Class Notes
Professor Henry Schissler
Chapter Nine

Demography: The Study of Population

Various elements of population are profoundly affected by the norms, values, and social patterns of a society.
• Fertility, the level of reproduction in a society, is influenced by a person’s age of entry into sexual unions & by their use of contraception. Social and/or religious values define these influences
• Mortality, the number of deaths, is shaped by a society’s level of nutrition, acceptance of immunization, and provisions for sanitation, as well as its general commitment to health care & health education.

Then...

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 – 1834) published Essays on the Principle of Population in 1798. He held that the world’s population was growing more rapidly that the available food supply. He advocated population control to close the gap, yet explicitly denounced artificial means of birth control because they were not sanctioned by religion.

Instead, Malthus advocated the postponement of marriage. If couples did not show restraint, he warned, the world would face widespread hunger, poverty, and misery.

Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb (1968), agreed that the world population growth is outstretching natural resources. However, he and other neo-Malthusians insist that birth control measures are needed, and developed nations must use less of the world resources.

...Now

The suffering Malthus spoke of is a reality for many people of the world. Malnutrition remains the largest contributing factor to illness & death among children in developing countries. Almost 20% of these children will die before the age of five. In the United States, one child under the age of twelve dies every fifty-six seconds from the effects of malnutrition.

Combating world hunger may require reducing human births, dramatically increasing the world’s food supply, or perhaps both at the same time. But the United States will not send birth control of any kind to these countries because, like Malthus in 1798, artificial means of birth control are not sanctioned by certain religions. Since 2000, the U.S. has, instead, sent literature promoting abstinence.

How Did Communities Originate?

A community is a unit of social organization, either spatial or political, that gives people a sense of belonging. How did this social arrangement come into being? The transition from subsistence to surplus represented a critical step in the emergence of communities and cities. The surplus was first agricultural, but gradually it evolved to include all types of goods & services.

The surplus allowed for expansion of goods & services, leading to greater differentiation, a hierarchy of occupations, and social inequality. It was a precondition not only for the establishment of cities but for the division of members of a community into social classes.

City – permanent settlement of people who depend on others for the production of food; usually a legally incorporated urban settlement.

Suburb – a catchall term for any urban development that occurs outside a city.

Rural – any human settlement of fewer than 2,500 people.

Metropolis – a large urban (people engaged in non-agricultural activity) area comprising one or more central cities and their surrounding suburbs, and forming a more or less integrated regional economy.

Megalopolis – continuous stretch of metropolitan area containing cities and suburbs.

Industrial Cities (18th – mid-20th century)

Industrialization had a wide range of effects on people’s lifestyles as well as on the structure of communities. Emerging urban settlements became centers not only of industry but of banking, finance, and industrial management.

The factory system led to a much more refined division of labor; the many new occupations that were created produced a complex set or relationships among workers.

The key characteristics of the industrial city were:
• Open class system – mobility based on achieved characteristics
• Relatively open competition
• Elaborate specialization in manufacturing of goods
• Influence of religion limited to certain areas as society becomes more secularized
• Standardization enforced by custom and law
• Emergence of communication through posters, bulletins, and newspapers
• Formal schooling open to the masses & viewed as a means of advancing the social order; the social construct called “adolescence” emerged

Postindustrial Cities (beginning late 20th century)

• Global finance & the electronic flow of information dominate the economy
• Production is decentralized (often taking place outside urban centers), but control is centralized in multinational corporations
• Wealth is based on ability to obtain & use information, corporate power dominates
• Religion becomes more fragmented; greater openness to new religious views
• Conflicting views of prevailing standards ad customs and laws change
• Professional, scientific, and technical personnel are increasingly important as more extended electronic networks emerge

Gentrification – upper-income professionals (“the gentry”) buying low-cost city housing, renovating it, moving in and converting low income neighborhoods to high income neighborhoods; poor people are typically displaced.

Urban Renewal federal grant programs that provided funds to cities for revitalizing (often by knocking down) “blighted areas.”


Health and Illness

Health – a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity

Because health is relative, we can view it in a social context & consider how it varies in different situations or cultures. We can critically analyze the social context that shapes definitions of health & the treatment of illness.

Sick Role – the cultural definition of the appropriate behavior of and response to people labeled as sick.

Typical Sick Role behaviors include taking sick days off from work, going to the doctor, obtaining prescription medicines, purchasing over-the-counter products at the local pharmacy. These behaviors help our economic system tremendously.

Typical responses to people labeled as sick are sending get well cards, flowers or other small gifts; helping the family while the sick person recuperates.

The social role of being “sick” is closely allied to the medical model of treatment (when an individual displays symptoms of abnormality, the cause is physiological). This model requires medical establishment involvement, including pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and various other ancillary businesses. This is also referred to as the Medicalization of Society.

Like chiropractors, holistic or naturopathic medical professionals are attempting to enter the mainstream medical model. This legitimacy will raise their status, allowing them to participate in insurance plans and receive patient referrals. University degree programs will increase to meet the demands of persons going into this newly recognized field. There are many economic issues involved.

Examples of Sick Role definitions:

• Not long ago, a person addicted to alcohol was viewed as weak and of questionable character. Today alcoholism is called a “disease”, an illness. They are, therefore, deserving of help.
• While heroin and cocaine addiction are also called diseases, addicts are typically viewed as lacking morals and of questionable character – unlike their alcoholic brethren.
• Why the distinction? Most Americans (statistically) identify addicts as African American or Latino men, members of the urban poor. This inaccurate stereotype fuels the Sick Role differentiation

• When HIV and AIDS were first being reported on, it was widely viewed as a gay male affliction. Persistent rumors (reported in media) were that gay men contracted the disease after sexual contact with blacks men from Central America.
• This stigma caused funding for HIV and AIDS research to be minimal until heterosexuals became infected. Ryan White and Elizabeth Glasser (founder of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation) were two “heterosexual faces” that began to change public opinion. Federal funding increased rapidly after that point.

The Family’s Influence on the “Sick Role” –

Some families maintain a work ethic where they won’t miss work for what they consider to be a minor illness. Other families are focused on sickness, encouraging members to “be sick” at the slightest hint of a minor health problem.
This example illustrates the “Sick Role” as a social construct because the family, the first Agent of Socialization, can dramatically differ on the socialization of the “Sick Role” to its members.

Psychology and Mental Health –

It is the role of psychology professionals to provide the “measuring stick” for what is normal or abnormal behavior in culture. Abnormal behavior is typically viewed as a mental health problem. It requires a label (a diagnosis), and a specified medically and psychologically based course of treatment. Successful treatment means a return to normal behavior.

Psychology, as an Agent of Socialization lists all “behavioral disorders” in their text The Diagnostic and statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association.

Interestingly, behaviors viewed as both normal and abnormal have changed as culture has changed. Further, behaviors viewed as abnormal in Western society are not necessarily viewed as abnormal in other countries. Examples –
• Homosexuality was a label (a diagnosis) until it was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual over thirty years ago
• Veterans who exhibited abnormal behavior after returning from war had “shell shock” until the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual formalized it as a label (or diagnosis) called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Veterans from the Vietnam Conflict were instrumental in advocating for this “recognition” from psychology.
• Just six years ago, psychology added a new label (or diagnosis) to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual called Acute Stress Disorder. Too many persons were exhibiting some of the abnormal behaviors associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but not enough to fit that label. The new one, Acute Stress, was, therefore, added.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is, therefore, a social constructed vehicle for codifying mental illness, just as laws codify (and reaffirm) abnormal behavior and spell out the consequences if someone persists in the behavior.