level, but don't make the mistake of assuming that it's some official stratification of social classes.
The US has a similar system, but it's only two classes and separates the poor from the non-poor. Someone might qualify for a lower telephone or power billing rate if their family income falls below a certain level. All others pay a higher rate. You don't see US people selecting dates based on their telephone service rates, but you will find some who aren't interested in going out with poor or uneducated people. You might meet a woman who lives in a trailer park and has only a 10th grade education, and a history of living her life based on the advice of a 900 number psychic hotline. Based on that, some will choose not to get involved with her. They don't make that decision based on her telephone billing rate though.
No doubt there are people who select people to associate with based on neighborhood (and membership in social clubs, etc.) in Colombia, but my wife hasn't ever known anyone to comment on a person's "strata" as a reason to avoid them.
