Question and Answer on Contemporary Social Issues

1. One of the most significant changes taking place in the past few decades, the one that has had a pronounced effect on millions of families, causing considerable concern, has been the movement of women into the workplace. This change has had momentous effects on women, on children, on men, on marital relations- on families. Since 1970s, according to the demand for low-paying “pink-collar”, women moved into those pink-collar jobs and into other jobs as well. The number of hiring women has steadily increased, so in 1960, 32 percent of married women in the labor force. By 1985, this figure had climbed to 54 percent, and in 2005, it stood at 61 percent. Work allows women to become independent, to develop a career, and terminate unsatisfactory marriages, and it gives them greater both outside the family and within it. When parents’ jobs are less secure due to economic recession, parents spend more time on working and cannot have less time to spend with their children. Consequently, today’s families are more isolated from their parents and get along with less support to one another than families of the past.

2. American Dream as the feature of American culture that explains much of its crime problem. The United States is distinctive in the value it places in monetary success. However, it can also be problematic in that the social structure of many, especially those in the lower class, to achieve success because there is not equality of opportunity in the Unites States. Therefore, they are tempted to resort to illegitimate means in order to attain the all-important goal of success. Two important and interrelated values often identified with the American character are individualism and competition. That is, if everybody peruses his ...

... middle of paper ...

... one relating to the distribution of resources between and within countries. First-World, has the ability to provide amount of resources, is rarely considered overpopulated. In this sense, the problem of overpopulation boils down to the problem of poverty as it is to poverty itself. To solve the overpopulation, the first solution is that of overpopulation is indeed a problem, family planning/contraception is only one way of constructing a solution, it is a solution that does not threaten the vested interests of the elite. Another solution is the empowerment of women in Third-World countries because they are forced to bear many babies. However, when she has formal education and jobs outside of home, she becomes financially dependent on her husband and is able to speak her own mind. In this regard, Third-World countries should effort to educate and empower women.