Social Inequality
Sociologists see society as a stratification system that is based on a hierarchy of power (the ability to direct someone else’s behavior), privilege (honor and respect), and prestige (income, wealth, and property), which leads to patterns of social inequality. Inequality is about who gets what, how they get it, and why they get it. Social inequality is typically tied to race, gender, and class, with whites, males, those with higher education levels, and those with higher income levels sitting at the top of the hierarchy.
Social inequality is characterized by the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society. It contains structured and recurrent patterns of unequal distributions of goods, wealth, opportunities, rewards, and punishments. There are two main ways to measure social inequality: inequality of conditions, and inequality of opportunities. Inequality of conditions refers to the unequal distribution of income, wealth and material goods. Housing, for example, is an inequality of conditions with the homeless and those living in housing projects sitting at the bottom of the hierarchy while those living in multi-million dollar mansions sitting at the top.
Inequality of opportunities refers to the unequal distribution of "life chances" across individuals. This is reflected in measures such as level of education, health status, and treatment by the criminal justice system.
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