explain social inequality essay

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Chapter 9. Social Inequality

9.1. What Is Social Inequality?

A man and a woman, both wearing business suits, are shown from behind at the top of an escalator

Sociologists use the term social inequality to describe the unequal distribution of valued resources, rewards, and social positions in a society. Key to the concept are the notions of social differentiation and social stratification . The question for sociologists is: how are systems of stratification formed? What is the basis of systematic social inequality in society?

Social differentiation refers to the social characteristics — social differences, identities, and roles — used to differentiate people and divide them into different categories, such as race, gender, age, class, occupation, and education. These social categories have implications for social inequality. Social differentiation by itself does not necessarily imply a division of individuals into a hierarchy of rank, privilege, and power. However, when a social category like class, occupation, gender, or race puts people in a position where they can claim a greater share of resources or rewards, then social differentiation becomes the basis of social inequality.

The term social stratification refers to an institutionalized system of social inequality. It refers to a situation in which social inequality has solidified into an ongoing system that determines and reinforces who gets what, when, and why. Social differentiation based on different characteristics becomes the basis for social inequality.

Students may remember the word “stratification” from geology class. The distinct horizontal layers found in rock, called “strata,” are a good way to visualize social structure. Society’s layers are made of people, and society’s resources are distributed unevenly throughout the layers. The people with the most resources represent the top layer of the social structure of stratification. Other groups of people, with progressively fewer and fewer resources, represent the lower layers of society. Social stratification assigns people to socio-economic strata based on a process of social differentiation — “these type of people go here, and those type of people go there.” The outcome is differences in wealth, income and power. Again, the question for sociologists is how systems of stratification are formed. What is the basis of systematic social inequality in society?

Equality of Condition and Equality of Opportunity

A rock formation showing various layers is shown.

In Canada, the dominant ideological presumption about social inequality is that everyone has an equal chance at success. This is the belief in equality of opportunity , which can be contrasted with the concept of equality of condition . Equality of opportunity is the idea that everyone has an equal possibility of becoming successful. It exists when people have the same chance to pursue economic or social rewards. This is often seen as a function of equal access to education, meritocracy (where individual merit determines social standing), and formal or informal measures to eliminate social discrimination.

Equality of condition is the situation in which everyone in a society has a similar actual level of wealth, status, and power. Although degrees of equality of condition vary markedly in modern societies, it is clear that even the most egalitarian societies today have considerable degrees of inequality of condition. Ultimately, equality of opportunity means that inequalities of condition are not so great that they greatly hamper a person’s opportunities or life chances. Whether Canada is a society characterized by equality of opportunity, or not, is a subject of considerable sociological debate.

To a certain extent, Ted Rogers’ story illustrates the idea of equality of opportunity. His personal narrative is one in which hard work and talent — not inherent privilege, birthright, prejudicial treatment, or societal values — determined his social rank. This emphasis on individual effort is based on the belief that people individually control where they end up in the social hierarchy, which is a key piece in the idea of equality of opportunity. Most people connect inequalities of wealth, status, and power to the individual characteristics of those who succeed or fail. The story of the Aboriginal gang members, although it is also a story of personal choices, casts that belief into doubt. It is clear that the type of choices available to the Aboriginal gang members are of a different range and quality than those available to the Rogers family. The available choices and opportunities are a product of habitus and location within the system of social stratification .

While there are always inequalities between individuals in terms of talent, skill, drive, chance, and so on, sociologists are interested in larger social patterns. Social inequality is not about individual qualities and differences, but about systematic inequalities based on group membership, class, gender, ethnicity, and other variables that structure access to rewards and status. In other words, sociologists are interested in examining the structural conditions of social inequality. There are of course differences in individuals’ abilities and talents that will affect their life chances. The larger question, however, is how inequality becomes systematically structured in economic, social, and political life. In terms of individual ability: Who gets the opportunities to develop their abilities and talents, and who does not? Where does “ability” or “talent” come from? As Canadians live in a society that emphasizes the individual (individual effort, individual morality, individual choice, individual responsibility, individual talent, etc.) it is often difficult to see the way in which life chances are socially structured.

Wealth, Income, Power and Status

Factors that define the layers of stratification vary in different societies. In most modern societies, stratification is indicated by differences in wealth , the net value of money and assets a person has, and income , a person’s wages, salary, or investment dividends. It can also be defined by differences in power (e.g., how many people a person must take orders from versus how many people a person can give orders to, or how many people are affected by one’s orders) and status (the degree of honour or prestige one has in the eyes of others). These four factors create a complex amalgam that defines an individual’s social standing within a hierarchy.

Usually the four factors coincide, as in the case of corporate CEOs, like Ted Rogers, at the top of the hierarchy — wealthy, powerful, and prestigious — and the Aboriginal offenders at the bottom — poor, powerless, and abject. Sociologists use the term status consistency to describe the consistency of an individual’s rank across these factors.

Students can also think of someone like the Canadian Prime Minister — who ranks high in power, but with a salary of approximately $320,000 — earns much less than comparable executives in the private sector (albeit eight times the average Canadian salary). The Prime Minister’s status or prestige also rises and falls with the fluctuations of politics and public opinion. The Nam-Boyd scale of status, based on education and income, ranks politicians (legislators) at 66/100, the same status as cable TV technicians (Boyd, 2008). There is status inconsistency in the prime minister’s position.

Teachers often have high levels of education, which give them high status (92/100 according to the Nam-Boyd scale), but they receive relatively low pay. Many believe that teaching is a noble profession, so teachers should do their jobs for the love of their profession and the good of their students, not for money. Yet no successful executive or entrepreneur would embrace that attitude in the business world, where profits are valued as a driving force. Cultural attitudes and beliefs like these support and perpetuate social inequalities.

Systems of Stratification

Sociologists distinguish between two types of stratification systems. Closed systems accommodate little change in social position. They do not allow people to shift levels and do not permit social relations between levels. Open systems, which are based on achievement, allow movement and interaction between layers and classes. The different systems also produce and foster different cultural values, like the values of loyalty and traditions versus the values of innovation and individualism. The difference in stratification systems can be examined by the comparison between class systems and caste systems.

The Caste System

Caste systems are closed stratification systems in which people can do little or nothing to change their social standing. A caste system is one in which people are born into their social standing and remain in it their whole lives. It is based on fixed or rigid status distinctions, rather than economic classes per se.

As noted above, status is defined by the level of honour or prestige one receives by virtue of membership in a group. Sociologists make a distinction between ascribed status: a status one receives by virtue of being born into a category or group (e.g., caste, hereditary position, gender, race, ethnicity, etc.), and achieved status: a status one receives through individual effort or merits (e.g., occupation, educational level, moral character, etc.). Caste systems are based on a hierarchy of ascribed statuses, because people are born into fixed caste groups. A person’s occupation and opportunity for education follow from their caste position.

In a caste system, people are assigned roles regardless of their individual talents, interests, or potential. Marriage is endogamous (from endo- ‘within’ and Greek gamos ‘marriage’) which means marriage between castes is forbidden, whereas exogamous marriage is a marriage union between people from different social groups. There are virtually no opportunities to improve one’s social position. Instead, the relationship between castes is bound by institutionalized rules, and highly ritualistic procedures come into play when people from different castes come into contact. People value traditions and often devote considerable time to perfecting the details of ritualistic procedures.

The feudal systems of Europe and Japan can, in some ways, be seen as caste systems in that the statuses of positions in the social stratification systems were fixed, and there was little or no opportunity for movement through marriage or economic opportunities. In Europe, the feudal estate system divided the population into clergy (first estate), nobility (second estate), and commoners (third estate), which included artisans, merchants, and peasants. In early European feudalism, it was still possible for a peasant or a warrior to achieve a high position in the clergy or nobility, but later the divisions became more rigid. In Japan, between 1603 and 1867, the mibunsei system divided society into five rigid strata in which social standing was inherited. At the top was the Emperor, then court nobles ( kuge ), military commander-in-chief ( shogun ), and land-owning lords ( daimyo ). Beneath them were four classes or castes: the military nobility ( samurai ), peasants, craftsmen, and merchants. The merchants were considered the lowest class because they did not produce anything with their own hands. There was also an outcast or untouchable caste known as the burakumin, who were considered impure or defiled because of their association with death: executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, tanners, and butchers (Kerbo, 2006).

The caste system in India from 4,000 years ago until the 20th century probably best typifies the system of stratification. In the Hindu caste tradition, people were expected to work in the occupation of their caste and enter into marriage according to their caste. Originally there were four castes: Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (military), Vaisyas (merchants), and Sudras (artisans, farmers). There were also the Dalits or Harijans (“untouchables”). Hindu scripture said, “In order to preserve the universe, Brahma (the Supreme) caused the Brahmin to proceed from his mouth, the Kshatriya to proceed from his arm, the Vaishya to proceed from his thigh, and the Shudra to proceed from his foot” (Kashmeri, 1990).

Accepting this social standing was considered a moral duty. Cultural values and economic restrictions reinforced the system. Caste systems promote beliefs in fate, destiny, and the will of a higher power, rather than promoting individual freedom as a value. A person who lives in a caste society is socialized to accept their social standing, and this is reinforced by the society’s dominant norms and values.

Although the caste system in India has been officially dismantled, its residual presence in Indian society is deeply embedded. In rural areas, aspects of the tradition are more likely to remain, while urban centres show less evidence of this past. In India’s larger cities, people now have opportunities to choose their own career paths and marriage partners. As a global centre of employment, corporations have introduced merit-based hiring and employment to the nation. The caste system has been largely replaced by a class system of structured inequality. Nevertheless, Dalits continue to experience violence and discrimination in hiring or obtaining business loans (Jodhka, 2018).

The Class System

A class system is based on both socio-economic factors and individual achievement. It is at least a partially open system. A class consists of a set of people who have the same relationship to the means of production or productive property — that is, to the things used to produce the goods and services needed for survival, such as tools, technologies, resources, land, workplaces, etc. In Karl Marx’s (1848) analysis, class systems form around the institution of private property, dividing those who own or control productive property from those who do not, who survive on the basis of selling their labour. In capitalist societies, for example, the dominant classes are the capitalist class and the working class.

In a class system, social inequality is structural , meaning it is built into the organization of the economy. The relationship to the means of production (i.e., ownership/non-ownership) defines a persistent, objective pattern of social relationships that exists independently of individuals’ personal or voluntary choices and motives.

Unlike caste systems, however, class systems are open in the sense that individuals are able to change class position. Individuals are at least formally free to gain a different level of education or occupation than their parents. They can move up and down within the stratification system. They can also socialize with and marry members of other classes, allowing people to move from one class to another. In other words, individuals can move up and down the class hierarchy, even while the class categories and the class hierarchy itself remain relatively stable. It is not impossible for individuals to pass back and forth between classes through social mobility , but the class structure itself remains intact, structuring people’s lives, privileges, wealth, and social possibilities.

