Sociology of Health: Examining Social Class and Health Inequalities

This essay examines the main ways social class contributes to health inequalities. It defines health inequalities and social class, highlighting socioeconomic status as a key social determinant. The essay explores the impact of social class on factors like education, employment, and access to healthcare, referencing the situation in the United Kingdom. It also discusses the roles of health professionals and the state in managing healthcare. Furthermore, the essay introduces the concept of the sick role and delves into sociological theories from Karl Marx and Max Weber regarding social stratification, class conflict, and the influence of social factors on health outcomes. The essay concludes by summarizing the various factors that contribute to social class-based health inequalities and emphasizing the importance of addressing these disparities.

Sociology of Health
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Contents
Topic: “Explain the main ways that social class leads to inequalities in health”............................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
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Topic: “Explain the main ways that social class leads to inequalities in health”
INTRODUCTION
Health inequalities are defined as the differences in status of health or health resources
distribution between distinct population groups, arising through social conditions or
circumstances in which individuals are born, live, grow, age and work (Adler, Glymour, and
Fielding, 2016). Social class is referred as the class, group of individuals in society who possess
similar socio-economic status. This is an essay report based on the topic "main ways which leads
social class to inequalities in health. This report covers an understanding about role of state and
professionals in management of health and the theories given by Karl Marx and Max Weber on
social inequality. The concept of sick role is also introduced in the report briefly.
MAIN BODY
Social class is defined as the grouping of people in stratified hierarchy on the basis of
education, occupation, income, wealth and social network. The social class of a person has
significant influence on physical health, life expectancy and the ability to receive adequate
nutrition and medical care. In the health outcome of an individual, socioeconomic status is the
main social determinants (Martin, and et. al., 2015). These are the social and economic
conditions which impact on group and individual differences in status of health. Inequality in
health is defined as the unequal distribution of access to health services and environmental health
hazards between demographic groups involving social classes. Income, wealth, education,
housing, work environment, unemployment etc. are the different health determinants that
influence health of social class. In United Kingdom, the socio-economic health inequalities have
a long history. It is the main concern in the nation for over 150 years and the outcomes of health
are generally worsened with great socio economic disadvantage.
In United Kingdom, social class inequalities persist at every age. Family life including
household composition and childbearing is strongly influenced through social class. Apart from
this, education is also the main component (Ettorre, 2016). High social classes are more possibly
to receive higher education and they are more likely to get prestigious jobs and high salaries.
However, in context of lower social class people, they are not getting proper access to education
and their parents are not able to get their child admitted to private school which brings an
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inequality in education between the people of upper class and low class. The social class of the
people measured by social economic status, is related to religious practices and affiliations of
individuals. Instead of extent of religiosity, affiliation has more to do with the way religion is
practiced. Individuals with lower class tend to be affiliated with fundamentalist religions as well
as sect like groups. The social factors like employment status, gender, ethnicity, income level,
education etc. are the factors which leads to inequalities in health status of people (Amzat, and
Razum, 2017). Among the different social groups in all the countries, wide disparities are found
in the health status. If the social economic position of the individual is lower, then there is high
risk for their poor health.
Health professionals play significant role in enhancing quality of health care services for
people. They render necessary services which prevent diseases, Promote health as well as deliver
care services to people, families and communities on the basis of approach of Primary Health
Care. Apart from this, there are several roles played by state including role of regulation,
inspection, planning, financing and delivery of healthcare services. the state emphasizes on
providing preventive health care to patients and render private sector with the opportunities.
State also take care of other areas related to healthcare provision and promote initiatives related
to this. It encourages and support lower income people to get benefit of health care from private
sector as well as provide indirect or direct financial support to the private health care institutions.
In addition to this, state has a responsibility to develop strategic plan in the area of health care
and determine relevant national targets (White, 2016).
In sociology, the term sick role is utilized regarding sickness, obligations and rights of
affected. An American sociologist developed this concept which was argued by an another
sociologist. The theory of sick role outline two rights of the individual who is sick and their 2
obligations. The right of sick persons is twofold: 1. Being exempt from normal social roles; and
2. not being responsible for their situation. On the other hand, the obligations of sick person
involve trying to get well and other is cooperating with medical professionals. Three versions of
sick role are concluded by Parsons including illegitimate, conditional and unconditional
legitimate (Sujatha, 2017).
Sociologists have assessed social stratification for centuries along with its root cause as well as
its impact on society. Max Weber and Karl Marx are the two sociologists and theorists who
disagreed regarding nature of class, in specifically. The conflict theory of Karl Marx is based on
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the idea that the modern society has 2 classes of individuals. Proletariat, they are the workers;
and bourgeoisie who are the owners of production means: businesses, factories and equipment
required to produce wealth. According to the theory given by Karl Marx, in capitalist societies,
the bourgeoisie exploit workers. Owners pay them to adequately to afford place to live and have
enough food and the workers who are not realised that they are being exploited by employer,
have mistaken sense or false consciousness, that they paid well. Workers think that they can rely
on their Boss to do what is best for them (Marx, 1982).
