Social Class - Essay Example

These classes are “distinguished by inequalities in such areas as power, authority, wealth, working and living conditions, life-styles, life-span, education, religion, and culture” (Cody). How one’s socio-economic status, with which he is born with, affects his life chances is going to be discussed in this paper. Let’s first talk about healthcare. One who is born with high social status is given all the rights by the society to enjoy good health care facilities. He has enough money to go to expensive doctors or even visit physicians abroad.

He has all the resources with which he can afford expensive medicines, and also can hire servants who bring the medicine placed on a tray to be put into his mouth. When a wealthy man goes to a hospital, he immediately gets an appointment with the highly professional provider. On the other hand, when a person belonging to a lower class, or even a middle class, gets sick, he is not able to afford to go to a doctor and buy costly medicines. If at all he manages to reach the hospital, he has to wait in long queues to get an appointment to get him examined.

The doctor will not talk to him humanely. This way, the upper class enjoys greater longevity than the lower class. The middle class is not affected much in case of longevity. Hence, the amount of money a person has in his pocket decides what kind of and how much health care he will receive. This is the class discrimination that has deepened its roots into our society and no matter how much we get educated, we will always fall prey to this cruel discrimination. As far as family life is concerned, it is affected negatively in lower classes.

This is because poor people are more stressed out because of poor financial conditions. They do not have high paying jobs, and thus they hardly make both ends meet. They cannot think of any luxury other than earning bread and butter. The family life is disturbed and the children do not get enough attention from their parents. Despite being the richest country, Americans rank highest in child poverty rates. They are stricken with insufficient nutrition along with unemployment and housing that is overcrowded (Arloc).

Poor class manifests in physical, emotional and social ways. McLoyd suggests that impoverished children have social, emotional and behavioral problems due to poor health and serious mental health problems stemming from the persistent poverty level in which they live. Aber and Bennett concluded that serious health problems come along with the territory such as preventable diseases like Influenza, Measles, Malnutrition and AIDS due to lack of proper education and poor or no health care at all. On the other hand, the rich people have all the facilities and luxuries with which they can make their lives easier and their children happier.

They can always spend lots of money on vacations, movies, games, picnics, and so on. The education and the political system is also dependent upon the social class. Lower social classes do not have the funding to support their children financially so that they are able to get good education. So they lag behind. This ends in their not getting good jobs, thus they add to the overall poverty. The high social classes can afford good schools and colleges, and can even send their children abroad for higher education.

Thus, education sector is controlled by those high in power and wealth. Moreover, upper class is also able to vote more and choose their political leaders. Lower classes either