In a class system, one’s occupation is not fixed at birth. Though family background tends to predict where one ends up in the stratification system, personal factors play a role. For example, Ted Rogers Jr. chose a career in media like his father but managed to move upward from a position of modest wealth and privilege in the petite bourgeoisie, to being the fifth-wealthiest bourgeois in the country. On the other hand, his father Ted Sr. chose a career in radio based on individual interests that differed from his own father’s. Ted Sr.’s father, Albert Rogers, held a position as a director of Imperial Oil. Ted Sr. therefore moved downward from the class of the bourgeoisie to the class of the petite bourgeoisie.

Making Connections: Case Study

The commoner who could be queen.

On April 29, 2011, in London, England, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, married Catherine (“Kate”) Middleton, a commoner. Throughout its history, it has been rare, though not unheard of, for a member of the British royal family to marry a commoner. Kate Middleton had an upper-middle-class upbringing. Her father was a former flight dispatcher, and her mother was a former flight attendant. The family then formed a lucrative mail order business for party accessories. William was the elder son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales. Kate and William met when they were both students at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland (Köhler, 2010).

The rules regarding the marriage of royals trace their history to Britain’s formal feudal monarchy, which arose with William of Normandy’s conquest in 1066. Feudal social hierarchy was originally based on landholding. The monarch’s family (royalty) was at the top, vassals, nobles and knights (landholders) below the king, and commoners or serfs on the bottom. This was generally a closed system, with people born into positions of nobility or serfdom. Wealth was passed from generation to generation through primogeniture , a law stating that all property was to be inherited by the firstborn son. If the family had no son, the land went to the next closest male relation. Women could not inherit property, and their social standing was primarily determined through marriage. From the late feudal era onward, a royal marrying a commoner was a scandal. In 1937, the British parliament obliged Edward VIII to abdicate his succession to King of the United Kingdom, so he could marry the American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. Not only was she a commoner, but she was also divorced , which contradicted the Church of England doctrine.

The rise of capitalism changed Britain’s class structure. The feudal commoner class generated both the new dominant class of the bourgeoisie or capitalists and the new subordinate class of the proletariat or wage labourers. The aristocracy and the royals continued as a class through their wealth and property, but their position in society became increasingly based on status and tradition alone. Today, the British government is a constitutional monarchy, with the prime minister and other ministers elected to their positions. The royal family’s role is largely ceremonial. The historical differences between nobility and commoners have blurred, and the modern class system in Britain is similar to Canada. Since Edward VIII’s abdication in 1937, Queen Elizabeth II’s sister and several of her children and grandchildren have married commoners.

Today, the royal family still commands wealth, power, and a great deal of attention. In 2017, Forbes estimated the total wealth of the royal family to be $88 billion (Rodriguez, 2017). Since Queen Elizabeth II passed away in September 2022, Prince Charles has ascended the throne as king. His wife Camille Parker-Bowles, also a commoner and divorcée, is expected to become “Princess Consort.” If Charles had abdicated (chosen not to become king) or died, the position would go to Prince William. If that happened, Kate Middleton would be called Queen Catherine and hold the position of Queen Consort. She would be one of the few queens in history to have earned a university degree (Marquand, 2011). Of note here is, of course, Prince Harry, who married the commoner and divorcée Meghan Markle. Prince Harry is currently 6th in line for the British throne, after Prince William’s children. If she succeeded to Queen Consort, Meghan Markle would be the first queen with African heritage.

Initially there was a great deal of social pressure on Kate Middleton not only to behave as a royal, but to bear children. The royal family recently changed its succession laws to allow daughters, not just sons, to ascend the throne. Her firstborn son, Prince George, was born on July 22, 2013, so the new succession law is not likely to be tested in the near future. However, behind George is Princess Charlotte (b. 2015) and Prince Louis (b. 2018). Kate’s experience — from commoner to possible queen — demonstrates the fluidity of social class position in modern society.

Social Class

Social class is both obvious and not so obvious in Canadian society. It is based on subjective impressions, outward symbols, and less visible structural determinants. Can one tell a person’s education level based on clothing? Is opening an $80 bottle of wine for dinner normal, an exceptional occasion, or an insane waste of money? Can one guess a person’s income by the car they drive? There was a time in Canada when people’s class was more visibly apparent. In some countries, like the United Kingdom, class differences can still be gauged by differences in schooling, lifestyle, and even accent. In Canada, however, it is harder to determine class from outward appearances.

For sociologists, too, categorizing class is a fluid science. One debate in the discipline is between Marxist and Weberian approaches to social class (Abercrombie & Urry, 1983).

Marx’s analysis emphasizes a historical materialist approach to the underlying structures of the capitalist economy. Classes are historical formations that distribute people into categories based on the organization and structure of the economy. Marx’s definition of social class rests essentially on one materialist variable: a group’s relation to the means of production (ownership or non-ownership of productive property or capital). Therefore, in Marxist class analysis, there are two dominant classes in capitalism — the working class and the owning class — and any divisions within the classes based on occupation, status, education, etc. are less important than the tendency toward increasing separation and polarization of these two classes.

Marx referred to these two classes as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat . The capitalist class (bourgeoisie) lives from the proceeds of owning or controlling productive property (capital assets like factories, technology, software platforms or machinery, or capital itself in the form of investments, stocks, and bonds). The working class (proletariat) live from selling their labour to the capitalists for a wage or salary. Their interests are in conflict, as higher profits depend on lower wages, which accounts for the characteristic power dynamics, conflicts, instabilities and periodic crises of capitalist societies.

In addition, he described the classes of the petite bourgeoisie (the little bourgeoisie) and the lumpenproletariat (the sub-proletariat). The petite bourgeoisie are those like small business owners, farmers, and contractors who own some property and perhaps employ a few workers, but still rely on their own labour to survive. The lumpenproletariat are the chronically unemployed or irregularly employed, who are in and out of the workforce. They are what Marx referred to as the “reserve army of labour,” a pool of potential labourers who are surplus to the needs of production at any particular time.

Weber defined social class slightly differently, as the life chances one shares in common with others by virtue of possession of property, goods, skills or opportunities for income (1969). Life chances refer to the ability or probability of an individual to act on opportunities and attain a certain standard of living. Owning property or capital, or not owning property or capital, is still the basic variable that defines a person’s class situation or life chances. However, class position is defined with respect to markets rather than the process of production . It is the value of one’s capital, products or skills in the commodity or labour markets at any particular time that determines whether one has greater or fewer life chances.

This yields a model of class hierarchy based on multiple gradations of socio-economic status, instead of a division between two principle classes. Analyses of class inspired by Weber tend to emphasize gradations of status relating to several variables like wealth, income, education, and occupation. Class stratification is not just determined by a group’s economic position, but by the prestige of the group’s occupation, education level, consumption, and lifestyle. It is a matter of status — the level of honour or prestige one holds in the community by virtue of one’s social position — as much as a matter of class.

Based on the Weberian approach, some sociologists talk about upper, middle, and lower classes (with many subcategories within them) in a way that mixes status categories with class categories. These gradations are often referred to as a group’s socio-economic status ( SES ): their social position relative to others based on income, education, and prestige of occupation . For example, although plumbers might earn more than high school teachers and have greater “life chances” in a particular economy, the status division between blue-collar work (people who “work with their hands”) and white-collar work (people who “work with their minds”) means the plumbers might be characterized as lower class but teachers as middle class.

There is a randomness in the division of classes into upper, middle, and lower in the Weberian model. However, this manner of classification based on status distinctions captures something about the subjective experience of class and the shared lifestyle and consumption patterns of class that Marx’s categories often do not. An NHL hockey player receiving a salary of $6 million a year is a member of the working class, strictly speaking. He might even go on strike or get locked out according to the dynamic of capital and labour conflict described by Marx. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see what the life chances of the hockey player have in common with a landscaper or receptionist, despite the fact that they might share a common working-class background.

Class: Materialist and Interpretive Factors

Social class is a complex category to analyze. It has both a strictly materialist quality relating to a group’s structural position within the economic system, and an interpretive quality relating to the formation of status gradations, common subjective perceptions of class, differences of power in society, and class-based lifestyles and consumption patterns. Considering both the Marxist and Weberian models, social class has at least three objective components: a group’s position in the occupational structure (i.e., the status and salary of one’s job), a group’s position in the power structure (i.e., who has authority over whom), and a group’s position in the property structure (i.e., ownership or non-ownership of capital). It also has an important subjective component that relates to recognitions of status, distinctions of lifestyle, and ultimately how people perceive their place in the class hierarchy.

Making Connections: Classic Sociologists

Marx and weber on social class: how do they differ.

Often, Marx and Weber are perceived as at odds in their approaches to class and social inequality, but it is perhaps better to see them as articulating different styles of analysis.

Weber’s analysis presents a more complex model of the social hierarchy of capitalist society than Marx. Weber’s model goes beyond the economic structural class position to include the variables of status (degree of social prestige or honour) and power (degree of political influence). Thus, Weber provides a multi-dimensional model of social hierarchy. As a result, although individuals might be from the same objective class, their position in the social hierarchy might differ according to their status and political influence. For example, women and men might be equal in terms of their class position, but because of the inequality in the status of the genders within each class, women (as a group) remain lower in the social hierarchy.

With respect to class specifically, Weber also relies on a different definition than Marx. As noted above, Weber (1969) defines class as the “life chances” one shares in common with others by virtue of one’s possession of goods or opportunities for income. Class is defined with respect to markets, rather than the process of production. As in Marx’s analysis, the economic position that stems from owning property and capital, or not owning property and capital, is still the basic variable that defines one’s class situation or life chances. However, as the value of different types of capital or property (e.g., industrial, real estate, financial, etc.), or the value of different types of opportunity for income (i.e., different types of marketable skills), varies according to changes in the commodity or labour markets, Weber can provide a more nuanced description of an individual’s class position than Marx. A skilled tradesman like a pipe welder might enjoy a higher class position and greater life chances in Northern Alberta where such skills are in demand, than a high school teacher in Vancouver or Victoria where the number of qualified teachers exceeds the number of positions available. If one adds the element of status into the picture, the situation becomes even more complex, as the educational requirements and social responsibilities of the high school teacher usually confer more social prestige than the requirements and responsibilities of the pipe welder.

Nevertheless, Weber’s analysis is descriptive rather than analytical . It can provide a useful description of differences between the levels or “strata” in a social hierarchy or stratification system but does not provide an analysis of the formation of classes themselves.

