Unit 7 P3 Health And Social Care Report
In this part of my report, I will be applying the different sociological perspectives to the patterns and trends of health and illness in two different social groups. When applying the sociological perspectives, I will be examining the trends in health and illness within different social groups.
Social class
As stated above in P3, as part of my research, I found out that high social class males at the age of 65 years had an increased life expectancy between 2007 and 2011 of 20.3 years. https://www.ons.gov.uk/. This may be because upper class males who had developed illnesses were able to afford medications and treatments for their illnesses so therefore, the illness that were developed would get treated and prevented which would not decrease their life expectancy. However, …show more content…
lower class males who developed illnesses were unable to afford the treatment and medications that the upper class males were able to afford which had a big impact on their life expectancy. It caused them to have a shorter life expectancy than the upper class males.
This links to the Marxism perspective because Marxists believe that the bourgeoisie must work and earn a lot of money so therefore the upper class people would use this money on their medications and their treatment to prevent their illness. This statistic also links to the conflict theory. This theory argues that “inequality is harmful to society” (https://www.boundless.com/) as it divides individuals into different classes with the rich, upper class having a lot of control and power over the lower, working class individuals. The conflict theory is true and believes that social class is a bad thing for society because the rich, upper class individuals have been using their power to cut down the mental health services and cuts to funding which has caused a decrease by “8% from 2010” (http://www.communitycare.co.uk/). As a result of these funding cuts working class people no longer have access to much needed services, whereas people from a higher class may be able to afford a private service. On the other hand, the conflict theory is challenged by functionalists as they believe that people do not always “act out of economic
self-interest” (https://www.boundless.com/). For example, nurses do not receive high prestige but still work long working hours to help cure illnesses of people no matter what class they belong to. Therefore, functionalists believe that inequality helps to encourage efficiency when working as a specific job role. Functionalists also believe that social class is a good thing for society and they are against the conflict theory.
Social class
As stated above in P3, as part of my research, I found out that high social class males at the age of 65 years had an increased life expectancy between 2007 and 2011 of 20.3 years. https://www.ons.gov.uk/. This may be because upper class males who had developed illnesses were able to afford medications and treatments for their illnesses so therefore, the illness that were developed would get treated and prevented which would not decrease their life expectancy. However, …show more content…
lower class males who developed illnesses were unable to afford the treatment and medications that the upper class males were able to afford which had a big impact on their life expectancy. It caused them to have a shorter life expectancy than the upper class males.
This links to the Marxism perspective because Marxists believe that the bourgeoisie must work and earn a lot of money so therefore the upper class people would use this money on their medications and their treatment to prevent their illness. This statistic also links to the conflict theory. This theory argues that “inequality is harmful to society” (https://www.boundless.com/) as it divides individuals into different classes with the rich, upper class having a lot of control and power over the lower, working class individuals. The conflict theory is true and believes that social class is a bad thing for society because the rich, upper class individuals have been using their power to cut down the mental health services and cuts to funding which has caused a decrease by “8% from 2010” (http://www.communitycare.co.uk/). As a result of these funding cuts working class people no longer have access to much needed services, whereas people from a higher class may be able to afford a private service. On the other hand, the conflict theory is challenged by functionalists as they believe that people do not always “act out of economic
self-interest” (https://www.boundless.com/). For example, nurses do not receive high prestige but still work long working hours to help cure illnesses of people no matter what class they belong to. Therefore, functionalists believe that inequality helps to encourage efficiency when working as a specific job role. Functionalists also believe that social class is a good thing for society and they are against the conflict theory.