Social Change and Stratification

Social Indicators Research - Korean society has changed a great deal in the wake of rapid economic development and industrialization that began in the early 1960s. This article examines social...     

Social Support and Psychological Well-Being Under Social Change in Urban and Rural China

The economic reforms of the past two decades have initiated a major social transition in China, characterized by unprecedented social mobility and stratification. Meanwhile, the privatization of health care has increased costs to the consumer. While such changes would logically affect individuals’ psychological well-being, little attention has been paid to this association. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey (2005), this paper looks at the relationships between social changes and the psychological well-being of individuals in both urban and rural areas, as well as the role of social support in Chinese society. We find that an increasing health-care burden is significantly associated with individuals’ psychological well-being, especially in rural China. Perceived social status, its change over time and its comparison with perceived status of peers, are also significantly correlated with psychological well-being both in rural and urban China. Social support has a protective function for psychological well-being across different samples, and also compensates for the negative association between increasing health-care burden and psychological well-being, but it strengthens relative deprivation during social change on psychological well-being in rural areas.     

Neighborhood Social Change and Perceptions of Environmental Degradation

This paper investigates how changes in neighborhood facilities—new schools, health posts, bus services, mills, dairies, agricultural cooperatives, and other facilities—influence perceptions of environmental degradation. We use three types of data from a rural area in Nepal: (1) data on changing neighborhood facilities from 171 neighborhoods, collected using ethnographic, survey, and archival methods; (2) survey data on household characteristics and environmental perceptions from 1,651 households; and (3) individual-level survey data. We find that new neighborhood facilities are associated with perceptions of environmental degradation. This is important because perceptions may indicate objective environmental degradation, encourage participation in programs to improve the environmental, and influence environmental behavior.     

``Quality of Life' Research at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics: Social Indicators and Social Surveys

``Quality of Life'' research at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics isheaded by an integrated pair of projects: the series on Social Indicatorsand the Social Survey. The development of these two projects raises issuesof harmonization of measures with other departments in the Israel CBS aswell as with international recommendations. Quality-of-life research necessarily requires collecting information about respondents' evaluationsof their situation, but proposals to include such questions in surveyscarried out by National Statistical Organizations may meet with oppositionwhich argues that the information provided is not ``objective.'' Thequality-of-life research program at the Israel CBS has a dual goal: toprovide baseline information and to be policy relevant.     

Social Change and the Relationships Between Education and Employment

The relationships between education and employment have long been of interest to social scientists. During the transition from a completely agricultural economy to one that is developing nonfarm opportunities, however, the relationships between education and employment may dramatically change. We examine how two components of education—schooling enrollment and attainment—affect the transition to employment for men and women in the Chitwan Valley of Nepal. Using discrete-time event history models, we find that school enrollment tends to delay employment, while school attainment accelerates employment. We also test how these effects may have changed across successive cohorts. Over time, the effects of enrollment have become stronger, while the effects of attainment appear to have weakened. These shifts in the nature of education may be related to increasing conflict between student and employee roles, as well as changes in the types and availability of employment.     

国家社科基金人口学学科立项项目统计与分析

以1997—2009年期间国家社会科学基金项目人口学学科的立项数据为研究对象,分析人口学学科项目总体数量年度分布、项目类型、项目主持单位系统、项目研究内容及项目预期成果形式,探讨人口学学科的发展现状,为人口学学科的进一步发展提供参考意见。     

中国的离婚率与社会结构变化分析

从中国的离婚率与社会结构变化的时间序列分析中可以看出 :离婚率随非农产业人口比重的提高而提高 ,并有三年的时滞 ;离婚率也和人口城市化的发展有密切的关系 ,两者的比重一并提高 ,但约有五年的时滞。因这两方面社会结构的变化 ,直接影响妇女就业率提高和妇女职业结构的变化 ,而由此引起的人口迁移流动的大变动 ,也必然影响婚姻家庭观念的变化     

中国社会变化中的生育文化

1生育文化的决定因素 生育文化在本质上是由经济、社会、政治、科技等因素决定的.首先,生产力发展水平和生产方式,以及与此相应的经济、社会制度,是决定社会群体主流生育文化的基础.封建社会中较低的生产力发展水平,较低的科学技术水平,分散的以农耕劳作为主的生产方式,按家庭人头摊派的劳役、兵役与赋税征收制度,连绵不断的战争、饥荒、不能控制的温疫等导致较高死亡率的现实等,都必然诱导人们形成崇尚多子女、偏好男性、喜欢早婚早育、追求多代同堂大家庭的生育观念,并由此演进出封建社会的传统生育文化.     