Marx hypothesized that as rich grew richer, workers would build a sense of shared identity or a
true class consciousness on the basis of their common exploitation experience by bourgeoisie. He
said that workers will unite as well as rise up in global revolution. And when the dust of
revolution settled, the workers will then own production means, and world would become
communist. He said that everything would be owned by everyone equally. But, the vision of
Marx didn't come true. As with the modernization, societies grew larger, working class acquiring
more skills, became educated and accomplish kind of financial wellbeing which Karl Marx never
thought possible. Apart from this, marks also said that the class is originated from several
personal interests associated with humans’ struggle and social alienation. Whereby, the class
structure formation is related to acute historical consciousness. Based on the two criteria, he
distinguishes one class from another. According to him, the capitalist class cannot exist without
workers or vice versa. He said that relationship between classes is antagonistic or contradictory
relationship (Lenin, 1899).
According to the theory given by Pierre Bourdieu, taste is acquired deposition to appreciate
and differentiate, which means to develop and mark differences through distinction process that
is not a different knowledge, it makes sure recognition of object without employing distinct
feature's knowledge which define it (Harker, Mahar, and Wilkes, 2016). According to Bourdieu,
he believes that the life of society or social life can't be understood as simply as the behaviour of
individual. He develops a bridge between to dualisms in habitus form. He retains original
meaning of some concept with relation between habitus, field and body. As per his opinion, body
is mnemonic device in which the practical taxonomies of habitus and basics of culture are
imprinted and encoded in learning process or socializing process which commence in childhood.
Thus, habitus shapes the social world and the extensive social structures shape habitus of people
(Bourdieu, 2017).
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On the other hand, unlike Marx, the analysis of social stratification by Max Weber was not
linked to or rooted in any attempt to develop general historical analysis regarding social
development. He argued that class stratification had a significant and clear economic dimension
and he believe that the other dimensions related to stratification needs to be involved if a
complete analysis of rich social variety of distinct social stratification forms was to be obtained.
These two related dimensions include parity and status (Marx, 1999). Therefore, as suggested
above, for understanding the relative importance of three stratification dimension of Max Weber,
including class, parity and status, it is needed to know the way they are defined and interrelated.
Central to the analysis of Weber, there are 2 basic dimensions which required to understand
including possession of power and exercising of power. On the basis of overall theoretical
perspectives, the conflict approach of Karl Marx can be contrasted with conflict perspective of
Max Weber based on that former focused on the significance of social structure (Sunar, 2016).
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that there are several factors
which leads the social class towards inequality in health. These factors include unemployment,
illiteracy, lack of access to healthcare, poor housing etc. Education is one of the main factor that
leads to inequality. The people with upper class have access to good education however, lower
class people do not have proper access to education as their parents are able to afford to send
their children to private schools. This is the reason of inequality in education between both these
classes. Apart from this, due to lack of education, these people are not getting good jobs, on high
salaries. This creates differences in the society as all the people do not have equal access on
education, health care and other services which are necessary to improve their wellbeing.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adler, N.E., Glymour, M.M. and Fielding, J., 2016. Addressing social determinants of health and
health inequalities. Jama, 316(16), pp.1641-1642.
Martin, D., and et. al., 2015. Architecture and health care: a place for sociology. Sociology of
health & illness, 37(7), pp.1007-1022.
Ettorre, E., 2016. Culture, bodies and the sociology of health. Routledge.
Amzat, J. and Razum, O., 2017. Towards a sociology of health discourse in Africa. Springer.
White, K., 2016. An introduction to the sociology of health and illness. Sage.
Sujatha, V., 2017. What Is the Sociology behind Health Status and Health-seeking
Behaviour?. Sociological Bulletin, 66(3), pp.286-301.
Harker, R., Mahar, C. and Wilkes, C. eds., 2016. An introduction to the work of Pierre Bourdieu:
The practice of theory. Springer.
Bourdieu, P., 2017. Habitus. In Habitus: A sense of place (pp. 59-66). Routledge.
Sunar, L., 2016. Marx and Weber on oriental societies: in the shadow of western modernity.
Routledge.
Marx, K., 1982. Pathways of social development: a brief against suprahistorical theory.
In Introduction to the Sociology of “Developing Societies” (pp. 109-111). Palgrave,
London.
Lenin, V.I., 1899. The development of capitalism in Russia. Moscow,^ l, 579, p.27.
Marx, K., 1999. Capital: An abridged edition. OUP Oxford.
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