On the other hand, Marx’s analysis of class is essentially one-dimensional. It has one variable: the relationship to the means of production. If one is a professional hockey player, a doctor in a hospital, or a clerk in a supermarket, one works for a wage and is therefore a member of the working class. In this regard, his analysis challenges common sense, as the difference between these different “fragments” of the working class seems paramount — at least from the point of view of the subjective experience of class. It would seem that hockey players, doctors, lawyers, professors, and business executives have very little in common with grocery clerks, factory or agricultural workers, tradespeople, or low level administrative staff, despite the fact that they all depend on being paid wages by someone.

However, the key point of Marx’s analysis is not to ignore the existence of status distinctions within classes, but to examine class structure dialectically in order to provide a more comprehensive and historical picture of class dynamics.

The four components of dialectical analysis were described in Chapter 1. An Introduction to Sociology : (1) Everything in society is related; (2) everything is caught up in a process of change; (3) change proceeds from the quantitative to the qualitative; and (4) change is the product of oppositions and struggles in society. These dialectical qualities are also central to Marx’s account of the hierarchical structure of classes in capitalist society.

With regard to the first point — everything in society is related — the main point of the dialectical analysis of class is that the working class and the owning class have to be understood in a structural relationship to one another. They emerged together out of the old class structure of feudalism. More significantly for Marx, each exists only because the other exists. The wages that define the wage labourer are paid by the capitalist; the profit and capital accumulated by the capitalist are products of the workers’ labour.

In Marx’s dialectical model, “everything is caught up in a process of change” occurs because the system is characterized by the struggle of opposites. The classes are structurally in conflict because the contradiction in their class interests is built into the economic system. The bourgeoisie as a class is defined by the economic drive to accumulate capital and increase profit. The key means to achieve this in a competitive marketplace is by reducing the cost of production by lowering the cost of labour (by reducing wages, moving production to lower wage areas, or replacing workers with labour-saving technologies). This conflicts with the interests of the proletariat who seek to establish a sustainable standard of living by maintaining their level of wages and employment in society. While individual capitalists and individual workers might not see it this way, structurally, their class interests clash and define a persistent pattern of management-labour conflict and political cleavage in modern, capitalist societies.

So, from the dialectical model, Marx can predict that the composition of classes changes over time: the statuses of different occupations vary, the proportions between workers’ income and capitalists’ profit change, and the types of production and the means of production change (through the introduction of labour-saving technologies, globalization, new products and consumption patterns, etc.). In addition, change proceeds from the quantitative to the qualitative, in the sense that the multiplicity of changes in purely quantitative variables like salary, working conditions, unemployment levels, rates of profitability, product sales, supply and demand, etc., lead to changes in qualitative variables like the subjective experience of inequality and injustice, the political divisions of “left” and “right,” the formation of class-consciousness, and eventually change in the entire economic system through new models of capital accumulation or even revolution.

The strength of Marx’s analysis is its ability to go beyond a description of where different groups fit within the class structure at a given moment in time to an analysis of why those groups and their relative positions change with respect to one another. The dialectical approach reveals the underlying logic of class structure as a dynamic system, and the potential commonality of interests and subjective experiences that define class-consciousness. As a result, in an era in which the precariousness of many high status “middle class” jobs has become clearer, the divisions of economic and political interests between the different segments of the working class becomes less so.

Media Attributions

Figure 9.3 Office Politics: A Rise to the Top by Alex Proimos, via Flickr, is used under a CC BY-NC 2.0 licence.
Figure 9.4 Strata in the Badlands by Just a Prairie Boy, via Flickr, is used under a CC BY 2.0 licence.
Figure 9.5 Fort Mason Neighborhood by Orin Zebest, via Flickr, is used under a CC BY 2.0 licence.
Figure 9.6 Woman, construction, worker, temple, india, manual, poor, labourer, labour , via PxHere, is used under a CC0 Public Domain licence.
Figure 9.7 Royal wedding Kate & William by Gerard Stolk, via Flickr, is used under a CC BY-NC 2.0 licence.
Figure 9.8 Item B-03624 – Group of Nanaimo coal miners at the pithead by unknown photographer, [ca. 1870] (Creation) via the Royal BC Museum/ British Columbia Archives Collection (Item B-03624), is in the public domain .
Figure 9.9 James and Laura Dunsmuir in Italian Garden at Hatley Park, by unknown photographer, 1912-1920 (Creation), courtesy of Craigdarroch Castle Society, is in the public domain .
Figure 9.10 File:MAX WEBER.jpg by Power Renegadas, via Wikimedia Commons, is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Figure 9.11 Karl Marx by John Mayall, via Wikimedia Commons, is in the public domain .

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The Sociology of Social Inequality

Key Concepts
Major Sociologists
News & Issues
Research, Samples, and Statistics
Recommended Reading
Archaeology

Social inequality results from a society organized by hierarchies of class, race, and gender that unequally distributes access to resources and rights.

It can manifest in a variety of ways, like income and wealth inequality, unequal access to education and cultural resources, and differential treatment by the police and judicial system, among others. Social inequality goes hand in hand with social stratification .

Social inequality is characterized by the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society. It contains structured and recurrent patterns of unequal distributions of goods, wealth, opportunities, rewards, and punishments.

Racism , for example, is understood to be a phenomenon whereby access to rights and resources is unfairly distributed across racial lines. In the context of the United States, people of color typically experience racism, which benefits white people by conferring on them white privilege , which allows them greater access to rights and resources than other Americans.

There are two main ways to measure social inequality:

Inequality of conditions
Inequality of opportunities

Inequality of conditions refers to the unequal distribution of income, wealth, and material goods. Housing, for example, is inequality of conditions with the homeless and those living in housing projects sitting at the bottom of the hierarchy while those living in multi-million dollar mansions sit at the top.

Another example is at the level of whole communities, where some are poor, unstable, and plagued by violence, while others are invested in by businesses and government so that they thrive and provide safe, secure, and happy conditions for their inhabitants.

Inequality of opportunities refers to the unequal distribution of life chances across individuals. This is reflected in measures such as level of education, health status, and treatment by the criminal justice system.

For example, studies have shown that college and university professors are more likely to ignore emails from women and people of color than they are to ignore those from white men, which privileges the educational outcomes of white men by channeling a biased amount of mentoring and educational resources to them.

Discrimination of an individual, community, and institutional levels is a major part of the process of reproducing social inequalities of race, class, gender , and sexuality. For example, women are systematically paid less than men for doing the same work.

2 Main Theories

There are two main views of social inequality within sociology. One view aligns with the functionalist theory, and the other aligns with conflict theory.

Functionalist theorists believe that inequality is inevitable and desirable and plays an important function in society. Important positions in society require more training and thus should receive more rewards. Social inequality and social stratification, according to this view, lead to a meritocracy based on ability.
Conflict theorists, on the other hand, view inequality as resulting from groups with power dominating less powerful groups. They believe that social inequality prevents and hinders societal progress as those in power repress the powerless people to maintain the status quo. In today's world, this work of domination is achieved primarily through the power of ideology, our thoughts, values, beliefs, worldviews, norms, and expectations, through a process known as cultural hegemony .

How It's Studied

Sociologically, social inequality can be studied as a social problem that encompasses three dimensions: structural conditions, ideological supports, and social reforms.

Structural conditions include things that can be objectively measured and that contribute to social inequality. Sociologists study how things like educational attainment, wealth, poverty, occupations, and power lead to social inequality between individuals and groups of people.

Ideological supports include ideas and assumptions that support the social inequality present in a society. Sociologists examine how things such as formal laws, public policies, and dominant values both lead to social inequality, and help sustain it. For example, consider this discussion of the role that words and the ideas attached to them play in this process.

Social reforms are things such as organized resistance, protest groups, and social movements. Sociologists study how these social reforms help shape or change social inequality that exists in a society, as well as their origins, impact, and long-term effects.

Today, social media plays a large role in social reform campaigns and was harnessed in 2014 by British actress Emma Watson , on behalf of the United Nations, to launch a campaign for gender equality called #HeForShe.

Milkman, Katherine L., et al. “ What Happens before? A Field Experiment Exploring How Pay and Representation Differentially Shape Bias on the Pathway into Organizations. ” Journal of Applied Psychology , vol. 100, no. 6, 2015, pp. 1678–1712., 2015, doi:10.1037/apl0000022

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What Is Social Stratification, and Why Does It Matter?
Introduction to Sociology
Understanding Socialization in Sociology
Sociology of Work and Industry
All About Marxist Sociology
The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Definition of Aggregate and Social Aggregate
How to Tell If You've Been Unintentionally Racist
Definition of Cultural Materialism
African Americans in the Progressive Era
What You Need to Know About Economic Inequality
Biography of Patricia Hill Collins, Esteemed Sociologist
What is a Norm? Why Does it Matter?
The Challenges of Ethical Living in a Consumer Society
Resource Distribution and its Consequences
The Sociology of Education

Social inequalities: theories, concepts and problematics

Published: 17 May 2021
Volume 1 , article number 116 , ( 2021 )

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Renato Miguel Carmo ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0052-4387 1

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This article aims to present a concise perusal of the different approaches developed in the study of social inequalities and in the relationships that they establish with manifold social processes and problems. The text does not intend to be exhaustive from the theoretical point of view, but rather to present an overview of the analytical complexity of the inequalities systems and demonstrate that they should be tackled in a multidimensional, systemic and multiscale perspective.

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Commentary on “From unidimensional to multidimensional inequality: a review”

Barry C. Arnold

By Way of Summary: Substantive Contributions and Public Policies for Dealing with Social Inequalities

Socio-Economic Inequalities: A Statistical Physics Perspective

Data availability.

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

The most recent configuration of the ACM typology is composed of the following class categories: “ Employers and executives are employers or directors at private companies or in the public administration. They may be recruited from any of the groups in the occupational structure. Private Professionals are self-employed and very qualified in certain specialised professions, such as lawyers, architects, and so on. Professionals and managers are employees in upper or mid-level intellectual, scientific and technical jobs. They are different from the previous category essentially because they are not self-employed. Self-employed workers work on their own account without employees in administrative or similar occupations in services and commerce. They include craftsmen and similar workers, farmers and qualified workers in agriculture and fishery. Routine employees are administrative and similar personnel, service employees and salespeople. Industrial workers are manual workers employed in less qualified occupations in construction, industry, transports, agriculture and fishery (Carmo and Nunes 2013 , p. 378).

This section is based on Carmo ( 2014 , pp. 134–138).

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Acknowledgements

This work was developed within the project EmployALL—The employment crisis and the Welfare State in Portugal: deterring drivers of social vulnerability and inequality, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (PTDC/SOC-SOC/30543/2017).

