Social Inequality

Question 1

What is social inequality?

Answer 1

1. When the resources in a society are unevenly distributed
   
   1. Groups who are disproportionally affected: ethnic/ racial, minority and gender
   2. Glass ceiling effect: gender pay discrepancy- females are poorly represented in higher position in companies
2. Feeling: those feeling this may be socially excluded live in segregated neighbourhoods and feel politically disempowered.

• How can we help*:
• Government schemes, access to education and helpcare are lowered, integration to society.

Question 2

What is Upward and downward mobility?

Answer 2

• how we break down society into social layers:
  
  • Classes:
    
    • lower class
    • middle class
    • upper class
• Social position and movement:
  
  • Horizontally move: move within the same class
  • Vertically move: move up and down the social hierarchy
  • Caste system: cannot really move up any latter because your social role is based on your background
  • Class system: less stable but you can move a bit up the ladder based on education
  • Meritocracy: you reach success based on your merits

Question 3

what is intergenerational and intragenerational mobility?

Answer 3

• Intergrational mobility: change in social class by the person themselves
• Intergenerational mobility: change in social class within generations

Question 4

What is absolute and relative poverty?

Answer 4

• Absolute poverty: if you go below this poverty your survival is threatened- as the country gets richer we find less people live in absolute poverty
• Relative poverty: when you are at 60% below the median income but your life isn’t threatened.

Question 5

What is social reproduction?

Answer 5

• Disreuptency between rich and poor families
• Social reproduction: transmission of social inequality from one generation to the next
• Financial capital: you can use your finances to increase your social capital and culture capital ( knowledge and education transmitted across generations)

Education: the system does now allow to value low class culture

Question 6

What is social exclusion?

Answer 6

• Being an integral society has lots of advantages but certain people can be excluded

Things that can cause social exclusion:

• Poverty magnet: make you experience social exclusion
• Ill-health magnet: health can stop you from being part of the society
• Discrimination magnet: being part of a group can exclude you as well.

People in all these can be excluded and this can affect heir health as well as their mental.

Question 7

what is segregtion?

Answer 7

• Seperates set of resources within the society and causes people to be separated.
  
  • Segregated groups often have worse resources -these are maintained by hidden discrimination
  • Social isolation: when community voluntary isolate themselves from mainstream

Question 8

What is environment justice?

Answer 8

• Areas with high poverty have lots of racial minorities -and fewer environmental benefits
• Wealthier population: have a higher benefits

Question 9

What is residential segregation? and what are some other forms of segregations?

Answer 9

• Groups are people that are separated by different neighbourhoods - this can be due to
  
  • race or income
• Where we live affect our life chances

Other forms of segregations:

• Concentration: clustering of different groups
• Centralization: segregation + clustering in a central area
  
  • index of dissimilarity: when 0 mean the area is segregated when 100 mean evenly distributed

Question 10

Why is residential segregation important?

Answer 10

• Political isolation: politically weak when you are segregated the government doesn’t care about you
• Linguistic isolation: isolated communities may develop their own language ( slang)
• Spatial mismatch: low income communities may have to travel far to have opportunities

Question 11

What is global inequality?

Answer 11

• Extreme inequality the life expectancy in Africa is way lower than in developed countries
• Champagne class: an expression that explains the distribution of wealth
  
  • people who are the richest are at the top of the glass
• Maternal mortality rate
  
  • is a reflection of the healthcare system

Question 12

Health and Healthcare disparities in the U.S

Answer 12

• Social-economic status: as we go up the social pyramid access and quality of healthcare improves.
• race: minorities have higher morbidity and mortality rates
• Gender: men usually take fewer preventative measure
• LGBT: discrimination can limit their access to clinics
  
  • Transgender: doctors don’t really have experiences working with them.

Question 13

What is Intersectionality? What is social stratification?

Answer 13

• When you discriminate based on multiple factors, like someone experiences multiple forms of discrimination like being black and a women
• Social stratification: when a group of people are given preferences over others

Question 14

What are class consciousness and false consciousness?

Answer 14

• Means of production: how we make goods, rich people hire poor people to make goods.

The class division between the hierarchy of upper and lower class: (Karl Marx)

• workers don’t realize that they are being explored and oppressed by this capitalistic model
• Class consciousness: workers can develop solidarity with each other and realize that they are being exploited
• False consciousness: when workers are unable to see their oppression, this can be used to control them.