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What are the main sociological issues raised by the idea of a multi-cultural society?

‘Multiculturalism is not about difference and identity per se but about those that are embedded in and sustained by culture’ (Parekh, 2000:2). Despite the fact that most countries today are culturally diverse, it would be impossible to discuss the main sociological issues raised by the idea of a multicultural society without explaining first, what is the meaning of culture itself? The most common definition of culture refers to a complex entity which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, customs and habits acquired by members of a society. Claire Alexander sees culture as a set of traditions and beliefs linked to ethnicity and common origins which led to the realisation that culture is not a fixed set of beliefs, but it is made and unmade in daily life. (1996)

The query of multiculturalism is not a recent topic for debate since it has been present in the political life of European countries since 1945, year that does not only mark the Second World War but also the beginning of an era of concerns and changes. The main issues raised by this matter refer to immigration, delegation of power and growing numbers of political refugees and asylum seekers. Yet, further problems emerge concerning collective and political rights, liberal ideas, identity, and individual freedom. (Rex, 2003)

Furthermore, Kymlicka suggests that the diversity of cultures we are experiencing today has led to a conflict between majorities and minorities over matters such as language, autonomy, political representation, and national identity (1996). He also argues that this, mainly affects democracies:

‘attempts to create liberal democratic institutions are being undermined by violent nationalist conflicts; volatile disputes over the rights of immigrants, indigenous peoples, and other cultural minorities are throwing into question many of the assumptions which have governed political life for decades’ (1996: 2)

Until recently, multiculturalism was seen by politicians and monarchs as a positive trait of modern and nation-states. However, this perception changed due to ethnic conflicts within nations such as the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia or the riots in the United Kingdom between Asians and native British citizens. In the past few years, many philosophers and social scientists have taken an interest into the idea of cultural diversity and tried to define the image of a liberal society, answer the question whether individual rights should be expanded to groups and solve the problem of recognition which appeared it implied the denial of individual rights in the first place. (Rex, 2003)

On this matter, Charles Taylor argues that in fact, recognition is an essential component of the concept of rights and individuals could be recognised as part of a group (1994). In order to expand his argument, he goes as far back as the collapse of social hierarchies and the ancient regime and states the common element that constitutes both a hierarchy and a democratic society. He claims that the ancient hierarchies were based on the notion of “honour” which even though it was a matter of choice, it defined the individuals of the society; the term we use today is “dignity”. On the other hand, Taylor states that recognition has acquired a different meaning with the new understanding of individual identity that emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. This new idea focused on the inner voice of the individual and on the concept of authenticity: ‘on the original view, the inner voice was important because it tells us what the right thing to do is; being in touch with our moral feelings matter here, as a means to the end of acting rightly’ (1994:28) He also argues that identity is necessarily collective and that cultural rights cannot be enjoyed by individuals alone because they are collective by nature. However, Taylor’s position collides with the liberal tradition which is based on the idea of individual freedom and the neutrality.

According to Henri Giordan, the pillar of the modern society is fighting for individual freedom rather than the traditional structures of societies. Thus, the progress of civilizations was reflected in the freedom of speech and press, liberty to gather political parties and vote, concepts which defined human rights that in Pareks` view: ‘represent a great historical achievement’ (2006: 17) Furthermore, he explains that:

‘for the first time in history (human rights) provide a universally accessible moral and political language in which to articulate our shared concerns and differences. In so doing it builds moral bonds between human beings in different parts of the world and helps create an awareness of our shared humanity.’ (2006:17)

Nonetheless, Parekh suggests that human rights should follow three conditions:

‘firstly, they should be integrally related to and indispensable for a life of dignity; secondly, they should be universal or rather universalizable in the dual sense that all human beings are entitled to claim them and that this claim extends to all societies; thirdly, human rights should be widely accepted as such by a cross-cultural consensus.’ (2006:25)

In order to sustain this point of view, Kymlicka states that minority rights are inseparable from human rights and mentions UNESCO:

‘the defence of cultural diversity is an ethical imperative inseparable from respect for human dignity. It implies a commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular the rights belonging to minorities and those of indigenous peoples. Cultural rights are an integral part of human rights, which are universal, indivisible and interdependent.’ (UNESCO, Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, 2001)

However, the rise of democracy was brutally interrupted by the First and Second World War. National identity became a threat for ideologies such as fascism and Nazism which led to a tragic outcome (Kym1icka, 1992). Some minorities were exterminated, either by expulsion or by genocide while other minorities were assimilated and force to adopt the language, customs and religion of the majority group and were denied political rights. It became evident at the end of the Second World War that a different approach to minorities’ rights was necessary and attempts were made to redistribute collective rights to individuals rather than granting special rights to members of a group. (Kymlicka, 1996)

Starting with the 1980s, a new dimension was given to minorities rights and Kymlicka suggests that ‘these changes have followed two tracks: there is one track for the specific case of “indigenous peoples”, and another track for “minorities” in general’ (2007:31) He goes on explaining that the rights that were exclusively given to indigenous peoples (the Indians and Inuit in Canada, Aboriginal in Australia, Indian tribes in the United States, the Maori of new Zealand) included land claims, language rights, customary law and representation in the central government:

‘this is a perception that is sometimes promoted by indigenous peoples themselves and their advocates, who assert that the status of indigenous peoples has nothing in common with the claims of “minorities”, and that the ideology of “indigenism” has no connection with more general theories of multiculturalism’ (2007: 34)

The latter track that Kymlicka explains refers to the distinction between “historic minorities” (that were traditionally settled in the country and included groups that were considered “indigenous peoples” and long-standing “national minorities”: the Scots and Welsh of Britain, the Catalans and Basques in Spain, Puerto Rico in United States) and the “migrants” (2007). In what immigration is concerned, it appears that the countries with a high density of migrants (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States) have approached the problem of immigration through a process of assimilation with the hope that they will blend in with the native-born citizens. Solid evidence for the progress of minority rights was given by the European Union when they declared that the promotion of minority rights was the “ascension criteria” for the countries that wanted to join the Union (Kymlicka 2007)

Another topic that Kymlicka approaches in his theory refers to the distinction and the connection between “collective rights” and “individual rights”. He begins by explaining that there are two meanings of “collective rights”:

‘collective rights could refer to the right of a group to limit the liberty of its own individual members in the name of group solidarity or cultural purity (“internal restrictions”); or it could refer to the right of a group to limit the economic or political power exercised by the larger society over the group, to ensure that the resources and institutions on which the minority depends are not vulnerable to majority decisions (“external protections”)’ (1996: 36)

The internal restrictions imply intra-group relations- the group may use the state power to limit the liberty of its own members which raised the question of individual oppression. As an example, Kymlicka refers to culture where women are oppressed or cultures were the religious orthodoxy is enforced. Moreover, he argues that some minorities would limit even further the rights of their members:

‘it is one thing to require people to do jury duty or to vote, and quite another to compel people to attend a particular church or to follow traditional gender roles. The former are intended to uphold liberal rights and democratic institutions, the latter restrict these rights in the name of cultural tradition or religious orthodoxy.’ (1996:36)

External protections imply inter-group relations- the ethnic/ national group seeks to preserve its distinction and identity by limiting the effect of the decisions taken by the majority group. Doing so, this also raises yet another issue: not of individual oppression but of inequality between groups.

However, Kymlicka makes it clear that ‘collective rights’ are indeed opposed to individual rights:

‘On one natural interpretation, ‘collective rights’ refer to the rights accorded to and exercised by collectivities, where these rights are distinct from, and perhaps conflicting with, the rights accorded to the individuals who compose the collectivity. This is not the only possible definition of collective rights—indeed there are hundreds of definitions in the literature—but almost everyone agrees that collective rights are, by definition, not individual rights.’ (1996: 45)

This matter led to a conflict of ideas between individualists and collectivists on the priority of individuals within a community or the community itself. It appears that individualists argue that the individuals are essential for a community seeing that a community only matters if it contributes to the well-being of its constituent members. On the other hand, collectivists deny the idea of a community that`s meant to attend to its individuals. (1996)

‘Collectivists and individualists disagree about whether communities can have rights or interests independently of their individual members (…). Most such rights are not about the primacy of communities over individuals. Rather, they are based upon the idea that justice between groups requires that the members of different groups be accorded different rights.’ (1996: 48)

Despite the fact that multiculturalism and immigration have always been present in our lives and are essential components of the modern world, it is still impossible to find the answers to the always-present sociological issues that a multicultural society rises. What triggers the majority of problems is immigration: with it, emerge matters concerning minority rights, individual freedom and identity, oppression, riots, protests for human rights, violence and racism. Economical and political issues, religion and race concerns, language and culture barriers are also consequences of this cultural diversity that we are experiencing today.

The topic looks as if it appealed to theoreticians and social scientists and it still remains an ever-present subject of discussion. It also led to conflicts of ideas between theoreticians such as Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, both Canadians but with opposing views. It is quite obvious that multiculturalism is now seen as a persistent problem, taking into account the changes that took place in the structures of societies. However, there is no doubt that immigration improved our knowledge of different cultures, languages, traditions and food; it had also thought communities to be tolerant and accept diversity even embrace it. Economy and trade between countries has developed and societies became “cosmopolitan”. Even thought, migrants have always been put in a bad light, they are not in fact, trying to deter natives. They have good working skills and are willing to work for low-paid jobs and extra hours. Usually, they do the jobs that the natives would not do and it appears that there are more immigrants than natives that have a permanent job. It seems unfair to argue that migrants do not help the economy of the country they live in seeing that they still pay taxes and have less claimed benefits than the unemployed natives. Moreover, due to the fact they have a low wage they can always be found in the rough area of big cities, living in modest and dangerous conditions. On the other hand, language it is definitely a cause of having low-paid jobs since most migrants do not speak the language, thus making it more difficult to find employment.

Another factor of immigration is religious discrimination. Considering the recent events in the United States, Arabs and Islamists in particular are discriminated and put in a bad light. Romanians and Bulgarians also have a bad reputation around Europe and a false image which may lead to cultural conflicts between migrants and natives. Somehow, it appears that the society makes it harder for migrants to obtain necessary documents in order to reside and work legally in the country. Until recently, Romanians and Bulgarians were bound to apply for a work permit in order to work legally in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, attempts are being made to improve and solve these problems and it is quite obvious that many advantages have been gained from this. Moreover, it is evident that multiculturalism is the way forward and while modern societies need to become more tolerant of migrants and their values, the migrants have to accept the majority`s way of life and integrate in their community and nation. Unfortunately, these changes might not occur in the near future considering that minorities have more and more claims for rights and benefits and natives are becoming more and more reluctant to the controversial idea of multiculturalism, which seems to lead their lives.

Work or employment is an essential parts of people’s lives. People need work as the platform to obtain income in providing the needs for self and people around them. There are many types of works available in the market. Public or private sectors, they are all up to individuals to decide, which sector they preferred the most. Every people will be secured not only in term of economy but also in term of psychology if they are being employed. This is because, by having work, it can help them to improve the quality of life. According to World Health Organization (WHO), quality of life is the perception their position in life based on the context of culture, and value system which they live and in the relation with their goals, expectations, standards and concern.

Even though people do work to continue living, there is a limitation age to it. The limitation is called retirement age. Retirement can be defined as the period when an individual stops employment completely and begins a new phase of life. According to the oxforddictionaries.com, retirement can be defined as the action or fact of leaving one’s job and ceasing to work. Concise Oxford Thesaurus defines retirement as giving up work and stopping work. Retirement is a period where people stop working because of the age factor and started to collect pensions from the retirement account. All employees will be facing retirement stage when the age is approaching the limits. Retirement is said to give them some space to start lay back and relax since people at their age are not suitable to perform more job because of health risk. Retirement address the issues that individuals face during retirement, including the transition from a life of employment and independence to a new existence that can challenge a person’s self-worth (Idon, 2011).

Retirement provides loopholes that can be filled up with the entrance of new employees. Probably the replacements are among youth and fresh graduates. The United Nations define youth as persons between the ages of 15 and 24. Youth are a group of people who always exhibit a marginal attachment to the labour market (Thirunaukarasu et all, 2005). In Malaysia, as stated in Labour Force Survey Report Malaysia in 2002, youths between ages of 15 to 24 years constitute about 21.5% from the total labour force and about 19.8% of employed person in Malaysia (Thirunaukarasu et all, 2005).

Recently, as according to The New Straits Time dated 14 June 2012, the government tabled Minimum Retirement Age Bill to raise the minimum retirement age for private sector workers to 60 (Shankar, 2012). Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the new age limit would, however, not apply to temporary or contractual workers, those on probation, apprentices, non-citizens and domestic maids (Shankar, 2012). The current minimum retirement age for most private sector workers is 55 but no mandatory retirement age has been set unlike in the public sector. The retirement age for the public sector has already been raised to 60. The bill proposed that any differing retirement age made in a previous contract or agreement would be deemed void and substituted with the new minimum age of 60 (Shankar, 2012).

There are many arguments about the extent of new retirement age. One of them is the skills that senior workers offer are very valuable like gold. They are much more experienced and it is difficult to train new employees. Training and coaching new employees also will still require more cost compared to preserving senior workers. In addition, extension of the retirement age helps the economy of the older people in order to cope with the rise of standard of living. For example, in Japan they are encouraged older worker to work in order to support themselves in rising cost of living. As much as 37 per cent of men and women between the ages of 60 to 65 still are economically active in the labour force (C.T.Lai & Comeau, 2012).