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Carmo, R.M. Social inequalities: theories, concepts and problematics. SN Soc Sci 1 , 116 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00134-5

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Published : 17 May 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00134-5

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10.3: Social Stratification, Social Inequality, and Global Stratification

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Learning ObjectiveS

Describe social stratification and social inequality
Explain global stratification

Social Stratification

Social stratification is a system of ranking individuals and groups within societies. It refers to a society’s ranking of its people into socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power. You may remember the word “stratification” from geology class. The distinct horizontal layers found in rock, called “strata,” are an illustrative way to visualize social structure. Society’s layers are made of people, and society’s resources are distributed unevenly throughout the layers. Social stratification has been a part of all societies dating from the agricultural revolution, which took place in various parts of the world between 7,000-10,000 BCE. Unlike relatively even strata in rock, though, there are not equal numbers of people in each layer of society. There are typically very few at the top and a great many at the bottom, with some variously populated layers in the middle.

Social Inequality

Social inequality is the state of unequal distribution of valued goods and opportunities. All societies today have social inequality. Examining social stratification requires a macrosociological perspective in order to view societal systems that make inequalities visible. Although individuals may support or fight inequalities, social stratification is created and supported by society as a whole through values and norms and consistently durable systems of stratification.

Most of us are accustomed to thinking of stratification as economic inequality. For example, we can compare wages in the United States to wages in Mexico. Social inequality, however, is just as harmful as economic discrepancy. Prejudice and discrimination—whether against a certain race, ethnicity, religion, or the like—can become a causal factor by creating and aggravating conditions of economic inequality, both within and between nations.

Gender inequality is another global concern. Consider the controversy surrounding female circumcision (also known as female genital mutilation or FGM). Nations favoring this practice, often through systems of patriarchal authority, defend it as a longstanding cultural tradition among certain tribes and argue that the West shouldn’t interfere. Western nations, however, decry the practice and are working to expose and stop it.

Inequalities based on sexual orientation and gender identity exist around the globe. According to Amnesty International, a range of crimes are commonly committed against individuals who do not conform to traditional gender roles or sexual orientations (however those are culturally defined). From culturally sanctioned rape to state-sanctioned executions, the abuses are serious. These legalized and culturally accepted forms of prejudice, discrimination, and punishment exist everywhere—from the United States to Somalia to Tibet—restricting the freedom of individuals and often putting their lives at risk (Amnesty International 2012).

Watch the selected first few minutes of this video to learn about stratification in general terms. You’ll learn some key principles regarding social stratification, namely that:

Stratification is universal, but varies between societies;
It is a characteristic of society and not a matter of individual differences; in other words, we need to use the sociological imagination to understand social stratification and see it as a social issue and not just an individual problem;
It persists across generations, although it often allows for some degree of social mobility;
Stratification continues because of beliefs and attitudes about social stratification

An interactive or media element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://pb.libretexts.org/its/?p=256

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...essments/13371

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...essments/13372

Thinking Deeply about Inequality

How do you think wealth should best be distributed in the United States? Check out this interactive animation on economic inequality from the Economic Policy Institute .

Link to Learning

Imagine that the United States is divided into quintiles (bottom 20%, second 20%, middle 20%, fourth 20%, and top 20%).

How do you think wealth is distributed in the United States? What percentage would you attribute to each quintile?
What do you think is the ideal distribution?

Now watch the video “Wealth Inequality in America” and compare your responses to the actual distribution of wealth. Keep in mind that these numbers are from 2012, but the rates of inequality have not improved since then.

Global Stratification

Figure (a) shows a grass hut. Figure (b) is of a mobile home park.

While stratification in the United States refers to the unequal distribution of resources among individuals, global stratification refers to this unequal distribution among nations. There are two dimensions to this stratification: gaps between nations and gaps within nations. When it comes to global inequality, both economic inequality and social inequality may concentrate the burden of poverty among certain segments of the earth’s population (Myrdal 1970). As the chart below illustrates, people’s life expectancy depends heavily on where they happen to be born.

Global stratification compares the wealth, economic stability, status, and power of countries across the world, and also highlights worldwide patterns of social inequality within nations.

In the early years of civilization, hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies lived off the earth and rarely interacted with other societies (except during times of war). As civilizations began to grow and emerging cities developed political and economic systems, trade increased, as did military conquest. Explorers went out in search of new land and resources as well as to trade goods, ideas, and customs. They eventually took land, people, and resources from all over the world, building empires and establishing networks of colonies with imperialist policies, foundational religious ideologies, and incredible economic and military power.

In the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution created unprecedented wealth in Western Europe and North America. Due to mechanical inventions and new means of production, people began working in factories—not only men, but women and children as well. The Industrial Revolution also saw the rise of vast inequalities between countries that were industrialized and those that were not. As some nations embraced technology and saw increased wealth and goods, others maintained their ways; as the gap widened, the non-industrialized nations fell further behind. Some social researchers, such as Walt Rostow, suggest that the disparity also resulted from power differences. Applying a conflict theory perspective, he asserts that industrializing nations appropriated and took advantage of the resources of traditional nations. As industrialized nations became rich, other nations became poor (Rostow 1960).

Sociologists studying global stratification analyze economic comparisons between nations. Income, purchasing power, and investment and ownership-based wealth are used to calculate global stratification. Global stratification also compares the quality of life that individual citizens and groups within a country’s population can have.

Poverty levels have been shown to vary greatly. The poor in wealthy countries like the United States or Europe are much better off than the poor in less-industrialized countries such as Mali or India. In 2002, the UN implemented the Millennium Project, an attempt to cut poverty worldwide by the year 2015. To reach the project’s goal, planners in 2006 estimated that industrialized nations must set aside 0.7 percent of their gross national income—the total value of the nation’s good and service, plus or minus income received from and sent to other nations—to aid in developing countries (Landler and Sanger, 2009; Millennium Project 2006).

Although some successes have been realized from the Millennium Project , such as cutting the extreme global poverty rate in half, the United Nations has now moved ahead with their program of economic growth and sustainable development in their new project, Sustainable Development Goals , adopted in September of 2015.

Watch this video to get a good understanding of how inequality looks around the world.

Think It Over

The wealthiest 300 individuals in the world have more wealth than the poorest 3 billion individuals. Does this surprise you? Why or why not?
Why has the wealth gap between the wealthiest countries and the poorest countries grown larger? How is this different from dominant narratives in the media?
What changes could be made to reduce global stratification and inequality?

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...essments/13373

Modification, adaptation, and original content. Authored by : Sarah Hoiland and Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
What Is Social Stratification?. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:LYDnfp5S@3/What-Is-Social-Stratification . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]
Global Stratification and Classification. Provided by : OpenStax College. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:7TCPamHd@3/Global-Stratification-and-Classification . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected] .
Global Wealth Inequality. Authored by : TheRulesOrg. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
Social Stratification: Crash Course Sociology #21. Provided by : CrashCourse. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlkIKCMt-Fs . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

Module 7: Stratification and Inequality

Social stratification, social inequality, and global stratification, learning objectives.

Describe social stratification and social inequality
Explain global stratification

Social Stratification

Figure 1. Strata in rock illustrate social stratification. People are sorted, or layered, into social categories. Many factors determine a person’s social standing, such as income, education, occupation, geography, as well as age, race, gender, and even physical abilities. (Photo courtesy of Just a Prairie Boy/flickr)

Social Inequality

Watch the selected first few minutes of this video to learn about stratification in general terms. You’ll learn some key principles regarding social stratification, namely that:

Stratification is universal, but varies between societies;
It is a characteristic of society and not a matter of individual differences; in other words, we need to use the sociological imagination to understand social stratification and see it as a social issue and not just an individual problem;
It persists across generations, although it often allows for some degree of social mobility;
Stratification continues because of beliefs and attitudes about social stratification

Thinking Deeply about Inequality

How do you think wealth should best be distributed in the United States? Check out this interactive animation on economic inequality from the Economic Policy Institute .

Link to Learning

Imagine that the United States is divided into quintiles (bottom 20%, second 20%, middle 20%, fourth 20%, and top 20%).

How do you think wealth is distributed in the United States? What percentage would you attribute to each quintile?
What do you think is the ideal distribution?

Global Stratification

Figure 2. (a) A family lives in this grass hut in Ethiopia. (b) Another family lives in a single-wide trailer in a trailer park in the United States. Both families are considered poor, or lower class. With such differences in global stratification, what constitutes poverty? (Photo (a) courtesy of Canned Muffins/flickr; Photo (b) courtesy of Herb Neufeld/flickr)

As mentioned earlier, one way to evaluate stratification is to consider how many people are living in poverty, and particularly extreme poverty, which is often defined as needing to survive on less than $1.90 per day. Fortunately, until the COVID-19 pandemic impacted economies in 2020, the extreme poverty rate had been on a 20-year decline. In 2015, 10.1 percent of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty; in 2017, that number had dropped an entire percentage point to 9.2 percent. While a positive, that 9.2 percent is equivalent to 689 million people living on less than $1.90 a day. The same year, 24.1 percent of the world lived on less than $3.20 per day and 43.6 percent on less than $5.50 per day in 2017 (World Bank 2020). The table below makes the differences in poverty very clear.

Global stratification compares the wealth, economic stability, status, and power of countries across the world, and also highlights worldwide patterns of social inequality within nations.

Think It Over

The wealthiest 300 individuals in the world have more wealth than the poorest 3 billion individuals. Does this surprise you? Why or why not?
Why has the wealth gap between the wealthiest countries and the poorest countries grown larger? How is this different from dominant narratives in the media?
What changes could be made to reduce global stratification and inequality?

Contribute!

Improve this page Learn More

Modification, adaptation, and original content. Authored by : Sarah Hoiland and Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
What Is Social Stratification?. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:LYDnfp5S@3/What-Is-Social-Stratification . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]
Global Stratification and Classification. Provided by : OpenStax College. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:7TCPamHd@3/Global-Stratification-and-Classification . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected].
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Global Wealth Inequality. Authored by : TheRulesOrg. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
Social Stratification: Crash Course Sociology #21. Provided by : CrashCourse. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlkIKCMt-Fs . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

How can the world address inequality? 7 experts explain

Leave no one behind. Image: Priscilla Du Preez/Unsplash

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Listen to the article

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities.
Mitigating inequality requires a mix of bottom-up and top-down changes that address the underlying social and economic systems.
Seven experts shine a light on creating a future that leaves no one behind.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities within and across countries. The policy responses designed to mitigate them in the form of either relief and recovery packages or welfare protections have mostly proved to be short-term fixes. In the long-term, however, the distributional consequences of the pandemic between and within countries, as in during previous pandemics and recessions, are bound to widen inequality.

According to the World Inequality Database 2020 update, Latin America and the Middle East stand as the world’s most unequal regions, with the top 10% of the income distribution capturing 54% and 56% of the average national income respectively. Despite Gulf countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia) having among the highest GDP per capita levels, they have also marked extreme inequality levels, with little variation since the 1990s. However, the starkest change has been the rise in concentration of incomes in the US, with the top 10% witnessing an increase from 34% to 45% of the national income between 1980 and 2019.