Comparability of Mortality Estimates from Social Surveys and Vital Statistics Data in the United States

Population Research and Policy Review - Social surveys prospectively linked with death records provide invaluable opportunities for the study of the relationship between social and economic...     

Ways that Social Change Predicts Personal Quality of Life

A notable way that social change affects personal quality of life would rely on the person’s experience with social change. This experience may influence societal quality of life and quality of work life, which may in turn affect personal quality of life. Additionally, the experience of social change is possibly less detrimental to personal quality of life later in the presence of higher existing personal quality of life. These influences over time become transparent through a three-wave panel study of 531 working people in Hong Kong, China. Findings show that although social change experienced did not generally impair subsequent quality of life, it tended to be more detrimental to the person with lower quality of life before. In addition, social change experienced tended to erode societal quality of life and quality of work life experienced, which appeared to be predictors of personal quality of life. Hence, there are possible ways for social change to predict personal quality of life.     

Static Numbers to Dynamic Statistics: Designing a Policy-Friendly Social Policy Indicator Framework

In line with the economic crisis and rapid socio-demographic changes, the interest in ??social?? and ??well-being?? indicators has been revived. Social indicator movements of the 1960s resulted in the establishment of social indicator statistical frameworks; that legacy has remained intact in many national governments and international organisations. With this background, this research examines whether existing social indicator frameworks are valid and effective enough to address increasingly complex social issues. The authors argue that, despite some improvements, current social indicators fail to provide an effective framework and tool for measuring the progress of social welfare and also for developing or reforming social policy to cope with newly emerging social problems. While proposing a new social indicator framework based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development??s pressure-state-response (PSR) model, the paper argues that the new framework should be more than displaying static numbers but should use dynamic statistics revealing causes and effects and shedding light on social and policy changes.     

The Development of Official Social Statistics in Italy with a Life Quality Approach

The article covers the main steps of official statistics in the second half of the Nineties through the illustration of the transition from economic oriented official statistics to the quality of life approach. The system of the Multipurpose Surveys introduced in 1993 to give an answer to questions at social level and to provide indicators for social policies, has been developed with a quality of life approach that combines the objective dimension to the subjective one. All dimensions of the social sphere have been analyzed with this approach: health, crime, leisure, work, poverty and deprivation. Sometimes the subjective questions were proxy of the objective situation, such as health and sometimes subjective aspects complemented the objective as in the case of crime and poverty. The history of the Italian official statistics is an example of how it is possible to realize a qualitative leap in social statistics integrating the objective and the subjective dimension.     

Comparative Case Study as Social Impact Assessment: Possibilities and Limitations for Anticipating Social Change in the Far North

Social impact assessment (SIA) is increasingly an accepted component of environmental impact assessment and project evaluation throughout North America. Tools and methodologies utilized to conduct such assessments vary greatly and continue to evolve with time and experience. This paper follows the evolution of case study methods in social impact assessment, focusing primarily on the comparative diachronic method. Exploring the utility of this method, this paper compares the potential social and economic impacts of the Mackenzie Gas Project (MGP) in the community of Inuvik, Northwest Territories, with the known social and economic impacts of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) in the community of Valdez, Alaska. Through such comparison, insights into potential impacts from the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project are assessed while also drawing attention to, and discussing, the specific strengths and weaknesses of a comparative case study approach to social impact assessment.     

