Social Problem Assignment: Poverty and Racial Inequality (Essay Sample)

Social problem: Poverty and Racial Inequality
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Social problem: Poverty and Racial Inequality
The social problem chosen for this sociological perspective analysis is poverty and race. Poverty and race are serious problems in the current society globally. A social problem is a social condition which damage or disrupt the society. According to Barkan (2016), a social problem is any given behavior or condition which has negative effects on large number of people and which is generally recognized as a serious behavior or condition that need to get addressed (p.6). In America, poverty and racism are serious social problems that disrupt the society and they are closely linked.
Halleröd & Larsson (2008) observed that poverty has effects in the whole society because it causes social tensions and even threaten to divide a society due to issues of inequalities in income and deprivation. Poor people eventually face social exclusion in the society (Halleröd & Larsson, 2008). On the other hand, racism is a recipe of discrimination. A study by Pager & Shepherd (2008) found that at least 33% of African Americans and about 20% of Asians and Hispanics had been denied job promotion due to their race/ethnicity. Therefore, this actually provides a link between poverty and race. People of minority races, are hardly considered for good jobs hence they majorly remain poor. Discrimination against some groups based on their race can encouraged exclusion and also impoverish certain groups of people in the society who eventually suffer from inequalities on employment, services provisions and basic needs.
The sociological concepts that help explain poverty and racism are Conflict theory and social stratification. Conflict theory provides that the society is characterized by inequalities based on race, social class, gender, among other factors. Social problems emanate from faults in the society’s social structure which reinforce and reflect inequalities. To reduce or eliminate these inequalities, social changes in the society’s structure need to be implemented to create egalitarian society. On the other hand, social stratification is the ranking of people with regards to their wealth and other resources. Three theoretical perspectives view social stratification in different ways with regards to poverty. Functionalism theorists view social stratification as inevitable and necessary to provide people with special knowledge, intelligence and skills to venture into the most important occupations. Conflict theorists view social stratification as an issue that emerges from prejudice and discrimination against the poor, people of color and women and lack of opportunity. Symbolic interactionism theorists view stratification as an issue that affects beliefs, daily interaction, lifestyles, and conception of people (Barkan, 2016). Therefore, conflict theory view poverty and racial inequality as issues that arises from faults in the social structure of the society. These faults can include prejudice, discrimination, exclusion and uneven distribution of resources.
Sociological research about poverty and Racial Inequality
Quillian (2012) conducted a literature review research about the link between segregation and poverty concentration. The author developed a formal decomposition model that explains how group poverty rates, segregation, and other physical conditions jointly form concentrated poverty. The author examined empirical studies and found that growing joblessness and deindustrialization are the driving factors causing concentrated poverty in the minority communities. This joblessness is caused by racial segregation that causes inequalities in the society.
Quillian (2012) added that racial segregation separates the low poverty racial groups from the high-poverty racial groups. The result of this segregation means that poverty will be highly concentrated in the high-poverty racial groups’ communities while the low-poverty racial groups get shielded from poverty. By adding some poverty status with racial segregation, poverty gets concentrated further hence producing a neighborhood with high poverty contact for the poor people in the high-poverty racial groups (Quillian (2012). The findings of this author show that racial segregation is a key factor that causes poverty in the society. As people become more segregated, people who feel the problem of racial segregation tend to be those in high poverty level. They move to live in the same neighborhood and this causes concentrated poverty. The study also show that the minority groups such as Hispanic and blacks tend to be subjected to racial segregation that makes them poorer.
Kaba (2013) conducted a literature review study of the wealth gap between whites and African Americans in the United States. The study was basically a secondary research study that used secondary sources to obtain data. From the study, the author found that the median wealth of white is approximately 6.4 times that of American blacks and this means that the average wealth of whites is 5-6 times those of African Americans. Additionally, the racial wealth gap between African Americans and American whites increased by $75,000 from the year 1984 to 2007 (Kaba, 2013).
Kaba (2013) additionally found that persistent racial discrimination in labor markets, housing, and credit are major causes of racial wealth disparity between whites and blacks. For instance, Hispanics and African-Americans were twice as likely to receive home mortgages of high-cost compared to whites of same incomes. These high-cost loans impede the wealth creation of the minority communities and triggered foreclosure crisis which wiping away the main source of minorities’ wealth. Additionally, institutional racism (racial inequalities in institutions) also causes disparity in wealth between whites and blacks in the U.S. For instance, in higher education, African-Americans faculty members are less likely to get awarded work tenure compared to their white counterparts (Kaba, 2013). Therefore, this study points out that racial inequality has been a major cause of poverty among the minorities. This study additionally supports the notion that racial inequality is a major source of poverty in the society. Therefore, racial inequality and poverty are two social problems that are directly linked.
Herring & Henderson (2016) conducted a study about racial wealth gap among whites and African Americans. The study examined the complementary and complimentary structural and cultural explanations of the sources of racial differences wealth gaps. The study used data collected in the year 2013 and OLS regression as well as quantile regression was used to identify major sources of wealth parities between whites and African Americans at individual-level. The study found that whites possess more favorable characteristics than Africans Americans on every variables used in the analysis: educational attainment, bankruptcies, gender o...