ABSTRACT
Social stratification is depicted as the distribution of resources within a society-including the social indicators of race, wealth, occupation and education-along social class lines. Every society has an unequal distribution of the allocation of resources, which means those without access are impaired in making life choices for future success. In Class Matters (Keller, 2005), an in-depth study on life chances, statistical evidence verifies that an upper middle-class individual’s longevity is longer than that of someone from the middle-class rung, who in turn does better than someone from the bottom rung of the social strata. Accordingly, the study’s findings suggest that class differences in working conditions, stress, diet, neighborhood, family structure and a host of other socio-economic factors influence one’s health status. Therefore, one’s social well-being tends to differ by the unequal access to available lifestyle resources.
