1. A major cause of economic inequality within modern market economies is the determination of wages by the market. Inequality is caused by the differences in the supply and demand for different types of work. In a purely capitalist mode of production the workers wages will not be controlled by these organizations, nor by the employer, but rather by the market. Wages work in the same way as prices for any other good. Thus, wages can be considered as a function of market price of skill. And therefore, inequality is driven by this price. Under the law of supply and demand, the price of skill is determined by a race between the demand for the skilled worker and the supply of the skilled worker. We would expect the price to rise when demand exceeds supply, and vice versa. Employers who offer a below market wage will find that their business is chronically understaffed. Their competitors will take advantage of the situation by offering a higher wage to snatch up the best of their labor. For a businessman who has the profit motive as the prime interest, it is a losing proposition to offer below or above market wages to workers.[13]
A job where there are many workers willing to work a large amount of time (high supply) competing for a job that few require (low demand) will result in a low wage for that job. This is because competition between workers drives down the wage. An example of this would be jobs such as dish-washing or customer service. Competition amongst workers tends to drive down wages due to the expendable nature of the worker in relation to his or her particular job. A job where there are few able or willing workers (low supply), but a large need for the positions (high demand), will result in high wages for that job. This is because competition between employers for employees will drive up the wage. Examples of this would include jobs that require highly developed skills, rare abilities, or a high level of risk. Competition amongst employers tends to drive up wages due to the nature of the job, since there is a relative shortage of workers for the particular position. Professional and labor organizations may limit the supply of workers which results in higher demand and greater incomes for members.
These supply and demand interactions result in a gradation of wage levels within society that significantly influence economic inequality. there is a gender income gap which favors males in the labor market
Gender inequality and discrimination is argued to cause and perpetuate poverty and vulnerability in society as a whole.Household and intra-household knowledge and resources are key influences in individuals' abilities to take advantage of external livelihood opportunities or respond appropriately to threats

3. “A nation’s laws reflect a nation’s values.” This leads her to the question: what do our welfare laws say about our values? Unfortunately, they say that our values are deeply confused. On the one hand our welfare laws reflect a commitment to “family values” — for example, there are enticements for marriage and penalties for unwed childbearing. On the other hand, our welfare laws assume that the poor don’t have a good work ethic and so push single mothers out of the home and into any dead-end, low-paying job that they can find. There are harsh penalties both for not doing enough to find a job and for losing a job for the “wrong” reasons — and those include having to take time off because your child is molested or abused by a caregiver.
Hays calls these two competing ideas the Work Plan and the Family Plan. In the Work Plan, the work requirements of the welfare laws exist to “rehabilitate” mothers, transforming them from “mere” stay-at-home moms into full-fledged members of the work force. In the Family Plan, the work requirements serve to punish mothers, teaching them a hard lesson about what happens to you when you fail to adhere to traditional social roles by divorcing and/or having children out of wedlock.
As a result of these and similar contradictions, Hays concludes that our nation’s welfare laws fail to offer a single, coherent solution to our nation’s problems and do little more than give the appearance of solving social problems and poverty. Welfare reform laws offered a little to people all across the ideological and political spectrum; in so doing, however, they serve no one at all.

4. Social capital and reproduction of inequality
Coleman indicated that social capital eventually led to the creation of human capital for the future generation.[93] Human capital, a private resource, could be accessed through what the previous generation accumulated through social capital. Field suggested that such a process could lead to the very inequality social capital attempts to resolve.[93] While Coleman viewed social capital as a relatively neutral resource, he did not deny the class reproduction that could result from accessing such capital, given that individuals worked toward their own benefit. Even though Coleman never truly addresses Bourdieu in his discussion, this coincides with Bourdieu's argument set forth in Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Bourdieu and Coleman were fundamentally different at the theoretical level (as Bourdieu believed the actions of individuals were rarely ever conscious, but more so only a result of their habitus being enacted within a particular field, but this realization by both seems to undeniably connect their understanding of the more latent aspects of social capital.
According to Bourdieu, habitus refers to the social context in which as social actor is socialized within. Thus, it is the social platform, per se, that equips one with the social reality they become accustomed to. Out of habitus comes field, the manner in which one integrates and displays their habitus. To this end, it is the social exchange and interaction between two or more social actors. To illustrate this, we assume that an individual wishes to better his place in society. He therefore accumulates social capital by involving himself in a social network, adhering to the norms of that group, allowing him to later access the resources (e.g. social relationships) gained over time. If, in the case of education, he uses these resources to better his educational outcomes, thereby enabling him to become socially mobile, he effectively has worked to reiterate and reproduce the stratification of society, as social capital has done little to alleviate the system as a whole. This may be one negative aspect of social capital, but seems to be an inevitable one in and of itself, as are all forms of capital.
What is cultural capital?
Academically, cultural capital is defined as “forms of knowledge, both tangible and intangible, that have value in a given society in relation to status and power.” However, I would like to offer a more practice-oriented definition of cultural capital: the rules for engaging other types of capital (human, economic, social).
Cultural capital defines how people (human) engage each other (social) and their resources (economic). Whether the culture of an organization is good or bad – cultural capital is created when values, traditions, beliefs and language become the currency to leverage other types of capital.
For actionable leaders, cultural capital is the most important type of capital. It is the difference between creating an environment to maintain the status quo or building the foundation for making change.