Chapter 9. Social Inequality
9.4. Theoretical Perspectives on Social Inequality
Social inequality is defined by unequal access to rewards in society. Research has shown a growing gap in wealth and income between the economic elites and all the other segments of the population in Canada and elsewhere over the last 40 years (Osberg, 2021; Alvaredo et al., 2018). In 2021, Forbe’s annual list of global billionaires increased by 660 to a new record of 2755 individuals, during a global pandemic which had placed severe economic hardship on the majority of the world’s population. Together their wealth added up to $13.1 trillion (US), up $5 trillion from 2020 (Dolan, 2021). In 2020, Oxfam calculated that the world’s 2,153 billionaires had more wealth than lowest 4.6 billion people combined, or more than 60 per cent of the planet’s population (Lawson et al., 2020). Similarly, Canada’s top 20 billionaires had become $37 billion wealthier over the first 6 months of the pandemic (CCPA, 2020).
What accounts for social inequality? In sociology, the issue is studied from various points of view. Structural functionalists examine the purpose or social function of wealth discrepancies, while critical sociologists examine the accumulation of wealth as a product of the unequal distribution of power in society. Interpretive sociologists are interested in how the meanings of social inequality, status and class are constructed and deployed in the conduct of everyday life. The question of how to account for social inequality opens up several debates in sociology.
Structural Functionalism
In sociology, the structural functionalist perspective examines how society’s structures operate to maintain the overall functioning of the system. Different aspects of society like social inequality persist because they serve a needed purpose. What is the social function of social inequality?
In 1945, sociologists Kingsley Davis (1908–1997) and Wilbert Moore (1914–1987) put forward the Davis-Moore thesis, which argued that the greater the functional importance of a social role, the greater must be the reward. The theory argues that systems of social stratification have a social function, which reflects the inherently unequal value of different types of work. Certain tasks in society are more valuable than others. Qualified people who fill those positions must be rewarded more than others. Therefore the function of stratification or social inequality in societies is “the requirement faced by any society of placing and motivating individuals in the social structure. As a functioning mechanism a society must somehow distribute its members in social positions and induce them to perform the duties of these positions.” Societies do this through the unequal distribution of rewards, esteem and social prestige between different social positions, which ensures that “the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the most qualified persons” (Davis and Moore, 1945).
Davis and Moore (194