Causes and Effects of Inequality and Disadvantage in Society

This article discusses the causes and effects of inequality and disadvantage in society, including poverty, social exclusion, health, and education. It also explores social policies and social stratification related to inequality.

Running head: INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
Evaluate the causes and effects of inequality and disadvantage in society
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1INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Social theories related to inequalities.....................................................................................3
Functionalist theory............................................................................................................3
Conflict theory...................................................................................................................3
Causes of inequalities.............................................................................................................4
Poverty...............................................................................................................................4
Social exclusion.................................................................................................................4
Health.................................................................................................................................5
Education............................................................................................................................5
Effect of inequalities..............................................................................................................5
Inequality stifles growth.....................................................................................................5
Inequality increases crime..................................................................................................5
Inequality deteriorates health.............................................................................................6
Inequality increases fairness..............................................................................................6
Social policies........................................................................................................................6
Social stratification.................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

2INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY

3INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
Introduction
Inequality happens from the social structure organised by the parameters of race,
gender and class which makes the access to the resources and rights unequal amongst the
different group of individual in a society. Social inequality can be characterized on the basis
of inequality of opportunities, compensation for diffident social statutes or position amongst
the society. This in turn creates a structure and pattern in which unequal distributions of
wealth, goods, rewards, punishments and opportunities ensues (Scheffer 2017). To cite one
example, racism is a type of phenomenon where access to fundamental rights and wealth
were unequally distributed. Commonly, there are two primary ways in which social
inequality can be measured. These two are inequality of opportunities and inequalities of
conditions. Inequality of opportunities denotes to the unequal distribution of choices present
to a particular individual in a society. For instance, research studies have suggested the fact
university or college professor are more likely to ignore mail communication from women or
people of colour. Inequalities of conditions denotes to the unequal distribution of materialistic
goods, wealth and income. For example, Housing is the inequality amongst homeless people
and people with house. These kind of discrimination at institutional level for a long period is
the reason behind of the social inequalities amongst class, gender and race (Scheffer 2017).
Therefore, in this article the cause and effect of the inequality and disadvantages in society
will be discussed in the section below.
Discussion
In this section, the social theories related to inequalities, causes and effects of
inequalities in society, social policies related to inequalities in society will be discussed
briefly in the following sections.

4INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
Social theories related to inequalities
Within sociology, there are mainly two kind of views present regarding the inequality.
These two social point of view aligns with the two social theories known as Functionalist
theory and Conflict theory.
Functionalist theory
Functionalist theory considers that inequality is unavoidable and it is desirable to a
society for its proper functioning. This theory argues that important position in a society’s
hierarchy requires much more skill and responsibility and hence should be allocated to more
rewards. Additionally, inequality in society leads to implement a meritocracy based system
within the society (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2017).
Conflict theory
Conflict theory consider that inequality happens because individuals with power
dominated the individuals with less power. In the point of view of this theory, inequality
hinders the progress of a society as the individual with power wants to maintain the status
quo (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2017).
In sociology, sociologists study the issue of inequality as a three dimensional aspect
which are ideological support, structural conditions and social reform. Ideological support
refers to the ideas, stigmas and assumption present in the society supporting the social
inequality. Structural condition refers to the factor which can be measured objectively and
lend a hand in the inequalities of society. Lastly, social reforms refers to the resistance, social
movement and support group which helps or shape the change needing to reform the social
inequality in the society (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2017).

5INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
Causes of inequalities
Many reason can be held responsible for the causation of inequalities in society and
chief contributor amongst them is poverty and social exclusion. These two factors are
concisely discussed below.
Poverty
According to Adam Smith, the father of the modern economics, defines poverty as the
inability to purchase required necessity by custom or nature. Poverty can lead to the
stagnation of economic growth and stability for a particular group or individual in a society.
Low wage or poverty can prevent an individual from accessing some privileges which are
easily available to the individual without poverty. This can in turn creates an unintentional
inequality for the next generation in that particular family (Dabla-Norris et al. 2015).
Social exclusion
According to the, Department for International Development (DFID), UK Social
exclusion can be defined as a process in which few particular groups of individuals are
disadvantaged in a systematic manner because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, race,
gender, disability, migration status, HIV status and caste. The idea of social exclusion
emerges because the approaches to lessen the poverty were based on the income alone. Social
exclusion is a multi- dimensional aspect which includes political, social, economic and
cultural dimensions. The measurement approach for the social exclusion is related to the
definition of social exclusion. Many different countries have used many different approaches.
These kind of efforts aim to determine whether individual in a society fall under the average
achievements or whether the individuals benefitted from the opportunities. Amongst different
approaches, some approaches are very difficult to measure whereas some are very easy to
measure. For instance, collection of sensitive data like HIV status can be difficult to achieve
using the traditional methods of surveys.

6INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
Health
Deciding the fact that whether health is a direct causative agent of inequalities in the
society is difficult matter. Simply put, an unhealthy individual will not be able to work his/
her full potential and will get lesser wage. Additionally he/ she will have to bear the cost
treatment and medicine which can be a burden sometimes depending on the illness. These
factors will put him in the above mentioned factor of poverty (Dabla-Norris et al. 2015).
Education
Education plays an important role in the creation of inequalities in society. A less
educated individual is less likely to get a moderately paid job or he/ she has a less chance of
becoming a high skilled labourer. Unlike any other reason discussed above, these reason
behind inequalities can be easily handled just by proper care and a moderate amount of
transfer of resources (Dabla-Norris et al. 2015).
Effect of inequalities
Inequalities in society can have various effect on the society. This effect can both be
harmful and beneficial to the society. The effect caused by inequalities in society is discussed
below in a brief manner.
Inequality stifles growth
In short term basis, inequality can drive the economic growth forward but economic
and researchers have provided empirical evidence which suggested that inequality have
negative correlation with economic growth (Stiglitz 2015).
Inequality increases crime
Evidence gathers from studies in this area have suggested that there is a positive
correlation between crime and social inequality. One of the reason behind this is the huge
disparities in wealth between poor and wealthy (Dalberis 2015).

7INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
Inequality deteriorates health
Individuals belongs to underprivileged group of the society is bound to have some
health related issues. Along with this access to healthy and nutritious food as well as
healthcare treatment is most of the time unavailable or limited for the individuals belongs to
underprivileged group.
Inequality increases fairness
Some sociologist and academics have argued that a society with inequality is tend to
be fairer than the society with equality (Stiglitz 2015).
Social policies
Social policy can be defined as a study of welfare and social services and its
relationship with society and politics. Social policies can be related to the issues and
requirement affecting the services provided to the users (such as health, old age, and
poverty), delivery of welfare and administration and policies related to social services (such
as housing, health, and education). Researchers also suggested that policy which aims to
correct one inequality might end exacerbating another one. For example, if a policy aims to
correct the inequality between men and women, can exacerbate the situation between rich and
poor provided that the beneficiaries for this policies are wealthy woman. Policies can
consider three clear objective which are equal opportunity, equality of treatment, and equality
of outcome (De Haan and Maxwell 2017). In order to reduce inequality, UK government has
implemented few policies namely ‘Improving lives: Helping Workless Families’ (GOV.UK
2018) and ‘Troubled Families Programme’ (GOV.UK 2017).
Social stratification
Inequalities in a society can normally be represented by the patterns of social
stratification. Simply put it means that individuals are divided and ranked at different models

8INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
and groups. This particular model is normally used to discuss gender and class. For this
model, it can be broadly divided in to class, status and power. Class can be divided into three
main senses which are economic position, productive relations and occupational status.
Power can be used as to influence, authorize or apply direct force. Similar like Class, it can
also be segmented into Elitist, Pluralist and Corporatist model (Keller 2017). According to
sociologist, Status can be defined as ‘Esteem’ or ‘Social honour’ (Marcia 2017).
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that inequality in society
have various consequences in a society. Additionally, the individuals suffering from
inequality is rising globally. Researchers have suggested mainly two theories about inequality
which are Functionalist and Conflict theory. The main causes of the inequality in society are
poverty, social exclusion, health and education. It can have beneficial and detrimental effects
on society. As beneficial, evidence suggests that a society with inequality tend to be fairer
and as for detrimental effect inequality in society stifles growth, increases crimes and
decreases health. Recently, United Kingdom government has implemented various social
policies to lessen the inequality in society namely ‘Improving lives: Helping Workless
Families’ and ‘Troubled Families Programme’. To summarize, inequality in society mainly
have detrimental effect in the society and the less the disparities are amongst the individual
the better it is for the society.

9INEQUALITY AND DISADVANTAGES IN SOCIETY
References
Dabla-Norris, M.E., Kochhar, M.K., Suphaphiphat, M.N., Ricka, M.F. and Tsounta, E.,
2015. Causes and consequences of income inequality: a global perspective. International
Monetary Fund.
Dalberis, R., 2015. Extreme Levels of Poverty and Inequality May Lead to Equally High
Levels of Social Conflict and Crime.
De Haan, A. and Maxwell, S., 2017. Poverty and social exclusion in North and South.
GOV.UK. 2017. Troubled Families Programme annual report published. Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/troubled-families-programme-annual-report-published
[Accessed 5 Dec. 2018].
GOV.UK. 2018. Improving lives: Helping Workless Families. Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-lives-helping-workless-families
[Accessed 5 Dec. 2018].
Keller, S., 2017. Beyond the ruling class: strategic elites in modern society. Routledge.
Marcia, J.E., 2017. Ego-Identity Status: Relationship to Change in Self-Esteem. Social
Encounters: Contributions to Social Interaction, p.340.
Ritzer, G. and Stepnisky, J., 2017. Modern sociological theory. SAGE Publications.
Scheffer, M., van Bavel, B., van de Leemput, I.A. and van Nes, E.H., 2017. Inequality in
nature and society. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, p.201706412.
Stiglitz, J.E., 2015. 8. Inequality and Economic Growth. The Political Quarterly, 86, pp.134-
155.