CLASS READING MATERIAL

PART 1
Generalist Social Work Practice

1.1 What Is a Social Work?

Learning Objectives

1. Define “social work” and “Contemporary social work”

2. Explain the role of social workers.
3. Understand the scope of social work.

Social work is a profession in which trained professionals are devoted to helping vulnerable
people and communities work through challenges they face in everyday life. Social workers
practice in a wide variety of settings, united in their commitment to advocating for and
improving the lives of individuals, families, groups and societies.

Contemporary social work refers to the specialized and professional role that social workers have
attempted to claim in the present century. Social workers deliver a wide range of services,
including income maintenance, welfare commodities, and counseling, as representatives of
statutory or non-statutory agencies. However, social work has been criticized for
institutionalizing an obedience to policy minimalism and relying on talk therapy as its base of
practice knowledge. The complexities of urban life and surroundings also pose challenges to
social work, requiring the profession to address new questions and adapt to urban environments.
Additionally, contemporary social work is influenced by international trends, particularly in
relation to health inequalities and social inequalities. Social workers are called upon to develop a
"health equality imagination" and integrate it into their practice, education, and research.

What is the role of social workers?

While there is a diverse array of settings in which social workers practice, together social
workers share the commitment to:

 Promote social welfare

 Help people from all backgrounds overcome the individual challenges they are facing
 Advocate for social and economic justice for members of diverse communities
 Embody the social work code of ethics

Who do social workers help?

Social workers work directly with, and on behalf of, a wide variety of populations. Some
examples are:
  Children and adolescents
 Individuals with disabilities
 Individuals who are experiencing poverty or homelessness
 Medical patients
 Individuals struggling with addiction
 Students
 Individuals with mental health concerns
 Refugees and immigrants
 Aging individuals
 Couples and families
 Victims of violence or trauma
 Individuals who are incarcerated or in the criminal justice system
 Veterans

Social workers are uniquely positioned to help our fellow members of society who are
vulnerable, oppressed or marginalized.

Not sure where to start?

Ask yourself: Who are you most passionate about helping?

Chances are you can make a difference with that population as a social worker!

Scope of social work practice

Social workers create change in many ways — from high, systems-level change (macro practice)
to the individual level (micro practice). Social workers make an impact at all levels of practice.

Where are social workers employed?

There are a diverse range of agencies that employ social workers, and the job descriptions for
social workers vary greatly depending on where they work. Some examples of places that
employ social workers are:

 Schools (all levels, including higher education)

 Hospitals and health care agencies
 Government agencies (local, state, federal), including Veteran's Affairs (VA) agencies
and the military
 Community development and outreach agencies
 County, state and federal legal agencies (courts, prisons, etc.)
 Clinics and counseling agencies
 Some social workers are also self-employed in private practice as clinical social workers

For more than a century, social workers have been pivotal in helping people overcome
challenges they face navigating their lives, from food and housing insecurity to personal
relationships and workplace issues. In addition to helping members of their community address
life’s difficulties, social workers fight for social justice and advocate for the underserved.
 PART 2
Understanding Social Problems

1.1 What Is a Social Problem?

1.2 Sociological Perspectives on Social Problems
1.3 Continuity and Change in Social Problems

2.1 What Is a Social Problem?

Learning Objectives “social problem.”

1. Explain the objective and subjective components of the definition of a social problem.
2. Understand the social constructionist view of social problems.
3. List the stages of the natural history of social problems.

A social problem is any condition or behavior that has negative consequences for large numbers
of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behavior that needs to be addressed.
This definition has both an objective component and a subjective component.

The objective component is this: For any condition or behavior to be considered a social
problem, it must have negative consequences for large numbers of people.

How do we know if a social problem has negative consequences? Reasonable people can and do
disagree on whether such consequences exist and, if so, on their extent and seriousness, but
ordinarily a body of data accumulates—from work by academic researchers, government
agencies, and other sources—that strongly points to extensive and serious consequences. The
reasons for these consequences are often hotly debated, and sometimes the very existence of
these consequences is disputed. A current example is climate change: Although the
overwhelming majority of climate scientists say that climate change (changes in the earth’s
climate due to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) is real and serious, fewer
argue that climate change is not happening.

