Discuss social structure and health inequalities with examples for each.

Social structure of a society is closely related to the status as a developed country.

According to Gross National income the world bank classification of countries are
classified to 4 types the low in come, lower middle income, higher middle income and
high income.Throughout all these years man has faced a very vast development.
Social structure is used as one of the determinants in making a country to become a
developed one.Malaysia has taken steps in driving transformation towards a
developed nation using the strategy of introducing budget 2013. This budget guides
all Malaysian in aiming to achieve a high income nation that is both inclusive and
sustainable in 2020. There are determinants of class positions that can be used easily
to classify social structure. For example is a common legal status including
occupational and reproductive rights, family, acculturation, including education and
caste. Generally, people in a society are classed according to their similar levels of
wealth, influence, and status. We have the lower class, the working class, the middle
class and the upper class. Besides the social class we also do have socioeconomic
factors affecting the social structure such as education and illegal worker status. Other
than that we also have the factors such as ethnic and religion, gender and age.
The lower class
The lower class is typified by poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. People of
this class, few of whom have finished high school, suffer from lack of medical care,
adequate housing and food, decent clothing, safety, and vocational training. The
media often stigmatize the lower class as the underclass, inaccurately characterizing
poor people as welfare mothers who abuse the system by having more and more
babies, welfare fathers who are able to work but do not, drug abusers, criminals, and
societal trash.
The working class
The working class are those minimally educated people who engage in manual
labor with little or no prestige. Unskilled workers in the classdishwashers,
cashiers, maids, and waitressesusually are underpaid and have no opportunity for
career advancement. They are often called the working poor. Skilled workers in this
classcarpenters, plumbers, and electriciansare often called blue collar workers.
They may make more money than workers in the middle classsecretaries, teachers,
and computer technicians; however, their jobs are usually more physically taxing, and
in some cases quite dangerous.
The middle class
The middle class are the sandwich class. These white collar workers have more
money than those below them on the social ladder, but less than those above them.
They divide into two levels according to wealth, education, and prestige. The lower
middle class is often made up of less educated people with lower incomes, such as
managers, small business owners, teachers, and secretaries. The upper middle
class is often made up of highly educated business and professional people with high
incomes, such as doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and CEOs.

The upper class

Comprising only 1 to 3 percent of the United States population, the upper class holds
more than 25 percent of the nation's wealth. This class divides into two
groups: lowerupper and upperupper. The lowerupper class includes those with
new money, or money made from investments, business ventures, and so forth.
The upperupper class includes those aristocratic and highsociety families with
old money who have been rich for generations. These extremely wealthy people
live off the income from their inherited riches. The upperupper class is more
prestigious than the lowerupper class.
Wherever their money comes from, both segments of the upper class are
exceptionally rich. Both groups have more money than they could possibly spend,
which leaves them with much leisure time for cultivating a variety of interests. They
live in exclusive neighborhoods, gather at expensive social clubs, and send their
children to the finest schools. As might be expected, they also exercise a great deal of
influence and power both nationally and globally.
Health Care: Costs and Inequality
No one denies that modern health care is expensive, but what factors contribute to the
rising cost?
Of course, continually advancing technology provides the most obvious and perhaps
greatest cause. Innovations in all forms of medical equipment, surgical techniques,
and therapies are costly on their own, but also require specialists to operate them, or
additional training for existing specialists. Patients, with more access to information
about new technology through the Internet and other sources, expect the latest
technology in their own treatment. Research and physician demands to use new
techniques to explore all possibilities in patient care fuel this expectation.
The rising cost of physician care provides the next most significant contributor to
rising medical costs. As technologies have increased so have the numbers of, types of,
and demands for specialists. Specialists generally charge more for services than
general practitioners, family practitioners, or internal medicine practitioners.
Surgeons, radiologists, and endocrinologists earn as much as $80,000 more per year
than a general practitioner. Cardiologists, gynecologists, and anesthesiologists earn
approximately $30,000 more per year. Some specialists, such as pathologists,
oncologists, and pediatricians, actually earn less than general practitioners. Even so,
physicians, as a group, are in the top 1percent income bracket, with incomes that
consistently remain ahead of inflation.
Another contributor to rising healthcare costs is malpractice insurance. From the
1980s to the 1990s, the cost of malpractice insurance doubled or tripled, depending
upon the specialty, and most specialists pay higher rates.
The availability of newer, more expensive drugs, particularly newer antibiotics and
drug treatments for AIDS patients, also contribute substantially to rising costs. Some
of these medications may cost more than a hundred dollars for a single dose. The cost
of medicine has become a public policy issue and a social problem as people forgo

