Sociology

EVALUATE SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS FOR DIFFERING LIFE CHANCES
This assignment is going to explore an evaluation of various sociological explanations of life chances including health. This will be done by defining life chances and link them with the relevant theories such as the conflict, consensus, and social action theory.
Life chances can be defined as the opportunities that arise in life that will determine the significant outcome of an individual’s life. Factors such as education, wealth, social class, and ethnicity can influence life chances. They differ from person to person, a person born into a wealthy social class family is considered to have better life chances than one born into a poor family. It is important to note that one’s health is also defined by life chances.
Referring to the inequalities of health Chapman (2000, p.13) says that, it is an indication of difference in life chances that exist between ruling and working class. This view blames the ill-health of working class people on capitalism. The Black Report (1980) and The Health Divide (1987) support this by stating ill health amongst working class, as poverty. Long working hours, poor housing and poor education can make them prone to ill health. Medical companies and professionals capitalise on this, they are seen as a social institution that is in place to support the capitalist interest by keeping “workforce” healthy. , making huge profits of money in the process (IBID).
Even though Marxism blames capitalism for ill health amongst the working class, health improved under capitalism. This has also seen the life expectancy double since the 19th century. Harper tells (p.21, 2006) us that capitalism brought something good, the infant mortality is lower and also diseases such as tuberculosis have been eradicated.
The working class’ life chances have effect on their health. Cultural deprivation theory sees the inequality in health witnessed between the working and middle class, a result of culture. The working class’ health is seen as more at risk because of the poor diet, usage of illegal drugs and practising unsafe sex. (Chapman, 2000, p. 141)Their lifestyles are described by Steve (2000, p. 144) as unhealthy. This can be witnessed from their excess drinking. In other words their culture is made up of values that harm their health. The middle class are seen as more knowledgeable in health information that explains why the cultural theorists see them as people who exercise compared to the working class who do not see the importance of it.
Not everyone agrees to this cultural theory, Graham and Blackburn view the behaviour of the working class as “rational responses “to some stressful situations they encounter. Their excess drinking and smoking is seen as a way of venting out some of their stress brought by poverty. Healthy diets are expensive which make them out of reach for the working class. This clearly shows that they do not have a choice on what to buy, but only buy unhealthy food because it’s affordable. (Harper, 2006, p.28).
If the people experience ill health because of their diet or other reasons, Functionalism sees them as playing a role in society. This is called the “sick role”. Not only this, but functionalists believe that the doctors have the best I interest of patients at heart. Talcott Parsons (1951) states that doctors act on behalf of society as a whole. Harper (2006, p.23) indicates that doctors make it possible for the sick role to be played by those who are genuinely sick only. By so doing the subculture of sickness that might develop to threaten society’s value system will be rendered powerless. Having said this, Webber (2006, p.20) argues that functionalist view fails to realise that professionals act in own self-interest, not the society’s or patient’s. A good example to support this is a story about a doctor called Harold Shipman who killed some of his clients (news.bbc.co.uk, viewed 2 March 2012).He definitely did not have his patients’ interest at heart. Apart from this, it is not everyone in the society who is willing to take up the sick role, like the functionalists portray.
From this assignment we can tell that Functionalism, Conflict, Feminist and some other theories have different ways of perceiving sociological views on health. Even though this is so, it can be agreed that life chances of an individual can either be bad or good .To conclude, one might say good “life chances" is equals to good life and subsequently good health.

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