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. According to this theory, life chances are positively correlated with one's socioeconomic status.
Opportunities in this sense refer to the extent to which one has access to resources, both tangible ones such as food, clothing and shelter, and intangible ones such as education and health care. Quality of life comprises the individual's ability to procure goods, have a career and obtain inner satisfaction; in other words, the ability to satisfy one's needs.
Read more about Life Chances: Theory
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or chances:
“So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,—both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT—as his RESISTANCE.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Times go by turns, and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.
The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow,
She draws her favours to the lowest ebb;
Her tides have equal times to come and go,
Her loom doth weave the fine and Coarsest web;”
—Robert Southwell (1561?–1595)