On the other hand, the new retirement age policy not only extends the age of retirement but in bigger scope will eventually lead to the problem of unemployment among youth. It is found out that nearly 75 million young people worldwide are without jobs. The global youth unemployment rate has remained sticky at 12.6 per cent for the past three years and is not projected to lower this year (Mazlena, 2012). Unemployment is said to be a common phenomenon in developed and developing countries. Among the current pertinent problems in many countries is the increasing rate of unemployment among youth (Shukran et al, 2005). As according to The Star dated March 17, there will be some lag in job opportunities in certain industries when people are retired later. For example, in the US aviation industry, pilots have to wait longer for promotion to captain because of the increase in retirement age for captains to 65 from 60 (Fintan, 2012). A recent Bloomberg report quoting an industry hiring expert says “first officers are finding it more difficult to get promotions as the higher retirement age for captains creates a logjam at the top of the chain” (Fintan, 2012). Lee says the study shows that while there may be a temporary increase in the unemployment rate as the economy adjusts to an expansion in the labour force, after four years all the additional labour will be absorbed (Fintan,2012). In developed countries like Singapore, as taken from the Singapore newspaper dated 15th June 2012, the unemployment rate edged up to 2.1 per cent in March, from 2.0 per cent in December 2011. The jobless rate among residents rose from 2.9 per cent to 3.0 per cent, while that among citizens also inched up from 3.0 per cent to 3.2 per cent (Sara 2012). The increasing of retirement age however will be good news to our older people. Retaining their work not only helps them economically to support their life, but government also takes this opportunity to fully utilize our human capital. Government need to think how they are going to fully utilize our human capital by not affecting our young generation.

1.2 Problem Statement

Considering people nowadays are getting healthier, government make decision to increase the retirement age. In addition, our Malaysian life span is already increasing to 71.9 for male and 77 for female. This is justifying the reason why government wants to fully utilize their human capital. The new retirement age was passed through a bill by the government on 13th June 2012 to be 60 years old on private sector. Minimum retirement age bill will protect the right of the people if they are prematurely being retired by the organization (14 June, 2012, New Straits Times). Furthermore, to be retired at the age of 60 is still considered normal as Singapore’s retirement age is 62. However, the problem of this new retirement age is the likelihood to the decrease in job opportunity among the youth. In other word, the unemployment rate might increase due to this new implementation. There are nearly 75 million of young people unemployed around the world (24 July, 2012, New Straits Times). The unemployment rate exactly will affect many things of people’s life, especially the future of our youth. The United Nations define youth as persons between the ages of 15 and 24. In Malaysia, youth is defined as those between 15 and 40 years old but the main focus of development programs in the country are for those aged between 18 to 25 (Faizah Yunus, 2007)

The new retirement age however might bring different perceptions among students on youth unemployment. Perception of a people might be differing from one another. Factor that affects this perception is called demographic factor. Demography is a representation of fundamental approach to the understanding of human society (thefreedictionary.com). Human can be class in many ways. The way of the classing human is called demographic factors. According to thefreedictionary.com, demographic factors are socioeconomic factors of population that statistically expressed according to their age, sex, education, level of income, marital status, occupation, religion, birth rate, death rate, average size of family, and average at marriage. All of these factors might affect people perception towards a thing. The way of rich people think might not be same as the way of the poor people thinks.

Extension retirement age leads to decreasing the opportunity of job among the youth. It is proves in the case of in the US aviation industry, pilots have to wait longer for promotion to captain because of the increase in retirement age for captains to 65 from 60 (Fintan, 2012). However even the real case is applied, it does not mean that the people will agree with this. The people might percept this issue differently. Gender, income distribution, education level, marital status and geographic might are the demographical factors that might affect the perception of the youth unemployment towards the new retirement age.

Youths are the assets of the country. Their perceptions on the new retirement age are not something that government can be neglected. The perceptions might be due to their demographic factors able to make a strong argument for the government on the extension retirement age. Rich people might not care about the extension on retirement age because they are already rich. However, poor people of course might care about the decreasing of job opportunity among the youth due to the extension on retirement age because work is the only their source of economy. Thus government needs to consider every need of the people in the country before imposing the new retirement age. Too old to be retired will be makes us trouble. It is better to hire the youth with fresh mind. However, hiring younger people who do not have experience will result in less of productivity. In order to achieve higher income nations, government needs to have checks and balance between employments of older and young people.

1.3 Research Questions

1. Does demographic factors affect the perception of students on increasing retirement age and youth unemployment?

2. Does new retirement age affect the unemployment rate of young generations?

3. What are the effects of new retirement age on youth unemployment?

1.4 Research Objectives

1. To study the perception of youth on the relationship of new retirement age with youth unemployment rate.

2. To study the relationship between extension of retirement age and unemployment of youth.

3. To study the perception of youth on the relationship of new retirement age with youth unemployment rate.

1.5 Scope of Study

The scope of this study is to know whether or not the new retirement age will affect the unemployment rate among young generations. The perception of youngster will be measured in order to identify whether or not the hypothesis can be accepted or not.

The study will be carried out among 200 students in Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Universiti Selangor (UNISEL) and Management Science University (MSU). The range of age will be between 18 to 28 years old.

1.6 The Significance of the Study

This study is purposing on to study the student perceptions from different demographic background towards the extension of new retirement age and youth unemployment. Extension of retirement age is a new issue that hotly debated today. Elder people might agree with this extension of retirement age because it will be an advantage for them. Younger people might not agree with this because it will be a disadvantage for their future. However, we do not the real perceptions of our youth. Their perceptions might be different based on their demographic factors. Demographic factors such as gender, income distribution, education level, marital status and geographical will determine the significant of the relationship between the students perception on new retirement age and youth unemployment. All of these perceptions will be measured to see agreeableness of the youth towards the new retirement. The effects of new retirement age and unemployment among youth are act as the yardstick in measuring our younger generation perception. We are hoping that this study might help in contributing to the Ministry of Human Resource and other related agency regarding the issue of the retirement. This study might be the platform for government to start measuring the relationship between extending the retirement among elder worker and unemployment rate among youth.

1.7 Definition of Key Terms

1. Retirement: the time when people to withdraw from their job permanently and worker also eligible for retirement resources such as social security, pension and another retirement program that they are entitled off. http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryr/g/retirement.htm

2. Unemployment rate: is the percentage that shows unemployed people over the total civilian labour force. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Unemployment-Rate.topicArticleId-9789,articleId-9735.html

3. Perception: the process which people translates sensory impression into a coherent and unified view around them. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/perception.html

4. Young generations: United Nations define young generation as the people who are at age of 15 to 24 years old. http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=0&SeriesId=630

5. Demographic factors: socioeconomic characteristic of a population expressed statistically, such age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, religion, birth rate, death rate, average of a family size and average age at marriage. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/demographic-factors.html

6. Gender: refers to socially constructed roles, behavior, activities, and attributes that particular society consider appropriate for men and women. http://www.who.int/topics/gender/en/

7. Income Distribution: The distribution of wages earned across a company, industry, or country. Income distribution reveals what percentage of individuals are at various wage levels, information that can reveal more about overall wage patterns than average income can.

http://www.investorwords.com/5614/income_distribution.html#ixzz2DdPcYGdu

8: Education Level: Level of education which represents a broad section of the education “ladder”, that is, the progression from very elementary to more complicated learning experience, embracing all fields and programme groups that may occur at that particular stage of the progression. http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=1522

9. Marital Status: the condition of being married or unmarried. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/marital+status

10. Geography: the science dealing with the areal differentiation of the earth’s surface, as shown in the character, arrangement, and interrelations over the world of such elements as climate,elevation, soil, vegetation, population, land use, industries, orstates, and of the unit areas formed by the complex of these individual elements.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/geography

1.8 Hypothesis

1. The higher the education, the higher concern of the effects on new retirement age towards youth unemployment.

2. The higher the family income distribution, the lower concern about job opportunity.

3. People in rural area are more likely to less concern about employment than people in urban area.

4. Married people more likely more concern about the employment than single people.

5. Men are more likely concern about employment than women.

6. The higher the retirement age among older worker, the lower the job opportunity among the youth.

7. The longer the retirement age, the less productivity of the worker.

8. The higher the unemployment, the lower quality of life among the youth.

9. The more unemployment, the more crime will like to be happen.

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction

Literature review is a body of text that purposing to review critical points of current knowledge including substantive finding including theoretical and methodological of particular topics from what have been published by the accredited scholar and researchers. A review may be self-contained unit, an end itself or a preface to and rationale for engaging in primary research. Literature review is secondary data. Literature review helps us to have rough idea of the problem and phenomenon and how it is related with other variables.

In this study, we are purposing to study perceptions of students based on their demographic backgrounds regarding the extension of new retirement age. The demographic factors such as education level, family distribution income, geography, marital status and gender are being the benchmark for this study. The effects of new retirement age and also the effect of youth unemployment also being investigated in order to understand the perceptions of students who are coming from various demographic backgrounds. All of these effects were obtain through the secondary data including journal, newspaper, book and also books.

2.1.1 Definition of Retirement

Webster’s New World Dictionary (2006) defines retirement as employee who permanently leaving employment. American Heritage Dictionary of Business (2009) on the other hand defines retirement as a voluntary termination of employment upon reaching a certain age.

Retirement also is defined by WordIQ.com (2009) as the status of a worker who has stopped working. This happens upon reaching a determined age. However, not all workers retire because of the age. They have many reasons to retire. For example, the reasons are illness, personal choice and many other reasons.

In Malaysia, the compulsory retirement age for public sector employees is at 56. However, workers may opt for early retirement at the age of 40 if they have served the government for a minimum of 10 years.

Usually, retired workers will be paid with pension. A pension is a contract for a fixed sum to be paid regularly to a person, typically following retirement from service.

2.1.2 Types of Retirement

According to Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA), there are four types of retirement. First type of retirement is Compulsory Retirement where the workers are compulsory to retire upon reaching the age of 60 as the government already revised the retirement age to extend it until 60 which will be come into effect in 2013.

Second type of retirement is Retirement due to health condition. Retirement happens when workers unable to do the work because of illness either physically or mentally. However, they need to have an approval from medical examiner.

Third type of retirement is the Retirement

2.1.3 Definition of Unemployment

International Labor Organization’s de¬?nition of unemployment, which requires that an individual does not have a job, has been actively looking for a job (Alena, 2010). The ILO reported that the global unemployment rate for young people had risen to its highest recorded level, and is expected to continue increasing (Sudirman Nasir, 2010). At the end of 2009, across the world, unemployment among young people (aged between 15 and 24) stood at 13 percent or approximately 81 million people (Sudirman Nasir, 2010). In Indonesia, Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency has reported that the number of registered unemployed in the country in 2009 reached 8.96 million people out of a workforce of 113.83 million, of which many were young people aged between 15 and 24 (Sudirman Nasir, 2010). Unemployment hurts at any age; but for young people, long-term unemployment scars for life. Quoted from ACEVO (Association of Chief Executive of Voluntary Organisations), “Unemployment hurts at any age; but for young people, long-term unemployment scars for life. It means lower earnings, more unemployment, [and] more ill health later in life. It means more inequality between rich and poor – because the pain hits the most disadvantaged” (Adnan Al-Daini, 2012).

2.1 Demographic factors

Demographic factor can be defined as socioeconomic characteristics of a population expressed statistically, such as age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, religion, birth rate, death rate, average size of a family, average age at marriage. A census is a collection of the demographic factors associated with every member of a population. A demographic factor is used to be the key factors that affect the result of people’s decision in life. Every person has different demographic factors which lead to different decision making. In this research, a few characteristics have been shown to be excellent indicators of the unemployment towards youth. The characteristics that have been used are gender, family income, education level, marital status, geographical area.

2.1.1 Gender

Unemployment among youth is considering gender as the indicator. Gender is said to be the most important factor that will determine youth’s perception. It is believed that woman and man have different perception about employment as both genders considering job differently. According to oxford dictionary, gender is the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones). According to World Health Organization (WHO) on the other hand, gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

Different gender might have different opinions and thought about being employed. Man is in higher need of obtaining job rather than woman. However it is found out that unemployment among men has increased and getting worse. According to a study, the unemployment has increased by 600,000 since 2008. The number of unemployed women on the other hand has also increased by almost half a million, to reach a record level of 1.12 million, although this is not primarily due to fewer jobs for women but instead to a relatively large rise of 438,000 in the number of women participating in the labour market (John Philpott, 2012). Male are believed to be affected more from the unemployment. This is due to the point that male needing work more that woman. In today’s phenomena, the obligation to support family in terms of economy is placed on men’s shoulder. Thus, to have job and employed is very essential to the male. Without job and income, they cannot gain money to sustain their lives and the family. On the other hand, woman is less likely to concern about unemployment. Most of women are dependent on men in terms of economy especially those who are married. The opinion about employment may be not as problematic as the male side. But, there are few women feel that employment is very important to them. These days, many women also are employed even with higher position due to the qualification and education level. Thus, gender demographic should be taken into consideration in this research.

