Aspects Of Social Inequality Research Articles

Political aspects of social inequality

Political aspects of social inequality

Social Stratification and its Indices: A Critique

Social stratification, which is an aspect of social inequality, has persisted as an important social issue. Indeed, according to Miller, ‘Nearly 30 percent of all research articles in major sociological journals [were] devoted to social stratification in 1990.’1 Usually, social stratification is used as an independent and explanatory variable in empirical research. Yet, despite its theoretical and methodological merits, sociologists have failed to reach a consensus on its conceptual or measurement indices. Scholars often use various indices that do not necessarily provide an explicit theoretical conception, and, consequently, it is not known to what social category these indices refer. Marsh writes: ‘in order for it to have explanatory power, it is important that it is adequately theorized, otherwise circular explanations occur. For example, if Registrar-General's classification is found to be related to some lifestyle variables, this can only be deemed an explanation if one can be sure that the class schema is not itself just a proxy for lifestyle groupings.’2 To show the importance of the social stratification index, scholars such as Marie Haug argue that it is a critical concept for the whole discipline of sociology: ‘Overcoming measurement shortcomings in the fundamental sociological concept of stratification calls for top scientific priority for the whole discipline.’3 In this article, we first highlight the importance of re-conceptualizing social stratification by describing the concept based on the postulates of functionalist theory. Its importance is highlighted further by examining its differential implications from Karl Marx's concept of social class.

‘Teenage traumas’

Previous research has shown that media representations of young people consistently portray them as in one way or another ‘problematic’, but little such research has focused specifically on the medium of radio. This article contains a detailed case study of a radio documentary series broadcast in Ireland called The Teenage Years. It explores the editorial, rhetorical and narrative devices used to construct and sustain a mainstream clinical-psychological discourse of adolescence, one which effectively ‘pathologizes’ the teenage years. It also ‘homogenizes’ them, privileging age as an explanatory factor in shaping identity and development and thereby systematically ignoring other aspects of social inequality and stratification. It is argued that this is an important ideological dimension of the discourse expressed and enacted by the series.

Social Stratification and Housing Mobility

This paper examines the extent to which housing tenure constitutes an enduring aspect of social inequality in relation to theories of re-stratification and the supposed decline of social class divisions. It uses an analysis of housing mobility based upon a survey of council tenants carried out in the inner London Borough of Camden and it looks at the housing tenure destinations of the tenants' adult `children' who have left the parental home. The largest tenure of destination was owner occupation, whilst just over a third of the `children' were local authority or housing association tenants. This indicates that an inter-generational, social renting `underclass' has not so far developed, contrary to the re-stratification theories. However, a higher proportion of the younger than the older `children' were tenants of social rented housing. The relative impact of class and household employment patterns on housing mobility is considered. The paper concludes by arguing that social class is of continued importance in terms of understanding patterns of housing mobility.

Ethnic Inequalities in Old Age: Some Comparisons Between Britain and the United States

Issues of ethnicity and aging are much discussed in the U.S.A., but have only recently begun to emerge in Britain. This paper sets out to review some of the main findings of the British research on the elderly of Asian and West Indian ethnic minorities and to compare these with American evidence on the position of the minority aged. Some of the difficulties in making valid comparisons are noted, particularly in view of the heterogeneity of ethnic groups, differences in migration patterns, social and welfare contexts and the paucity of evidence on ethnic minority aging in Britain. However, preliminary findings on income, health, satisfaction and social interaction do offer a basis for general, if not detailed, comparisons. Each of these aspects of social inequality is examined, using survey data from a study of minority ethnic groups in Birmingham, England. Inequalities in income and health are found to be marked, when old Asians and West Indians are compared with old white counterparts in the inner city; evidence on life satisfaction and social interaction is mixed, and the implications of these findings for the double jeopardy hypothesis are discussed.

