Lesson4 Government Programs and Initiatives in Addressing Social

Inequalities

 Inequality is the unequal access to resources and

opportunities.
 Equality is the equal or even distribution of tools and
assistance.
 Equity is customizing materials to address the inequality of
the situation.
 Justice is fixing the system to offer equal access to both
people or among people with the opportunities and tools.
This lesson focuses on the social inequality and how the
government address these inequalities.

SOCIAL INEQUALITY is the existence of unequal opportunities and

rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or
society.

Social inequality has several important dimensions. Income is

the earnings from work or investments, while wealth is the total
value of money and other assets minus debts. Other important
dimensions include power, occupational prestige, schooling,
ancestry, and race and ethnicity.

Let's examine the two prevailing explanations of poverty:

blaming the poor and blaming society.

One approach to explain poverty is blaming the poor - that

the poor are responsible for their own poverty. There is some
evidence to support this theory because the main reason people are
poor is the lack of employment. According to this view, society has
plenty of opportunities for people to realize their dream, and people
are poor because they lack the motivation, skills, or schooling to find
work.
Another approach to explain poverty is blaming the society -
that society is responsible for poverty. While it is true that
unemployment is a main contributor to poverty, the reasons people
don't work are more in line with this approach. Loss of jobs is a major
contributor to poverty. There simply isn't enough work to support
families.

Income /Poverty Inequality

Income, affluence, and poverty are also important factors
that define social inequality. Those belonging to the upper class un
society have larger and steadily increasing incomes compared to the
lower classes, who have low incomes. The distribution of wealth and
income remains highly unequal in many societies, and globalization
contributed to widening the gap between rich and poor. The
Philippines records 25% of Filipinos are poor. Poverty can be defined
accordingly.

 Absolute poverty refers to the lack of basic resources like

food, clean water, safe housing, and access to health care
services needed to maintain a quality lifestyle.
 Relative poverty refers to the ability to obtain basic
necessities, but unable to maintain for average standard of
living.
 Subjective poverty refers to the individual's evaluation and
perception of his or her actual income against expectations.