In the two-minute animation below, sociologist Dalton Conley describes how inequality between families can create inequality within families. My favorite of his examples: if a family doesn’t have a lot of resources, it will often pour more of them into the most promising child instead of spreading the goods around equally to everyone.
For more, watch:
More at Norton Sociology’s YouTube page.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 39
Within Family Inequality: Why Some Kids Get More than Others | On Everything — March 3, 2013
[...] Within Family Inequality: Why Some Kids Get More than Others. [...]
Yamikuronue — March 3, 2013
Blended families can be strange that way too. When my father remarried, my stepmother and her kids were used to a certain, higher class of living that they strove to keep while I and my brother were denied the same luxuries (private music lessons, private tutors, et cetera) because we'd never had them before and there wasn't enough money to pamper all four.
LynneSkysong — March 3, 2013
I'm an only child (Dad wanted more kids, but mom is gay and came out to her family and herself when I was 3, and step-mom had had a hysterectomy and her only kid was an adult and already moved out.) so what I'm saying isn't from personal experience, but I wonder is part of the inequalities between older and middle children are calculated. For example, if I have a second child, I'm not going to spend as much of them because I'll be able to reused the first child's clothes, stroller, car seat (maybe), play pen, toys, and a lot of other things. I'm just wondering if things like this are taken into account (since I don't see links to sources).
Also, giving more to the child that is brightest/most driven/etc has a sort of cold logic behind it. (Logically, if not moral) :/ You have to make a lot of hard decisions when you don't have enough.
oofstar — March 3, 2013
there is also the fact that resources change within a family over time. people start having children in their 20's, but, ideally, advance in their careers (and make more money) for a few decades after that.
Melanie — March 3, 2013
There should have been a discussion of gender. Male children may receive preference by virtue of being male.
decius — March 3, 2013
Scarcity within a family can and will exist even when families are equal. It still makes economic sense of a sort to send one kid to med school than to send four to community college. It does so whether or not other families can afford to make the same choice or to send all of their kids to uni.
pduggie — March 4, 2013
"if a family doesn’t have a lot of resources, it will often pour more of them into the most promising child instead of spreading the goods around equally to everyone."
That makes a lot of sense.
Is that bad?
WITHIN FAMILY INEQUALITY: WHY SOME KIDS GET MORE THAN OTHERS | Welcome to the Doctor's Office — March 4, 2013
[...] from SocImages [...]
kali — March 5, 2013
There was a UN study in the 70s or 80s which showed that in subsistence societies, child mortality increased with a greater share of material resources brought in by the father vs. the mother. In fact, this effect was so great that child mortality was lower for relatively poorer families where the mother brought in more money/resources.