My Life Chances As Compared With The Rivers

3 Pages 711 Words

Life chances, as defined by Dr. Perkins, are one’s access to goods of society which are generally in short supply (lecture 11/7). As one moves up in her status in the stratification hierarchy, her life chances will increase. This can be seen in the comparison of life chances from two different social locations; mine and the Rivers’.
In order to understand what this means, one needs to know what is meant by social location. One’s social location is a sum total of statuses that the person presently is (lecture 9/17). For example, I am a fairly well educated freshman, Asian-American, young man. Though this is not a complete representation of my social location, it will suffice as an example by which the reader can identify.
A large part of a person’s social location is defined by her social class. I have come to the conclusion that I fit into the “Average-middle” class. According to Macionis, middle-class people generally accumulate a small amount of wealth over time, such as a house, the household income for this class usually falls between $40,000 and $80, 000 a year, and average-middles typically work in less prestigious white-collar jobs (Macionis 205). My family definitely fits into these criteria.
My mother works in the actuarial department of an insurance company and my father works as the Director of Counseling at the Erie City Mission, a non-profit organization. Cumulatively, my parents earn about $65,000 a year. They own our house as well as two automobiles. Another reason why I believe that I fit into the average-middle class is the moderately high level of upward social mobility available to my family. My father is currently taking classes to attain a doctorate degree in counseling in order to obtain a higher paying job.
The Rivers, on the other hand, would be classified as members of the lower class. Approximately half of the members of this class complete high school, and only one in four r...