Global Stratification A Sociological Examination essays

Global Stratification A Sociological Examination essays The industrialization and technology of the worlds higher income nations has a negative effect on the plight of the worlds poorer nations. The high-income nations industrialization encourages child labor, poor living conditions in exchange for material things, and higher world pollution. When the higher income nations became industrialized in the 1800s, the lower income nations were slow to catch up. Now, the low and middle-income countries are trying to catch up to the rapid growth that the world powers had. One drawback to this is many families, to earn as much money as possible, encourage their children to go to work in sweat shops, for little pay. This puts them at a great risk of accident, and shortens their life span by causing them to toil endlessly in a hot, vermin infested, disease rampant factory whilst still children. The sociological inequality illustrated by the norm of living for children in different countries is astounding. In the United States, children spend their summers in front of a television or computer, swimming in the public pool, or hanging out with their friends. Children in low-income countries, such as those in Southeast Asia spend their summer days in a factory for ten hours, making tennis shoes on insufficient food, and for few dollars a day. If you were to walk down the street in one of the worlds middle-income countries, like those in Eastern Europe, you would see signs of the (wealthy) Western nations all around. Teenagers would be sporting Levis and Nikes, stereos would be blasting music by the Spice Girls and the Beatles, and families would aspire to drive someday a Jeep into the driveway of their hovel. However, when you get back to their residence, the similarity to the West would end. Running water would not be safe to drink without going through a stringent filtering process, space in the cramped home would be at a premium, and the...