Social reproduction

Social reproduction is a concept originally proposed by Karl Marx in Das Kapital, and is a variety of his broader idea of reproduction. According to sociologist Christopher B. Doob, it 'refers to the emphasis on the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next'. According to Pierre Bourdieu, there are four types of capital that contribute to social reproduction in society. They are financial capital, cultural capital, human capital, and social capital. Social reproduction is a concept originally proposed by Karl Marx in Das Kapital, and is a variety of his broader idea of reproduction. According to sociologist Christopher B. Doob, it 'refers to the emphasis on the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next'. According to Pierre Bourdieu, there are four types of capital that contribute to social reproduction in society. They are financial capital, cultural capital, human capital, and social capital. Financial capital refers to the income and wealth of a person. Financial capital will influence the cultural capital one receives. Cultural capital is the shared outlook, beliefs, knowledge, and skills that are passed between generations. Cultural capital influences human capital, which refers to the education and job training a person receives. Human capital creates the ability for one to attain social capital, which is essentially the social network to which one belongs. Social capital can largely influence one's ability to find opportunities, especially employment. All four forms of capital play a role in social reproduction because capital is passed from generation to generation and keeps people in the same social class as their parents before them. This keeps reproducing inequality through the system of social stratification. Social reproduction, when co-opted with cultural reproduction, allows for sociology of education to assume its role. Education is an attempt at leveling the playing field by allowing those in poorer classes a chance to move up, but it fails in many critical ways. For example, education is costly. Better schools mean better equipment, better books, and better teachers, all of which remain beyond the poverty line's pay grade, so higher education becomes exclusive to higher classes, leaving people of lower classes with much less to work with, as well as fewer opportunities. The education system in many high-income countries polarizes individuals from a young age. It creates elites that care little for those in the classes beneath them and believe that they should earn extraordinarily more than everyone else, all the while defining people by their jobs, concluding that those with low-paid jobs for that reason live in relative poverty. The system strives to maintain the status quo so children can be greatly denigrated. As the rich take in an increasing amount of the country's wealth, there is less and less for the general populace, resulting in poorer education. The sociology of health and illness studies how social life affects morbidity and mortality rate, and vice versa. Social reproduction is involved with the sociology of health and illness when it comes to how inequalities affect the health of people in particular classes. The greater the economic inequality, the more of a toll it takes on the health of the populace, from life expectancy to infant mortality, and in cases like the U.S, increasing rates of obesity. Studies done on the population of high income countries makes this apparent. It is simply not just poverty, though they do go hand in hand, but it also leads to a gap in social cohesion, which leads the populace to be more stressed, fearful, and insecure. In the majority of high-income countries, the top 1 percent lives on average 10 years longer than the average 99%, statistically making those born into the poorer classes naturally have a shorter life span. This is due to the top 1% having access to better healthcare. The bottom 99% rarely go to see a doctor and simply takes cough medicine for more serious illnesses, and are disadvantaged especially in cases of incurable illnesses like AIDS where constant medicating with expensive drugs is the only way to sustain a normal life. Those born into a lower class are at a higher risk of suffering from illness. In the past, the poor suffered from hunger and starvation. However, in high-income countries like the U.S, the opposite is true. Food-insecure families are the most prone to high rates of obesity, especially in children. That is because they cannot afford to buy groceries and may purchase fast food for its low cost instead for a meal. This leads to long-term problems where children who become obese continue to be obese into their adult lives, suffering from other ailments like heart disease, high blood pressure, increased risk for cancer, type 2 diabetes, stroke, infertility, arthritis, breathing difficulties and/or depression.