Differences And Inequalities In The UK

Differences and inequalities are not given. Just like society, they are constantly being made and remade, and can be seen everywhere – on the street, in everyday activities, or simply by the way someone lives their life. Differences can be seen in the way someone looks like, their behaviour or what they like or prefer, however, the differences that social science focuses on are the ones between people - such as gender, class, ethnicity and sexuality. It is important to notice, that differences are not always inequalities, but they can also lead to or be associated with them. Inequalities, on the other side, are usually connected to the unequal access of people to economic resources, education and so on.

In the contemporary UK, ‘consumption

provides a window on society’ (Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p. 121). Through what people spend their money on and through what they consume, they tend to shape and distinguish themselves and their identities from others.

Consumption is the way of society to show their life chances about who they are and would like to be. However, consuming certain things gives a sense of where people stand in society, but the inability of others to consume these ‘certain things’ can tell about the limited life chances that exist in the contemporary UK. Foremost, in the previous century, the UK society was seen as an industrial society as everything was based on manufacturing, and on making things. Several years later, 1970s and 1980s, it changed to a post-industrial society, ‘after the working-class communities shrank, and new jobs were created in the services sector’ (Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p. 121). As years went by, society wasn’t characterised by what it produced, but by what it consumed, and that led to the arriving of consumer society. Figure 5.1 in Chapter 5 (ONS, 2012,

cited in Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p. 123) shows quantitative data on what the contemporary UK households spend their money on in a typical week. The table contains 12 categories (some of them seen as ‘necessities’ and some of them as ‘luxuries’ such as recreation and culture). The first three (and the biggest) categories represent transport (includes the owning of a car or using the public transport), below that recreation and culture (includes holidays, pets, computer games, and so on), and after that housing, fuel and power (includes rental payment). What Figure 5.1 shows is that in the contemporary UK the ‘luxuries’ tend to be on the top part of the list in a household, rather than the ‘necessities’.
In this consumer society, there are differences and inequalities between people not based on the work they do but on what they consume, and if they consume it effectively. Consumption can be seen as people’s way to differ themselves from others and show their individuality. In the 1970s Warren Susman (cited in Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p. 138) argued that people were more interested in showing their individuality through what they possessed and consumed, rather than showing their class and rank through the goods in their homes. The expression of identity and individuality through consumption and creativity was seen as an extension of the self (Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p. 139). Even nowadays, ‘people are less concerned with consuming things as a means to displaying their good character, than they are with using consumption as a way of expressing individual personalities’ (Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p.139).
Differences can also be seen through people’s choice to migrate. Migration usually disconnects people to their previous lives, but also connects them to new people, places and things. Most of the times, migration isn’t made by choice, often people are pushed to migrate to a foreign country to seek a better life. On the other hand, sometimes young people can get pulled to the country because of its many opportunities and life chances such as jobs in hospitals and new opportunities for training (Raghuram and Erel, 2014, p. 160). Table 4.2 in Chapter 4 shows quantitative data on the importance of medical migration in the UK, and specifically migrants who work for NHS (Kyriakides and Virdee, 2003, p. 292, cited in Raghuram and Erel, 2014, p. 159). The table provides the information that a big per cent (35.2%) of the NHS staff were born outside the UK, which leads to the conclusion that they have chosen to come to the UK to find a suitable job for themselves, receive a better pay, and to work in hospitals with better conditions than the ones in their own countries (Raghuram, Erel, 2014, p. 160). The medical migration has had a very good impact not only on the lives of the migrants, but also on the development of the medicine throughout the years in general.
A way of explaining how inequalities are socially produced is through understanding the Bauman’s concepts (Zygmunt Bauman (1988), cited in Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p. 125). Firstly, he argues that in the contemporary consumer society, the ones who have freedom of choice, are those who are financially stable or independent, and he calls them the ‘seduced’. They are the wealthy part of the society, or the ones, who are with ‘a steady income and a secure job’ ‘to allow them to buy things beyond the basic necessities of life’ (Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p.125). Secondly, here come the socially excluded people, the ‘repressed’, the ones who are unable to consume even the minimum. Migrants, unemployed, homeless, disabled or sick are seen as disconnected from the society, as people with limited life chances, and as not being able to participate in a consumer society because they are not affluent and do not have access to enough economic resources. An example clearly showing what the lives of the ‘repressed’ really are, can be seen in the face of the James Arthur on City Road (The Open University, 2014). He is homeless, unemployed, disconnected from the society, and sees himself as an outsider. Bauman’s concepts show how the division of the ‘seduced’ and the ‘repressed’ creates social exclusion of the second kind, and how consumerism nowadays is often connected to inequalities.
One of the many areas where people might feel socially excluded and where inequalities are most visible is the world of sport.

For example, social divisions of gender, ethnicity, race and disabilities have been a key feature in sport. A great example of struggle for equality were the Olympic Games, where women were not allowed to participate (1896), or black and people from other ethnic groups had their own separate ‘Anthropology Days’ (1904), and last but not least important the was fight of disabled people for inclusion in the games, that led to the Paralympics established in the year of 1947 (Woodward, 2014, p. 45). However, sport does not involve physical inequalities only. Some sports are highly associated with people from upper classes and affluence. Sports like golf, for example, require not only a membership, but also expensive equipment – something that mainly affluent people could afford. Sport is a world where connections are always being made and remade, but at the same time disconnections and inequalities are constantly created because of different social factors such as gender, ethnicity, class, and

disabilities.
In conclusion, this essay has looked closely at how differences and inequalities are constantly being made and remade by society. To back-up evidence connected to the arriving of consumer society, it has included quantitative data such as Figure 5.1 in Chapter 5 (Hetherington and Havard, 2014, p. 123) and quantitative data about the medical migration such as Table 4.2 in Chapter 4 (Kyriakides and Virdee, 2003, p. 292, cited in Raghuram and Erel, 2014, p. 159). There has also been used citations and interpretations connected to Bauman’s concepts about the ‘seduced’ and the ‘repressed’. It has concluded that people can be connected to other people, places and things, but at the same time they can feel disconnected because of the way they are seen and accepted by others, for example not being able to participate in a consumer society, or not being able to take part in a sport because of a disability.