What makes inequality social

Common sense says people are rich or poor because of talent and hard work. Sociology shows that this is only part of the story. Inequality is social for three reasons:

• It concerns groups, not just individuals: whole castes, classes, genders or regions are better or worse off.
• It is not only economic: it also involves respect, power and opportunity.
• It is systematic: it follows patterns, and is not random luck.

The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu described three kinds of capital (resources):

• economic capital: money, land and property;
• cultural capital: education, qualifications, knowledge, the 'right' way of speaking and behaving;
• social capital: networks of useful contacts and relationships.

They overlap and convert into each other: a rich family buys good schooling (cultural capital), which brings contacts (social capital), which bring good jobs (economic capital). So children start life with very unequal resources, whatever their effort.

Social stratification is the ordering of groups in a hierarchy. It:

• is a feature of society, not of individuals;
• persists over generations, passed from parents to children;
• is supported by beliefs (ideology) that make it seem fair or natural.

Three related ideas:

• Prejudice: an opinion formed before knowing the facts, a pre-judgement, usually negative, about a group.
• Stereotype: fixing a whole group into one trait ('all of them are lazy').
• Discrimination: behaviour that treats people unfairly because of their group, such as refusing someone a job because of their religion or caste.

Social exclusion is the systematic denial of full participation in society: in jobs, housing, schools or public life. It is not accidental. Transgender and third-gender people face it too.