2.1.2 Income distribution in family

It is undeniable that majority of the youth are still living with the family. They are coming from variety background of family. Background of family here means the income distribution in the family. There are teenagers originally coming from wealthy and affordable family and there are also teenagers coming from less fortunate family. Their income might not even enough to sustain their living. Those coming from wealthy family might not have problem regarding money and income distribution. Their parents can afford to provide them with satisfactory amount of money or even more. They also will be provided with adequate level of education. They will be less likely concern about getting job or being employed especially when the family own a family business. Differ to the youth coming from middle income family or lesser; they are more concerned about work and income they will obtain. The income distribution in family is not as good and promising as from wealthy family. That will likely be the reason employment is essential to sustain their lives.

People coming from poor family will feel more responsibility to gain money for the sake of the family. Their age is sufficient enough to find job and contribute to the family. If there are no available job offers in the working market, they are unable to provide income for the family. They have to compete with older workers for a place in company.

2.1.3 Geography

Geography refers to the place or area people come from. The geographical area is taken into consideration as a measure of their perception. There are urban and also rural areas. An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets. Increasing levels of urbanization are caused by natural growth of the urban population and migration of the rural population towards cities (Hartmut Schwarzbach, 2002). Rural areas are large and isolated areas of an open country with low population density. The traditional distinction between urban and rural areas within a country has been based on the assumption that urban areas, no matter how they are defined, provide a different way of life and usually a higher standard of living than are found in rural areas. In many industrialized countries, this distinction has become blurred and the principal difference between urban and rural areas in terms of the circumstances of living tends to be a matter of the degree of concentration of population. Although the differences between urban and rural ways of life and standards of living remain significant in developing countries, rapid urbanization in these countries has created a great need for information related to different sizes of urban areas (United Nation, 2012)

People in urban area are facing with high living cost which requires them to think of more alternatives to gain money. They should obtain more money become the expenses are also high. Compared to rural area, the living cost are much slighter. Thus, people in rural area will be less worry about money.

2.1.3 Education level

A “classic” model of transition from school to work applies when young people start working only after completing their highest level of education. In such a model, persons rarely combine education with employment. A recent study by the US Census Bureau for the US confirms the connection between a person’s level of education and his or her employability and earnings. The study shows that US college graduates earned far more over their lifetimes than people who only graduated from high school (Ben Graham and Charles Paul). The statement prove that people with higher education will likely be employed rather that those with lower education level. This is due to the qualification required for certain occupation. In addition, today’s working field is very competitive, thus whom require more skills and better qualification will not facing the problem of unemployment. For the least educated or those who are unlucky enough to experience long periods out of work, it becomes increasingly hard to get that break that opens the door to the labour market (Paul Gregg and Lindsey Macmillan, 2011)

2.1.4 Marital status

New data for 2010 highlight that even married couples have been vulnerable to unemployment. And for the first time in decades unemployment has been concentrated among husbands rather than wives (Heather, 2011). High unemployment, especially among husbands, is occurring across families, regardless of race or ethnicity (Heather, 2011).

2.2 The effects of new retirement age

The new retirement age will come into effect by the year of 2013. Seventy two percent out of 3485 jobseekers from JobStreet.com’s database agree with the increasing of retirement age. The reason for their agreeableness is due to Malaysian requiring more saving due to the increasing of life expectancy as much as 84%. Retaining special talent especially professional who gains it through experience was amounted as much as 73%. However, the respondents are afraid the effect of increasing the retirement age. The main reason for their worried are the worker will become less effective or low productivity and there will be decreasing of job chances among the fresh graduates. Forty six percent of the respondent thinks that increasing the retirement age might faces health issues that limit the elder worker to perform the better job. (www.JobStreet.com). From this survey, we can conclude that the main effects that will likely to happen when increasing the retirement age are decreasing job chances among the youth and low productivity. The Singapore government’s rationale to raise the retirement age of Singapore workers to 62 years of age is because they live longer and many of them might not have enough money to retire (theonlinecitizen, 2007).

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2.2.1 Decreasing in job chances among youth

Increasing the retirement age helps the older worker economically as they can have their full amount of salary instead of having pension which might be half of their full month salary. Developing nation helps our country to have more people to be physically fits to work at the age more than 55 years old. This helps our country to fully capitalize our human capital as we are having valuable human capital. However, increasing retirement age would affect our youth for unemployment. Unemployment rate will increase due to decreasing job chances when there is increasing the retirement age (www.sundaytimes.lk). If our economy does not consistently growing as the needs for a job growing, the job chances will reduce. This is because, job opportunity remains the same but it was filled by the older and experience workers. The opportunity of our young generation to have better or qualified job will reduced. The employer nowadays wants to hire people at least with two years of experience. This is because trains employee to be productive workers will incur a lot of cost.

Lump-of-labor theory makes the notion of the youth and older employee towards the notions of zero-sum-game. Lump-of-labor theory stated that delayed retirement age of the baby boomers would “crowd out” younger worker from the labor market, increasing their unemployment rate, reducing their employment rate and reducing their working hours (S. Lasky, 2012). The increasing in retirement age will likely make the lump-of-labor fallacy to happen. However, according to Dr Ong Kian Ming said this is not true. It is the responsibility of the government to make sure there is favorable condition for investors to invest in our country in order to open up more jobs opportunity for the youth (17 March, 2012, The Star.)

The lag in jobs opportunity still going happen when there is increasing in retirement age. For example, what happen in US aviation industry where captain have to wait longer for promotion. This is due to the increasing the retirement age of the captain from 60 to 65 years old. According to The Star dated on March 17th 2012, it will take four years for economy to be stabled in adjusting the increasing of labour forces. (Lee, 2012). This is suggests that, if Malaysia wants to increase the retirement age by the year of 2013, we could achieve economy stability by the year of 2017, which is three years before the vision 2020 realized. We could achieve our dream of vision 2020 if we could stabilize our market integration and also our labor forces. Increasing retirement age will deny promotional opportunities for younger employees. According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, employment of older workers has increased, while unemployment of younger workers has declined from th

Indian culture has been changing over the past few years due to the threat of western culture. Westernization is effecting one of the oldest and richest cultures and taking away the traditions, customs, and family values that were once predominant in traditional Indian culture. Modernization involves a transformation in beliefs about the way the material world functions; westernization requires an alteration in cosmological viewpoints about how one should live their life. Developed by Muslim invasion and European colonization, India’s history begins with the Indus Valley Civilization. Their culture is formed by all different countries and backgrounds. Changes are being made in all areas including religion, dance, and music mostly found in the Bollywood films. Through movies watched in class and the books The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, I have found these represent most the disintegration of close familial bonds in Indian culture today.

Traditional Indian culture can be expressed in five major categories. Starting with humanity, people of India are thought of for their humanness and calm sense of being without harshness in their ways of thinking. Tolerance also plays a big part in a traditional Indian. One understands the different races, beliefs, and practices brought into their country and doesn’t step back and judge. Although there are caste systems in India, unity of citizens helps create a strong bond between all people of the country. Despite their religious backgrounds, India is a secular country meaning they are openly willing to share their thoughts and opinions about their religious beliefs. Finally all families are closely knit. Grandfathers, fathers, and their sons all are said to have the same spirit, tradition, and possessions.

A strict social hierarchy system has been set in place for many years and is part of the traditional Indian culture. A joint family system is an important part of the way people live. Parents, children, their spouses, and other family members all live in the same house. This is said to help develop a close bond among all members of the family. The rules of the house are set up by the oldest adult male. The males bring in the food and money for the family in order to survive. The females or wives of these males do non educational work and are thought of as being housewives. Supposedly, Indian men and women are thought of as being equals. However, these laws are weakly enforced because women are not allowed to own their names let alone a piece of land. Leading into a more westernized setting within the city, women are allowed to be a prominent figure in society and hold jobs and the rights to their own name.

In Ancient India, women had the same status as men. They had the same educational opportunities in the Vedic period and were married at a normal age to a husband of their choosing. Venturing into the medieval period, women were given fewer rights. They started performing child marriages and women whose husbands died were not allowed to remarry. Instead of living alone or with another husband, a widowed woman has to live in a house with other widows in poor conditions. They are allowed to leave during certain hours but do not have much freedom. In parts of India, women were taken advantage of. However, even under these conditions, women were extremely well in politics, literature, education, and religion. Even in parts of South India, women were said to be in charge of villages, towns, and institutions.

Sati, jauhar, and devadasi have been banned from modern India. Sati is where the widow had to commit suicide by fire on the day of her husband’s funeral. It was said to be a voluntary performance but sometimes it was forced upon the woman. The next tradition, jauhar, is when all the wives and daughters of defeated warriors committed suicide. Purdah is he practice of making women cover their skin so you can’t see their body figure. It makes women not able to interact freely.

Indian families have arranged marriages in which their parents and other members of the family pick the spouse with some input from the couple themselves. Compared to the United States, India’s divorce rate is very low and marriage is thought to be life. India currently has the lowest divorce rate at 1.1% compared to the top two countries Sweden and the United States in the 50% range. Most people here usually marry in their 20s or 30s, but in India more than half of the women marry before the age of 18.

Arranged marriages play a big part in the roles of children in India. The parents and other family members get to decide who their child marries based on different traits. Divorce is not found often in India and is looked down upon by the Hindu religion. The caste system plays a big part in the pickings of a spouse. It is said that you are put into a caste system based on your previous life. You have the ability to move up in the social chair when you are reincarnated, only if you do above and beyond what was expected for you. An example of this would be a group called the “untouchables”, where they were looked down upon for doing petty work and earning little money. The caste system was important during the rule of the British Empire but is now abolished.

The westernization of India has greatly affected the traditions, customs, and family values. Today, the respect for others has greatly decreased throwing away the traditional humanity Indian people. The idea of joint families is decreasing and families want to remain separate from each other. In a traditional Indian culture, one would care for the others around him and not only for himself. Also in today’s situation, both husband and wife are working so there is no one at home to look after the children. Many of times a child is being watched by someone outside of the family and are not getting the rich, cultural childhood their parents have had. Slowly all customary Indian values are fading and everyone is moving onto a more western culture.

“It is acknowledged that modernity has various distinct aspects: the rise of a capitalist industrial economy, the growth of modern state institutions and resultant transformations in the nature of social power, the emergence of democracy, the decline of the community and the rise of strong individualistic social conduct, the decline of religion and the secularization of ethics” (Kaviraj). This statement basically states that if India continues to modernize, individuals will change in their culture and beliefs in trade for a better technological economy. In trade for losing some of the past culture India is becoming a more economically stable country.

However I do believe that the modernization of India is a good thing. Even though the Indian people have improved their way of life, their principles and beliefs have remained constant. A person can alter their clothing or the foods they eat, but their deep understanding and commitment to the culture will never be taken away.

A traditional Indian family treats the guests of their home as gods and serves them even in tough times. A guest never leaves the house hungry. The respect towards the elderly is a major factor in the culture. The elderly drill ideas and pass on their stories as their grandchildren get older. The biggest age group moving towards the westernization is teenagers. Indian culture is disappearing in their lives and no longer is feeling proud to be Hindi.

A Fine Balance portrays how strong family bonds were at one time. In the story, Dina’s brother Nusswan controls her because he is the dominant male figure of the house. Their father passed away when they were young and Nusswan developed into a traditional Indian man who is the “bread winner” for the two of them. His rules were very strict even to the point where he would abuse Dina in order for her to learn the traditional Indian culture.

What was so interesting about this story is that Dina had to move away from her brother and take on the challenges of working and living by herself. This would seem like a non-traditional way of living without a husband, but she made it work by hiring people to work for her and even taking in someone for extra money.

Dina lives by herself and works as a tailor. She is looked down upon by the traditional Indian culture. However since she lives in the city, they accept her for being not married and a working woman. These examples show how the modernization in India is affecting the way women live their lives. A woman in a traditional Indian culture would not work for money and would do household work while taking care of her husband and children.

Throughout the book Interpreter of Maladies, I noticed certain “modern” trends that were specifically placed in the stories to show how India is changing. The title of this book is meant to say how people interpret afflicting modern societies. The stories told in this book tell the lives of Indians separating from their traditional roots. The stories give multiple examples of people steering off course of the strict customs they have inherited through their ancestors.

In The Interpreter of Maladies, Mrs. Das for example sits in the taxi with her sunglasses and offers no one else her snacks while her family is outside touring. India is known for the sharing of food and communication within groups of people. This example shows us how Indians are growing away from the original roots. In another short story within the book, Mrs. Sen shows us the power that material objects have over people. In Indian culture, these intangible objects shouldn’t take over your life or have one obsessing over them. However, Mrs. Sen keeps talking about the things she once had and was accustomed to, even if it was her vegetable cutting blade. This story shows the power that material objects holds over people in the world today.

In American culture, I think that people always want more of what they do not have. In a traditional Indian culture, a person deals with what they have and focuses more on family values and beliefs rather than objects.

“Sexy” is the next short story telling the life of a young woman Miranda and her affair with a married man. Miranda knows little of this man’s Indian culture. This type of affair is not looked on upon as being right within India. Another example of culture within the story is when Miranda attempts to buy an Indian food mix from the grocery store only to be told by the worker it will be too spicy for her. This highlights the fact that she feels uncomfortable around Dev, the Indian man she is seeing.