The data are an indicator that countries with strong investments in public services, social protection, and labour market policies have the lowest inequality levels, with Europe standing as the most equal of all regions driven by its redistribution and progressive taxation, seen in the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index .

Have you read?

How covid deepened gender inequality - this week's radio davos podcast, 5 shocking facts about inequality, according to oxfam’s latest report, imf head: how governments can prevent widening inequality.

Looking at global inequality beyond purely from an income distribution lens, it is critical to take into consideration multidimensional factors such as social mobility, gender equality, livelihood infrastructure, technology access, the voice of civil society, privacy, social and environmental protections, progressive tax laws and labour rights when examining the how societies perform on reducing inequality and serving public interest.

The COVID crisis has forced us to reimagine our shared futures as the world attempts to rebuild. From proposals relating to basic income and collecting the tax deficit to the more emerging debate on inheritance for all , the asymmetric impact of the pandemic and divergent recovery beckon a universal call for us to build back broader .

Mitigating inequality will now demand a mix of bottom-up and top-down changes that recognize the social and economic systems aggravating inequality are a matter of choice. Where do we go from here?

We asked seven global experts from the World Economic Forum Expert Network to provide their perspective on how we can build a better future where we leave no one behind. Here’s what they said.

‘It is particularly crucial to increase the minimum wage'

Tak Niinami, Chief Executive Officer, Suntory Holdings and Senior Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan

The pandemic has made it apparent that Japan also faces the issue of inequality. A widening in the gap must be prevented by all means as it would bring social unrest and social divide. In the short-term, given Japan’s comparatively low wages, it is particularly crucial to increase the minimum wage and thoroughly implement an “equal pay for equal work” policy to bridge the gap between regular and non-regular workers.

The acceleration of redistribution of wealth is also imperative. Taxation on assets and capital gains should be increased so that this resource can be utilized to fund NPOs (nonprofit organizations) that can take measures against issues such as poverty and isolation.

Furthermore, in the long-term, I believe education is key in mitigating inequality. The widening education gap can spill over from generation to generation, creating a chain effect that must be avoided. Technology can prove to be a solution if it can be applied to ensure equal opportunities, enabling high-quality education to anyone and anywhere, no matter where you live.

‘ Well-funded and quality universal healthcare must be the legacy of the pandemic ’

Deepak Xavier, Head of Inequality Advocacy and Campaigns, Oxfam International

The world risks the greatest rise of inequality since records began , and today it is inequality that perpetuates COVID-19, which is ending so many lives. The grotesque inequality in accessing healthcare is proving fatal. To be without a hospital bed or medical oxygen in the face of a pandemic is frightening enough. However, for most of the world that has long been the case. Pre-pandemic 10,000 people were dying daily due to lack of access to healthcare.

Progress on universal healthcare is achievable – as countries such as Costa Rica have shown . Implementing a fair and progressive tax system to avoid concentration of wealth to the top 10% is one way to provide a fiscal boost. A 0.5% extra tax on the wealth of the richest 1% alone could raise $418bn each year which could be redistributed towards resilient healthcare systems. Issuing US$1 trillion of IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) global reserve asset would dramatically increase the funds available to countries – for example, the Ethiopian government will have access to an additional $630 million — enough to increase its health spending by 45%.

Well-funded and quality universal healthcare must be the legacy of the pandemic: to save lives and better tackle future pandemics.

'Support our people outside of the "nine to five".'

Leslie Parker, Partner and Member of the Board of Directors, Kearney

It used to be that there was very little crossover between our work and personal lives. Since COVID, that has changed. The new work-from-home model has given us intimate access to our colleagues’ personal lives – and surfaced a whole new set of inequalities.

We see family members juggling caring responsibilities with the demands of their jobs. We see people who live alone, who might not physically encounter another human being that week. We see housemates sitting three to a table, trying to work at the same time. And we see laptops propped on kitchen counters, stacks of boxes and pairs of knees, as people search for an elusive quiet space or change of scenery.

The ability to work from home is an incredibly privileged position for many. But with working patterns and norms changed beyond all recognition, we need policies that take on these and other new inequalities – including lack of choice over working location – into account. It’s not enough to dish out some grants for home office equipment. What about some let-up from home schooling or eldercare, or help to tackle loneliness? Why not help our teams create better connections with one another that can offer more than the virtual happy hour and more time behind a laptop? We need to go beyond one-dimensional Diversity, Equity, Inclusion programmes and policies, and really support our people outside of the ‘nine to five’.

At Kearney we have taken a first step by asking employees around the world to tell us what would improve their lives and how we can help as leaders. We are already seeing wellbeing, both physical and mental, as a major theme. We introduced more mental and physical health programmes with free classes available to employees, redesigned our future work model strategies to allow for flexibility of working hours and location (no longer adopting five-days-a-week office model), offered an option to go to co-working spaces to employees whose current situation is not supportive of their work or mental health and improved coaching and mentoring guidelines in the absence of in-person onboarding and support.

‘ Promote more transparent and accountable systems ’

Ibrahima Hathie, Distinguished Fellow, Initiative Prospective Agricole et Rurale (IPAR), Senegal and Southern Voice network member

Sustainable Development Goal 10 of the 2030 Agenda seeks to “reduce inequality within and among countries”. Yet, the goal’s targets and indicators focus on horizontal inequality and exclusion of the vulnerable and marginalized population from opportunities. The United Nations’ overarching principle of “ Leave No One Behind ” reflects this orientation and calls for a transformative agenda. However, it fails to address deep-rooted social, economic, and political systemic problems that preserve and often amplify vertical inequalities.

A path to achieving this must seek to reduce the political influence of elites in the formulation and implementation of public policies. It would promote more transparent and accountable systems. Tackling inequalities between countries is also imperative if we are to face the consequences these have on the most vulnerable in developing countries. Addressing overlapping disadvantages through a comprehensive development strategy can be an excellent response to horizontal inequalities. Vertical inequalities require more: progressive economic institutions with pro-poor taxation, investment, and trade.

In Senegal, for example , the government should choose and invest heavily in food value chains, funding of research of these value chains, training of family farmers, agricultural entrepreneurs, technicians, and engineers and introduce multisector governance to ensure smooth coordination to achieve the goals set out by the Malabo Declaration . This would lead to increased industrial development, improved health and nutrition, and decent and abundant jobs for young people and women.

‘The basic fundamentals of knowledge creation and collaboration must be addressed’

Marie McAuliffe, Head, Migration Research Division, International Organization for Migration

In addition to measures on improving social protection of migrant workers, reducing costs of international remittance transfers, and bolstering migrants' rights throughout the migration process, the fundamentals of knowledge creation and collaboration must be addressed. Affected communities impacted by increasing inequality must be part of processes aimed at formulating effective responses.

Developing country experts and research institutions must be able to meaningfully participate in researching, proposing, designing, and evaluating solutions according to their priorities and needs. A much greater focus on leveraging opportunities to undertake participatory and collaborative research with (and for) marginalized populations is needed. Only then can the programmatic and policy responses designed to reduce inequality globally be truly sustainable.

We advocated this approach as part of consultations on the UN Research Roadmap on COVID-19, which makes a strong case for participatory research to support long-term global transformations. In 2017, IOM invited the world’s leading migration researchers from around the world to join in sharing their expertise and knowledge in support of the 2018 global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration. As a consequence, the resolution on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2018.”

‘Increase public investments in the formal and informal care economies’

Susan Ferguson, Women Representative for India, UN Women

The COVID-19 crisis in India has impacted millions, not only those suffering from the disease, but also those who care for them. As always, women have taken on the heavy burden of caring for the sick and finding ways to meet their family’s basic needs. A recent Oxfam report shows that Indian women and girls put in 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work every day — a contribution of at least ₹19 trillion a year to the Indian economy.

Yet in India, duties performed at home have historically not been considered “work,” because of unequal gender and caste norms. And now, with after the second wave of COVID-19, the combination of illness, unpaid care, economic slowdown and lack of access to financing for female entrepreneurs means that many women are unable to return to work.

If these trends aren’t reversed, they will have a devastating impact on the economy and further exacerbate gender inequality. For this generation of women to emerge relatively unscathed from this pandemic and be able to return to the workforce, we must invest seriously in education and livelihoods of women and girls in India. UN Women’s Second Chance Education programme is a prime example of how we can and must focus on women’s livelihoods right now, before the equality gaps widen even more. Another way to mitigate the inequality crisis would be to increase public investments in the formal and informal care economies and tap into the job creation potential of the care economy.

In the end, it will come down to changing attitudes. Whether it’s at home, in the office or in the fields, we must stop taking women’s work for granted.

Don’t use the pandemic as a justification to discriminate and exclude

Melody Patry, Advocacy Director, Access Now

From Singapore to Jamaica, governments are scrambling for solutions to help the world return to a pre-virus normality. Vaccine certificates — or “passports” — that record and authenticate vaccination statuses, however, are short-term fixes that potentially pose long-term risks to human rights. These fast-tracked stopgaps are a blueprint for exclusion and discrimination, and present serious and disproportionate threats to the privacy and security of millions of people.

COVID-19 and its reverberations already impact our most vulnerable and underserved individuals and communities — from limited health care, to increased economic instability — we cannot allow techno-solutionism to exacerbate the divide further.

Global leaders, and their industry counterparts, must stop, recalibrate, and ensure technology plays a positive, cornerstone role in pandemic recovery. As laid out by U.N. Special Procedures on the eve of RightsCon 2021 , "we need to act together to embrace the fast-pace expansion of digital space and technological solutions that are safe, inclusive and rights-based."

World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence , in partnership with the Institute for Global Prosperity , University College London (UCL) launched the transformation map on Inequality .

The experts cited in this article are part of the World Economic Forum Expert Network .

A Developmental Science Perspective on Social Inequality

Laura elenbaas.

1 University of Rochester

Michael T. Rizzo

2 New York University

3 Beyond Conflict Innovation Lab, Boston, MA

Melanie Killen

4 University of Maryland

Many people believe in equality of opportunity, but overlook and minimize the structural factors that shape social inequalities in the United States and around the world, such as systematic exclusion (e.g., educational, occupational) based on group membership (e.g., gender, race, socioeconomic status). As a result, social inequalities persist, and place marginalized social groups at elevated risk for negative emotional, learning, and health outcomes. Where do the beliefs and behaviors that underlie social inequalities originate? Recent evidence from developmental science indicates that an awareness of social inequalities begins in childhood, and that children seek to explain the underlying causes of the disparities that they observe and experience. Moreover, children and adolescents show early capacities for understanding and rectifying inequalities when regulating access to resources in peer contexts. Drawing on a social reasoning developmental framework, this paper synthesizes what is currently known about children’s and adolescents’ awareness, beliefs, and behavior concerning social inequalities, and highlights promising avenues by which developmental science can help reduce harmful assumptions and foster a more just society.

