Write an Essay : The relationship between social-economic condition and mental health in
Canada
The current global Pandemic has effected the lives of millions of Canadians in the last two years.
More specifically, the pandemic has brought about a sense of general Anomie (Durkheim) and
Alienation (Marx). It further produced a climate of social isolation from our families, friends and
communities, including an economic recession unheard of since the great depression of the
1930’s coupled with almost a 7% inflation rate, the highest since the 1980’s.
Many people have lost their jobs and or their small family businesses while big corporations like
Wal-Mart and Amazon, among others, have profited from the crisis. Furthermore, this Pandemic
has also unleashed a rapid rise in mental health issues in the population at large. From
depression, anxiety to stress to a general sense of confusion; the socio-economic effects on the
working class have produced a ‘new normal’ that certain people will have to live with in the
future.
Examining these issues from a sociological perspective will help us not only understand the
relevance of some of the concepts and theories put forward by the sociologist Emile Durkheim
(Functionalism) C.W Mills (The Sociological Imagination) and Karl Marx (Conflict Theory) but
will also shed light on the socio-economic inequality that maintains and normalizes these
conditions. By looking at some of their theories and concepts such as Suicide (Durkheim),
Alienation and economic inequality (Marx), Mills (The Sociological Imagination), we are able to
diagnose the root causes of some of these issues on people’s “mental health”…especially in the
lives of poor, racialized people and communities.
Please use the course text as your starting point to articulate a thesis that connects Durkheim’s
theories of Anomie & Suicide, Marx’s theories of Alienation and Mills theory of The
Sociological Imagination in relation to the current condition of ‘mental health’.
