order to attract people to work in this session. If the wages of all jobs are the same, then
people will probably choose those jobs with lower workload and simple procedure. In
other words, most people will prefer to be a street cleaner rather than a university
professor because being a street cleaner, no special skill is needed and the workload is
much lower. Try to imagine if there is no teacher, no university professors, what will the
society look like? It will probably return back to the most primitive period of time. Our
next generation will all be illiteracy. How can our society develop under this situation?
An effective role allocation should be matched up with an effective role performance.
Like the concept of Class Consciousness brought out by Karl Marx said that each group
has their own goals, people must perform well in order to achieve this goals. If people
performed well, they can not only achieve their goals, and also they may be able
to climb up to upper class according to the concepts of class mobility. What are the
attractions of belonging upper class? Firstly, the social status will be upgraded, more
people will trust you and agree with your idea, you may have priorities in many aspects,
such as discount on transportation. For the economic benefits, their wages will be
increased, so then their living environment can be improved. This is the sole
source to enforce people to perform well, so once wages become the same for any jobs,
no one is willing to work hard. As a result, its development will be fallen into a stationary.
On the economic perspective, based on the concept of demand and supply, street
cleaner’s pay should not be similar to a university professor’s pay. According to this
concept, the cost is higher if its supply is low, but the cost is lower when its supply is
higher. Adopting this concept into the pay, since being a professor needs a very high
education level, it needs a lot of time and pays many efforts to train a professor, so the
supply is less. On the other hand, a professor is given a high expectation to provide the
best education to students. Once there is any mistake found, they must take the highest
responsibility. The high expectation and responsibility bring them many pressures. This
pressure not only comes from school staff, and also outsiders because tertiary education
represents the education standard of the whole place. Once any academic mistakes found
in tertiary will damage the image of their own states, so many outsides pay attention on
university. This high pressure is not easy to release, so less people are willing to be
professor. Since professor is such a demanding job, and its supply is so less, its
replacibility is low and thus its price is comparatively high.
In contrary, street cleaner is not as demanding career as professors, it requires low
requirements of knowledge, low expectation on outsiders, time and money used for
training a street cleaner is less. In general, everyone can be a street cleaner and so its
replacibility is low. The responsibility of being a street cleaner is simple. They are just
responsible to clear the street every day, so the corresponding pressure is affordable for
everyone. Thus, the demand of being a street cleaner is lower and its supply is so high, its
pay will be comparatively low.
Also, on the technological perspective, professor can be said to be a professional
educator, which needs many technology such as computer, telecommunication
devices as the teaching aids , but street cleaner is just a simple job, they need some simple
tool such as cleaning car, water pipe and other washing machines. Not only the types of
technologies are different, and also the investment varies. As those technology used on
teaching needs up-to-date and large amount of machine is needed in order to provide
enough equipment for students, so a great deal of money is needed to invest on
technology. However, for street cleaner, one cleaning machine can be served several
districts, and so the amount needed is less, the investment is comparatively low. Referring
to Lenski’s technological perspective, the one used better technology should be paid more
while the one used cheaper technology should be paid less, therefore a street cleaner’s
pay should not be similar to university professor’s pay.
With the analyses on social perspective, economic perspective and technological
perspective, it is believed that the variation of payment between street cleaners and
professors should be existed so that the development on all aspects can be continued.
It is no doubt that the existence on payment variation may worsen the social inequality,
but it is also believed that the inequality can be solved in some other ways such as the rich
can help the poor through the donation and visit. This kinds of activities can reduce their
conflict and so we can still live in a harmony atmosphere.
References
Bilton, Tony et al. (2002), Introductory Sociology (4th edition), Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Giddens, Anthony (2001), Sociology (4th edition), chapter 3: ‘A Changing World’, pp. 50-64..
Macionis, John 2003 ‘Social Stratification’, in John Macionis Society: The Basics , chapter 8, pp. 187-198.
Kreckel, R. 1980. “Unequal opportunity structure and labour market segmentation.” Sociology 14:525-550.