Despite the fact that many people believe in equality of opportunity, many also overlook the structural factors that shape social and economic disparities in the United States and around the world. These structural factors include, for example, historical and current exclusion from residential, educational, and occupational opportunities on the basis of gender, race, socioeconomic status, or other group memberships ( Bullock, 2019 ; Kraus et al., 2019 ). As a result, excluded social groups continue to have fewer opportunities for upward mobility and experience elevated risk for negative emotional, learning, and health outcomes ( Duncan & Mumane, 2011 ; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2017 ). Psychological science plays a crucial role in illuminating the processes that underlie people’s responses to social inequality. For example, research has shown that social inequalities persist in part because many people under-estimate their true magnitude, are not motivated to correct disparities that benefit their social groups, or hold negative stereotypes about marginalized groups ( Arsenio, 2018 ; Lott, 2012 ; Roberts & Rizzo, 2020 ). In order to address the psychological roots of these inequalities, we need to know where these beliefs and attitudes come from, and how we might encourage a more equitable and just understanding of the causes and consequences of social inequalities. In this paper, we offer a developmental perspective that begins to address these two questions.

In the past decade, developmental scientists have been at the forefront of efforts to understand how youth develop an awareness of social inequalities, seek explanations for their causes, form judgments of their consequences, and enact behavioral responses, based on their personal experiences with social inequalities and the influences of micro (e.g., family, peer) and macro (e.g., school, media) social contexts ( Arsenio, 2015 ; Ruck et al., 2019 ). Although children have few direct opportunities to influence societal-level inequalities (e.g., through voting, protesting), they regularly experience social inequalities in their peer and family contexts, and take on a range of different roles (e.g., perpetuator, rectifier, victim, witness) within these inequalities ( Killen et al., 2018 ). As a result, research is beginning to uncover not only the developmental processes that exacerbate social inequalities, but also potential pathways for promoting greater consideration of equity in childhood. In fact, developmental science is uniquely positioned to illuminate the factors that motivate children and adults to either ignore, exacerbate, or challenge social inequalities in their everyday interactions.

Social Reasoning Developmental Model

One branch of current research on how youth conceptualize social inequalities is informed by the social reasoning developmental (SRD) model ( Killen et al., 2018 ; Rutland et al., 2010 ). The SRD model focuses on reasoning, judgments, and decisions about moral and social issues, and how these processes change across development. It integrates concepts from social domain theory (e.g., how children reason about social-conventional, moral, and personal concerns) and social identity theory (e.g., how intra- and inter-group dynamics shape decisionmaking) to provide a framework for understanding how children make sense of moral issues (e.g., denial of resources) that occur in inter-group contexts.

The SRD model takes a constructivist view in postulating that children’s social-cognitive development stems from their reflections and abstractions based on their everyday interactions which, in turn, enable them to infer, evaluate, and judge actions and events in their world ( Killen & Rutland, 2011 ). In contrast to nativist or socialization perspectives, constructivist theories regarding the origins of social cognition emphasize the central role of the child in actively interpreting and making sense of their social world ( Killen & Smetana, 2015 ; Turiel, 1983 ). Within this broader theoretical perspective, the SRD model proposes that reasoning about morality, group identity, and the psychological states of others emerges early in childhood and coexists throughout development (see Figure 1 ). Each of these domains of knowledge are brought to bear when children and adolescents consider complex issues, such as social inequalities. What changes across development is the complexity of children’s and adolescents’ moral reasoning, the depth of their understanding of social group dynamics, their awareness of others’ mental state capacities, and their ability to coordinate and balance these overlapping concerns.

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Social Reasoning Developmental (SRD) Model proposes that children and adolescents bring three forms of knowledge to bear on their reasoning about social inequalities: moral, group, and psychological.

In order to understand the orgins, development, and sources of influence on thinking about social inequalities, research from the SRD perspective has examined how children’s and adolescents’ understanding of moral, group, and psychological concepts are applied to their emerging: 1) awareness of social inequalities, 2) explanations for these inequalities, and 3) behavior aimed at increasing or reducing social inequalities. In this paper, we synthesize research from the SRD framework, as well as related research in developmental science, to outline what is currently known about children’s and adolescents’ awareness, beliefs, and behavior concerning social inequalities, and highlight promising avenues to encourage positive change.

Awareness of Social Inequalities

Being aware of social inequalities means recognizing the existence of disparities in access to resources or opportunities between social groups. On the most basic level, children are cognitively equipped to notice resource inequalities from early in development. Already in their first year of life, infants notice when someone has more toys than someone else ( Sommerville, 2018 ). By the time they reach kindergarten, children attend to wealth inequalities, identifying their peers as “poor” or “rich”, alongside other forms of social categorization (e.g., gender, ethnicity) ( Hazelbaker et al., 2018 ; Shutts, 2015 ). Over the course of adolescence, youth view U.S. society as increasingly economically stratified and also increasingly link economic status and race, associating White and Asian Americans with higher income and wealth than Black and Latinx Americans ( Arsenio & Willems, 2017 ; Ghavami & Mistry, 2019 ). However, even adults under-estimate the true extent to which wealth is unequally distributed in society, as well as the true magnitude of current racial wealth gaps ( Arsenio, 2018 ; Kraus et al., 2019 ).

Moreover, children’s own status or the status of their social group can lead them to deny or minimize the extent of social inequalities. For example, in one recent experiment, Rizzo and Killen (2020) randomly assigned 3- to 8 year-old children to either an advantaged group (had more resources than an outgroup) or a disadvantaged group (had fewer resources than an outgroup). Children assigned to the advantaged group were more likely to see the resource inequality as fair, support attempts to perpetuate the inequality, and keep more resources for their own group when given the chance.

Similarly, Elenbaas and colleagues (2016) randomly assigned European-American and African-American children, ages 5- to 6 and 10- to 11 years, to witness an experimental inequality of school supplies that placed either their racial ingroup or outgroup at a disadvantage. Young children whose ingroup was disadvantaged judged the inequality to be unfair and took steps to correct it, but young children whose outgroup was disadvantaged did not (see Figure 2 ). Older children, by contrast, rectified the inequality under both conditions and reasoned about the importance of ensuring equal access to resources (e.g., “Both schools should have the same amount of supplies for learning”).

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Young children corrected a resource inequality that disadvantaged their racial ingroup but not an inequality that disadvantaged their outgroup.

From an SRD perspective, these results reveal what happens when children prioritize group concerns over moral concerns, and how the prioritization of these concerns develops during childhood. Whereas younger children in both studies struggled to balance concerns for ingroup benefit with concerns for equity, older children’s reasoning and decision-making reflected a more generalized concern for ensuring fair access to resources that took precedence over social preferences. Because ingroup concerns remain common throughout development, however, it is important to identify which social contexts enable children and adolescents to see the bigger picture and align their moral behavior with their moral judgments.

Explanations for Social Inequalities

Generating an explanation for a social inequality entails forming beliefs about how disparities in access to resources or opportunities between social groups came to be. Children and adolescents are able to consider multiple possible sources for social inequalities, and not all sources are perceived to be unfair ( Arsenio & Willems, 2017 ; Flanagan et al., 2014 ; Starmans et al., 2017 ). For instance, many people –youth and adults– explain social inequalities in terms of traditions and authority, including the need to maintain a predictable status quo and the idea that it is normal or typical for some groups to succeed and others not to. Other explanations are moral in nature. For instance, social inequalities cause direct and indirect harm to members of marginalized groups as a result of systemic discrimination and are thus in need of rectification. Finally, many explanations weigh moral, societal (economic systems), and psychological rationales, including beliefs that economic systems are designed to give everyone an equal pportunity for upward mobility and that a certain amount of inequality in society is motivating for people.

By kindergarten, children believe that greater effort entitles an individual person to a greater share of rewards (e.g., someone who tries harder at a game deserves to keep their winnings) ( Rizzo et al., 2016 ). However, when scaled up to the social group level, early-emerging judgments about merit can lead to negative stereotypes that marginalized and excluded groups “deserve” their status. For instance, young children stereotype poor peers as less competent than rich peers ( Shutts et al., 2016 ). Similarly, children hold stereotypes that African-Americans are less hardworking than European-Americans and girls are less intelligent than boys ( Bian et al., 2017 ; Pauker et al., 2016 ). In fact, although adolescents are more likely than children to generate structural explanations for social inequalities (e.g., systemic racism, classism, or sexism), these explanations typically exist alongside problematic assumptions about differences in social groups’ motivation, effort, and ingenuity, rather than replacing them ( Flanagan et al., 2014 ; Godfrey et al., 2019 ).

Explaining the underlying causes of social inequalities is challenging because observing an existing disparity (e.g., a racial disparity in access to education) does not provide enough information to infer its cause, and because the messages that children receive (e.g., from adults, media sources) about the nature and origins of social inequalities are often incomplete or ambiguous. As a result, children’s awareness and understanding of the complex structural factors underlying social inequalities (e.g., political systems that exclude the poor, residential systems that exclude ethnic minorities, educational systems that exclude girls) is limited and interacts with other cognitive biases. For example, when children are asked to generate explanations for resource inequalities between novel groups (e.g., the Orps and the Blarks), children often assume that group differences resulted from internal factors (e.g., work ethic, natural ability) rather than external factors (e.g., discrimination) ( Hussak & Cimpian, 2015 ).

Behavior in Contexts Involving Social Inequalities

Children’s and adolescents’ reasoning about the causes of social inequalities informs their thinking about what (if anything) should be done to address them. For example, in one experiment, Rizzo and colleagues (2018) tested 3- to 8-year-old children’s responses to individually-based inequalities (i.e., one peer received more prizes than another because they worked harder) or structurally-based inequalities (i.e., one peer received more prizes than another because the person giving out prizes had a gender bias). In response to the individually-based inequality, children gave more resources to the hardworking peer and reasoned about merit (e.g., “She did a better job at the activities”). In response to the structurally-based inequality, children gave more resources to the peer who had received less because of a gender bias and reasoned about equality (e.g., “They should get the same number”). These results confirm young children’s belief that individual effort should be rewarded, but also highlight emerging concerns for equity in response to structurally-based inequalities. When children had clear and unambiguous evidence that resources were allocated unjustly, they acted to correct the disparity.

