Health Inequalities: A Sociological Analysis of Employment Factors

This report examines the sociology of health, focusing on how employment impacts health inequality. It discusses various social determinants of health, with a primary focus on employment factors such as poor working conditions, work overload, and inadequate income, which contribute to mental stress and overall health decline. The report highlights the unequal distribution of income and power in workplaces, leading to employee stress and anxiety. It suggests solutions such as increasing job availability, raising wages, improving work quality through training, and fostering teamwork to reduce workload and enhance employee well-being. The reflection section emphasizes the importance of balancing mental and physical health and addresses the challenges of improving health and reducing inequalities in employment. The report concludes by underscoring the vital role of social determinants in individual lives and recommends solutions for mitigating employment-related health inequalities. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments to support students.

Introduction to Sociology
of Health

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Employment impacts on health inequality...................................................................................3
Reflection.....................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
The term sociology refers interaction between the social group and health of an individual person
which includes the aspects of illness, medical care and well-being. Today, it has already known
that an individual is suffering from social determinant health in the society. Health is the most
important part of living creature as a good and well-being person can only furnish their work in
the appropriate manner with their ability (Birnbaum, 2019). This social determinant exhibit the
individual personal situations and conditions which directly impact on their health and well-
being. This topic includes various social determinant health such as age, gender, housing,
disability, and others. In this report, choosing the employment factor which had impact on the
health inequalities.
MAIN BODY
Employment impacts on health inequality
Social determinant of health includes the various factors such as education, physical
environment, income and social status, child development, economic stability, social
surrounding, gender, race and many more. One of its factor describes the employment element
which is a major issue nowadays. The employment plays an important role in the individual life.
Accordingly, employment is the basic source of a human being to survive and furnish their needs
and requirements (Social determinants of health, 2021). Today, in the rapid growing world the
health has become the major priority to look out and enhance the well-being. The employment
has also become the chief part of the health inequality act which is directly affecting the quality
of life, expectation, desires and health care costs. One of the important social determinant of
health inequality includes the employment factor in the nature. In this rapid growing surrounding
the health is impacted mostly at the employment structure even it's a business or a person
working in the organization (Chisolm, Brook, and et.al., 2019). Every person wants to grow and
develop themselves but it is necessary to take care of the health and well-being in the definite
manner. The employment inequality impacts an individual through various objectives such as
poor quality, overload of work, leave workers in poverty and also disturbs the mental health. The
inequality employment involves the unequal distribution of income, wealth and power. Most of
the organization creates a pressure on their employee which makes them to feel stressed and
anxiety.

The organizations do not understand the worker capabilities and push towards the work
load structure. It has been known that nowadays, the work pressure is increasing which is putting
the direct impact on the mental health of the employee. Some situations are occurred where
management do not provide the healthy income to the workers and makes them to leave in the
poverty and unsatisfied work surroundings. People are mostly impacted during the employment
when the management do not provide sufficient income or economy to an individual from which
they can run their household activity with the sufficient manner(Song, Poythress, Bocchini, and
et.al., 2018). In research, it has been founded that 55% of people are targeted of employment
health inequality around the world. It is important to every business or workplace to not to
perform the pressure on the employee from which they have to deal with mental stress and
depression sometimes. An individual person needs economy and wealth to balance the family
expenditures of daily life to survive in the existence and belonging. Employment is affecting the
people health as it is effecting their mental health which will also slowly started to effect the

physical body. It is known that when a person is engaged with full of stress and tension then they
will not be able to do any kind of work activity and also put the impact on their professional life.
In addition, these inequalities of the employment can be reduced through such particular
areas which includes the increase of availability of work, increases the wages or income of the
labour community, and focus on the quality of work by providing the efficient training sessions
and makes people motivated(Niu, Zhou, and Pei, 2020). The management should focus on the
people or worker needs and their satisfaction from which they can be able to provide an effective
result to the company or business. To balance and maintain the health inequalities in the
employment, management can increase the quantity of the workers in the organization from
which the work can be engaged. Along with this, they can also convey to employee to work as in
team so that they can also be able to separate the work load accordingly and will not feel
pressured.
In previous studies, it has been analysed that employee works more effectively during the
team work process and also not have to deal with the bunch or work force on them. To reduce
the health inequality, the management should also organize the weekend activities at the
workplace from which people will feel motivated and stressless and can be able to give better
outcome. Mental stress is the most effectively and speedy impact on the person and leads them to
feel unsatisfied and affects their health. Work pressure puts a lot of effect on the employee
physical and mental health as leads them to feel depression and anxiety. It is necessary to
overcome the workspace stress from which they can be able to supply good result and can be
able to obtain effective productivity (Parekh, Desai, Pemmasani, and et.al., 2020). A
management should also provide the motivational and inspiration speeches or incentive facility
to motivate the people and leads them to work effectively.
Reflection
I had chosen to demonstrate this topic as nowadays with this rapid growing world and
technologies the organizations and business platforms individually running for accomplishing the
survival needs and requirements. Employment is the major source of a human being to fulfil their
family expectation and desires of daily livelihood. Accordingly, I believe that employment health
inequality factor is the major issue today and needs to discuss. I had a strong belief in the
concept that employment is linked with the health of an individual. In this report, I analysed that
health is the major priority nowadays as it is obvious that after the Covid pandemic people are