In the final short story, The Third and Final Continent, a man is telling his life story starting in London right after he left India. The story leads on to discuss an arranged marriage by his Indian Family. The woman and him are wed and eventually end up in America not knowing anything about each other; they are complete strangers. An elderly woman brings them closer as they share their first laugh and have a real conversation as they get to know each other. This story was different than the rest for me because it told a story of a couple getting to know each other in a “normal” way. In a traditional Indian culture this is how a marriage would actually work. It is interesting to see that the couple eventually had a family because I would think it would be hard not knowing who your spouse is before you make a commitment.

Even though most people may say Indian culture is slowly being ignored in the present day, I feel like everyone grows away from their traditional roots. However, I think that everyone still possesses traits of their ancestors and is interested in their culture. Just because a young person today isn’t interested in the same type of things that their parents were, they will eventually want to learn things about the “olden days.” In a society where we live today, family is of much importance. They teach and shape us into the people we will become one day.

An Indian traditionalist would argue and say India citizens should learn about their culture at a young age and experience different traditions such as living with your whole family. Indian culture is one of the oldest and richest cultures in the world today. Modernization and westernization are changing the way people look the traditions, customs, and family values that were once predominant in traditional Indian culture. However, the people of India I think are still holding true to their traditional side by blending in a new more modern era.

In ancient time, filial piety is regarded as one of the virtues to be held above all else: a respect for the parents and ancestors, which means to be good to one’s parents, to take care of one’s parents and be definitely obedient to their parents in any case and do whatever their parents require. Parents have the supreme control over their children in traditional family. Filial piety has long been the virtue of the Chinese people. As time goes by, things have changed a lot. Parents’ power has weakened a lot.

Recently the article Dear Son Mother Wants To Be A Dog in Your Home was widely spread among netizens in Q-zones, blogs and forums (na.2010). When I first read this article, I could not withdraw my tears. I believe anyone with conscience who has read it will be deeply moved and feels sorrow for the old women. It is high time that we considered the old-age support in our country. I think we should send our parents to retirement homes in the future.

I divide my argumentation into two parts. The first part is about people in rural areas and the second part is about people in city.

Part I
Point 1

According to Wang (2008), ‘ The traditional family structure has collapsed and is replaced by one-child family pattern'(P.28). As the number of children reduce , the old-age support situation becomes more serious for the rural people. It is predicted that in the future every young people has two to four old people to support (Qin,J,2009,P32). It can be extremely difficult for these rural people with low incomes to sustain so many old. In order to relieve the pressure, it will be a good choice to send old people to the nursing home to pass their old age. Besides, it is also the government’s responsibility to plan the budget for old-age support to help those poor young people. Thus, we can at least guarantee the old people’s basic living needs if we send our parents to a retirement home. We get someone to take care of them in the nursing home. When they are hungry, they have something to eat. When it is too cold or too hot, they have clothes to wear. When it rains or heats, they have rooms to shelter. When they are ill, they can turn to the doctor in time. The most important thing is that they can turn to someone to help when an emergency happens. In this way, the tragedy like Dear Son Mother Wants To Be A Dog in Your Home will never happen again.

Point 2

In rural areas, the necessity to send parents to a nursing home seems greater since old people in the countryside lead a much more difficult life than city people. Old people are often ignored or maltreated by their children in rural areas because they can not earn any money or work any more. Much of the family income is spent on the young children while very little even no money on the old people. According to Fan (2010) “There is a shocking fact that the elderly suicide in rural areas are among the highest reported in any country in mainland China”(P.84). It can not be denied that the rural elderly suicide has much to do with the ignorance and maltreatment of old people. To many old people, they had to stand the ill-treatment. Because they beileve domestic shame should not be made public. So to send old people to a retirement home can be a good way to protect their rights.

Point 3

Another reason for sending rural old people to nursing home is that they can meet, play with people of the same age and feel less lonely. Nowadays young people go to work in downtown and bring their children together. They are busy with their work and seldom return home to see their parents. Many old people suffer from loneliness most of the time at home. So why not send the parents to a retirement home? In the retirement home, they can express and share opinions with other old people. It can be much convenient for them to play chess, mah-jong and do sports together.

Part II
Point 1

Like rural old people, those who live in the city slao suffer from loneliness. As Cai (2009) has pointed out that “China is still a developing country, the advanced population aging has declined the economy development and caused further challenge to the under-funded pension system”(P54). To be a 1980s’ generation, we are under great stress. In order to survive in the city, we have to work hard to pay off home loan, car loan, pay for food, drinks, clothes, water bill, electric charge children’s education and old-age support. We are busy with our work. We eat fast food,work extra hours come and go in a hurry. Life in the city is busy. Things changes rapidly. Little do we have time to spend with our family.

­ Point 2

The generation gaps between children and parents,grandchildren and grandparents are wide. Old people often find it difficult to catch up with the time, their children and grandchildren. For example, young children may find it interesting to search the Internet and play on-line games at home on weekends while the old people would like to go out to chat with some acquaints. ­ It’s obvious that there are a lot of differences between old people and young people, such as their appetites, interests and values. These differences have caused much inconvenience for old people to live with children. Many old people in city suffer alienation and loneliness. It can be wise to send parents to a retirement home where they can find people of similar interest and hobbies. As people in the city generally worry little about their basic necessities, all they want is a light heart. With people of the common language, they can confide to each other, get rid of worry, feel understood and more valued.

Point 3

Besides, the housing price continues to be high. It can be a great burdon for young people to purchase a larger house with special rooms provided for old people. As Luo & Jiang (2009) state that “the average housing space is only 7.1 squaremeters in the city “(P50). The intense housing shortage has become a common and outstanding issue. In this background, it can not be a better choice than to send parents to nursing home.

Objection

However, some people may argue that it is not in accordance with filial piety to send our parents to retirement homes. It may sound unreasonable if one just sees the superficial and doesn’t go deeper. However, imagine that you leave your old parents helpless in the rural areas, will you be guilt? So why not send your parents to the downtown retirement home? It isn’t it nice for them to be in a convenient place which may be closer to where you work? Just think about leaving your parents with no one to talk to in the box house and getting old gloomily, do you feel sorry for them? So why not bring changes to it and send your parents to the retirement home where they can find some companions and live a more meaningful life?

The most important reason is that old people should learn to be independent. As Russell(n.d.) wrote:

A successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. And the best way to overcome death is to make one’s interests gradually wider and more impersonal,until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede,and one’s life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.(P93)

As Russell has pointed out that it’s important for old people to guard against clinging too much to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. The nursing home can be a good place for old people to develop their own personal interests involving appropriate activities. Only when old people have strong wills can they enjoy a happy life no matter what difficulties they are faced with.

Conclusion

Because we are busy making money to support the family and don’t have time to take of them, and the unevitable differences between old people and young generation, and the high housing price and the unability to both buy houses and support the old, we have to send our parents to a retirement home in the future. This is not to say that sending our parents to the retirement home is the whole thing. Filial piety includes much more details, such as we can pay visits to them as often as possible, celebrate important fesitivals with them, call them when we can not come to see them. It’s very important to give them spiritual support and comfort. If possible, we can take them to travel together.

Above all ,it’s up to our parents whether to go to the nursing homes or not. We can not force our parents to go. It’s very important that we communicate with our parents in time and we should let them understand our decisions.In the future, the nursing home may be constructed as pleasant as kindergartens so that we can send our parents there in the day and pick them as well as our children up at night. Of course, we need the government’s large financial support to built quality retirement homes.

With the raising of medical standard and the improvement in the quality of life, life span of human being is greatly extended. As time passing by, consequently, the proportion of aging population is enlarging rapidly. This threat is a real challenge to all the governments in the world, especially the welfare states. In this report there will be an analysis on the British elderly population which influences economic development and society then illustrate the British government’s measures to solve aging population. On this basis there are some specific policy recommendations on this inevitable issue at the end of this report.

Outline

After the Second World War, most countries began to focus on economic construction because of the relatively stable development stage. During this period, many problems have appeared as the result of national population growth rate increasing and the population of old people is getting larger. Compared with other countries, citizens of welfare states have better nutrition, better health care and longer life expectancy. Therefore, it will push welfare states faster to step into aging society. Britain, take as an example, have gradually become concerned about the influence of aging population, such as economic issue and society issue. At the respect of economics, increasing of aging population put pressure on the British welfare system; reduce labour supply; change enterprise age structure. On the social aspect, furthermore, the impact of growing aging population is also serious, which display in political influence and poor living environment.

Evaluation

The influence of the aging population on economy

As a developed country, British economy is still the fifth-largest in the world in 2007. However, it is argued that British economy and its global influence have reduced further in the twentieth century. The issue of growing aging population may be one of the key factors.

Labour supply reduced

The great generation of baby boomers that born after Second World War has been the backbone of today’s labour market in Britain. According to statistics, however, majority of people from the baby boomers were 50 to 60 years old in 2005 and about 40 percent of the current workforce is flooding into retirement in the next 15 years (Ilmarinen, 2005). As a consequence, the large numbers of job vacancy may cause by the proportion of shrinking workforce. It means that there are more employment opportunities but fewer employees in the future. Currently, although there are many employees who are still busy working at their old age and the tendency of retiree re-employment is becoming popular in UK, it is not nearly enough to make up for the labour force shortage. Furthermore, the population of working age people is the main element, which directly decides the population of labour force. Meanwhile, the proportion of manpower is exactly the main factor that creates the total industrial output value and makes great contribution to the continual growth of the national economy. As a result, the shortage of labour force in Britain will seriously threaten economic growth and inhibits social labour productivity.

Influence on Pension scheme

Although most of elderly people may feel more confidence to spend money rather than save because of the mandatory public pension plan in UK, the pension scheme is facing underfunded challenge. The acceleration of aging people makes great pressure to British pension scheme maybe the most obvious aspect. Due to the life expectancy has greatly extended, increasing number of people who reach the lawful age for retirement live on the pension. It has led to the cost of pension increase sharply and government’s heavy financial burden (Robert, 2009). On the other hand, the problem of lower return on pension is also important that cannot be overlooked (Moody, 2002). At the present time, the amount of money pensioner gets per year is not only far more than the sum of the insurance money which they have paid before, but also the excess sum is continuing to rise. The taxpayer who is in working age now, on the contrary, will get fewer pensions than the sum of the insurance money they have to pay in the future. That is to say the benefits and the burden is unfair to the current taxpayers. Consequently, more and more British people will unwilling to pay the endowment insurance as the economy worse, especially young people.

Threaten to National Health Service

Most of the NHS income comes from the support of government. If the governmental finance deficit increases continuously, the NHS budget might be cut in the future. On the other hand, in general, the elderly body immunity function is the worst in all age groups. They may easy to get sick, such as heart disease, hypertension and senile dementia. As the illnesses of aging will cost much, whether NHS can handle this huge healthcare spending is still a question (Kalache & Barreto & Keller, 2005, p. 33). As shown in chart 1, “Total UK health care expenditure” is always higher than “Health expenditure in National Accounts”. Besides, from the year 1997 to 2006, the estimate of UK health care cost from the National Accounts has been rising year by year.

In spite of the reform that British government attempt to relieve the social burden on aged health service by allocating the cost to all kinds of system. Nevertheless, with the further development of aging and the extended life expectancy, the national health insurance financial condition is still not optimistic.

The influence of the aging population on society

The other issue which aging population may bring is social problem. Because our society consists of human being, the way taking care of elders becomes a focused problem in current British social life.

The structure of voters

With the increasing proportion of old people, the structure of voters in the future election will change. Elderly voters may take up a dominant position, because they prefer to support the candidates who might offer many benefits to them.

The result of the British 1997 general election was to remove the Conservative Party government from office while the Labour Party dominating the House of Commons with a 178-seat majority. Table 1 above shows the age group of voters of election in 1997. It can be clearly seen that 35% of voters over 75 were most likely to vote for Conservative Party. On the contrary, only 16.8% of youth who age 18 to 25 were least likely voted for Conservative Party, moreover, 29.7% of them abstain from voting (Vincent, 1999). Unquestionable, Administration party plays a most important role in the development of the nation. If elderly voters occupy an increasingly important position in future elections, it will have a crucial effect on the result.

The elderly in single-person household

In Britain, children and their elderly parents live separately are very common. They have their own life style. Official figures show that there are more than 3,500 thousand old people live alone in 2008, most of them over 65. Many of the living alone elders often feel isolated and being cut off from the society, gradually they tend to become introverted, withdrawn and unsociable. This situation bound to bring the negative influence to their physiological and psychological (Gisela, 2005). As a weak group, the elderly people live in empty-nest family needs more special care. For instance, people are more vulnerable when they grow older. If old people have an accident at home, nobody can help them. Recently, news stories had reported several events about the old man died lonely in his house for a long time. Moreover, what elders want is not the money but the rich spiritual and cultural life. They commonly felt that although single life is carefree, they finally hope to find a real home. This might be the reason why human are social animals, we cannot live alone without others. Increasing of aging population will make the problem of single-person household even worse in the future.

The impact on agriculture

With an increasing number of young people leaving the rural area to look for work in the big cities, age difference between areas becomes common. According to Wilson (2000), due to the different age and habits between young people and old people, as the years went by elderly people may live closer to each other while younger people prefer to live in the lively area. However, this preference might leads to a negative effect: the food production reduces gradually and the food supply is not keeping pace with demand, cause by the increasing large proportion of old people in agriculture population. British agricultural population makes up a small part of the population, most of whom are elderly. They cannot perform as good as the young people. Therefore, the aging agriculture population make crop yields reduce, which threat the social security directly.

