Relative Deprivation

The theory of relative deprivation proposes that people view their well-being as compared to the situations of others. If individuals perceive themselves to be worse off than their comparison (reference) group, then they will feel relatively deprived. This is opposed to absolute deprivation, in which a person measures his or her well-being against an objective standard. Relative deprivation theory has been used extensively in fields such as sociology, political science, economics, and social psychology.

Samuel Stouffer coined the term relative deprivation in his study of the U.S. military, although the concept predates his work. Stouffer found that members of the U.S. Air Force who did not get promoted felt more relatively deprived than those in the U.S. Army who did not. This resulted from more frequent promotions in the Air Force than in the Army and military personnel viewing their own situations as compared to others around them. The first in-depth exposition of the theory of relative deprivation was the work of Walter Runciman, who gave the conditions for relative deprivation to occur and laid the foundations for its applications to criminology and other fields. His conditions for person A to feel relatively deprived of X are as follows:

• Individual A does not have X.
• Individual A knows of other persons who have X.
• Individual A wants to have X.
• Individual A believes obtaining X is realistic.

The most widespread use of relative deprivation theory in sociology is in criminology. Because some areas or countries with lower levels of absolute deprivation have higher crime rates, experts argue that inequality in the United States has led to increased crime for reasons of both opportunity and mass anger. The “opportunity” aspect of crime arises from inequality creating more opportunities for lucrative property crimes by poor individuals. The “mass anger” hypothesis seeks to explain violent crime as a result of feelings of relative deprivation fostered by increasing inequality.

Sociology and political science also use relative deprivation to explain social movements and revolutions. This work began in the early 1800s with Alexis de Toequeville's work on France and Germany. He found that one of the reasons for a revolution occurring in France but not in Germany was that the social conditions had been improving for the French (but not the German) peasantry. The improving situation in France raised the expectations of French peasants, and when these expectations were not fulfilled, the French Revolution followed. This type of process is known as a “revolution of rising expectations.” Such revolutions are a concern in countries like China that are experiencing rapidly rising expectations. If economic growth and social progress stalls in China, social unrest may occur.

Relative deprivation can explain social movements in general. Social movements occur when individuals believe they are not getting their fair share of political or economic power, especially in a time when others are making gains. In fact, this problem worsens when conditions improve in a country, as one group feels relatively deprived because another group's situation improves more than their own. For example, some analysts have used this theory to explain the civil rights movement (with regard to voting), the women's [Page 766]rights movement (with regard to equal wages), equal rights demands by gay and lesbian groups, and the “living wage” movement. One of the problems with this theory is that it fails to explain why some groups of relatively deprived people form social movements and others do not.

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