Question

1. Discuss and compare the caste and class systems of social stratification.
2. Why is social stratification still prevalent in the world today? How does it impact the medical field?
3. With global stratification, terms such as first, second, and third world are often used when referring to countries. How did global stratification occur, and do you think it works Why? Why not? What leads to global inequality?

Answer 1

Social stratification is the division of groups of people by ranking in the society as higher, middle, and lower in the hierarchy according to their differences in income, status, etc. The class system of social stratification is occurred due to the modern capitalized system. The class system is divided into the upper class, middle class, and lower class. The upper class is the people who have a high income, more powerful, more wealth, and more prestige. The middle-class group is the people who have moderate-income to manage the family, moderate power in society. The lower class people are the people who have very little income and difficult to manage the family. In the class system, the people are divide base on where they born or in which caste or religion they born.

The social stratification of the people is still present in today day to day life. The main problem for these issues is that the government does still not provide equal chances to all the population to get equal facilities. Those who are having more income and wealth are getting more benefits and those who are illiterate, low incomes, and wealth get any few amounts of facilities. This is the main cause of the still practicing social stratification. In some countries like India still, the class system and caste system are present and social stratification is presently based on it.

This social stratification affects a lot in getting the medical field. Some people are not allowed to enter the medical field due to their lower caste and class system. So many discriminations are present in the workplace among the staff members between the lower and the upper caste or class. In terms of patient care, the patient who is in a higher class can get easily all the medical facilities because of having more money. Those patients with the lower-class need to struggle to get those facilities.

Global stratification is the division of the nations based on their wealth, industrialization, and power. The nations are classified as first, second, and third world. The nations that are wealthy, more highly industrialized, more power are coming under the first world. In the second world, it includes moderate wealthy, moderate industrialized and moderate power is present. The poorest nations are coming in the third world. This is good in terms of competition that the poorer nations also try to work hard and manage the nation to get the status. But it is also a kind of discrimination among the nations by dividing base on their wealth and power. It will not work for long as we can consider it as discrimination. Because of this differentiation in term of wealth and power leads to global inequality. The more industrialized nations are developing getting many helps from other nation because of their power and wealth but for the poorer nations, they are not getting enough help from the other nations.