The Wage Gap and Why

¶ … Functionalist Perspective of Society The sociological perspective that will be applied to the social phenomena discussed in this particular document is the functional perspective. The functional perspective is based on the basic principle that society functions somewhat akin to the human body (McClelland). Just the way there are different facets of the body that perform specific functions -- such as the fact that the brain was designed to think, the heart designed to pump blood, etc. -- there are different facets of society that perform specific functions.

Those different aspects of society that serve specific purposes are referred to as social control mechanisms. There are a variety of different examples of social control mechanisms in society. For instance, schools and the education system are designed to prepare members of society for the basic skills necessary to enter and compete in the work force.

The major tenet with the functionalist perspective of society is that social phenomena occurs for a reason and is readily explicable due to social control mechanisms and the various functions they serve within that society. The functional perspective of sociology would explain the wage gap that still exists rather frankly.

On the one hand, such a wage gap is one of the basic principles of capitalism -- there needs to be a gap in wages to preserve the dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots, so that the former can continue to capitalize on and exploit the latter. Thus, there are "systems of advantage and disadvantage" (Renzulli et al. 491) pertaining to wages. The functionalist perspective would maintain that such a gap is existent because there are people that fulfill different roles in society.

Some of these people are responsible for playing prominent roles in social affairs that are particularly important. These people are those such as doctors, lawyers, architects, etcetera. They earn high wages to justify both the rarity of these positions and to provide the sort of motivation to get individuals to go through lengthy, and highly expensive, training and schooling to attain these positions. Conversely, there are a bevy of low wage positions that accounts for this wage gap.

These positions are low wage because they require extremely limited education (if any) and minimal training. Moreover, they are positions in which there are high turnover rates. The logic behind these low wages is that virtually anyone can perform the job duties for this position. Additionally, the specific function that people in low wages fulfill is not prominent: oftentimes these are merely the basic, medial tasks that part of society's infrastructure.

Therefore, these low wage positions justify the high wage jobs, and the high wage positions in turn justify the low wage jobs. The wage gap still exists so that there is motivation for people to attain higher wage positions, and to get away from lower wage ones. Both of these positions fulfill a role in society. The functional perspective explains the issue about the wage gap by positing the notion that society needs people to perform the jobs that are both low wage and high wage.

People in the latter positions fulfill prominent social activities (such as caring for the health of society or providing legal counsel for it).