Sociology - Social Inequality

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Bilal Zulfiqar 11X                                                                                       Sociology Coursework – Mrs Ellison

The social effects of social inequality.

Introduction.

The name of this coursework will be “The effects of social inequality.”

As we go about and prosper in our lives, inequality is less evident. Although we live in a modern age where we inhabit a somewhat fair and peaceful democratic country, inequality is still prominent in our society. Those who fail to recognise it are those who are not affected by it, the elite. They who are the ones supplied with the fruits of society and consider other less fortunate people’s opinions as inferior to theirs. Social inequality itself exists in all known human societies. The one of the principal concerns of it is to understand how exactly they impact people’s lives and to understand these. Social inequality refers to the uneven distribution of:

  • Resources such as power and money.
  • Opportunities related to for example to; education, employment and health.

Social class, gender, age and ethnicity are all sources of inequality in the UK. In other words, a situation in which certain groups in a society do not have equal social status. Social inequality can be broken down into different parts; income, occupation and education, but primarily its based on social class. Piachaud (2009) argues that the causes of inequality within the UK include large differences between people in terms of inherited wealth, education and access to the labour market.

Within society, various groups have a different interpretation of what the definition of social class is;

Marxists view social classes as a highly stratified system. They identify two main classes: the bourgeoisie being the ruling class and the proletariat being the working class. Membership of these classes is determined by economic factors - that is, ownership and non-ownership. The wealthy bourgeoisie owned the means of production through their ownership of property, big businesses, land and factories. The proletariat did not own any property and had to sell their labour to the bourgeoisie in order to survive. These two sub-classes had very diverse interests. For example, while the bourgeoisie aimed for ever increasing profits, the proletariat sought higher wages. Marx saw the bourgeoisie as exploiting the proletariat and this situation led to conflict between these classes.

Functionalists see society as working in a harmonious way with each institution having a function to perform. They agree that there is a social class system, in which there are open opportunities and there is mobility between classes, ensure that the talented individuals are given the opportunity to reach the top to perform the roles most vital for society.

Marx Weber argued that classes were formed in marketplaces such as the labour market. In the labour market, one class of people hired labour and another class sold their labour. Weber saw the processes of hiring labour and the life chances that arose from this as the crucial explaining class.

Weber argued that a class is a group of people who have similar access to life chances that is chances of being successful and opportunities in education, health and so on. Weber identified four main classes; property owners, professionals, the petty bourgeoisie and the working class. These different class situations reflected different life chances in the labour market. Members of the working class for example shared similar life chances in the labour market. However they had different life chances to property owners.

Life Marx, Weber saw class as based on the distribution of economic resources such as wealth. However, Weber also stressed the importance of non-economic factors such as status and power in determining life chances and in shaping patterns of stratification. Weber distinguished between class and stratus, while classes were formed in market places, status groups could be identified by the prestige or honour attached to their styles of life. Weber argued that each of the four classes had different amount of status wealth and power. In Marx’s view though ownership was the most significant division of society, other inequalities arose from class divisions. Weber, however saw class and status as two separate aspects of stratification. In Weber’s view, a person’s status may different from their class or economic position. For instance

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  • Members of the aristocracy  may have no savings but their title gives them status
  • Nurses may lack wealth but have high status
  • National Lottery millionaire may be very wealthy but lack status

The official definition however of social classes as of the government’s definition that is having the same social, economic, or educational status; for example the working class and the upper class.

Social inequality is also linked to racial inequality and wealth inequality. The way people behave socially, through racism and other forms of discrimination, tends to trickle down and affect the opportunities and wealth individuals can ...

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