Conclusion

This report illustrates the problems of aging people in Britain through two primary factors, namely the impact on the economic growth and social stability. The examples provided above show that the influence of aging population can never be neglected. Meanwhile, statistic shows the trend of aging population is still accelerated and become globalized. As countries with the satisfactory quality of life, the advanced of medical level and good welfare system, welfare states are in the front-line. All in all, Complaining the established fact is not the purpose, what should welfare states do is to objectively look upon the problems and try to solve them, and it is also the government’s bounden duty.

Recommendation

From what have been mentioned in this report, both the economic problem and social problem are related to money. Suppose that welfare states have plenty of money, the influence of the huge group of aging population is no longer a problem. Governments can put enough money to improve the NHS; increase the budget for pension scheme; build more nursing homes. From the evidence above, one of the possible solutions might be that welfare states’ government should accept more young migrant workers. At the same time, the legal retirement age should be appropriately increased. Immigrant workers are more than the cheap labour power, but also the complements to the gaps in welfare states’ labour forces. Moreover, rising the retirement age can fix the budget problem and contribute to train the workers efficiently. If so, the national economy will maintain a sustained and rapid development, aging population issue can be relieved while the financial deficit is reduced. Nevertheless, it is always easier to say than to do, accept more migrant workers might bring culture shock to the society and old people prefer to retire earlier than to work longer. Governments should balance all aspects and then make the efficient policy to solve the issue of aging population.

Discuss the Characteristics of Modern Society According to Weber
Introduction

What is known as classical sociology is found in the work of Comte, Durkheim, Marx and Weber. Weber and the other classicists attempted to explain the origins of modern industrial society and the elements that worked both for and against it. Like Comte and Durkheim Weber believed that scientific and technological advances would do away with humanity’s need of religion. Old ideas of magic would disappear and the world would become ‘disenchanted’ and society would become increasingly rational. Beginning with the distinction between rationality and rationalisation, his paper will discuss the characteristics of modern society according to Weber.

Rationality and Rationalisation

Rationality, in Weber’s thought refers to social actions being the result of a rational process of the calculation of the means and ends of actions. Rationalisation on the other hand refers to an overall historical process whereby scientific knowledge and rational action come to dominate social reality (Morrison, 1995).^[1]

Modern Society and Conflict

Weber is noted for his historical grasp of the political, legal, economic, and religious development of modern western societies (Morrison, 1995).^[2] He was concerned interested in issues of power and conflict in society, the different interest groups in society implied that state institutions were necessary if order was to be maintained. As legislation increased, however, the administration would be less effective. He rejected Marx’s materialist view of history and did not agree with Marx on the importance of class conflict. In Weber’s view class was just one type of inequality among many others (Giddens, 2001).^[3] Sociology, Weber believed, should concentrate more on social action and less on social structure. It was his contention that Marx had laid too much stress on economics. Capitalism was only one factor in the shaping of modern societies, Weber held that culture and politics deserved equal consideration. The inter-connectedness of social spheres, Weber believed, was a key factor for understanding the development of modern society (Marsh, 2000). According to Turner (1999) humanity’s place in modern society was problematic for Weber because he believed that human beings were alienated from themselves and the world in which they lived.

Weber did not believe, as did Durkheim and Marx, that structures had an independent existence from individuals. Rather he maintained that structures were a result of a complex interplay of human action. Thus Weber argued that social change came about as the result of human motivation and ideas, and that these were powerful agents of the transformation of societies (Giddens, 2001).Although Weber was an atheist he believed that religion influenced people’s ideas and practices and that this had an effect in the world. Weber did not believe, as did Marx, that capitalism came about as a result of greed. Nor did he agree with Marx that it was the result of class conflict, rather it was due to an emphasis on science and the bureaucracy of large organisations. Weber argued that Protestants regarded earning a living as a sacred duty and financial success as a sign of God’s grace. It was this belief, Weber said that led to self-control and regulation, thus Protestantism contributed to the rationalisation of everyday life (Hughes, Martin and Sharrock, 1995). For Weber, a major facet of the development of modern societies was the rationalisation of production.

Rationalisation

The concept of rationalisation, according to Weber (1967) was endemic to modern society, and it was to be found in all large organisations. Such organisations are tightly regulated and predictability and impersonality are their defining characteristics. The members of large organisations can become dehumanised, because with in it, social relations are defined purely in functional terms. Bureaucracy grew out of the increasing rationalisation, which, in modern society, affected all areas of life. As society continued in its rational progression then this would become evident in its social institutions which would, in turn, become more formal. This process would also lead to a decrease in people’s reliance on traditional beliefs, and an increase in the making of rational decisions that had a direct purpose.(Hughes, Martin and Sharrock, 1995). Weber believed that religion predisposed people to order their lives in terms of rational action and this meant that they earned more than they needed. Turner (1999) maintains that:

This striving for world mastery did not lead however to a satisfaction with the meaningfulness of everyday life, but rather resulted in a continuing disenchantment with reality which drove out moral significance from everyday life (Turner, 1999:9).

Religious and moral disenchantment, Weber contended, would be the end result of increasing bureaucratisation and the rationalisation of social relations. He termed the increasing rationalisation and bureaucratisation of western society as an ‘iron cage’ (Turner, 1999). The impact of western society on the rest of the world was due to its command of industrial resources and its superior military power (Giddens, 2001). Modern societies, in Weber’s view, were especially characterised by what he termed the development of rational/legal authority.

Authority in Modern Society

Weber believed that authority was invested in the state, the source of the nation state, he maintained was the pre-capitalist conflicts between absolutist rulers. Weber favoured capitalist democracies rather than socialism and believed that in order to maintain a balance in the amount of authority the state had, it was necessary to have a strong private sector. He also believed that increasing rationalisation and bureaucratisation would have a deleterious effect on democracy. Authority, he maintained was in the hands of certain types of individuals and thus he developed a theory of ideal types as a means of understanding the world. These should be seen as a reference point rather than having an existence in the real world (Giddens, 2001). Thus the type of society identified by Weber as modern society is identified most especially by the development of rationalisation and bureaucratisation. The ideal type is used to form an ideal picture of a shift occurring in society by reason of certain historical factors (Weber, quoted in Brown, 1995 p. 271). Weber used the notion of ideal types to develop an understanding of the kinds of activities that can be assigned as features of empirical reality.

Conclusion

Weber’s work has been influential in sociology’s understanding of the defining features of modern society. Weber’s thinking on rationalisation and bureaucratisation have been a useful analytic tool for those attempting to understand modern societies. However, he has been criticised for being too determininistic. The rise of science, for example, has not completely taken over from religious belief as Weber predicted it would and his notion of bureaucratic organisations as iron cages neglects the fact the very often people will use bureaucracies to stem the tide of certain rules and regulations rather than be totally constricted within the organisation. Nevertheless Weber’s analysis continues to be a useful and fascinating analysis of the development of modern industrial societies. In addition to this his work on human choice and action were pivotal to the development symbolic interactionism and interpretative social research.

Bibliography

Brown, K 1995. Marx, Durkheim, Weber Formations of Modern Social Thought London, Sage.

Giddens, A. 2001. Sociology. Cambridge, Polity Press.

Hamilton, M 1995 Sociology of Religion London, Routledge

Hughes, J. Martin, P. and Sharrock, W. 1995 Understanding Classical Sociology: Marx, Weber, Durkheim. Sage, London

Turner, B. 1999. Classical Sociology. Sage.London

Walsh, I ed. 2000 Sociology: Making Sense of Society. Edinburgh, Prentice Hall.

Weber, M 1967 “The Social Psychology of World Religions” in Gerth, H and Wright-Mills , C. 1967 eds From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology New York, Oxford University Press pp.267-301

1

Weber’s Rationality Concepts and Scientific Management and Human Relation Theory

Introduction

Max Weber (1864-1920) was a German sociologist, philosopher and economist. His work of rationalization and rationality has influenced the entire sociology discipline. His work of rationality introduces four kinds of rationality, including theoretical, practical, formal and substantive rationality. This paper focuses on the formal and substantive rationality. Weber made distinctions between formal rationality and substantive rationality in his works. Formal rationality mainly refers to rational calculation determined by rules, regulations or laws, and the extend to an action occurs as an outcome of quantitative calculations. In terms of formally rational systems, the primary concern within the system is maximize profitability, this often results into disregardful humanity. On the other hand, substantive rationality is defined as choice of means to ends guided by a set of human values. It concerns several criteria of final ends and disregards whatever they are, it measures the outcomes of the economic-oriented action. This paper is to introduce Weber’s formal and substantive rationality concepts, then to analyze how these two concepts are related to scientific management and human relation theory.

Formal rationality

Weber defines formal rationality as the degree to an action happens as a result of quantitative and appropriate calculations (Weber, 1987). Formal rationality involves the rational calculation of means to ends that are founded on laws, rules and regulations apply in general (Kalberg, 1980). It also relates to a structure including legal, economic, scientific spheres and the bureaucratic domination with industrialization (Karlberg, 1980).

Weber suggests an action is rational because it has a consistent structure, all of its elements point at one direction, no one counteracts another. Therefore, there exists a consistency in its structure, and this is aided by formalization. Formalization can render several contradictions visible through a mechanical form of simplification. Thus, formal calculation is a kind of rationalization which focuses on the process not the result, it emphasizes how the decision is being made rather than how the results are achieved (Rona-Tas,2007). Formal rationality exists in large-scale structures such as bureaucracy and capitalist economy. And these structures and their regulations and laws determine the means to ends (Ritzer, 2005).

Since formal calculation is determined by rules, regulations or laws, formal rationality often leads to decisions that are without regard of the needs and values of persons, it may imply that substantive rationality is unnecessary (Ritzer, 2005). An action oriented to rules, regulations or laws is a formal calculation in reference to enacted regulations and opposed to decision making in reference to the personal values (Kalberg, 1980). For instance, the needs of a formally rational economic system are emphasized on actors who can outbid others not because their needs are more important or contain more personal values, but because they have lots of money. In this economic system, making money is the major concern rather than humanity concerns (Ritzer, 2005). Weber (1968) argues, “decisive are the need for competitive survival and the conditions of the labor, money and commodity markets; hence matter-of-fact considerations that are simply nonethical determine individual behavior and interpose impersonal forces between the persons involved (pp. 1186).” Therefore, capitalistic system is a formally rational economic system, as the major concern of an organization within the system is to make profit constantly. The entrepreneurs disregard the workers’ basic human values and dominate them by enslaving them in the formally rational economic system (Weber, 1975).

Formal rationality dominated in industrialized, modern and especially Western world. Weber foresaw that formal rationality would replace other kinds of rationality in the Western world. He also argued that substantive rationality would fade away and people would march forward to formal rationality instead. So, people’s actions are no longer guided by personal values but simply follow the regulations, rules and laws (Ritzer, 2005).

Substantive rationality

Substantive rationality refers to the clusters of values that lead people in their everyday lives, particularly in how they choose the means to ends. It involves the choice of means to ends guided by a set of human values. For example, Calvinism is when one feels one is fulfilling a duty and Calvinism attempts to rationalize the world in ethical ways and consistent with God’s commandments (Weber, 1958). Other examples include friendship, communism, hedonism Buddhism etc (Ritzer, 2005).

When the clusters of values are consistent with particular value postulates that actors prefer, they are considered to be rational (Kalberg, 1980). In terms of economy, on the opposed side of formal rationality, Weber sees substantive rationality as an action that emphasizes on outcomes, an action can be rational also because it reaches successful ends. Therefore, substantive rationality means the success or failure that due to actions are driven by economical orientation in order to achieve final objectives that can be economic or non-economic, for instance, justice and equality (Weber, 1987). That is to say, substantive rationality is relevant to economic action in particular. So, substantive rationality involves a choice of means to ends leaded by some larger system of human values (Ritzer, 2005).

Substantive rationality orders action into patterns directly on the basis of a past, present or potential value postulate, instead of just a calculation of means to ends and solutions to routine problems (Weber, 1968). Unlike formal rationality which has just a single value, such as making profit or fulfilling duties, substantive rationality relates to a value postulate which connotes clusters of values that are different in terms of comprehensiveness, content and internal consistency. Therefore, substantive rationality is a manifestation of a person’s capacity for value-rational action (Kalberg, 1980). Substantively rational system do not limit itself to purely follow formal and unambiguous fact or act according to goal-oriented rational calculation with the technical method, it concerns several criteria of ultimate ends regardless they are ethical, utilitarian, feudal etc, it measures the outcomes of the economic action, whereas formally rational emphasizes correct calculation that may against substantive or value rationality (Weber, 1978).

However, Weber did not make it clear that whether certain kinds of results might compound formal calculation, or some ends are more tend to be formal rationality than others.

Scientific management & Formal rationality

Scientific management theory was originally proposed in the book of Fredrick Taylor’s (1856-1915), which was published in 1991 and called ‘The Principles of Scientific Management’. The fundamental goal of scientific management was to maximize workers’ productivity and profitability ultimately. This principles of scientific management theory is accordance with Weber’s formal rationality concept. For instance, Taylor (1991) argues workers should be trained and managed under scientific methods, in order to improve their efficiency. Taylor (1991) also explains this scientific management method in details, that is: managers should abandon the old rule of thumb method and adopt a scientific method for every task; they must use scientific method to train workers, and use rules and regulations to ensure workers follow the instructions of the scientific method they develop. Taylor’s scientific management methods can be considered as the concept of Weber’s formal calculation, and the objective of that concept is to achieve great profitability. Also, Taylor (1991) thinks the best management should be supervised and ensured under regulations and rules. This is also a formally rational system according to Weber’s point of view of formal rationality.

