Ageism
promotes an atmosphere in which the elderly are
devalued, negatively stereotyped,and discriminated against.To the extent that older people accept these
negative definitions of the aged, they may view abusive treatment as deserved
assimilation patterns
is the process by which individuals or groups adopt the culture of another group, losing their original identity. A principal indicator of assimilation is language. In 2000, slightly less than one in five Americans age 5 and older spoke a language other t
beanpole family structure
structure�a vertical, fourgeneration
family structure.
sandwich family structure
three generation household, where parents care for their parents and their children.
sex ratio
Older women outnumber older men by a ratio of 3 to 2. As age increases, the disparity becomes greater�for those age 85 and older, there are about five women to every two men. By age 100 and older, four in five are women.
social security
One out of three seniors depends on Social Security for 90 to 100 percent of their income. Two out of three seniors depend on it for more than half their income" ( Social Security has reduced poverty significantly among the elderly�from 35.2 percent in 19
Social security problems
An overarching problem is facing Social Security�how to finance it in the future. Three demographic factors make financing the program problematic. The first is that more people are living to age 65, and the second is that people live much longer after re
Dependency ratio
the proportion of the population who are workers compared
to the proportion not working
medicare
Medicare, begun in 1965, is the federal health insurance program begun in 1965 for those 65 and older. Everyone is automatically entitled to hospital insurance,home health care, and hospice care through this program (known as
Medicare Part A). The supplem
long term care
therapeutic care (the approach that focuses
on meeting the needs of patients and on treatment),
whereas homes housing welfare recipients tend to provide custodial care (the approach in a health facility that focuses on meeting the needs of the institution
Nursing homes
About 3.5 million people will live in a nursing home over the course of a year (Schmitt 2002). By 2020, it will be almost a million more. The data indicate that at any one time, between 4 and 5 percent of people age 65 and older are confined to nursing ho
elderly abuse
As a result, as many as five out of six cases of elder abuse go unreported.
found that 4 to 6 percent of older adults
report experiencing incidents of domestic elder abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation. With about 35 million Americans 65 and older,
disengagement
Some researchers have argued that senior citizens respond to the aging process by retreating from relationships, organizations, and society (called
disengagement). This behavior is considered normal and even satisfying for the individual because withdrawa
role of fertility
� The total fertility rate (the number of children a woman bears in her childbearing years) is 2.1, exactly at the replacement rate. This rate varies by race/ethnicity: Whites (1.8), Asian Americans (1.9), African Americans (1.9),
and Latinos (2.9). One o
majority minority locations
Non-Whites are the majority in four states�California, Texas, New Mexico,
and Hawaii�and the District of Columbia.
� Almost one in three Americans is non-White, compared to one in five in1980.
� The number of Latinos in the United States is greater than t
Immigration settlement patterns
New patterns of immigration are changing the racial composition of society. Among the expanded population of first-generation immigrants, the Asian born now outnumber the European born, and those from Latin America, especially Mexicans, outnumber both. Th
Human Agency
Immigration can be forced (e.g., the slave trade) or freely chosen. Immigration in this latter sense is clearly an act of human agency (rather than passively accepting
structural constraints, people cope with, adapt to, and change their social situations
healthcare
the elderly consume more than one-third of all health care in the United States.The cost of long-term care is prohibitive. The average cost of a year in a nursing home in 2008 was $213 a day or $77,745 annually and in some cities it is much higher.200,000
poverty rates by race
In 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau found that the median family income for Asian American households was
$78,330, compared with $69,530 for non-Hispanic White households, $42,445 for Latino households, and $40,698 for African American households. Not surpris
feminization of poverty
Viewed erroneously as a trend for contemporary women to be more economically vulnerable than men. This view obscures the fact that women have always been poorer than men, especially older women and women of color.
old and new poor
These new poor are quite different from the old poor. The old poor�that is, the poor of other generations�had hopes of breaking out of poverty; if they did not break out themselves, at least they believed their children would
working poor
Having a job is not necessarily a path out of poverty. U.S. census data show that over 2.6 million full-time workers were below the poverty line in 2009, as were another 8.0 million workers who worked at least part of the year
Despite working,these people
near poor
The near poor are people with family incomes at or above the poverty threshold but below 125 percent of the threshold (e.g., with the official poverty line at $17,163 for a family of three, 125 percent of that number is $21,454). In 2009,18.7 percent of t
severely poor
6.3 percent of the population (19 million Americans) was severely poor ( living at or below half the poverty line). Some facts about these people who are the poorest of the poor are as follows:
� Of these 17 million, 6.9 million are children under 18.
� O
Poverty Line
Today a full-time minimum-wage worker earns only
81 percent of the poverty level for a family of three (in 1968 a family of three with one minimum-wage earner had a standard of living 17 percent above the poverty line).
Second, many of the poor who do not
welfare and wealth fare
We tend to assume that government monies and
services go mostly to the poor (welfare), when in fact the greatest amount of government aid goes to the nonpoor (wealthfare). Most (about three-fourths) of the federal outlays for human resources go to the non
Tax expenditures
The upside-down welfare system, with aid mainly helping the already affluent, is also accomplished by two hidden welfare systems. The first is through tax loopholes (called tax expenditures). Through these legal mechanisms,
the government officially permi
Regressive tax
when the poor pay sales taxes on the items they purchase, the tax takes more of their resources than it does from the non poor
Institutional Discrimination.
When the customary ways of doing things, prevailing attitudes and expectations, and accepted structural
arrangements work to the disadvantage of the poor
health problems
50.7 million people (7.2 millionchildren) had no private or public health insurance. About 15.8 million Hispanics,
8.1 million African Americans, and 23.7 million non-Hispanic Whites were uninsured.
Infant mortality rates
The infant mortality rate in some poor urban neighborhoods exceeds the rate in developing countries. The United States has a higher infant mortality rate than
most other industrialized countries. Reflecting the disproportionatenumber of African Americans
Brown v. Board of Education
In 1954, the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in the schools. Yet the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling did not end segregation. By 2004, on the
fiftieth anniversary of the historic ruling, U.S. racial gaps in education were on the rise, and s
colorblindness
Idea that race no longer matters in explaining inequality or in policy making because racism has been overcome.
structural theories
Structural theories argue that inequality is the result of external constraints in society rather than cultural features of minority groups.
Deficiency theories
Deficiency theories view minority group members as unequal because they lack some important feature common among the majority
hate groups
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) documented
888 hate groups in fortyeight states and the District of Columbia in 2008, a number that has swelled by
48 percent since 2000 (SPLC 2008). Hate groups include White supremacist groups with such diverse ele
hate crimes
Every day, at least one hate crime occurs on a college
campus, and every minute, a college student somewhere sees or hears racist,sexist, homophobic, or otherwise biased words or images. Of all hate crime incidents
motivated by racial bias in 2008, 12.5 p
Individual v. institutional racism
Individual racism is related to prejudice. It consists of individual behavior that harms other individuals or their property. Institutional racism is structural. It comprises more than attitudes or behavior. It is structural, that is, a complex pattern of
profile of all racial ethnic groups
By 2010, African Americans (38.9 million) were 12.6 percent of the total population.50,000 legal immigrants
In 2010, Hispanics or Latinos numbered 50.5 million, or 16.3 percent of the total U.S. population. 2/3 (65 percent) of all Hispanic Americans are C