medication to pay for food and housing; this is especially true among those elderly
who do not have prescription medicine coverage.
Religious Fundamentalism
One particularly notable feature of religion in the Unites Sates has been the
appearance of fundamentalist religious groups. Fundamentalism refers to blackand
white thinking that opposes modernism, or progressive thinking about religion and
other social topics. Fundamentalist groups tend to oppose anything that challenges
their religious group's interpretations and opinions. For instance, Christian
fundamentalists believe in the literal inerrant of the Bible, and often define themselves
as theologically and ritually conservative, or even not Catholic. They see
themselves as reacting against liberal theology.
To most Americans the term fundamentalist conjures up images of Biblethumping
Protestants, which is far from the case. All denominations and groupsincluding
those of religions like Islamcontain fundamentalist members. These activists
usually think that they have a corner on the truth, and do not tolerate other
viewpoints or practices.
The most wellknown fundamentalist denominations in the United States are the
Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the SeventhDay
Adventists. Organizations such as these often become politically active, and support
the conservative political right, including groups like the Moral Majority.
Social Stratification and Gender
Throughout most of recorded history and around the globe, women have taken a
back seat to men. Generally speaking, men have had, and continue to have, more
physical and social power and status than women, especially in the public arena. Men
tend to be more aggressive and violent then women, so they fight wars. Likewise,
boys are often required to attain proof of masculinity through strenuous effort. This
leads to males holding public office, creating laws and rules, defining society, and
some feminists might addcontrolling women. For instance, not until this century
were women in the United States allowed to own property, vote, testify in court, or
serve on a jury. Male dominance in a society is termed patriarchy.
Whereas in recent decades major strides toward gender equality have been made,
sociologists are quick to point out that much remains to be done if inequalities in the
United States are ever to be eliminated. Behind much of the inequalities seen in
education, the workplace, and politics is sexism, or prejudice and discrimination
because of gender. Fundamental to sexism is the assumption that men are superior to
women.
Sexism has always had negative consequences for women. It has caused some women
to avoid pursuing successful careers typically described as masculineperhaps to
avoid the social impression that they are less desirable as spouses or mothers, or even
less feminine.
Sexism has also caused women to feel inferior to men, or to rate themselves
negatively. In Philip Goldberg's classic 1968 study, the researcher asked female

college students to rate scholarly articles that were allegedly written by either John T.
McKay or Joan T. McKay. Although all the women read the same articles, those
who thought the author was male rated the articles higher than the women who
thought the author was female. Other researchers have found that men's resumes tend
to be rated higher than women's. More recently, though, researchers have found the
gap in these sorts of ratings to be closing. This may be due to social commentary in
the media regarding sexism; growing numbers of successful women in the workforce,
or discussion of Goldberg's findings in classrooms.
In short, sexism produces inequality between the gendersparticularly in the form of
discrimination. In comparable positions in the workplace, for example, women
generally receive lower wages than men. But sexism can also encourage inequality in
more subtle ways. By making women feel inferior to men, society comes to accept
this as the truth. When that happens, women enter the race with lower selfesteem
and fewer expectations, often resulting in lower achievements.
Sexism has brought gender inequalities to women in many arenas of life. But
inequality has been a special problem in the areas of higher education, work, and
politics.