In addition, Taylor (1991) assumes that workers can be motivated and only can be stimulated by economic drives. He designed a salary structure and principle, that was to pay a high salary to a worker who accomplishes his work more efficiently or faster. Furthermore, Taylor (1991) suggests to pay a worker with extra bonus or premium, if the worker finishes his work successfully and productively. Henry Ford implemented Taylor’s scientific management methods and developed a model based on economic expansion and mass production with technological mechanisms (Tolliday and Zeitlin, 1987). Therefore, scientific management theory is driven by achieving great profitability, which is aligned with Weber’s formal rationality concept.

Weber saw the triumph of formal rationality in the American system of ‘Scientific management’, as Weber (1978) argues, scientific management uses suitable measurement methods to calculate worker’s productivity and maximize profitability, the way these measurements calculate worker’s productivity is like that of any material means of production. He argues that scientific management was based on rational calculation and improvement of work performance with scientific training methods, and the worker is totally adjusted to the demands of the machines and is shorn of his inherent rhythm through creation of an optimal economy of physical effort.

Human Relations theory & Substantively rational

Human relation theory proposes that an organization is a social system, people in an organization are interdependent. Human relation theory argues that best management is to focus on encouraging people to work, to give workers psychological and social needs and comforts, that way, they would work with more efficiency and effectiveness.

Human relation theory is substantively rational as it emphasizes to maximize efficiency and productivity through a set of human values. The basic suggestion of human relation theory was developed through experiments and interviews, the most famous researcher is Elton Mayo, who identified the importance of human values in organizations. Through Hawthorne experiment, Mayo found out that the fundamental factor affects productivity and efficiency is the worker. The workers who engaged in the experiment realized they were concerned by managers and colleagues, and that increased their belongingness, this belongingness changed the worker’s entire value concept, encouraged them to improve their working efficiency. Therefore, Mayo suggested that workers also want social needs and interests, and they cannot be seen as being economically motivated anymore as how they were regarded by Taylorism (Rose, 2005). Thus, human relation theory is an implementation of substantive rationality in Weber’s point of view.

Then, human relation theory is related to substantive rationality as it suggests that there is informal communication within an organization. In the study of bank wiring room, a small group of male workers were to produce electrical components. That group emerged to set informal norms that were enforced by peer pressure and an informal leader. The study indicates that workers were not only motivated by economic force but also the informal norms and communications within the organization. Thus, it is more important than just following formal side such as regulations, rules and official hierarchy that formal rational system does (Rose, 2005).

However, the human relation theory is argued to be formal rationality as well. The initial impetus for the Hawthorne experiments was to improve worker’s efficiency and productivity and its management was to control physical variables, the idea was informed by the tradition of scientific management (Rose, 2005). It is also argued that human relation theories are embedded with connotation of rational organization and preference of scientific method (Ross-Smith and Kornberger, 2004). This could be understood since Weber did not clarify whether certain kinds of results might compound formal rationality.

Conclusion

This paper explains Weber’s formal and substantive rationality, and uses these two concepts to analyze scientific management and human relation theory. The paper summarizes that scientific management theory is with preference of Weber’s formal rationality concept, as scientific management theory focuses on managing organizations with scientific methods and formal calculations to improve workers’ productivity and to maximize organizations’ profitability. Whereas human relation theory is relevant to both substantive and formal rationality, because human relation theory emphasizes on principles guided by sets of human values such as social needs and psychological comforts etc. In addition, because within organizations adopts human relation theory, there exists informal norms and communications, which are more important than rules, regulations or hierarchy. At last but not least, human relation theory was originally designed to maximize efficiency and productivity, and to control physical variables, that was in line with the idea of scientific management theory.

Reference List:

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Muchinsky, P. M. (2006). Psychology Applied to Work. Eighth edition. Boston:

Cengage Learning.

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Rona-Tas, A. (2007). The Three Modalities of Rationality and Their

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Weber, M. (1978). Economy and Society. Berkeley: California University Press

Marx Weber in his writing entitled “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, has had an enduring impact on the field of economic history. Weber presents the argument that religion in certain forms and ways had a critical influence modern capitalist economy and society. He believes that Puritan ethics and ideas influenced the development of capitalism.

He supports his argument by examining the relationship between the ethnics of ascetic Protestantism and the beginnings of modern capitalism. Weber presents the problem of linking religion to the spirit of capitalism. He explains different religions and how they play into his study. Weber begins by comparing the differences between Catholics and Protestants. Although Weber admits that through history some of the richer areas tended to covert to Protestantism and that Protestants generally had a greater inherited wealth, this does not entirely explain the greater participation in capitalism shown by the Protestants. He believes that environment has a great effect on determining choice of occupation, but that Protestants have also shown a strong tendency to develop economic rationalism more so than Catholics. One explanation Weber provides for this is that Catholics tend to be more “otherworldly” than Protestants and therefore do not put as much importance on material gains. Weber mentions “Catholics show a stronger propensity to remain in their crafts that is they more often become master craftsmen, whereas the Protestants are attracted to a larger extent into the factories in order to fill the upper ranks of skilled labour and administrative position” (Weber, 3).”Catholics answer with the accusation that materialism results from the secularization of all ideals through Protestantism” (Weber, 4). Even though Catholic gets involved in economic activities, Protestants have stronger tendency to develop economic rationalism and Catholic criticizes Protestant’s materialism. He bases his argument on his observations in Germany and elsewhere, and this is why he focuses his argument on the Protestants. Weber also explains about the spirit of capitalism. There are conceptualizing the spirit of capitalism. Weber presents excerpt from the wirings of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin writes that time is money, credit is money, and the good paymaster is lord of another man’s purse. Franklin’s moral beliefs are useful to promote profit for individuals. Weber mentions “It is, namely, by no means exceptional, but rather the rule, for him to have a sort of modesty which is essentially more honest than the reserve which Franklin so shrewdly recommends” (Weber, 19). In addition, Weber mentions about the importance of accepting capitalistic system to make money. He says ” the capitalistic system so needs this devotion to the calling of making money it is an attitude toward material goods which is so well sited to that system, so intimately bound up with the conditions of survival in the economic struggle for existence”( Weber, 19).Weber also makes a point about ‘calling’ and reformation. Weber does not think that ‘calling’ explain the spirit of capitalism. Weber mentions that Luther developed the conception and activity as a reformer. However, Weber says that Martin Luther was a traditionalist and so believed in obedience to God’s will and acceptances of the way things are, that Lutheranism did not have great significance in the development of the capitalistic spirit. Weber argues that there is no relationship between the spirit of capitalism and reformation and tries to see how religion has impact on material cultures’ development. Weber says “we have no intention whatever of maintain such a foolish and doctrinaire thesis, as that the spirit of capitalism could only have arisen as the result of certain effects of the Reformation, or even that capitalism as an economic system is creation of the Reformation” (Weber, 28).

Weber also mentions four principal forms of ascetic Protestantism which are Calvinism, Pietism, Methodism, and Baptist movement. He continues by explaining some of the values involved with these other sects although its clear that Calvinism will be the most important to his argument. Weber assumes that Calvinism influences in Western Europe in the seventeenth century. He notices that western Europe had followed Calvinist Protestantism. Calvinists saw their work as a “calling” from God and it was a moral duty. “God does not exist for men, but men for the sake of God. All creation, including of course the fact, as it undoubtedly was for Calvin, that only a small proportion of men are chose for eternal grace, can have any meaning only as means to the glory and majesty of God”( Weber, 33). They believed in the elect. They are chosen and predestined by God. However, Lutheran Protestantism was different. It believed that people could earn a place in Heaven through good works on earth.It seems capitalist ideology, but Lutheran Protestantism encouraged people to earn no more than they needed to survive. The problem with Calvinist Protestantism was that they did not know they would go to hell or heaven. Weber mentions ” on the one hand it is held to be an absolute duty to consider oneself chosen, and to combat all doubts are temptations of the devil”(Weber, 37). Their uncertainty led them to work hard and that was for God’s favor. So their hard work led to the development of capitalism. They denied comfort and pleasure to themselves and despised laziness and hedonism. They made money for its own sake. Weber emphasizes that the spirit of capitalism is the values and attitude behind making money. Weber concludes that religion could cause economic change. Pietism is closely connected with Calvinism and gets influences by Lutheran Protestantism. However according to Weber it has an uncertain basis for asceticism and is therefore less consistent than Calvinism. Methodism has a similar uncertain foundation similar to Pietism and is also has some key differences from Calvinism’s doctrinal basis. And finally the Baptist sects had quite a different foundation than Calvinism. Finally, Weber wants to figure out the relationships between ascetic Protestantism and the spirit of capitalism. Overall, Weber’s intent was to prove the positive correlation between capitalist spirit and Protestant religion.

B. Choose one article from the list at the end of this exam

In the article, “Ethnic Differences in Endorsement of the Protestant Work Ethic: The Role of Ethnic Identity and Perceptions of Social Class” by Kevin Cokley, Komarraju, Pickett, Shen, Patel, Belur, and Rosales, examined ethnic differences in endorsement of the Protestant work ethic (PWE) among Black and White college students and differences in ethnic identity and perceptions of social class mediated the relationship between ethnicity and the endorsement of PWE values.

The Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) is an important aspect of U.S and authors mentions the traditional American values which have been associated with White culture, includes individualism, competition, orientation, and the PWE. Authors mention “the PWE is a value system that stresses the moral value of work, self-discipline, and individual responsibility in forming a way to improve one’s economic well-being” (Cokley et al 2007: 76). They found that the PWE is related to attributions of greater personal obligation. However, Niles stated that there seems to be a stronger commitment to a ‘Protestant’ work ethic among non-Protestant cultures. They found that the PWE is now more a reflection of culture than of religious values or nationality. Authors examined multi cultural differences in the PWE within the United States and their goal was to find which ethnicity might affect endorsement of the PWE.

According to Cokley et al, differences in the importance of ethnic identity arise among ethnic minorities and Whites and ethnic identity caries in importance and strength among ethnic group members. They say “we believed that cultural values like the PWE that promote individual responsibility while minimizing the impact of societal oppression on ethnic minorities such as Blacks would be negatively related to ethnic identity” they also found that well- educated individuals are less likely to endorse PWE values due to the fact that well- educated individuals are more likely to be aware of systems of oppression, such as racism, sexism, homophobia. In addition, the PWE is also related to social class. They figure out “Blacks face more negative perceptions about their work ethic from employers than do Whites and that employer see inner-city poor Blacks as especially problematic” (Cokley et al 2007:79).

Authors used three measures which are Protestant Ethic Scale (PES), Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (NEIM), and Demographic sheet. After they examined, they found that Black students the PWE was not significantly correlated with ethnic identity. Blacks were higher in ethnic identity than were Whites, but the relationship between ethnic identity and PWE was not significant. However, they found that ethnic identity and perceptions of social class can count for ethnic differences in endorsement of the PWE.

Black students had a significantly lower PWE compared with White students. This indicates that they were less likely to believe that works hard will succeed. They mention ” the Black students or their close friends and family members may have had experiences that led them to believe that an individual’s life outcomes are influences by much more than simply hard work because there ae other external, uncontrollable social forces( racism, sexism, discrimination) that can influence outcomes more than does one’s own individual effort. On the other hand, whites are opposite. They tend to believe a strong positive relationship between working hard and achieving success. It indicates that White students were more likely to endorse PWE beliefs than were Black students. They mention “the most significant result of this study was the emergence of perceptions of social class as the only significant mediator” (Cokley et al 2007: 85). It shows that upper middle class and upper class had a significantly stronger PWE than working class or middle class among Whites, but not Blacks. They argue that social class in an important because they believe that social class might influence the cultural psychology of different ethnic groups. They mention “the Blacks in the present study, regardless of perceived social class, were less likely to endorse the PWE, perhaps because they may have experienced first hand that the application of the PWE does not always result in meritocratic economic outcomes” (Cokley et al 2007: 87).

2.
A. Basic elements of bureaucracy that Weber describes.

In the article, “Bureaucracy”, Weber believes that bureaucracy is a particular type of administrative structure developed through authority. Weber attributes the development of bureaucracy to the increase in rationalization in modern societies. Weber says “Bureaucracy, thus understood, is fully developed in political and ecclesiastical communities only in the modern state, and, in the private economy, only in the most advanced institutions of capitalism” (Weber 1946:196). Weber argues that bureaucracies have existed in places such as Egypt, the Roman Catholic Church, and China. Weber mentions “a certain measure of a developed money economy is the normal precondition for the unchanged and continued existence, if not for the establishment, of pure bureaucratic administrations” (Weber 1946:205).

