Professor of Sociology at Tokyo Gakugei University.

Abstract  In this paper I discuss methods of integrating women into social stratification studies. Traditional stratification studies have focused only on the male "heads" of households. While considering this problem within a conceptual framework of theoretical assumptions and empirical evidence, I would like to review some of the earlier work in this area.
I propose to differentiate social stratification into "occupational stratification" and "consumption stratification" in order to facilitate the integration of women into these studies. I shall use data from a nationwide survey to show how and why the traditional male head-of-household approach is inappropriate in determining the social stratification of households.
Rather than considering the occupation of the male head of the household, I use the concept of "substantive complexity of work" to compare paid work with housework. If a married woman is working outside the home, I define her occupation as that which scores higher in this comparison.
I also suggest that we further subcategorize consumption stratification. Finally, I propose integrating the suggestions made in this paper with the status inconsistency approach to social stratification.