Inequalities of Social Class
by
Charles Lamson
Social Class and Life Chances in the United States
The rich have far more money than the poor, and they tend to have more education and a great deal more wealth, as measured by the value of homes, cars, investments, and much else. But what difference do these inequalities make in people's lives? Social scientists often answer this question by analyzing the life chances of people born into different social classes. By life chances they mean the relative likelihood that individuals will have access to the opportunities and benefits that the society values. Compare, for example, the life chances of a child born into a family in which the mother and father earn slightly more than the minimum wage by working in restaurants and supermarkets with
the life chances of a child born into the home of a police officer and a teacher, and compare both of these with the life chances of a child born into the home of a successful banker. Will these differences in the circumstances of birth affect the quality of education each child is likely to receive? Will the children's access to quality healthcare differ? Will the differences in the social class of their families influence who they are likely to marry? Will it make a difference in the likely length of their lives? The answer to all of these questions is, emphatically, yes. But being born into a given social class does not determine everything about an individual's life chances. The more a society attempts to equalize differences and life chances by improving healthcare for the poor, for example, or by creating high-quality institutions of public education---the more it reduces the impact of social class on life chances. |
Numerous social-scientific studies have shown that one's social class tells a great deal about how one will behave and the kind of life one is likely to have. Later in this section we will discuss specific social changes, but first we present some typical examples of the relationship between social class and daily life. These examples apply primarily to American society but many of the same conditions can be found in other societies as well.
Social Class in Daily Life
Class and Health A child born into a rich upper-class family is far less likely to be premature or have a low birthweight than one born into a working-class or poor family. And a baby born into a family in which the parents are working at steady jobs is far less likely to be born with a drug addiction or AIDS or fetal alcohol syndrome than a child born to parents who are unemployed and homeless. These and many other disparities contribute to what is often called "the socioeconomic status (SES) gradient in health" (Sapolsky, [1998, April]. How the Other Half Heals. Discover, 46-72).
The SES gradient in health exists in all of our world's nations and is based on a complex combination of social class and culture, but the gradient is particularly marked in the United States:
For example, in the United States the poorer you are the more likely you are to contract and succumb to heart disease, respiratory disorders, ulcers, rheumatoid disorders, psychiatric diseases, or a number of types of cancer. And this is a whopper of an effect: In some cases disease or mortality risk increases more than five-fold as you go from the wealthiest to the poorest segments of our society, with things worsening each step of the way. (Sapolsky, 1998. P. 46)
Among adults, a salaried member of the upper class who directs the activities of other employees is less likely to be exposed to toxic chemicals or to experience occupational stress and peptic ulcers than wage workers at their machines and computer terminals. These workers, in turn, are more likely to have adequate health insurance and medical care than the working poor---dishwashers, migrant laborers, temporary help, low-paid workers, and others whose wages for full-time work do not elevate them above the poverty level (Elwood, 1988, Poor Support). The working poor are the largest category of poor Americans, and like those who lack steady jobs they often depend on the local emergency rooms for medical care and report that they have neither family doctors nor health insurance. The same poor and working-class population is also more likely to smoke, consume alcohol, and be exposed to homicide and accidents while receiving less police protection than members of the classes above them.
Education Children of upper-class families are more likely to be educated in private schools than children from the middle or working classes. Sociologists have shown that education in elite private schools is a means of socializing the rich. Cookson and Persell's 1985 study of socialization Preparing for Power study of socialization in elite American prep schools found that "preppies" develop close ties to their classmates, ties that often last throughout life and become part of a network they can draw on as they rise to positions of power and wealth. The segregation of upper-class adolescence in prep schools also limits dating and marriage opportunities to members of the same class.
Although middle-class parents are more likely than rich parents to send their children to public schools, they tend to select suburban communities where the schools are known to produce successful college applicants. The public schools that serve the middle classes spend more per pupil than the schools attended by working class and poor children, and they offer a wider array of special services in such areas as music, sports, and extracurricular activities. Children in the middle and upper classes also tend to have parents who insist that they perform well in school and who can help them with their school work. Moreover, children from working-class and poor families are more likely to drop out of school than children from upper-class families.
Many other examples could be presented to illustrate the influence of social class on individuals in American society. But social class divisions also affect the society as a whole. So in the next post, we will turn, therefore, to an examination of some key characteristics of the major social classes (upper-class, middle-class, working class, and the poor) in the United States, and to some of the consequences of the different life chances experienced by these classes.
*ADDITIONAL SOURCE: SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., WILLIAM KORNBLUM, PP.. 353-355*
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