Inequalities of Class, Gender, and Ethnicity

Class

• Class usually refers to a level of economic wealth, but can also be cultural (high class/low class)
• There are two ways to describe class: Durkheimian and Marxian
  • Durkheimian: different levels of wealth along a continuum, inequalities are natural
  • Marxian: two distinct categories, class is one's relationship to the "means of production", inequalities are based on exploitation and subjugation
    • Proletariat (workers) and Bourgeoisie (owners)

Economic/Class Inequality

• Exists between, within, and across countries
• World income distribution:
  • 42 richest people own half the wealth in the world (Oxfam, 2018)
  • 8 men own more than the poorest half of the world's population (Oxfam, 2018)
  • 82% of new wealth in 2017 went to the richest 1% (Oxfam, 2018)
• Comparative economic inequality between societies:
  • USA: wealthiest 20% own 85% of the wealth (2016)
  • World: wealthiest 10% own 85% of the wealth (2016)
• Income and wealth inequality in Canada:
  • Top 20% earn 43% of income
  • Bottom 20% earn 5.2%
  • In the last 30 years, the income share of the wealthiest 1% increased by 75%
  • The share of the poorest 20% fell by 20%

Intergenerational Income Elasticity

• Increases with inequality

Class as a Continuum

• Class, gender, and race are arbitrary categorizations along a continuum
• Socially constructed categories, just like grades (F=50 and below; D=50-60; C=60-70; B=70-80; A=80-90; A+ = 90-100)

Race and Ethnicity

• Race: based on physical differences
• Ethnicity: based on cultural identity
• Both are socially constructed categories arbitrarily dividing humans along a continuum
• The Human Genome Project has shown only 15% of genetic variation to occur between 'races' (85% within 'races')

Racism and Ethnocentrism

• Racism: the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination
• Ethnic discrimination: discriminating due to ethnicity
• Ethnocentrism: making value judgments about another culture from perspectives of one's own cultural system

Sex and Gender

• Sex: a cultural categorization of diverse human physiology
• Gender: a set of shared cultural understandings of how men, women, girls, and boys should look and act
• Gender roles: patterns of behavior that a society expects of males and females
• Gender socialization: the process by which people learn their culturally prescribed gender roles

Gender Biological Determinists

• Structural functionalists: gender roles are natural and related to physical differences
• Examples: men are naturally more aggressive, women are more nurturing