actually required to keep their mental and physical health at stable position (Gkiouleka, Huijts,
Beckfield and et.al., 2018). In my opinion, in this research I founded that employment is also a
major factor of unequal health these days. Organizations put the lot of work pressure on the
employee and labour community which directly impact their mental and physical health.
Employee doing the overtime leads them to lack of sleep and rest from which they affect
their physical body and well-being. I realized that keeping the mental and physical health
balanced is essential for the well-being of a human creature. In the above report, I also studied
that due to high amount of pressure and over work hour's employee have to suffer a lot, and they
also not be able to maintain their personal and professional life as well. An organization needs to
focus on the employee health and well-being from which they can also obtain the higher
productivity and growth in their individual occupation. For improving the inequalities at the
employment the organization can organize a policy in which they can fix the accurate working
hours and also can provide an incentive system to them. Mental stress leads a person to suffer
from anxiety and depression which makes their health improper and can cause many health
issues such as high and low blood pressure (Vancea and Utzet, 2017). An occupational business
owner should require focusing on their workplace surrounding and can organize such events
which motivates the employee and makes their mind stressless.
During the study, I founded the social determinant more challenging and exciting as I
came to understand the importance of the health and well-being of a person and also understand
its impact on the human being. I discovered that balancing the health and well-being can make
the improvement in the business enterprise and also can enhance their growth and market
position. It is a big challenge nowadays to improve the health and reduce the inequalities of
health conditions in the employment factor. After understanding these situations, I concerned
about the poor health and poverty of the people because of unemployment and mostly a work
pressure which leads the human creature to deal with various health issues (Grindrod, 2020).
Apart from this I heard that 68%of people are suffering from mental stress due to employment
health inequality at the global level. Improvement in this factor is required and necessary to
exhibit which can increase and improve the health and well-being scale at the global
surrounding.

CONCLUSION
In this report, it has been concluded that social determinant play a vital role in the individual life.
The report has demonstrated one of the part which is employment factor and introducing its
impact on the health inequality. It includes the importance and its effectiveness on the health as it
can be mental or physical both of a person or an individual which directly harm their well-being.
The report has demonstrated the brief description of the employment health inequalities and also
recommanded its solutions. In addition, to understand this objective in the definite manner it
included a reflective part or self narrative section of the employment health inequality.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Birnbaum, S., 2019. Confronting the social determinants of health: Has the language of trauma
informed care become a defence mechanism?. Issues in mental health
nursing.40(6).pp.476-481.
Chisolm, D.J., Brook, D.L., and et.al., 2019. Social determinants of health priorities of state
Medicaid programs. BMC health services research.19(1).pp.1-7.
Song, A.Y., Poythress, E.L., Bocchini, and et.al., 2018. Reorienting orientation: introducing the
social determinants of health to first-year medical students. MedEdPORTAL.14.
Niu, Z., Zhou, X. and Pei, H., 2020. Social determinants of sustainability: The imprinting effect
of social class background on corporate environmental responsibility. Corporate Social
Responsibility and Environmental Management.27(6).pp.2849-2866.
Parekh, T., Desai, R., Pemmasani, S. and et.al., 2020. Impact of social determinants of health on
cardiovascular diseases. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 75(11S2),
pp.1989-1989.
Gkiouleka, A., Huijts, T., Beckfield, J. and et.al., 2018. Understanding the micro and macro
politics of health: Inequalities, intersectionality & institutions-A research agenda. Social
Science & Medicine.200.pp.92-98.
Vancea, M. and Utzet, M., 2017. How unemployment and precarious employment affect the
health of young people: A scoping study on social determinants. Scandinavian journal
of public health.45(1).pp.73-84.
Grindrod, A., 2020. Choice depends on options: a public health framework incorporating the
social determinants of dying to create options at end of life. Progress in Palliative
Care.28(2).pp.94-100.
Online references
Social determinants of health, 2021 [Online]. Available through <https://www.who.int/health-
topics/social-determinants-of-health#tab=tab_3>
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