life chances

(noun)

Life chances (Lebenschancen in German) is a political theory of the opportunities each individual has to improve his or her quality of life. The concept was introduced by German sociologist Max Weber. It is a probabilistic concept, describing how likely it is, given certain factors, that an individual's life will turn out a certain way.

Related Terms

Examples of life chances in the following topics:

  • High School Dropouts

    • While education can improve life chances, not everyone has equal access to education.
    • The more education people have, the higher their income, the better their life chances, and the higher their standard of living.
    • Max Weber used the concept of "life chances" to express an individual's access to employment opportunities and other resources.
    • In part, life chances are determined by birth.
    • Thus, the consequences to dropping out can be high, as they significantly decrease the opportunity to improve one's life chances.

  • Evaluating Global Theories of Inequality

    • Occupy Wall Street protesters approach inequality from a social justice perspective that holds that all Americans deserve equal life chances and have been denied them by market-oriented approaches to economic regulation (or lack thereof).
    • Occupy Wall Street protesters approach inequality from a social justice perspective that holds that all Americans deserve equal life chances and have been denied them by market-oriented approaches to economic regulation (or lack thereof).
    • The logic of human rights does not necessarily imply that all people should achieve equal status, but it does assume that all should have equal opportunities to advance, or Weberian life chances.
    • Social justice advocates generally argue that inequality is unfair, as it leaves some individuals with greater life chances and higher standards of living than others, regardless of individual worth or merit.

  • Poverty

    • "Life chances" is a term used to describe someone's access to marketplace resources—essentially, how likely it is in their environment that they might be able to find employment or have a social safety net.
    • Someone who is living in poverty but has high life chances may be able to improve their economic standing, but someone with low life chances will likely have a consistently low standard of living.

  • Poverty

    • Life chances are an individual's access to basic opportunities and resources in the marketplace.
    • Someone who is living in poverty but has high life chances may be able to improve their economic standing, while someone with low life chances will likely have a consistently low standard of living.
    • Billions of people around the world live in poverty, and often experience hunger, preventable illness, and low life expectancy as a result.

  • Weber's View of Stratification

    • Instead, he developed the three-component theory of stratification and the concept of life chances.

  • Points of View: Micro-Meso-Macro

    • This impacts how we experience life and how we interact with other individuals and groups.
    • What class we belong to directly relates to our individual life chances.
    • The poor have shorter life expectancies and are at greater risk for chronic illnesses.
    • Children born into poor families are at much greater risk of dying during their first year of life from disease, accidents, or violence.
    • And, as previously mentioned, their children have a good chance of attending the same elite college.

  • The Significance of Social Inequality

    • If our parents belong to the upper class, we have a good chance of graduating high school and entering higher education.
    • The more education we have, the more active we will be in political life, the more traditional and conservative our religious affiliation, the more likely we will marry into a family with both economic and social capital, and the more likely we will eat better food, will be less exposed to unhygienic conditions, and be able to pay for good health care.

  • Social Mobility in the U.S.

    • It typically refers to "relative mobility"—the chance that an American's income or status will rise or fall compared to others in another income or status group; however, mobility can also be "absolute"— whether (and by how much) living standards in America have increased.
    • The more managers there are in an employee's immediate work environment, the higher the employee's chances of interacting and spending time with high status and high income employees.
    • While both men and women feel that a conflict exists between work life and family life, women with children, particularly married women, are more likely to either temporarily leave the labor force or cut back on employment by using flex time, working part-time, or working only part of the year.

  • Childless Couples

    • Lastly, the chance of being childless was far greater for never married women (35 to 44 yrs old), 82.5% vs. ever-married (12.9%).
    • Chance of childlessness (age 35 to 44) by education level: graduate or professional degree (27.6%) vs non high school graduate (13.5%), high school graduate (14.3%), some college but no degree (24.7%), associate degree (11.4%), and bachelor's degree (18.2%).
    • Most societies place a high value on parenthood in adult life, so that people who remain childless intentionally are sometimes stereotyped as being "individualistic" people who avoid social responsibility and are less prepared to commit themselves to helping others.

  • Innovation

    • In society, innovation aids in comfort, convenience, and efficiency in everyday life.
    • When an innovative idea requires a better business model, or radically redesigns the delivery of value to focus on the customer, a real-world experimentation approach increases the chances of market success.