Introduction: Quality of Life in Countries Undergoing Rapid Social Change

Social Indicators Research -     

Young Adulthood as a Factor in Social Change in the United States

This essay compares family change during two periods of social and historical upheaval in the United States: the industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century and the more recent family changes of the late twentieth century. Despite the manifest social and demographic changes brought about by the industrial revolution, some aspects of family life remained unchanged. Almost all new families formed in the United States before and during the industrial revolution were same‐race heterosexual marriages. In the past half‐century, however, family diversity has become the new rule; interracial marriages and extramarital cohabitation have both risen sharply. A key to understanding the lack of family diversity in the past and the recent rise in diversity is the changing nature of young adulthood.     

Gender, Social Change, and Living Arrangements Among Older Egyptians During the 1990s

We compare older Egyptian women’s and men’s propensities to live with unmarried children only, any ever-married children, and alone, and we assess “kin-keeping” versus “modernization” hypotheses about the effects of social change on living arrangements during 1988–2000. Socioeconomic differences among women and men accounted for much of their crude differences in living arrangements during the period. Propensities to live with any ever-married children declined, and propensities to live alone or with unmarried children only rose. Compared to men, women continued to live more often with any ever-married children and less often with unmarried children only, and the 1988 gender gap in solitary residence disappeared by 2000. Increasing coresidential demands from unmarried dependent children, less frequent coresidential support from ever-married children, and rapidly increasing rates of solitary living especially among older men suggest emerging needs for non-coresidential instrumental support, especially among older Egyptians who are economically disadvantaged.

Investigating Social Welfare Change in Urban Village Transformation: A Rural Migrant Perspective

An increasing number of large cities have experienced urban village transformation because of the rapid industrialization and urbanization in China. Extant literature largely focuses on urban village transformation and its ensuing developments. This research examined the social welfare change through six welfare categories of indicators, namely, economic condition, dwelling condition, development opportunity, social security, living environment, and psychology. Value change in fuzzy membership was used to reveal the changes in social welfare for rural migrants before and after urban village transformation. Data were collected from questionnaires distributed in four cities of Zhejiang Province in 2014. Fuzzy assessment model was developed to analyze the collected data. Results corroborated that nearly all the values of the welfare categories decreased, except for the value of dwelling condition. The findings confirmed that the rural migrants do not primarily receive the benefits of urban village transformation. In addition, such transformation does not improve urban village harmony. Various measures should be applied to improve rural migrant welfare, including enhancing rural migrant settlement intention, encouraging rural migrants to return to their respective hometowns, and implementing policies for regionally differentiated welfare rights. The findings of this study can provide references for local governments to substantially implement urban village transformation.     

Work-Related Demands Emanating from Social Change and Their Relation to Trait-Like and Occasion-Specific Aspects of Subjective Well-Being

Following current macro-level social change people are increasingly confronted with new demands encompassing perceived uncertainties concerning their job and career prospects. Studies utilizing concurrent assessments showed that perceiving a high accumulation (“load”) of such demands is negatively related to individuals’ subjective well-being. Without further evidence the interpretation of the direction of these effects, however, is equivocal. Based on the concept that individuals have a rather stable trait-like level of subjective well-being from which they may vary when confronted with changes of the external ecology, the current study examined the relationship between the reported load of demands and subjective well-being assessed as general life satisfaction and average satisfaction in domains of life (i.e., family, work, finances, and leisure). We expected that a higher load of demands corresponds to a temporary decline in well-being, while at the same time differences in the stable trait-like level of well-being account for differences in the reported demand load. For the purpose of our study, we analyzed three annual waves of assessment of German adults aged between 18 and 43 years (N = 488). Utilizing a trait-state-occasion model, we separated trait-like aspects of well-being from occasion-specific deviations. Overall, our results confirmed our expectation that effects indeed run in both directions. The higher the reported load of work-related demands, the more respondents’ well-being negatively deviated from the stable trait-like level. Beyond that a higher trait-like level of well-being corresponded to a lower demand load. Both effects revealed almost equal strength and remained stable after controlling for participants’ employment status, family status, and educational attainment.