Socio-Cultural Factors That Affect Leisure Time

Discussion about Social class and poverty in America According to the textbook of Introduction to sociology, a social class is defined as a social ranking according to the economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence social mobility. Sociologist Daniel Rossides describes five social class: the upper class, the upper-middle class, the lower middle class, the working class and the lower class. Social class is decided by achieved and ascribed characteristics, and we can change our class by achieved work. Social class has powerful impacts on a person’s life.

I believe social classes have defined our society in many ways. In America, they separate people into three different classes: the upper class, middle class, and the lower or working class. Based on wealth and various occupations, social classes determine the population’s status in society. Social classes today define individuals and influence their actions. Although people born in a certain class may choose to stay there, they also have the choice of leaving.

This class inequality is the reality that there are unequal opportunities and rewards granted to different social positions and statuses within a group or a society. Generally, there are four different levels of social class; the Capitalist Class, the Middle Class, the Working Class, and the Underclass. Social class inequality exists due to multiple key contributors including power, occupational prestige, schooling, ancestry, and race and ethnicity. Concerning one’s personal economic circumstance, income is the earnings from work or investments that they make annually, while wealth is their overall total value of money and other assets minus debts.

Josef Pieper (1904-1997) was a German, Catholic philosopher who wrote Leisure: The Basis of Culture. He wanted people to understand the actual value and importance of leisure and it means to philosophize.

The first social class is called the lower class. In the lower class, there are two levels; working poor and underclass. The people in the lower class are right above poverty and have trouble being able to hold their own. In the working poor section of the class, the people in it are in the higher part of the lower class.

Social stratification has been a part of society for thousands of years and has yet to dissipate. It is prevalent on the micro and macro level and has been a part of various societies and cultures ranging from the united states all the way to India. Social Stratification, "is a system of inequality that takes into account the differences among individual members of a society and ranks them by their wealth, power, prestige, and ascribed status, thus creating a social hierarchy" (Larkin, 2015, para. 5). The organizing principles of social stratification are class, gender, and race. The caste, slavery, and class system are all products of social stratification and have been seen throughout history.

Through a socioeconomic and

These factors can all influence a person’s lifestyle decisions and health. Inequalities produced through social conditions bring about unequal and unjustified health outcomes for different social backgrounds. Health inequalities tend to be measured along a social gradient. Research has shown time and time again that there is a social gradient in health, which runs from the top to the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum (Moss, 1995).

Health Disparities in Lower Socioeconomic Individuals Socioeconomic status (SES) in recent times has been defined as “a broad concept that refers to the placement of persons, households and census tracts with respect to the capacity to create or consume goods that are valued in our society.” More specifically, it is the access an individual or group has to rudimentary resources that are required to obtain and preserve good health (Shavers, 2007). Socioeconomic status has been shown to impact physical health, with escalations in SES being linked with prominent benefits to health (Schreier & Chen, 2013). The fact that our culture’s poorer and less advantaged individuals live with inferior health and die earlier is a problem that needs to be

To explain the health inequality in class, social determinants of health were introduced

Generally speaking people of lower socioeconomic status have worse health than that of their wealthier counterparts.

Socioeconomic status is frequently considered to be a potential confounder or a risk factor for overweight and obesity in health studies. Although there is general agreement that SES is a multidimensional construct, scholars tend to include only one socioeconomic status component in their predictive models and few researches have provided an explicit theoretical and methodological rationale for the choice of indicators (Ball et al., 2002). Socioeconomic status is a measure of an individual’s position within society that is determined by the access to collectively desired resources (Oakes and Rossi, 2003). The SES concept has emerged from the class approach to social structure analysis, primarily developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber, and, consequently, is widely used as a synonym to “social position”, “socioeconomic position” or “social class” (Liberato et al., 1988). From Marx’s perspective, social class is identified as a group of people sharing common relations to the means of production that support their wellbeing (Marx, 1981).

In order to support these claims, I will discuss the characterisitcs of social moblity, while providing the necessary examples. Social Mobility On the topic of social classes, the question of social progression ought to rise: is it possible for people to move within a society 's stratification organization? In other words, is there some possibility of social mobility, or the improvement from one social level to another?

Socioeconomic status is a measurement of a person’s occupation, income and education levels. In most cases, socioeconomic status is perceived as social standing or financial class of an individual. Additionally, it is mostly based on power, influence and control that an individual has over others. Socioeconomic status is a fundamental variable utilized in discerning inequalities particularly in accessing and distributing public resources. Social standing is applicable in a wide range of realms such as behavioral factors as well as social sciences.

1. The Tourism industry and Leisure time The time is a very valuable asset, that anyone can ever posses. The time people spend for something is unconsciously defining what is valuable and valueless for them. Few of the main areas, human beings spend time for are leisure and tourism.