Before the 1970s, rape and sexual assault certainly existed and were very common, but they were
generally ignored and not considered a social problem. When the contemporary women’s
movement arose during the 1970s, it focused on sexual violence against women and turned this
behavior into a social problem

This type of dispute points to the subjective component of the definition of social problems:
There must be a perception that a condition or behavior needs to be addressed for it to be
considered a social problem. This component lies at the heart of the social constructionist
view of social problems (Rubington & Weinberg, 2010). In this view, many types of negative
conditions and behaviors exist. Many of these are considered sufficiently negative to acquire the
status of a social problem; some do not receive this consideration and thus do not become a
social problem; and some become considered a social problem only if citizens, policymakers, or
other parties call attention to the condition or behavior.
The social constructionist view raises an interesting question: When is a social problem a social
problem?

 According to some sociologists who adopt this view, negative conditions and behaviors
are not a social problem unless they are recognized as such by policymakers, large
numbers of lay citizens, or other segments of our society; these sociologists would thus
say that rape and sexual assault before the 1970s were not a social problem because our
society as a whole paid them little attention.
 Other sociologists say that negative conditions and behaviors should be considered a
social problem even if they receive little or no attention; these sociologists would thus say
that rape and sexual assault before the 1970s were a social problem.

This type of debate is probably akin to the age-old question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one
is there to hear it, is a sound made? As such, it is not easy to answer, but it does reinforce one of
the key beliefs of the social constructionist view: Perception matters at least as much as reality,
and sometimes more so. In line with this belief, social constructionism emphasizes that citizens,
interest groups, policymakers, and other parties often compete to influence popular perceptions
of many types of conditions and behaviors. They try to influence news media coverage and
popular views of the nature and extent of any negative consequences that may be occurring, the
reasons underlying the condition or behavior in question, and possible solutions to the problem.

The Natural History of a Social Problem

We have just discussed some of the difficulties in defining a social problem and the fact that
various parties often try to influence public perceptions of social problems. These issues aside,
most social problems go through a natural history consisting of several stages of their
development (Spector & Kitsuse, 2001).

Stage 1: Emergence and Claims Making

A social problem emerges when a social entity (such as a social change group, the news media,
or influential politicians) begins to call attention to a condition or behavior that it perceives to be
undesirable and in need of remedy. As part of this process, it tries to influence public perceptions
of the problem, the reasons for it, and possible solutions to it. Because the social entity is making
claims about all these matters, this aspect of Stage 1 is termed the claims-making process. Not
all efforts to turn a condition or behavior into a social problem succeed, and if they do not
succeed, a social problem does not emerge. Because of the resources they have or do not have,
some social entities are more likely than others to succeed at this stage. A few ordinary
individuals have little influence in the public sphere, but masses of individuals who engage in
protest or other political activity have greater ability to help a social problem emerge. Because
politicians have the ear of the news media and other types of influence, their views about social
problems are often very influential. Most studies of this stage of a social problem focus on the
efforts of social change groups and the larger social movement to which they may belong, as
most social problems begin with bottom-up efforts from such groups.
 A social problem emerges when a social change group successfully calls attention to a condition
or behavior that it considers serious. Protests like the one depicted here have raised the
environmental consciousness of Americans and helped put pressure on businesses to be
environmentally responsible.

Stage 2: Legitimacy

Once a social group succeeds in turning a condition or behavior into a social problem, it usually
tries to persuade the government (local, state, and/or federal) to take some action—spending and
policymaking—to address the problem. As part of this effort, it tries to convince the government
that its claims about the problem are legitimate—that they make sense and are supported
by empirical (research-based) evidence. To the extent that the group succeeds in convincing the
government of the legitimacy of its claims, government action is that much more likely to occur.

Stage 3: Renewed Claims Making

Even if government action does occur, social change groups often conclude that the action is too
limited in goals or scope to be able to successfully address the social problem. If they reach this
conclusion, they often decide to press their demands anew. They do so by reasserting their
claims and by criticizing the official response they have received from the government or other
established interests, such as big businesses. This stage may involve a fair amount of tension
between the social change groups and these targets of their claims.