Problems encountered when linking environmental management to development aid

Environmental management is defined as a mechanism for alleviating the worst of environmental damage and reducing the most unacceptable aspects of social inequalities but without really altering the patterns of political and economic power. It is now increasingly regarded as accepted practice in development partly because it is economically and socially counterproductive to ignore it. The purpose of the paper is to illustrate the difficulties involved in incorporating environmental management into economic growth with special reference to development assistance. Much environmental damage in the Third World is a product of the forces of development rather than the fault of the people, and in the past development assistance projects have often inadvertently led to environmental destruction and social distress. Case examples are given. The paper argues that among the many impediments to the full incorporation of environmental management into development are the following: the administrative structure of the agencies involved, suspicions in the past of receiving nation governments and the risky nature, and expensive labour intensity of programmes aimed at integrated rural development and appropriate technology. Some recommendations are advanced involving administrative reorganisation, new training skills and diplomacy, although no major breakthroughs are expected to come quickly.

A Structural Model of the Mobility Table

We propose a multiplicative (log-linear) model for mobility tables (or other cross-classifications) which is helpful in locating cells where counts are especially dense or sparse. This specification eliminates the confounding of main effects and interaction effects, which has plagued many other methods of measuring and interpreting association in mobility tables, especially those methods based on the model of simple statistical independence. The model yields a parsimonious set of parameters which describe the table, and goodness of fit can be assessed with standard inferential procedures. For each cell of the table the model yields a useful measure of association, which we call the new mobility ratio. We illustrate the model by reanalyzing the classic British mobility table of 1949, and we use that example to compare our measure of association with other mobility measures. Occupational mobility is a fundamental indicator of the temporal aspect of social stratification (Duncan, b). The centrality of occupational roles in the organization of contemporary and especially industrial societies is coupled with strong commonalities across time and space in the differential access of occupational incumbents to social (including economic and political) rewards (Treiman). In this way occupational incumbency may be viewed as a or of social standing and occupational mobility as an of social mobility. The terms proxy and index are used deliberately, for we would not wish to reify the concept of occupational status nor tc discourage the analysis of other aspects of social inequality.

The Role of Women in the People's Republic of China: Legacy and Change

After 25 years of communist rule, women in China have made significant progress toward emancipation. However, some aspects of traditional sex role differentiation still persist in the family. Furthermore, in work outside the home, women still experience discrimination in pay and important jobs. In the political area, women are still discriminated against on the national level. Most of the important government positions are held by men. Although the magnitude of sex inequality in the past can explain some of these legacies, a more complete explanation must take into account the survival of the concept of Yin-Yang, the patrilineal kinship system; the Ancestral Cult in China; and the inadequacy of the socialist revolution. The misery that Chinese Women have suffered for thousands of years has now reached a limit. The trammels of a patriarchal social system and oppression by imperialism and its tools-the warlords, compradors, gangster politicians, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry-have kept women from achieving political and economic independence and have literally made them into commodities, playthings, parasites (Institute of the People's Movement, 1902?:2). The foregoing declaration appeared in the opening chapter of a Communist publication in the 20's. It gives evidence to the Chinese Communist Party's long interest in the emancipation of women (China Reconstruct, 1975:40-41). In 1950, one year after the party's triumph over the Nationalists, the new government immediately kept its promise by issuing a new Marriage Law, designed to eradicate all social inequalities between the sexes. However, in spite of the government's earnest effort in the last twenty-five years, some important aspects of social inequality between the sexes still persist in China today, albeit some significant progress has been made. The present paper is an attempt to describe some of the legacies and changes, and to offer an explanation for the stamina of male supremacy in China. Since outsiders are not able to conduct scientific social surveys in China at this time, the present study must rely on other approaches. The material presented here comes from published articles and reports, and from interviews with a number of emigrants and Chinese who have recently visited their relatives in China. The author has interviewed ten female emigrants who have spent at least their entire childhood and adolescence in Communist China, and eight Hong Kong Chinese who recently visited their relatives on the mainland. The interviews were informally conducted over a period of time. The data obtained from * The author wishes to thank Professors Marion Dearman and William Darrough for their comments and suggestions. I am especially indebted to Professor Lillian Rubin for sharing many of her ideas with me. Without her generosity, encouragement, and patience, this paper would not have been possible.