Thursday, April 19, 2007

Importance of Economic Mobility

Economic mobility is a way to motivate people to work hard and increase their social classes. By increasing their social classes, they can reach their personal goals, maybe buying a favort car, having better living standard...etc. Having economic mobility can let people have a goal to reach and work hard. From working hard, they also contribute themselves to our society and economy which make improvement on it. Howvever, as I mentioned in last post, single-mother families limited economic mobility of children. Children from those families will end up the same social classes as their parents. Even they work hard, it is still very difficult to change the economic mobility. Since more and more single-mother families form, more and more children will be affected. Under this situation, children are not willing to work hard anymore because they never reach their goals. Our society and economy will also be affected. Therefore, in order to restore the economic mobility for those children, the government should provide assistance for single-mother families and fair education system.

Single-mother families limited economic mobility of children

Single mothers need more assistance because this family form leads to less economic mobility for children by providing an unsuitable style of parenting. In traditional nuclear families, parents would like to provide the best educations, living environments and extra-activities for their children. However, single-mother families can only try their best to provide a safe environment, better nutrition, clothing, and schooling (Sotelo 231). Some single-mothers may face problems with providing those too. Compared with two family forms, children from nuclear families have a much better parenting approach than single-mother families because nuclear families provide better recourses and environment than single-parent families. In addition, according to “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families,” social class in the families affects the style of parenting, which includes organization of daily life, use of language and social connections (Lareau 747-774). Different styles of parenting also affect children’s futures. Most children end up in the same social classes as their parents, especially children from single-mother families (Lareau 771-772).

Women are finanical independent

Women are financially independent now; they do not need the support of men anymore. Since in the past, men supported the whole families, women had to stay at home and take care of children. Women had to rely on men financially. However, recently more education for women has caused more women to join the work force. 37.7% of women joined the labor force in 1960; in 2004, 59.6% of women worked (Census). More than half of the population of women is financially independent. If any arguments happen in the marriage, financial problems are not a consideration any more, causing divorce rates to increase. Only 6% of people were divorced in 1980; in 2004, 10% of population was divorced (Divorce Magazine.com). It also causes more and more single-mother families forms.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Annotated Bibliography

Popenoe, David. “American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A Review and Appraisal.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 55, 527-555.

David Popenoe, professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, Co-Director of the National Marriage Project and former social and behavioral sciences dean, mentions that since 1960 the American nuclear family has declined. Women’s increased participation in the work force and the loss of family functions, such as reproduction and the socialization of children, provision to its members of care, affection, and companionship, economic cooperation, and sexual regulation, are the main reasons of declining. The consequences of this decline mainly affect children. He suggests we should learn from historical sources to return to nuclear families. I will use Popenoe’s point of view about the reasons for family decline to support the reasons for single-parent families and divorce rate increases in my paper. On the other hand, Popenoe presents strong evidences that we should learn from the past; I will use it as a contrast to support the idea that we should look forward in the future and explore the reasons.

Stacey, Judith, “Good Riddance to ‘The Family’: A Response to David Popenoe.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 55, 545-547.

Judith Stacey, professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU and Director of Undergraduate Studies, supports parts of Popenoe’s point of view: women’s increased the participation in the work force and also the effect on children. She further explores how divorce affects children. However, she disagrees that we should learn from the historical resources. She provides a few solutions for providing better benefits for single-parent families. I will use the effects of divorce to support my paper that how children is emotionally affected by changing the family form to single-parent families. Stacey does not explain how single-parents affect children; I will explore further about the effects on children financially and emotionally. I will also use Stacy’s solutions for reference and support the solutions that I create to solve the current problems which affect children, such as government should provide better welfare.

Lareau, Annette. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families.” American Sociological Review. 67, 747-776.

Annette Lareau, professor of sociology at Temple University, suggests that families from different social classes have different styles of parenting; each style of parenting affects children. She compares parenting styles between upper class families and working class families. Parenting can be divided into three parts: organization of daily life, use of language and social connections. Each part of parenting affects children’s knowledge, socialization skills and ways to thinking. In addition, Lareau also mentions reproduction of class position; most children end up in the same class o group as their parents. I will use this information to support how single-parent families negatively affect children in parenting because of financial problem.

Cherlin, Andrew J. “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 848-861.


Andrew J Cherlin, professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, argues that marriage has undergone a process of deinstitiutionalization-a weakening of the social norms that define partner’s behavior-over the past few decades. Examples are presented involving the increasing number of single-parent families, cohabiting unions and same-sex marriages. Cherlin also mentions that the importance of marriage has declined. Its symbolic significance has remained high and may even have increased. It has become a marker of prestige and personal achievement. This article can support my argument that single-parent families only provide benefit to parents, but not children by having the reasons of increasing divorce rates and changes of the attitude towards marriage. I will use this information to further explain why more single-parent families form and how the changes of the attitude of marriage affect children.

Avila, Ernestine and Sotelo, Pierrette Hondagneu. “The Meaning of Latina Transactional Motherhood.” Motherhood,224-233

Ernestine Avila and Pierrette Hondagneu Sotelo mention the changes and importance of motherhood, and the difficulties of single parenthood. The article also mentions about the point of views of public about transactional motherhood. Transactional motherhood can be divided by many types; one of them is mothers bring their children and come to the United States. Those mothers’ careers mainly are domestic jobs. They try to provide the best for their children; however, the public think they are not a good mother because they do not have the abilities to be full time mothers and provide much child caring. By understanding the importance and changing of family forms, I can get further support on what effect these changes have on children and also their future. I will also use the comparison on the point of views of mother’s responsibly between public and transactional motherhood which has same situation as single-motherhood. In this comparison, I can further explore the difficulties of single-motherhood and misunderstanding of the public. At last, I will provide solutions on effect of children based on the difficulties of single-motherhood; for instance government should provide better welfare for those families and build some child-caring associations for single-parent families..

Anyon, Jean. “From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. Eds. Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 194-209.

Jean Anyon, chairperson of the Department of Education at Rutgers University, Newark, mentions that there are different educational approaches towards socio-economic groups in the United States. They are divided into four categories: working-class schools, middle-class schools, affluent professional schools and executive elite schools. Compared to working-class schools, executive elite schools have higher expectation from teachers, more creative assignments and presentations, and more freedom. According to Anyon’s findings, students are provided unequal opportunities and they end up the same social classes as their parents. I will use Anyon’s finding to support how social classes in families affect children, so that they do not have chance to have better education approach. Therefore, I will also figure out the solutions of having equal opportunities for children to be successful.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Increasing the Rate of Abortion

Nowadays, people have open mind on sex. According to the research, many of Americans have their 1st sex before the age 18, which cause the increase of unmarried mather and also abortion.

On the hand, cohabitions are more popular now, especially from the age 25-29. According to the article, cohabition will have more sex comparing to the married couples. It causes the increase of abortion also.