Bureaucracy is organized as a hierarchical system of offices that are governed by rules. For Weber the term bureaucracy are inseparable from the term rationality. According to Weber, there are ways of developing bureaucracies rational which are functional specialization, clear lines of hierarchical authority, expert training of managers, and decision making based on rules. Weber argues that such specialization is essential to a rational bureaucracy. His idea of functional specialization applies to persons within an organization and to relations between larger units or divisions of the organization. For example, work was broken down into many special tasks and employees were assigned few such tasks. Divisions of large organizations require clear lines of authority organized in a hierarchy. And division of labour is more fundamental that the others because it initiates and orders other divisions of labour. In addition, hierarchical authority is required in bureaucracies so that highly trained experts can he properly used as managers. He argues that managers at all levels have to be trained for their specific jobs. He mentions “the demand for administration by trained experts is considerable, and the party followings have to recognize an intellectually developed, educated, and freely moving ‘ public opinion’, the use of unqualified officials falls back upon the party in power at the next election”(Weber 1946:201).

“Development is greatly furthered by the social prestige of the educational certificates acquired through such specialized examinations. This is all the more the case at the educational patent is turned to economic advantage” (Weber 1946:241). Weber mentions the importance of education which can develop economic.

Lastly, Weber makes a point that rational bureaucracies must be managed in accordance with carefully developed rules and principles that can be learned and applied and that transactions and decisions must be recorded so that rules can be reviewed. He mentions “the management of the office follows general rules, which are more or less stable, more or less exhaustive, and which can be learned” (Weber, 1946:198). Weber sees bureaucracy as one of the most important causes of the development of capitalism specifically.

B. The strengths and dangers of bureaucracy that Weber describes.

According to Max Weber, that bureaucracy are the most efficient form of administration and inevitable in the modern society. Weber offers a positive of bureaucracy through his ideal description of the administrative system as a rational and efficient type of organization. Bureaucracy is an administrative structure through hierarchical relations and pre-established spheres of competence. “the large corporation as a type of bureaucratic organization that rivaled the state bureaucracy in achieving rational efficiency and calculated results” (Rubenstein 1978:55).

One of the strengths of bureaucracy is conduct of official business in strict accordance with the duty of every member, chosen through impersonal criteria to perform designated tasks subject to strict rules of practice. He mentions “Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict, subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs, these are raised to the optimum points in the strictly bureaucratic administration.” (Weber1946: 214). Also, Weber says that the organizations structuring into a vertical hierarchy to be governed by the rights to supervision and appeal. The military is an example of bureaucratic organization. Weber says “Specifically, military discipline and technical training can be normally and fully developed, at least to its modern high level, only in the bureaucratic army” (Weber 1946:222). “Its specific nature, which is welcomed by capitalism, develops the more perfectly the more the bureaucracy is ‘dehumanized’, the more completely it succeeded, in eliminating form official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation”( Weber 1946:216).

However, Weber also fears that people would become too controlled by people who are superior and too much rules and regulations deprive of people’s freedom. Weber argues about the consequences of bureaucracies in modern societies. He feels they represented a grave threat to individual liberty. Also, bureaucracy provides structure of domination. Governance in a class-based society resulted to abuse of power of the tope leadership resulting to corruption, and political infighting. A bureaucracy is organized as a hierarchical system of offices that are governed by rules. Each office has a sphere of tasks, and the offices operate and interact according to an explicit se of procedures. Power resides in offices. Office holders merely act out the responsibilities of their offices. furthermore, He notes ” No machinery in the world functions so precisely as this apparatus of men and, moreover, so cheaplyaˆ¦rational calculation, reduces every worker to a cog in this bureaucratic machine and, seeing himself in this light, he will merely ask how to transform himself into a somewhat bigger cog..The passion for bureaucratization drives us to despair” (Weber). Power is exercise by bureaucrats whose interest is in regulation rather than principles. Individual are lost in the vast machinery of the bureaucratic organization. These bureaucracies become structures of domination. They govern social action on a regular basis, and they establish and sustain patterns of inequality.

Weber mentions “the bureaucratic tendency has chiefly been influenced by needs arising from the creation of standing armies as determined by power politics and by the development of public finance connected with the military establishment” (Weber 1946:212). Weber implies that

” the decisive reason for the advance of bureaucratic organization has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of organization” (Weber 1946:214).

“the fully developed bureaucratic mechanism” he was aware of the fact that actual bureaucracies seldom achieve the level of efficiency of the ” ideal type” he had constructed”( Rubenstein 1978:23).

“Weber’s writings on bureaucracy are part of a larger attempt to understand the social and political structure and the values of modern Western civilization” (Rubenstein 1978:27).

3. According to Marx, the class struggle under capitalism is between those who own the means of production, the ruling class or bourgeoisie and those who labor for a wage, the working class or proletariat. “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of call struggles”( Marx, Engels 1848,3). The worker is as part of the machinery. ” a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital”( Marx, Engels 1848,8). Weber also describes that the ruling class makes the rules that structure society. Marx made a set of demands which are 10points programs. He believes that the implementation of those policies would lead to a classless and stateless society.

A. The Cunning of History by Rubenstein mentions “as uprooted men and women were forced to move from the countryside to the cities, they had little choice but to accept the subsistence wages offered to them in the mills and factories. The alternative was starvation. There was an abundant labor supply and its cost was kept at a minimum” (Rubenstein 1978:55).

Even though there are criticisms, bureaucracy remains an important administrative system. Weber recognizes the ideal benefits of bureaucracy.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/article/gates-says-urgent-need-to-cut-defense/1052189/

http://www.paperarticles.com/2009/06/singapore-at-50-managing-change.html

According to the newspaper, “Singapore at 50: Managing change” gives a good example of efficient bureaucracy which helps to increase economic.

http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/90uw/uw08.html

it provides the possibility for government to function effectively and efficiently, leading the larger and larger societies, with increasingly complex and diverse ways of life for its citizens. Beyond government, numerous other social organizations, both in the public and private sectors have developed bureaucratic forms of leadership, which have succeeded in advancing the goals of their organizations.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bureaucracy( good thing, bad thing)

Rational has a number of specialized meanings depending on which subject matter. Humans are generally considered to be being of rationality. However, when it comes to financial success, humans who are driven by greed have a tendency to act irrationally. This essay will discuss the statement with reference of Weber’s rationalisation theory and Durkheim’s division of labour theory. Weber refers to the change of tradition ideas into calculability idea sparks the spirit of capitalism, bureaucracy as an administration to capitalism and also recognise the probability of irrationality of rationality. On the other hand, Durkheim explain how human are social beings through mechanical and organic solidarity but also recognise the issue specialisation and diversification may face. Thus, this essay will discuss the statement with reference to Weber and Durkheim theories and also use contemporary example such as McDonalization and Starbucks diversification to understand how workers act in the purse financial success.

Weber defined rationalisation as a change in the social trend whereby traditional norms or values and replaced with the idea of technical and calculation of utility when performing a task. This is clearly shown in one of Weber’s most important and famous studies, The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism (1965), where he describes the emergence of rationalisation from the turn of events during the time of Protestantism which in turn gives birth to the spirit of capitalism. The rise of rational capitalism and the change of social structure are highlighted through the Calvinist theory. Calvinism is an act to dedicating oneself to hard work in order to obtained god’s ‘grace’ and secure a place in heaven after life (Weber, 2011). The profit gained from the hard work should not be used for sinful consumption but it is to be invested back into the business. Since material success was used a gauge to measure how ‘blessed’ is someone, this resulted in the emergence of a new work ethic within the Calvinists people, who always work hard round the clock and reinvesting back everything they owned have caused them to unintentionally became capitalists. This is further supported by Weber interpretation of Benjamin Franklin’s work regarding the topic of money. In his book, Benjamin Franklin says that ‘time is money and to waste time is to waste money’ (Lemert, 2009). The fact of Benjamin not concern with surviving but with making money as much as possible is an ethic peculiar capitalism. This ethic of pursuing as much money disregards the idea of your wellbeing as the most important thing in life is sign of spirit of capitalism.

Now, we shall look at Emile Durkheim’s view, who is another famous sociologist. In his book, The Division of Labour, Durkheim emphasise on the important of solidarity in the society. Society needs to have some form of cohesive force in order to hold humans together (Durkheim, 2014). Durkheim identifies 2 type of such cohesion which he classifies it as mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. In mechanical solidarity, similarity and homogeneity is the key aspect present in a group (Grint, 2005). Individuals come together because they share the same likeness and this makes people feel connected through similar work, belief and lifestyle. Individual wouldn’t feel autonomous, because the society here is a collective cohesion (Morrison, 2006). Mechanical solidarity usually refers to the old times where it is found in villages and small towns. An historical example of mechanical solidarity can be seen through farmers before the industrialisation. In contrast to mechanical solidarity, organic solidarity is where people are held together because of their difference where society is now specialised and diversified (Durkheim, 2014). The division of labour requires everyone to depend on each other. In organic solidarity, individuals are bound together because each person adds something different to the group and everyone is considered to be valuable. Durkheim argued that the connection between people grow stronger as division of labour increase because this add dependency on each other for survival. Judging from this, we can say human can make rational action when pursuing financial success because of the diverse knowledge and different opinion of so many specialised individuals in the group (Gibbons et al., 1994). Hence, they are able to make rational decision.

As can be seen from Weber and Durkheim’s work, they both agree humans are rational being (Watson, 2008). We can see a shift of human effort from traditional norms towards rational efforts aimed at achieving economic gain. According to Weber, Protestantism is not the cause of capitalism but the idea of pursuing capital gain give rise to capitalism (Weber, 2011). The money earned becomes its own end and rational capitalism is born. Much like Weber’s view on rationalisation, Durkheim says the development of the division of labour has led to the decline of collective conscious, which is the sharing of similar beliefs and ways, are replaced with specialised and diverse individuals as a product of modernisation (Durkheim, 2014). Traditionally, achieving human satisfaction is the more important than achieving capital gain (Coleman, 1988). But under capitalism, the relation is reverse which cause it to be irrational. Weber believed that industrialization was leading to a growing influence of rational ideas and thought in culture, which, in turn, led to the bureaucratization of society. According to Weber, bureaucracy is the most efficient administration towards capitalism. Bureaucracy can be used as a tool or ideology to coordinate the increasingly pursuit of rational profit in society. Weber’s ideal bureaucracy must have characteristics such as division of labour, hierarchical structure, written rules and regulations, fixed salaries, promotion based on performance (Grint, 2005). However, Weber and Durkheim both are aware that theories of bureaucracy and specialisation are bound to face some issues and limitation.

Bureaucracy is considers efficient and rational because people with expert calculability and knowledge are the ones behind it. Bureaucracy can be seen as an organisation put together to achieve a specific goal (Lemert, 2009). Most of the time, this goal is related to shareholders’ interest, which is to maximise wealth. However, there are a few issues with bureaucracy which has been criticised by other sociologist such as. One of the issues faced by a worker in a bureaucratic organisation is that all form of bureaucracy is built from the basis of rules and regulations. Workers are confined to the rules set by the organisation and there are consequences of breaking it. Since most bureaucratic organisation exercise a top down pyramid like structure, shareholders are the one who decide the direction and goal of the company and it’s up to the managers to manage the employees to achieve it. In other words, individual freedom of a worker has been compromised (Fry, 1989). Furthermore, monthly targets are set for worker and if the worker wants a promotion of pay raise, he is expected to perform well. This is because the promotion in a bureaucratic organisation is based on the performance and qualification of the worker. With all this expectation and the employee personal capital needs, they are motivated to work hard in order to be recognised. This might lead into irrational behaviour such as working tirelessly round the clock and neglecting one’s own heath in order to achieve the target set by management (Weymes, 2004). Organisation is run in the interest of shareholder is because shareholders are the ones that invest and supply the capital to run the business. Weber understood the possibility that bureaucracy might face with obstacles because the red tape that undermined the interest and control of the organisation (Grint, 2005). What start off as a rational administration can turn out to become something irrational. Although market power has increased, workers are still tied down to status, property and identity which can be viewed as the ‘iron cage’ (Morrison, 2006). Individual must not relies solely on bureaucratic control for rationality but instead self-rationality must be present in every individual in order to not confine into the iron cage.

Additionally, Durkheim’s theory may lead to irrational behaviour too. When a group become more segmented, integration and coordination will be more of a problem (Korczynski et al., 2006). Specialisation will cut down an organisation values and culture. Task specialisation and delegation of work can improve efficiency but this comes at the price of cohesion at work, as too much division will cause worker to be aimless and thus losing sight of the main objective (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1986). What may appear to be rational for the organisations may not be rational for the workers. Likewise, managers who are specialisation orientated gets to choose to promote a particular division rather than the whole organisation. This can be viewed as an irrational behaviour if the manager is doing it for his own personal benefit but regardless of the reason behind the manager’s action, an act like that is consider to be unfair to worker in other division.

We now can take a look at some contemporary examples of rationality that a few market leaders are practicing today. Weber’s theory of rationalisation can be closely related to McDonalization. McDonalds is a popular fast food company that has franchise all over the world. McDonalization is a process where the growing industry of fast food can be seen to be dominating more and more sectors of society and the world (Ritzer, 2004). McDonalds is so successful today is because it offers workers and managers calculability, predictability, control and efficiency. Calculability is a main dimension of both rationalisation and McDonalization. The management in McDonalds focus on the quantitative aspects of work instead of quality since the job scope doesn’t vary and there is a high dependency on machines. Workers are judges based on how fast they solve a given task. Workers in McDonald’s follow a certain rules and protocol when they carry out their job or interact with customers (Leidner, 1993). Control in McDonalds is explained by how workers are trained to operate the machines to cook the burgers and fry can be a mundane task. This can be associated with the lifestyle of assembly line workers. Lastly, McDonalds stress on efficiency by installing closed-circuit television camera to monitor how efficient their employee works. Similar to Weber, Ritzer thinks that a rational business will inevitably have irrationalities that is dehumanising. As we can see, Weber and Ritzer both agree that bureaucracy and rationalisation will spawn the irrationality of rationality.

