Sociology of the Family Test 2

• Structural transformation of the economy
• Changing Racial Composition Due to Immigration
• Aging of Society

90% of immigrants are from non-European Countries (Latin America and Asia).

The U.S. is shifting from an Anglo-White society to a society with 3 large racial minorities: African American, Latino, and Asian.

California's white population is the minority, it's racial minorities incrasing faster than the majority population.

• Economic resources distributed unequally among the elderly.
• Living arrangements: nursing home residents are typically over 75, female, white, and widowed.
• Medicare makes elderly pay significantly medical costs.

• Retirement
• Widowhood
• Dependence
• Impending Death

The process by which everyone on Earth becomes increasingly interconnected economically, politically, culturally, and environmentally.

• Job Insecurity
• Shrinking Middle Class
• Financial Decline
• Housing Woes
• Personal Bankruptcies

• 6 million lost jobs between 2007 - 2009
• Unemployment rate jumped from 4.6 - 9.4 %
• Those with less education and of color had higher unemployment rates

• Stagnant or Declining Wages
• Increasing cost of new car, housing, and college education

Average inflation income for workers lower now than it was in the 1970's

• Homeowners purchased overvalued houses, assumed value would increase.
• Housing bubble burst, causing values to decline and many homes were foreclosed.
• Renters not immune - many lost their homes, became renters, driving up rent costs

Major source: inability to pay for catastrophic health care needs.

• Increased Marital Problems
• Longer Working Hours
• Increased Debt and Layoffs

Families cannot be supported on a single salary, so both partners work. Children are being raised by their grandparents in order to help support childcare.

There is no such thing as biological race. Races are socially defined.

People often fall into poverty because of dramatic change such as the loss of a job or family break-up. Once adjustments are made to those changes, people are often able to climb back out of poverty.

Refers to group-based, structured inequalities in society, such as class, race and gender.

Class, Race, and Gender: Power relationships that structure the experiences of all families and their unequal opportunities based on social location in these structures.

• Poverty
• Blue-Collar
• Middle-Class
• Professionals
• Elite

Lack opportunities, use large network of kin for financial support, reduces likelihood of marriage.

Largest group, lower-level manufacturing jobs, limited education and mobility, have an hourly wage, use kin for financial support, "order-takers."

Idealized in our society, self-reliant, breadwinning father, homemaker mother, receive annual salaries rather than wages, "order-givers," health benefits, pensions, autonomous, retirement.

Not autonomous, social networking, prestigious opportunities, stay within class, isolated and insulated.

Dominate lower class, multiple households, nationally connected to institutions they control, extremely insolated and isolated, marriage and firm control over who children marry.

Income, occupation, and education are fundamental indicators of social calss. Each social class has it's own culture that it's members are expected to live in and by.

Class position rests on people's own efforts and abilities. Occupations are an important part of the class structure because they link families with resources and opportunities.

The poor have certain characteristics that set them apart from the rest of society and that these cultural differences explain continued poverty.

• Participation has grown at a faster pace then men's in recent decades.
• Women's work is more likely part-time, part-year, or both.

Decreased participation due to structural unemployment, the redistribution of jobs, and the low-income-generating capacity of jobs.

• Family tasks = strongly gendered, regardless of wife's employment status
• Men: cars, yard, home repair, errands
• Women: cooking, cleaning, laundry, mending, childcare

Requires employers of 50 or more people to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to any worker who has a medical emergency or needs to care for an adopted, newborn or child or a seriously ill child, spouse, or parent. It does not cover part-time workers.

The context of employment is vital in determining whether jobs are positive or negative for adolescents.

• Large-scale changes in the U.S. economy
• Families have become dependent on women's income
• Women find fulfillment in working

Now the dominant family model among workers in the labor force, approximately 70% of couples, ratio is 2:1.

an active process in which individuals manipulate their role expectations and behaviors to deal with stressful situations. Includes Split-shift, sequencing, and mommy track.

When working parents share child care, one parent takes care of the children while the other works.

Adjusting the timing of events over the life course by eliminating or postponing activities in one sphere, either work or family, until a later stage.

the employment of women in work positions that are less difficult but less prestigious, less lucrative, and limited in advancement potential. These postions do not make it easier for women to care for their families.