Converging social trends, emerging social problems.

  • United States. Welfare Administration. Division of Research.
Date:
1964]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Converging social trends, emerging social problems. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    IN A CHANGING SOCIETY In a rapidly changing, industrialized society, the social forces which shape the future can generate serious human problems unless they are identified in their early and fluid stages when needed re-direction can be achieved. If this is done, the best of the past can be conserved and the~benefits of new developments can be increased. The social forces that affect change can be deduced from social trends if there are data to chart these direc- tions. To the extent available, such trend data, com- piled by the Division of Research in the Welfare Ad- ministration of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, are presented here. They have been selected to reveal the forces which are creating the social fabric of our affluent society, which tends to exclude certain groups of the population from the main- stream of our economic and social life. An understanding of these structural changes is essential to the development of policies and programs which can contribute to the correction of the imbalances created by social change. Unlike the social problems of the less developed nations, where severe and obvious deprivation results from low productive capacity, social problems in the affluent society are concentrated in identifiable seg- monte of the noniylation who are the objects of the From these trends, developing rapidly and interwoven throughout a highly organized society, social problems have emerged which are far more complicated and subtle in nature than those of less developed nations. The cause-effect relationship between trends and prob- lems becomes apparent as one examines the nature of poverty in the United States today in terms of the kind of poverty we have, the groups it affects, and the social problems that are attributable to it. THE SOCIAL PROBLEM OF POVERTY Poverty must be measured against expectations. In societies in which most people are hungry most of the time, where death comes early, and few are ever en- tirely free from illness or disability, a very low le pray living can be tolerated. The individual who suff more than his neighbors and kinfolk accepts his misery as inevitable. Only as he becomes aware that a better life could be attained does he become restless. In an affluent society, however, where the majority of people take for granted the necessities of life and even many nonessentials, more is expected. Since the de- prived see evidence on every hand that a better life is attainable, denial of opportunities creates restlessness in some, apathy and loss of motivation in others. An affluent society therefore cannot tolerate extremely low levels of living. To do so tends to weaken the entire social structure. Consequently, although the goods and services which families in the United States can purchase with incomes of under $3,000 would represent wealth in many places, such incomes represent poverty in the United States. To