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Unlock This CourseWhile social class, gender and ethnicity are major influences on life chances, several other important factors can significantly impact a person's opportunities and experiences in society. These factors often interact with each other, creating complex patterns of advantage and disadvantage.
Key Definitions:
Age significantly affects life chances throughout the life course. Young people may face limited employment opportunities, age discrimination and financial challenges. Older people often experience different forms of discrimination, including reduced employment prospects, healthcare biases and social isolation.
Where you live matters enormously. Urban areas typically offer more job opportunities and services but may have higher living costs. Rural communities often have fewer educational and employment options. The North-South divide in the UK creates regional inequalities in income, health outcomes and life expectancy.
Age affects our opportunities at every stage of life, creating different challenges and advantages as we move through the life course.
Young people face unique challenges in contemporary society:
Older people face different challenges that impact their life chances:
A 2021 study by Age UK found that 36% of people over 55 felt they had been disadvantaged when applying for jobs due to their age. Meanwhile, the Resolution Foundation found that young people born in the 1980s and 1990s are the first generation to earn less than their parents at the same age. These findings highlight how age can create disadvantages at both ends of the age spectrum.
Disability affects approximately 16 million people in the UK (around 24% of the population) and can significantly impact life chances through both physical barriers and social attitudes.
Students with disabilities often face barriers to full educational participation. While inclusive education has improved, disabled students are still less likely to achieve higher qualifications, with only 23% of disabled people holding a degree compared to 39% of non-disabled people.
The disability employment gap remains significant, with only 53% of disabled people in employment compared to 82% of non-disabled people. Disabled workers earn on average 12.2% less than non-disabled workers, creating a disability pay gap.
Physical barriers in public spaces, transport and buildings continue to limit participation in social life. Digital spaces can also be inaccessible, creating new forms of exclusion in an increasingly online world.
The social model of disability argues that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairments. This perspective shifts focus from "fixing" individuals to removing societal barriers:
This model has been influential in disability rights movements and has helped shape legislation like the Equality Act 2010, which provides legal protection against discrimination.
Where you live in the UK can significantly affect your life chances through differences in economic opportunities, services and infrastructure.
The UK has some of the highest regional inequalities in the developed world:
Glasgow has significantly lower life expectancy and higher rates of health problems compared to similar post-industrial cities. Despite accounting for factors like poverty, smoking and diet, researchers found unexplained excess mortality. This suggests complex interactions between place, history and social factors that create unique health disadvantages in specific locations.
Urban and rural areas offer different opportunities and challenges:
Despite legal protections, LGBTQ+ individuals still face discrimination that affects their life chances. LGBTQ+ young people are more likely to experience homelessness, mental health issues and bullying in school. In employment, 18% of LGBTQ+ people report experiencing discrimination during job applications and many feel unable to be open about their sexuality at work.
Religious identity can affect life chances through discrimination, cultural practices and community support. Muslims in the UK face particularly high levels of discrimination, with research showing they are less likely to be called for job interviews with identical qualifications. However, religious communities can also provide valuable social capital and support networks that enhance opportunities.
Perhaps the most important concept in understanding life chances is intersectionality – the way different factors combine to create unique experiences of advantage or disadvantage.
When factors combine, they often create effects greater than the sum of their parts:
Understanding these intersections is crucial for addressing inequalities effectively. Policies that address only one factor (like gender) may fail to help those experiencing multiple disadvantages.
Research by the Runnymede Trust found that women from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds in the UK face a "triple penalty" based on gender, ethnicity and religion. They experience the highest unemployment rates of any group (around 70%), face significant pay gaps and report high levels of workplace discrimination. This demonstrates how multiple factors can combine to create particularly severe disadvantages.
Life chances are shaped by a complex web of factors that extend well beyond the traditional focus on class, gender and ethnicity. Age, disability, geographical location, sexuality and religion all play important roles in determining opportunities and outcomes.
Understanding these factors helps us recognise how social structures create patterns of advantage and disadvantage. It also highlights the importance of intersectional approaches that address how multiple factors combine to create unique experiences of inequality.
By examining these various influences on life chances, sociologists can develop more nuanced understandings of inequality and more effective approaches to creating a fairer society where opportunities are more equally distributed.