Similarly, one recent experiment informed early adolescents that access to an educational opportunity (a science summer camp) had historically been restricted such that only wealthy children or only poor children had attended ( Elenbaas, 2019a ). When they had the chance to determine who should attend the camp “this summer,” participants favored the group that had been excluded in the past, particularly when that group was poor. Moreover, the larger the economic “gap” in access to opportunities that participants perceived in broader society, the more they supported including poor peers in this particular opportunity (see Figure 3 ) and reasoned about fair access to learning (e.g., “Everyone has the right to education no matter what background they come from”).

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Early adolescents who perceived a larger economic “gap” in access to opportunities in favor of high-wealth peers were more supportive of including low-wealth peers in a learning opportunity.

These studies, both drawing on the SRD model to understand children’s and adolescents’ reasoning and behavior in contexts involving moral issues (differential access to resources and opportunities) on inter-group levels (involving gender or social class), have intriguing implications for how to reduce harmful stereotypes about the causes of social inequalities. When children know –from their own direct observations or from others’ testimony– that an inequality is rooted in structural discrimination or bias, most children support efforts to reduce it. The challenge is that children rarely receive this direct and unambiguous evidence. While the idea that anyone can achieve success with enough effort and ambition is widely available to children in national, social, and educational discourse, children receive far less consistent information about the historical and societal contexts for why some social groups are advantaged over others. However, this may offer a point of entry for adults interested in increasing children’s recognition of the complex structural causes of social inequalities.

Supporting Complex Reasoning about Social Inequalities

Providing opportunities for analysis and reflection on the sources and consequences of social inequalities may help youth develop a critical understanding of the social, economic, and political systems that they are a part of ( Seider et al., 2018 ). For example, research on family racial-ethnic socialization indicates that conversations about discrimination can contribute to adolescents’ structural explanations for social inequalities (e.g., systemic racism) ( Bañales et al., 2019 ). Similarly, research on civic engagement has shown that adolescents who frequently discuss current events with their parents have a better understanding of structural contributors to poverty ( Flanagan et al., 2014 ). Likewise, research on critical consciousness indicates that discussions with parents, teachers, mentors, and peers can foster adolescents’ awareness of sociopolitical conditions and motivation to address social inequalities ( Diemer et al., 2016 ). Although little research has examined the messages about social inequality that pre-adolescent children may receive, they, too, are becoming aware of social inequalities, and likely consider their parents’ and teachers’ opinions when forming beliefs about their causes.

Relationships with peers whose experiences differ from their own may also help youth reject stereotypes and develop a deeper understanding of social inequalities. For instance, research on inter-group contact indicates that having a friend from a different racial background is associated with lower racial stereotypes ( Aboud & Brown, 2013 ). Similarly, cross-SES friendships may encourage children’s fairness reasoning. In one recent study, children from zupper-middle income families who reported more contact with peers from lower-income backgrounds were more likely to reason about differences in access to resources when sharing toys, and shared more equitably ( Elenbaas, 2019b ). Although, it is not yet known whether interactions with higher-SES peers have a similar impact on lower-SES children’s reasoning, these results point to how everyday interactions with friends may raise children’s consideration of the immediate consequences of resource disparities.

Future Directions for Research

Understanding children’s and adolescents’ thinking about social inequality is a new area of research in developmental science ( Ruck et al., 2019 ). We now know that youth face challenges in becoming aware of the existence and extent of social inequalities, understanding their structural causes, and deciding how to address social inequalities. Moreover, both the potential for ingroup benefit and negative stereotypes about disadvantaged groups lead to more exclusive and inequitable behavior.

We also know, however, that children’s concerns for justice and fairness emerge early, and enable them to identify and work to correct instances of inequality within their sphere of influence. We suggest a continued research focus on the questions of origins and development that have framed a great deal of work in this area thus far, but also increased attention to the sources of influence on children’s thinking. Drawing on the constructivist perspective of the SRD model, we suggest that future studies investigate the joint and separate roles of interacting with diverse peers, interpreting conversations’ with parents and teachers, and reflecting on societal structures on children’s and adolescents’ reasoning, judgments, and behaviors in contexts of social inequality. Continued investigation of how children recognize, explain, and respond to social inequalities may provide a basis for ameliorating their detrimental outcomes and fostering a more just society.

Acknowledgements

Melanie Killen was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, BCS1728918 and the National Institutes of Health, NICHDR01HD093698 while working on this paper.

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105 Social Inequality Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best social inequality topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 interesting topics to write about social inequality, 🎓 good research topics about social inequality, ⭐ simple & easy social inequality essay titles, ❓ research questions about social inequality.

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Social Inequality at School: Vision Winterkorn was in charge of the company when it faced the major crisis, the echoes of which are still causing issues.”The Volkswagen Diesel Fraud” as the world knows it, was a major scandal that Winterkorn […]
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Chinese Women and the Social Inequality A number of activists were intensively working on the liberation of women and the reinforcement of women’s consideration in the political arena.
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The Income Gap Between Low-Income Families and Others: Signs of Individual Freedom or Proof of Social Inequality
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Women Criminals and Social Inequality
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Social Inequality in Terms of Class Andor Ethnicity
Induced Innovation and Social Inequality: Evidence From Infant Medical Care
Social Inequality and the Criminal Offenses Associated With It
Two Major Theories of the Persistence of Social Inequality
Corporate Monopoly and Social Inequality
Theories of Social Inequality: Can Inequality Be Eliminated
Critical Thinkings About Social Inequality in School and Employment
Family Patterns and Social Inequality Among Children in the United States
Are Victims Still Being Blamed for Social Inequality
The Macro-Sociological Theories of Karl Marx: Social Inequality, the Role of Culture, Religion, Sexuality, the Environment, Work and Alienation, and Social Deviance
Climate Change and Social Inequality
Global Social Inequality Reveals the Cracks in Our System
Cyberspace and Social Inequality
Political Analysis: Consensus Democracy and Reduce Social Inequality
Growth Dynamics and Social Inequality in European Regions
Caste System and Social Inequality
Functionalist Explanations of Social Inequality
Economic and Social Inequality in the United States and the Use of Urban Sociology in the Effectively Tackling of These Challenges
Biased Aspirations and Social Inequality at School: Evidence From French Teenagers
Globalization: Economic and Social Inequality Issues
Equality and Social Inequality of Class and Class Equality
Social Inequality and Minorities in the United States
Classical and Modern Explanations of Social Inequality
Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists
Rethinking the Role of Religion in the Emergence of Social Inequality
Dominance, Prejudiced Stereotypes, and Social Inequality
Childcare, Early Education and Social Inequality: An International Perspective
Education and Social Inequality
Gifts, Bequests, and Social Inequality in West Germany
Neuromodulation and Enhance Social Inequality: Some Possible Indirect Interventions of the State
Explicit and Implicit Issues in the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience of Social Inequality
What Is Social Inequality?
What Are Examples of Social Inequality?
Why Is Social Inequality a Problem?
What Causes Social Inequality?
How Do You Identify Social Inequality?
What Is Social Inequality Essay?
How Can We Stop Social Inequality?
What Is the Conclusion of Social Inequality?
How Did Social Inequality Start?
Is It Important to Know Social Inequality?
How Can Students Reduce Social Inequality?
Why Should We Stop Social Inequality?
How Does Social Inequality Affect Students?
Is Social Inequality Good or Bad?
What Are Types of Social Inequality?
What Causes Social Inequality in Education?
Which Country Has the Most Social Inequality?
How Does Social Inequality Affect Human Rights?
Why Is Social Inequality a Moral Problem?
Is Social Inequality Inevitable?
How Is Social Inequality Measured?
How Do Social Differences Lead to Social Inequality?
How Does Social Inequality Affect Quality of Life?
How Is Social Inequality Connected to Power?
What Will Happen if Social Inequality Continues?
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21 Social Inequality Examples

social inequality definition and examples

Social inequality is “the condition where people have unequal access to valued resources, services and positions in society” (Kerbo, 2003, p. 11).

It is broader than just wealth inequality because it also includes factors like discrimination and access to government support.

When social inequality occurs, there is an uneven distribution of resources between individuals or groups, and this happens in almost all societies. These resources and rights go from education, to power, status and so on.

Social inequality is the result of social hierarchy or stratification , with class, gender, race, ethnicity , or sexuality being part of the experience of social inequality. According to theories like the Davis-Moore thesis , it’s also an inevitable feature of society.

Social Inequality Definition

In the field of sociology, unlike economics, social inequality is taken to include differences on many levels: income, resources, power, status, social capital, as well as in levels of social inclusion and exclusion (Warwick-Booth, 2018).

When social inequality occurs, there is an unequal distribution of and unequal access to material and non-material goods:

Material goods could be income, but also things like housing.
Non-material social goods refer to intangible things such as access to social networks or social status .

In this sense, social inequality is a multi-faceted approach to uneven differences in access to resources for different social positions or statuses within a group or society.

Thus, dimensions like gender, sexuality, ethnicity or class all impact on being able to access, or not, social goods and resources as well as opportunities.

Social inequality is important because it has an impact on people’s life chances, in their living conditions, their work opportunities and the overall life outcomes of both individuals and groups (Suter, 2014).

