The socio-economic structure of the society in Syria seems to be not officially documented yet nor are the criteria of its stratification defined. ‘There were shortcomings on the part of official statistics institutions, and a near total absence of socio-economic research institutions concerned with this subject’ (Sara, 2011, p.6). This seems to be political orientations of the government towards classless society. Therefore, this study is based mainly on the economic structure of the society as the criteria which are used in this research – education, occupation, possession, and the area of living – are strongly correlated with the economic level as explained in chapter 4.
Although there is no official or academic classification of Syrian society, people tends to socialize with their own social class, especially in relation to marriage issues. Before the revolution in 1963 the social division in Syria was based traditionally on different factors: 1) economic norms between landlords and tenants, 2) regional standards between urban dwellers and rural peasants, and 3) religious bases among a Sunni Muslim majority and other minority groups (Collelo, 1988). The social structure has been realigned in relation to different criteria, such as regional, socioeconomic, and cultural. People increasingly have become more concerned about upgrading their status to a higher social class by virtue of technical and higher education and thus a new upper middle class has been rising since Al-Ba‘ath revolution’s adopted policy towards secularization and nationalization, instead of religious, tribal, and regional intolerance. “The ruling Ba‘ath Party has even supported punitive, discriminatory actions against open display of religious affiliation, such as veiling by government employees” (Shoup, 2008, p.122). Social stratification has been evolving, but not been completed to date, based on two main categories as follows.
Socioeconomic stratification (albeit very limited)16 based on work and secular higher education which divided the society into: 1) Working class, which consists of wage- earning workers. Although Syrian society lacks a developed industry, this class was 12 % by 1980. 2) Traditional middle class includes artisans and handcrafters in addition to proprietors, tradesmen, and white collar employees. This was approximately 30 percent
16
Very limited information has been found by the researcher, however, this will be used only as indication in this study.
of the population in Syria in 1980. And 3) Upper-middle class encompasses teachers, scientists, technocrats, lawyers, doctors, civil servants and others professional, for which no percentage was found by the researcher (Mortimer and Division, 2004).
Ecological division, based on the ecological nature of the area of settlement and people lifestyle, categorizes Syrian society into three groups : 1) Townspeople who live and work in an urban area, which in 2006 represented more than 53 percent of the Syrian population, with this percentage increasing rapidly as peasants migrate to town for work, study, and settlement. 2) Peasants, who live in villages, were in 2006 less than 47 percent of the whole population in Syria. However, many families and households return to live temporarily in a village during the Summer time. 3) Tribes people, who were less than 7 percent of the population in 1980 and as the government has been attempting to encourage them to settle in a sedentary houses, they became very few nowadays in the Syrian Desert – probably much less than 1% as this was not even mentioned in the official statistics of 2006.
In terms of income levels, Syria is a middle-income country and has a lot of potential (Gilbert, 2009; ElLaithy and Abu-Ismail, 2005). The majority of the population is most likely to be middle-income as explained below. Based on a UN study in 2004, people in Syria were categorized into poor (30%) and non-poor (70%). Poor people were estimated at around (11.4%) of Syria’s population in 2004 using the lower poverty line and at around (30%) using the upper poverty line (UNDP, 2004). In this study, people who are under the lower poverty line are considered very poor whereas people who are above the lower poverty line and under the upper poverty line are considered as slightly poor at (18.6%). However, the majority (65%) of the slightly poor (18.6) – i.e. 12% of the total population — are clustered just below the upper poverty line and thus slight improvement in the macroeconomic policy might move them up to the non-poor group (ElLaithy and Abu-Ismail, 2005) and most probably they would move to lower middle class – non poor. Although inequality has risen in Syria as a whole during the 1996- 2004 period, a large increase in per capita expenditures outweighed the effect of this worsening distribution (ElLaithy and Abu-Ismail, 2005) and thus poverty slightly decreased as shown in figure 3.7 It is, therefore highly likely for a slightly poor group (12% of total population) to move to the lower middle class.
Figure 3.7: Poverty in Syria 1996-2004, using lower and upper poverty line
Source: (UNDP, 2004)
Non poor population includes upper class and middle class groups but very limited and old data was possible to find by the research. According to the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress in Collelo (1988), in 1980, middle class was estimated at 40%, with 30% of traditional middle class17 and 10% of the new middle class18. The upper middle class and upper class groups seem to be approximately 30% of the total population in 1980. However, the figures are used in this study only as general indications, given the lack of data. Seeing the above, the majority (58.6%) of the inhabitants in Syria seems to be middle class (see figure 3.8).
17 The traditional middle class encompasses artisans, handicrafters who produce basic commodities such
as textiles, soap, and shoes in small cottage industries, small proprietors, tradesmen, and white-collar employees (Collelo, 1988, p.55).
18
The new middle class of education and expertise which live a completely different way of life, this group seems to value scientific rather than traditional knowledge Mortimer in Syria a case study , modernity rather than tradition, individual initiative rather than family solidarity and etc (Collelo, 1988, p.57). 14.26 11.39 33.22 30.13 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 1996/1997 2003/2004 Pe rcent ag e %
Lower Poverty Line Upper Poverty Line
Figure 3.8: Estimated Economic Structure of Syrian Society in 2004
Sources: Adapted by the researcher based on United Nations of Developing Programme (ElLaithy and Abu-Ismail, 2005) and (Collelo, 1988)
According to a study of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) about poverty in Syria, the percentage of poverty in the urban areas is proportionally less than the poverty in rural areas, as shown in figure 3.9, and that also makes the possibility of change higher in the urban areas.
Figure 3.9: Percentage of individuals’ poverty in Syria, Rural and Urban areas
Source: (UNDP 2004)
Although the poverty in the coastal region is almost the same in the urban and rural area, the coast has the lowest percentage of poverty among Syrian areas, as shown in figure 3.9 and 3.10 (UNDP, 2005).
11.4% 18.6% 40% 30% 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Estimated Economic Structure of Syrian Society Poor slightly Poor Middle class Upper class 5.8 10.7 11.2 17.9 9.0 11.1 9.3 9.7 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 Urban Rural
Regional poverty in Syria of individuals 2003-2004
Southern North-Eastern Middle
Figure 3.10: Regional Distribution of Poor Households in Urban Syria
Source: (UNDP 2004)
For this reason, the coastal region can be an appropriate area for this study. Middle and lower middle-income groups are the target of this study as they can afford to make modifications or changes in housing design if needed/wanted, as was noted earlier. They usually occupy formal housing (pre-planned or expansion) areas, while the poor often occupy the informal settlements. Formal housing areas usually consist of a general housing design which is done formally by designers for unknown clients, in contrast to the individual housing design in which users are involved and decide their own house design – this probably being related to upper class and upper middle class groups. This is what was categorized as an erudite architecture as it was noted in chapter 2. This type of architecture does not reflect the dominant culture of the Syrian society and thus it is not the target group of this study.