UCSP Q2 - W5 Addressing Social Inequalities Lecture Notes
UCSP Q2 - W5 Addressing Social Inequalities Lecture Notes
UCSP Q2 - W5 Addressing Social Inequalities Lecture Notes
“Do not banish reason for inequality; but let your reason serve to make the truth appear where it seems hid
and hide the false seems true.” - William Shakespeare
SOCIAL INEQUALITY: refers to relational processes in society that have the effect of limiting or harming a group’s
social status, social class, and social circle.
Social inequality is characterized by three factors: wealth, power, and prestige. Wealth refers to the amount of
material resources a person has access to. Power refers to the ability of a person to make others follow him/her. Lastly
prestige person’s influence and status in a society. Social inequality also exists in many areas, these are: gender, sex, race
age. Ethnicity, religion, and kinship.
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.
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,
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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.
1. 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.
2. 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.
GLOBAL INEQUALITY
“Inequality and hierarchy are natural, but that doesn't mean they are right, that doesn't mean there isn’t a productive
tension between those forces and the forces of equality.” - Chris Hayes
3. Developed/post-industrial states. This classification of state makes the distinction between domestic and foreign
affairs disappear, so that mutual interference and surveillance among states becomes the norm.
There are four areas highlighted in the „unequal life chances‟: health, hunger, education and child labor. Each
case presents both the overall global picture and the inequalities between the rich and poor. Underlying such unequal life
chances is the basic comparison between life in the relatively rich, industrialized countries and that in the relatively poor,
developing world.
5 major explanations being offered for Newly Industrializing Countries’ their rapid success:
1. Many of these countries had foundations laid by the experience of colonialism.
2. There was a long period of world economic growth between the 1950s and the 1970s from which these countries
benefited.
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3. Generous economic assistance was provided by the United States during the height of the Cold War.
4. Some commentators suggest that the shared cultural tradition of Confucianism helped promote economic
advancement in Japan and East Asia.
5. Strong interventionist policies on the part of many governments were a major boost to economic growth.
Global inequality takes us back hundreds of years, and as far around the world as data allow, to show that
inequality moves in cycles, fueled by war and disease, technological disruption, access to education and
redistribution. The recent surge of inequality in the West has been driven by the revolution in technology, just
as the Industrial Revolution drove inequality 150 years ago. But even as inequality has soared within nations,
it has fallen dramatically among nations, as middle-class incomes in China and India have drawn closer to the
stagnating incomes of the middle classes in the developed world. A more open migration policy would reduce
global inequality even further. (Branko Milanovic)
The effect of global inequality is greater in poorer countries. Technology can help reduce and slow down climate
change, but it can also have its environmental effects due to solid wastes.
Although the use of high technology can be a parameter for a progressive country, the poorer countries who try
to upgrade themselves with the progressive countries suffer the consequences of inequality. For instance, cars that have
low qualities can be sent to poorer countries who just accept the “dumped automobiles”, medicines are dumped to poorer
countries in Africa; shipped bulks of used clothes called “wagwag to Asia”, or exportations of cargos of wastes from
Canada to Philippines.
Addressing Inequality
Nine Strategies to Reduce Inequality
by Fernando Bonilla N0v. 28, 2016
The United Nations declared the 17th of October as the day for the eradication of poverty. This year the topic
was “ending poverty in all its forms”, as it is stated in the Sustainable Development Goal #1, from the agenda 2030 for
Sustainable Development.
The following are some examples of how inequality can be reduced by implementing institutional arrangements
on the field of fiscal, social, and economic policy:
This can be done using geographic targeting (selecting the regions with a higher prevalence of poverty) or using
surveys to estimate if a potential beneficiary is poor or how poor she is. There is also the possibility of participatory
targeting, where people from the community identify and validate the selection of beneficiaries.
Finally, having a national or state level list of social beneficiaries is also useful for preventing the programs to
duplicate efforts.
3. Participatory decision-making.
This strategy focuses on increasing the voice of the poor. Poor people often face an inequality of participation in
policy making. Designing participatory methodologies to include their perspective in public policy can help reduce the
gaps of power to decide over policies, which affect them and their communities. Participation does not limit to decision
making, it can include monitoring and evaluating results and impact of social policies too.
The frameworks supporting these legislations might be discriminating towards informal poor workers; for
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example, agricultural laborers without access to social security (and therefore, pensions). Hence, these laws might change
so they can include these sectors of population.
5.Promotive action.
Discrimination against certain groups of population might isolate them and limit their access to opportunities for
a better wellbeing. Media campaigns and advocacy efforts, which identify this kind of discrimination and promote the
participation of these sectors, can make people with disabilities, migrants, religions groups and indigenous groups more
confident about their inclusion in the State.
Affirmative action can help to reduce the impact of ancient discrimination towards social groups, like indigenous
groups. Quotas for political participation can also improve their voice on public policy.
Discrimination against indigenous groups may not be a problem today, but the effects derived from the past might
endure unless affirmative action is taken. Most inequalities are systematic and perpetuated by institutions, from habits,
tradition to legal, economic and political systems that restrict participation by and for the poor not in a transient way, but
with a long-term effect. Making these inequalities visible might influence policy makers to design more effective policies
to address them.
In Capital in the Twenty-first Century, Thomas Piketty recommends an international agreement establishing a
wealth tax. Under his plan, countries would agree to tax personal assets of all kinds at graduated rates. The
skeptics do have a point about whether this plan is practical, but we shouldn’t give up on the idea. Because
wealth tends to accumulate over generations, fair and well-designed wealth taxes would go a long way towards
combating extreme inequality.
8. A new Economics?
Economists are often imagined as stuffy academics who value arcane economic theory above humanitarian
values. The field’s clinging to parsimonious theories gave us such winners as the Washington Consensus and a
global financial system that imploded in 2008. As they acknowledge, we clearly need a new economics that
works to improve the lives of everyone, not just those already well off. For instance, what could be more radical
than a Buddhist economics?
This is the path promoted by economist and Rhodes Scholar E .F. Schumacher, who says humanity needs an
economics that creates wealth for all people, just not money for privileged people and corporations. Economics
should take into account ethics and the environment and treat its claims less like invariable truths.
Source: Diano, Grace P., Addressing Social Inequalities; Understanding Culture, Society and Politics, Grade 12, First Semester,
Quarter 2, Week 7, Deped, Schools Division of Benguet.