Social Inequality Examples

Wealth inequality: Wealth plays a major role in social perpetuating inequality. People with higher net worth have greater access to resources, can out-bid poorer people for access to limited resources, and can buy access to people in power.
Income inequality: Income inequality functions in a similar way to wealth inequality, but refers to unequal distribution of money in the workforce. For example, the wage differential between CEOs and workers has spiked in recent decades, which has exacerbated social inequalities.
Access to basic education: Access to basic education is unequal when wealthier neighborhoods have better primary schools, or when lack of public transit to schooling acts as a substantial barrier for poorer people.
Access to higher education: Inequal access to education can be a result of factors such as geographical barriers and financial barriers. Without higher education, it is harder to achieve social mobility .
Age inequality : Also known as ageism , this refers to discrimination against people based on their age. For example, it occurs in relation to access to employment for those over the age of 50.
Deprived neighborhoods: Deprived neighborhoods are an example of how it is not only individuals who suffer inequality. Sometimes, whole areas can be affected by the unequal distribution of rights and resources. This happens, for example, when some neighborhoods have restricted access to hospitals and transport.
Housing inequality: Having access to a house, or living in sufficient accommodation, is both a cause and a consequence of social inequality. Living in a social housing, for example, is related to being at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Racial inequality: Inequality based on race can be a result of systemic and intergenerational racism, a discriminatory attitude by which access to rights has not been distributed equally across people of different races, and which has been passed down through generations of deprivation.
Gender inequality: Inequality based on gender is called sexism, a discriminatory attitude by which women are more likely to be worse off in the equality scales. For example, they tend to earn less than men for the same jobs.
Health access inequality: Inequal access to healthcare is most starkly shown by the rural-urban divide (where rural people often need to travel to cities to receive care) and the class divide, where working-class people often find funding to be a barrier to access to quality care ( see more social determinants of health here ).
Caste systems: Traditional caste societies deny access to jobs based on your ascribed status at birth. Furthermore, they may deny people from marrying one another across castes.
Geographical inequality: Geographical inequality can be within a nation (e.g. the rural-urban divide) as well as globally (e.g. developing vs developed nations).
Citizenship status: People may face limited protections based upon their citizenship. While it’s generally accepted that a tourist in a country shouldn’t access some public services covered by taxation, when non-citizens are denied human rights like access to a lawyer, we might start to consider citizenship status as a dimension of inequality in a society.
Child poverty: Child poverty is a key driver of social inequality. People born into poverty can experience malnutrition, poorer educational results, and lower overall lifetime earnings on average.
Power and status inequality: Access to powerful people is unequally distributed. People who are privileged on the social hierarchy have higher social status and consequently have more access to people in powerful political and corporate positions. There is also inequal power distribution between men and women, as demonstrated by the glass ceiling phenomenon .
LGBT discrimination: Historically, LGBT people have faced discrimination that has affected their ability to do many things heterosexual people can access, including starting and raising a family, and accessing healthcare as spouses.
Intergenerational inequality: This occurs when one generation in society has had greater access to resources than others at similar points in their lives. For example, in the UK and Australia, baby boomers had free higher education, which was denied to future generations who had to pay for it. This affected future generations’ prospects in a way that did not affect baby bookers.
Incarceration rates: Taking a look at incarceration rates versus rates in which different racial groups commit crimes can demonstrate how people of color are more likely to be imprisoned if they are caught committing a crime.
Service inequality: Unequal access to services can be seen across many vectors of society, including the rural-urban divide and rich-poor divide.
Discriminatory laws: Laws that entrench discrimination, such as segregation laws , can be a source of social inequality.
Indigenous inequality: Fist nations groups have long suffered from inequal access to resources in society. One demonstration of this is the lack of clean drinking water in many first nations communities in Canada.

Case Studies

1. social inequality and gender.

Gender is a key dimension of social inequality, as for a variety of reasons, the unfair treatment of people based on their gender still happens in contemporary society.

There are three main areas in which gender inequality can be found: health, education, and the workplace.

For example, in relation to health, although women live longer than men, they have more ill health throughout their lives.

In terms of education, there is still segregation in certain subjects, for example, computing or engineering are still dominated by men. Finally, in the workplace, we find that is called the glass ceiling , which stops women from progressing in their careers.

2. Social inequality and ethnicity

Racism is the expression of social inequality based on a person’s, or a group, race or ethnicity.

It has been shown that people of ethnic minority backgrounds experience higher rates of unemployment, they are more likely to be prosecuted by the criminal justice, and also be victims of crime, live in inadequate housing, have bad mental and physical health or be excluded from education. These are examples of institutional racism .

All of these cause social inequality in the middle and longer term and slims down ethnic minorities’ life chances.

3. Social inequality and health

There is a clear relation between social inequality and health, for multiple reasons.

For example, income determines being able to afford things like gym membership or fresh fruit, which keeps people healthier..

Occupation also has a role in health inequality a life expectancy, for example, teachers live longer than plumbers.

Finally, in countries in which there is no universal health coverage those with higher incomes will have greater access to services, from health promotion, to prevention or treatment.

4. Social inequality and age

Ageism refers to stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age.

While ageism can be directed towards younger or older people, in terms of inequality, it is in older groups that the focus will be put on. People who are older may experience discrimination in the workplace, for example, in terms of accessing jobs which can lead to higher rates of unemployment.

Furthermore, older people with small pensions have less spending power and thus less access to certain resources, for example, paying for leisure and cultural activities , thus putting them at a disadvantage.

5. Social inequality and income or wealth

While social inequality is not solely based on income or wealth, money, whether from the job one does or from access to family wealth, plays a role in accessing resources.

This greater access to resources mean that some people at a greater advantage than others, for example, in relation to good health and educations. As has been explained, this difference in access to resources is at the heart of social inequality and it impacts on people’s life changes, hence its importance.

Social inequality is a complex subject due to its transversal nature: as it has been pointed out, it is more than just having more or less money. In social inequality there are many factors at play, such as gender, age or ethnicity as well as other aspects like class or neighborhood.

The importance of fighting off social inequality lies in its cumulative nature and in how it determines people’s life chances, sometimes for generations.

Doob, C. B. (2019). Social inequality and social stratification in US society. London: Routledge.

Hurst, C.; Fitz Gibon, H. & Nurse, A. (2016) Social Inequality: Forms, Causes, and Consequences . New York: Routledge

Kerbo, H. R. (2003). Social stratification and inequality. Class conflict in historical, comparative, and global perspective . Boston: McGrawHill.

Thompson, R. (2019). Education, Inequality and Social Class. Expansion and Stratification in Educational Opportunity . New York: Routledge.

Warwick-Booth, L. (2018). Social Inequality . New York: Sage

Wisdom, S., Leavitt, L., & Bice, C. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of research on social inequality and education . London: IGI Global.

Rosa Panades (PhD)

Dr. Panades is a multifaceted sociologist with experience working in a variety of fields, from familiy relations, to teenage pregnancy, housing, women in science or social innvovation. She has worked in international, european and local projects, both in the UK and in Spain. She has an inquisitive and analytical mind and a passion for knowledge, cultural and social issues.

Rosa holds a PhD in Sociology on the topic of young fatherhood from the University of Greenwich, London.

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Essay on Social Equality

Students are often asked to write an essay on Social Equality in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Social Equality

Understanding social equality.

Social equality is a state where all individuals within a society have equal rights, opportunities, and status. It promotes fairness and justice, irrespective of one’s background, culture, or gender.

Importance of Social Equality

Social equality is crucial for the growth of a society. It ensures every person gets equal opportunities to learn, work, and contribute to the community. It fosters respect among individuals, enhancing social harmony.

Obstacles to Social Equality

Despite its importance, social equality often faces challenges like discrimination, bias, and prejudice. These barriers can be based on race, gender, religion, or socio-economic status.

Achieving Social Equality

Achieving social equality requires collective efforts. Education, law enforcement, and public awareness are key tools in promoting and maintaining social equality.

250 Words Essay on Social Equality

Introduction to social equality.

Social equality is a state of affairs wherein all individuals within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in certain respects. These aspects may include civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights, and equal access to social goods and services.

Theoretical Foundations of Social Equality

The philosophical underpinnings of social equality are rooted in the principles of human dignity and justice. The concept of human dignity asserts that every individual, by virtue of their humanity, is deserving of respect and consideration. Justice, on the other hand, demands the equitable distribution of opportunities and resources.

Social Equality in a Modern Context

In today’s diverse and globalized world, social equality is a multifaceted concept. It encompasses not only economic factors but also aspects of race, gender, age, disability, and sexual orientation. Despite progress, social inequality persists, often perpetuated by systemic biases and discrimination.

Social equality is crucial for the overall well-being and development of a society. It paves the way for social cohesion, economic prosperity, and political stability. Moreover, it fosters a sense of belonging and respect among individuals, promoting peace and harmony.

In conclusion, social equality is an integral element of a fair and just society. It is a continuous pursuit requiring collective effort and commitment. It is a goal that, while challenging, is essential for the creation of a more inclusive and equitable world.

500 Words Essay on Social Equality

Social equality is a fundamental principle that underpins the concept of a fair and just society. It is premised on the belief that all individuals, regardless of their ethnic, racial, gender, or socio-economic status, should have equal access to resources, opportunities, and social privileges.

The Importance of Social Equality

Social equality plays a pivotal role in fostering social cohesion and harmony. It mitigates social tensions and conflicts that arise from disparities in wealth and opportunities. Furthermore, it promotes human dignity and respect, as it acknowledges the inherent worth of every individual. Social equality also fosters innovation and productivity as it gives everyone an equal chance to contribute to societal progress.

Challenges to Social Equality

Despite its importance, achieving social equality remains a daunting challenge. Socio-economic disparities, deeply ingrained prejudices, and institutionalized discrimination continue to hinder the realization of this ideal. These barriers are often systemic, perpetuated by social structures and institutions that inadvertently favor certain groups over others.

The Role of Education in Promoting Social Equality

Education is a powerful tool for promoting social equality. It equips individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to participate fully in society. Moreover, it fosters critical thinking, enabling individuals to challenge prejudices and discriminatory practices. However, for education to effectively promote social equality, it must be accessible to all, irrespective of their socio-economic status.

The Role of Government in Upholding Social Equality

Governments have a crucial role in upholding social equality. They can enact laws and policies that prohibit discrimination and promote equal opportunities. For instance, affirmative action policies can help redress historical injustices and level the playing field for marginalized groups. However, these measures must be implemented judiciously to prevent reverse discrimination.

The Role of Individuals in Advancing Social Equality

While governments and institutions play a significant role, individuals also have a part in advancing social equality. This can be achieved by challenging discriminatory attitudes and behaviors, promoting inclusivity, and advocating for social justice. Individuals can also contribute by educating themselves about social issues and participating in civic activities aimed at promoting social equality.

Conclusion: The Path to Social Equality

Achieving social equality is a collective responsibility that requires the concerted efforts of individuals, communities, and governments. It calls for a paradigm shift, where society values diversity and inclusivity, and where opportunities and resources are distributed equitably. While the journey towards social equality may be fraught with challenges, it is a worthy pursuit that holds the promise of a more harmonious and prosperous society.

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10.3: Social Stratification, Social Inequality, and Global Stratification

Learning ObjectiveS

Social Stratification

Social Inequality

Thinking Deeply about Inequality

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Module 7: Stratification and Inequality

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How can the world address inequality? 7 experts explain

Have you read?

‘It is particularly crucial to increase the minimum wage'

‘ Well-funded and quality universal healthcare must be the legacy of the pandemic ’

'Support our people outside of the "nine to five".'

‘ Promote more transparent and accountable systems ’

‘The basic fundamentals of knowledge creation and collaboration must be addressed’

‘Increase public investments in the formal and informal care economies’

Don’t use the pandemic as a justification to discriminate and exclude

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Michael T. Rizzo

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Social Reasoning Developmental Model

Awareness of Social Inequalities

Explanations for Social Inequalities

Behavior in Contexts Involving Social Inequalities

Supporting Complex Reasoning about Social Inequalities

Future Directions for Research

Acknowledgements

105 Social Inequality Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

21 Social Inequality Examples

Social Inequality Definition

Social Inequality Examples

Case Studies

2. Social inequality and ethnicity

3. Social inequality and health

4. Social inequality and age

5. Social inequality and income or wealth

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Essay on Social Equality

100 Words Essay on Social Equality

Importance of Social Equality

Obstacles to Social Equality

Achieving Social Equality