On the contrary, a contemporary example of Durkheim’s organic solidarity can be seen by how Starbucks include diversity in their company’s strategy. Starbucks recognise the importance of diversification and included it as one of the organisation’s responsibility (Starbucks, 2014) Starbucks is one of the most recognised coffee brands in the world and stand out as a market leader. Starbucks main attraction are their coffee and coffee beans. However, the company is slowing moving into the pastries and fruit juices in order to capture more audience from the market. There are some critiques that points out the dangers of diversification for a big organisation like Starbucks. People relate Starbucks to coffee, and this might cause the new products to not sell. However, as we can see, Starbucks has been able pull it off successfully. It is reported that the company profits from the first three quarter of fiscal year grew by 11.7 per cent to $9.9 billion dollars (New York Times, 2013). As we can see, Starbucks rationally carried out Durkheim theory of organic solidarity and gain a competitive advantage.

In conclusion, both sociologists state that workers can start off rationally but may end up doing things irrationally. Weber recognises the change in traditional belief into something calculable need a form of administration that is bureaucracy. The answer to the spirit of capitalism is bureaucracy but Weber is also well aware of the rationality of bureaucracy turning into something irrational which is the iron cage. Weber also states that specialisation and diversification can lead to a rational connection between individuals but should not lose sight of the cohesion among individuals. Ultimately, individual must incorporate self-rationalisation, rationalisation of bureaucracy and also specialisation in order to be rational and sustainable in the pursuit of success.

In todays world, we are surrounded by media. Our lives are saturated by newspapers, radio, books, television, movies, Internet, and many other aspects of media. These can be broadly classified into news media and popular media. In India, both these types provide an insight to Indian life, which is filled with romance, tradition, and all the other day-to-day experiences and situations one might come across. But, even though they might seem the same, they both play very different roles in society.

Popular media represents and recounts a vast number of real life stories, and portrays them in a manner enjoyable for the audience. News media on the other hand, provides more facts and gives raw information for the audience to understand, with or without a firm opinion of its own on the matter. Popular media reaches out to a much larger audience, as both literate and illiterate people are able to access it, while news media only reaches out to the literate and wealthy people. This difference can become a problem in certain situations. Both these parts of media reflect society constantly, as they are shaped from and around experiences and stories of the people in the society. Usually, both these types concur with each other in the content and representation of society, but there are specific cases in which this ceases to be true. An example of this is the portrayal of the prominence and effects of the dowry system in India today. For a long time, both popular and news media reflected the aspects of the dowry system in Indian society very vividly and comprehensively, shared the same view about the topic, and thus were in concurrence with each other. But overtime, it was noticed that popular media deviated from this pattern and no longer reflected the prominence of the dowry system in society, while the news media continued to do so, thus creating an ideological difference between the two. The problem of the dowry system is still prominent, and the news media continues to reflect this. But since popular media does not reflect society anymore, a majority of the society comes under the impression that there is nothing wrong in what they are doing. This can cause the dowry system to be persistent in the everyday lives of Indian families.

The dowry system is a cultural system in India in which the parents of the bride pay a large sum of money, and give expensive jewelry and other gifts such as cars, to the parents of the groom during marriage. Traditionally, there were many reasons for the establishment of this system. It was a form of inheritance for the bride, since all the family property was inherited by men. It was supposed to be the security for the bride in case any misfortune befell her husband’s house. It was also a system of honoring the groom for his willingness to accept the bride as his wife in marriage, and the gifts given could range from anything significant to even a small token of good wishes. However, the greed of dowry has affected almost all ordinary families in India. Nowadays, in marriages between or amongst all hierarchal levels of society, dowry is generally an unspoken requirement. And due to the exposure to mass media, the gifts given in dowry have transformed into a large transfer of wealth, making it an important factor in marriage.

The social and cultural effects of the dowry system are devastating to the society as a whole. The system reduced women to a commodity and a source of wealth. Even if the dowry is paid, in most cases, the bride is tortured by her in-laws mentally and physically as they demand for more dowry even after marriage. This torture generally leads to suicide or murder of the bride.

The reason why dowry is still persistent in India is not only because it is difficult to enforce the law against it or because the groom’s family is very demanding, but also because the bride’s family continues to bear with it. Despite the widespread awareness of the negative consequences of dowry and the problems cause by it, it is still seen as a way of buying happiness for the bride. Many families believe that giving a large dowry would result in better treatment of the daughter by the groom’s family. This has only aggravated the problem as the standard for dowry became high and so marriage was dependent on whether the bride’s family could reach that standard of dowry or not.

A study was done in 1980 which examined students’ expectations of dowry for people with various education backgrounds. Even though majority of the students viewed the dowry system as an ‘evil’ in society and considered it unimportant for marriage, most of the brothers of the respondents gave or received dowry for their sisters’ marriages. Also, depending on the social status and affluence of the family, and the education qualifications of the bride and the groom, the amount of dowry needed to be given varies significantly. There is a positive correlation between a man’s education and status to the dowry his family demands. As a groom’s educational experience increases, the dowry demanded for the marriage also increases.

In 1961, the payment of dowry was prohibited under the Indian Civil Law, and also under sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Despite this, this system of dowry has been a continuous and never ending menace in our society. These laws were made in order to make it easier for women to seek redress from the harassment she is under by the man’s family. But these laws have been of little help to brides, who are harassed even today by their in-laws. Instances of such situations have constantly been shown to the public by the media.

The power of media in today’s world is surprising. The media has the freedom to form opinions, and through this they can change the opinions of people. But, people forget that in the end, all media is doing is reflecting society. The stories the media covers, and the plots of the movies that are made (except fantasy fiction of course), all are based on situations which may occur in day to day life, or real life situations. Same was the case with the dowry system. The media clearly depicted the agonies and pain of Indian women as they were suffering from the cruelties of the dowry system. This can be seen from very far back in popular as well as news media.

Dowry-inspired murder cases received immense coverage by news media in the late 1970s and 1980s due to the active role played by women’s organizations. The women’s organizations played a very important role in increasing awareness and coverage of dowry related cases. A study done on the coverage of dowry related cases from 1979-1984 concludes that there was a noticeable improvement in the coverage of dowry in the national papers due to the women’s organizations, although the coverage in regional papers remained the same. By 1979, one dowry related death received serious press coverage. A 24 year old bride from New Delhi, Tarvinder Kaur, was set on fire by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law due to the less dowry paid by her. Another significant dowry-related murder case was that of Tripti Sharma, who worked at the Ministry of Defense. She was burned to death by her husband and his family in 1986. A more optimistic and recent case is that of Nisha Sharma. In May 2003, she handed over her future husband to the police on the day of the wedding itself as he was demanding more dowry from her. This example shows what women need to do in cases of dowry abuse. Nisha refused to come under the pressures of the groom’s family, and decided that she is not going to sustain it. These examples from news media are clearly reflective of the state of affairs in India at that time, and case with popular media was similar.

In 1992, the movie ‘City of Joy’ depicted a family which had really high dowry demands. In the movie, the groom’s father clearly states, “I am firm in requiring for my exceptional son the bicycle, 1000 rupees, and one ounce of gold.” The bride’s father responds by saying, “The child of a king might be worth that, and I’m not even sure of that!” Another 2001 movie, ‘Lajja’, clearly displayed the consequences of the dowry system, it’s working, and how it may be a big burden on the bride’s family. In the movie, Maithili (Mahima Chaudhary) is about to be married to a wealthy man of a family with a high social status. Maithili’s parents give away everything they have in the dowry, including their land and saved money. Upon still falling short, they take loans from their friends, but they are still not able to gather the full amount. Maithili requests her future husband to convince his dad to let the rest of the money be, but he is too scared to do so. Seeing this, and seeing her dad beg in front of the groom’s father to accept the money he has, she rebels, and calls of the wedding. She was not able to bear to see her father being humiliated in such a manner by the groom’s father. Both these movies showed depicted that the bride’s family has to struggle a lot in order to gather the dowry for the groom’s family, and thus is a big burden on them.

This depiction of the dowry system by popular media was in concurrence with its reflection in the news media, but as we move ahead on the timeline, this concurrence slowly fades away. The movie ‘Lajja’ was the last movie to clearly depict the pain inflicted due to the dowry system. The 2006 movie ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’ also had the concept of dowry, but it did not demonstrate the consequences of the dowry system, and only showed that the concept of dowry existed. Since then, popular media has not depicted anything related to cases of dowry related abuse or murder. And this would have been perfectly fine if the society had transformed to this effect and there were no more dowry related crimes taking place. But this was not true, as news media still continued to report about such crimes taking place.

‘Number of dowry cases goes up’ (The Hindu, January 2008); ‘Dowry death after love marriage’ (The Times of India, April 2008); ‘Harassed for dowry, teacher ends life’ (The Indian Express, November 2007). These are just three headlines from three of India’s popular newspapers that show the persistence of the dowry system and its consequences in modern India. Dowry is still prevalent in modern India, in not only the illiterate section of the population, but also the educated elites in India’s major metropolitan cities. Surprisingly in the past decade, the number of dowry related crime cases has actually gone up, despite dowry being banned since 1961 by Indian law. According to the statistics released by the National Crime Records Bereau, a total of 8391 dowry deaths were reported in 2010 itself, which means that a bride was killed every 90 minutes due to dowry related reasons. In 1988, this number was 2209; in 1990 it rose to 4835; in 2000 (a decade earlier), this number was 6995, and in 2007 it climbed up to an astounding 8093.

According to other government records, Delhi itself records a few hundred dowry deaths every year, while women’s rights groups estimate this number to be at 900 per year. This is a phenomenal increase compared to the number for the 1990s, which is about 300 per year. It is important to note that these are just official records, and are thus immensely under-reported. 90% of the cases in which women are burnt are recorded as accident, 5% as suicides, and only the remaining 5% of the cases are shown as murder. These shockingly high numbers clearly reflect the continuous increase in dowry related crimes and deaths in India.

This is due to the continued commercialization of marriages in the modern Indian society. India’s economic liberalization has seen a proportionate rise in the levels of greed as compared to 1990, and a bride is now perceived by her future in-laws as a source of potential cash flow. A famous quote from former Justice Markandey Katju reads, “On one hand, people regard women as goddesses, and on the other hand they burn them alive. This is against the norms of civilized society. It’s barbaric.” This is in response to an appeal filed by a husband who had just been sentenced to imprisonment for life by a Sessions court for burning his wife due to dowry related reasons.

The effects of the dowry system are so far and wide ranging, that they can even be traced back to the womb. This system is the primary cause for female feticide and infanticide as poorer parents get to avoid the lifelong burden of saving up for the dowry for their daughter’s marriage. The commercialization of marriage and female infanticide is clearly reflected in the movie ‘Matrubhoomi’, in which a reverse dowry system is depicted. The movie shows a society in which there are no women left due to excessive female infanticide, and the men have grown to be so sexually frustrated, that they are ready to pay large amounts of money to get a wife for themselves or their sons. So as soon as the head of the family finds Kalki, they literally buy her from her father, by giving him five lakh rupees and five cows, and marry her to all five of his sons. Kalki simply becomes a source of money for her father, and a sex object for her husbands.

Nowadays, there are famous advertisements which have been put up in many of the rural villages, which read, “Spend 500 rupees today, save 5000 rupees later.” This is a reference to the cost of abortion compared to the cost of the dowry which they might have to give. It basically encourages the families to come and get an abortion if their child is a girl, so that they don’t have the burden of paying the dowry while getting her married in the future. This is the primary reason why India has a distorted sex ratio of 933 girls for every 1,000 boys.

As is evident, the problems due to the dowry system have only been rising over the past decade. Despite this, popular media has failed to reflect these problems. News media has continued to keep up with these updates, and report about them, but popular media has deviated into its own path. Since popular media has a much larger audience compared to news media, this results in the society getting a totally different viewpoint of what is happening in their world: a wrong viewpoint in which what they are doing is not wrong. Also, since popular media has a much larger international audience as compared to news media, people from other countries get a totally different view of India: a world in which the dowry system does not exist and is not causing any problems at all. Thus, an untrue version of the society is shown to the world outside, which is not good, as when these people actually come to India and read about the truth, it is a shocking revelation for them.

A shift is India’s attitude towards the dowry systems is urgently due. In simple words, dowry is equal to a family paying a man to accept their daughter as his wife, while the man along with his family, tries to get the maximum price out of the woman’s family. This association of economic gain with women in marriage is something which has long been persistent in India, and needs to stop. Simply making anti-dowry laws has proved to be inefficient. We need to make the society see their mistakes and realize what they are doing wrong, and this can only be done if popular media continues to reflect society as it did before.

India must come together to end this practice. This could see couples channel their funds to provide education to their daughters, instead of saving money for years and years for dowry. The days of the persistence of the dowry system in India must be numbered, or Indian society’s claim to be progressive is disingenuous.