Power, privilege, poverty, health disparities | 10A: Social inequality | Psych/soc

Power, privilege, and prestige

In sociology, power, prestige, and privilege are interconnected concepts that describe different aspects of social inequality and influence within a society.

Power refers to the ability of individuals or groups to influence or control the actions and outcomes of others, even against resistance. It is often tied to positions of authority and is visible as economic power, political power, and social power.
Power dynamics are central to understanding how decisions are made and who benefits from those decisions in any social structure.
Prestige, on the other hand, is related to the level of respect, admiration, or honor that a person or group receives from others. It often originates from one’s occupation, accomplishments, or social status. High-prestige positions, such as doctors, judges, or university professors, typically require extensive education and offer significant influence over societal norms and values.
Privilege refers to the special rights or advantages available only to particular individuals or a group of people, often without any merit on their part. Privilege is usually discussed in terms of unearned benefits, which individuals may receive based on attributes such as race, gender, or economic background.

Power focuses on the capacity to enforce decisions, prestige relates more to the societal acknowledgment, and privilege involves unearned advantages held due to one’s social position. All three interact extensively.

E Intersectionality (e.g., race, gender, age)

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality to describe how being Black and also being a woman magnified the negative effects that would have been experienced as a member of only one of those groups. Over time, the use of the term has expanded to include the overlap of different aspects of identity, like class, race, culture, sex, gender, age, and sexual orientation.

Global inequalities

Dependency theory argues that global inequality stems from wealthy core nations exploiting poorer peripheral nations and middle-income semi-peripheral nations. This exploitation fosters a cycle of dependence, keeping less-developed countries reliant on core nations for economic access and inhibiting their long-term growth. Core nations and institutions like the World Bank control funding and trade practices, shaping labor markets to benefit dominant economies. While some peripheral countries (e.g., China or Brazil) advance economically, dependency theorists contend that core nations still preserve a balance that ensures these partners can serve their outsourced work demands without becoming a competitor that poses a genuine risk.

Patterns of social mobility

Social mobility describes a person’s capacity to move within a social stratification system. When economic status changes enough to alter one’s social class, that individual experiences social mobility. This can manifest in two principal ways:

Upward Mobility: Occurs when someone advances to a higher socioeconomic class, perhaps due to educational achievements, career progress, or a rise in earnings.
Downward Mobility: Happens when individuals slip to a lower socioeconomic class, which can stem from job loss, divorce, or health issues that reduce income or status.

Intergenerational mobility involves shifts in social class across different generations of a family. For example, grandparents may have started in the lower class, parents advanced to the middle class, and a child might enter the upper class. In contrast, intragenerational mobility focuses on changes in a single person’s social standing over their lifetime, meaning one sibling may experience wealth and status different from that of another sibling.

In addition, sociologists distinguish between horizontal and vertical mobility:

Horizontal Mobility: Changing positions within the same social class (e.g., switching from one job to another with similar pay or status)
Vertical Mobility: Moving up or down in social class, effectively corresponding to the upward or downward mobility described earlier

Relative and absolute poverty

Absolute poverty occurs when a household lacks the financial means to secure essential needs like food and shelter, placing daily survival at risk.
Relative poverty describes a situation in which an individual or family lives on an income amounting to half of the average median income—often termed the poverty level or poverty line.

Social exclusion (segregation and isolation)

Social exclusion includes processes and structures that systematically block particular individuals or groups from fully participating in economic, social, and political life. It often involves denial of access to essential resources and opportunities that enable people to thrive within a society, such as decent housing, quality education, stable employment, and social networks. Social exclusion can manifest through discrimination, marginalization, or stigmatization based on factors like race, class, gender, ability, or citizenship status. Over time, it creates and reinforces disadvantages, limiting people’s life chances and sustaining broader patterns of inequality.

Socioeconomic gradient in health

Health Disparities in the United States

Health outcomes in the United States vary markedly across social class, gender, and race, reflecting deep-seated disparities in access to care, lifestyle factors, and genetic predispositions. Across the nation, the top causes of mortality are heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease (COPD), stroke, and accidents. However, these conditions affect different groups in distinct ways.

Class

Lower-income individuals are generally at higher risk for a range of health problems. Limited access to quality healthcare, healthy food, and safe living conditions can contribute to poorer health outcomes. For example, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may face higher stress levels, poorer nutrition, and limited preventive care—factors that increase susceptibility to chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes.

Gender

Women often outlive men, but they tend to experience more non-life-threatening illnesses. Arthritis, fibromyalgia, and depression are more common in women, partly due to hormonal and social factors. Men, conversely, have a higher incidence of serious, life-threatening illnesses like heart disease, cancer, COPD, and diabetes, and they die at younger ages. Social norms and attitudes toward health may play a role, as men are generally less likely to seek medical attention or adhere to treatment plans.

Race as a Health Factor

Black Americans have higher rates of sickle cell disease and sarcoidosis. They also tend to develop hypertension earlier in life and are at greater risk for diabetes and stroke.
White Americans are more prone to conditions like cystic fibrosis and skin cancer.
Asian Americans experience higher rates of stomach cancer, which is sometimes associated with foods containing preservatives rich in nitrates.
American Indians and Alaska Natives have a life expectancy that is 5.5 years shorter than the total U.S. population. They also experience higher mortality rates in several areas, including chronic liver disease, diabetes, accidental injuries and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

There is a complex interplay of genetics, cultural factors, and socioeconomic determinants of health.

Healthcare disparities

Individuals from lower-income backgrounds frequently have limited healthcare access and higher rates of being uninsured. Women generally seek medical assistance more consistently, whereas LGBT populations may avoid care due to concerns about discrimination. Black and Hispanic communities, in particular, often face reduced access to healthcare and experience poorer health outcomes overall.