Social reproduction

All four of Pierre Bourdieu's forms of capital play a role in social reproduction, as 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.[1] The four types of capital are:

1. Economic capital: the income and wealth of a person, which may well come along with one's inheritance of cultural capital.
2. Cultural capital: the shared outlook, beliefs, knowledge, and skills that are passed between generations, which may in turn influence human capital.
3. Human capital: the education and job training a person receives, and which contributes to the likelihood that one will acquire social capital.
4. Social capital: the social network to which one belongs, which can largely influence one's ability to find opportunities, especially employment.

Social reproduction, when co-opted with cultural reproduction, allows for sociology of education to assume its role.[2] Education is an attempt at leveling the playing field by allowing those in poorer classes a chance to move up. However, 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 pay grade of the poverty line. Thus, higher education becomes exclusive to higher classes, leaving people of lower classes with much less to work with, as well as fewer opportunities.[3]

The education system in many high-income countries polarizes individuals from a young age. It creates elites who 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.[4]

The sociology of health and illness studies how social life affects morbidity and mortality rate, and vice versa. Social reproduction is involved in this field 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 conducted on the population of high income countries make this apparent. It is not just simply poverty, though they do go hand in hand, but it also leads to a gap in social cohesion, which leads the general populace to be more stressed, fearful, and insecure.[6]

In the majority of high-income countries, the top 1% live, on average, 10 years longer than the average 99%, statistically making those born into the poorer classes naturally have a shorter life span. This can be attributed to the top 1% having access to better healthcare. The bottom 99% may be disinclined to visit doctors and take cough medicine for more serious illnesses, and are disadvantaged especially in cases of incurable illnesses like AIDS where constant medicating with expensive, non-subsidized drugs is the only way to sustain a normal life.[4]

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. This can be attributed to the generally higher cost of healthful foods, a lack of education regarding healthy eating habits, and faster preparation times, causing fast foods, or other unhealthy alternatives to be consumed often for their ease of acquisition and generally low price. This leads to long-term epidemiological problems in which children who become obese maintain their obesity into their adult lives, suffering from associated ailments such as heart disease, high blood pressure, increased risk for several types of cancer, type 2 diabetes, stroke, infertility, arthritis, breathing difficulties and/or depression.[7][8]

Social reproduction is the passing on of social inequality across generations. The upper class has many advantages; having money provides the ability to have even more resources to get ahead. The opposite is true for lower classes, where with less money, there are fewer resources. As Marx states, "[c]lass-struggle between capital and labor is forced into the background."[9]

"Capitalism isn't working. Another world is possible" is an argument that is made by many protesters around the world, who gather in rallies more and more often every year. These protests are more prevalent in higher-income countries where most of the 1% live like the U.S and the U.K. with a growing social cohesion among protesters because the vast majority of people in rich countries are suffering due to increasing inequalities.[4] Many of the poor have begun to depend on the state rather than their own wages. All the while, their descendants will be raised in a fixed system that favors the elites, so they are bound to the same class they were born in.[4]

Social reproduction revolves around the understanding that rich breed rich, and the poor breed poor: those born into a particular class are more often than not bound to live their lives in that class. The following statistics are of the U.S. population.