Stage 4: Development of Alternative Strategies

Despite the renewed claims making, social change groups often conclude that the government
and established interests are not responding adequately to their claims. Although the groups may
continue to press their claims, they nonetheless realize that these claims may fail to win an
adequate response from established interests. This realization leads them to develop their own
strategies for addressing the social problem.

Key Takeaways

 The definition of a social problem has both an objective component and a subjective
component. The objective component involves empirical evidence of the negative
consequences of a social condition or behavior, while the subjective component involves the
perception that the condition or behavior is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed.
 The social constructionist view emphasizes that a condition or behavior does not become a
social problem unless there is a perception that it should be considered a social problem.
 The natural history of a social problem consists of four stages: emergence and claims making,
legitimacy, renewed claims making, and alternative strategies.

For Your Review

1. What do you think is the most important social problem facing our nation right now? Explain
your answer.
2. Do you agree with the social constructionist view that a negative social condition or behavior is
not a social problem unless there is a perception that it should be considered a social problem?
Why or why not?

2.2 Sociological Perspectives on Social Problems

Learning Objectives

1. Define the sociological imagination.

2. Explain what is meant by the blaming-the-victim belief.
3. Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of functionalism and conflict theory.
4. Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of symbolic interactionism and
exchange theory.

The sociological understanding of social problems rests heavily on the concept of

the sociological imagination.

The Sociological Imagination

Many individuals experience one or more social problems personally. For example, many people
are poor and unemployed, many are in poor health, and many have family problems, drink too
much alcohol, or commit crime. When we hear about these individuals, it is easy to think that
their problems are theirs alone, and that they and other individuals with the same problems are
entirely to blame for their difficulties.

Sociology takes a different approach, as it stresses that individual problems are often rooted in
problems stemming from aspects of society itself. This key insight informed C. Wright Mills’s
(1959) (Mills, 1959) classic distinction between personal troubles and public issues. Personal
troubles refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other
members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own personal and moral failings.
Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and
unemployment. Public issues, whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society,
refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Problems in society thus help account for
problems that individuals experience. Mills felt that many problems ordinarily considered private
troubles are best understood as public issues, and he coined the term sociological imagination to
refer to the ability to appreciate the structural basis for individual problems.

To illustrate Mills’s viewpoint, let’s use our sociological imaginations to understand some
contemporary social problems - UNEMPLOYMENT. If only a few people were unemployed,
Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment by saying they were lazy, lacked
good work habits, and so forth. If so, their unemployment would be their own personal trouble.
But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best understood as a public issue
because, as Mills (Mills, 1959) put it, “the very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the
correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the
economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and
character of a scatter of individuals.”

When only a few people are out of work, it is fair to say that their unemployment is their
personal trouble. However, when millions of people are out of work, as has been true since the
economic downturn began in 2008, this massive unemployment is more accurately viewed as a
public issue. As such, its causes lie not in the unemployed individuals but rather in our society’s
economic and social systems.

Blaming the victim rather than blaming the system : Picking up on Mills’s insights, William
Ryan (1976) (Ryan, 1976) pointed out that Americans typically think that social problems such
as poverty and unemployment stem from personal failings of the people experiencing these
problems, not from structural problems in the larger society. Using Mills’s terms, Americans
tend to think of social problems as personal troubles rather than public issues. As Ryan put it,
they tend to believe in blaming the victim rather than blaming the system.

To help us understand a blaming-the-victim ideology, let’s consider why poor children in urban
areas often learn very little in their schools. According to Ryan, a blaming-the-victim approach
would say the children’s parents do not care about their learning, fail to teach them good study
habits, and do not encourage them to take school seriously. This type of explanation, he wrote,
may apply to some parents, but it ignores a much more important reason: the sad shape of
America’s urban schools, which, he said, are overcrowded, decrepit structures housing old
textbooks and out-of-date equipment. To improve the schooling of children in urban areas, he
wrote, we must improve the schools themselves and not just try to “improve” the parents.

If we blame the victim, we would spend our limited resources to address the personal failings of
individuals who suffer from poverty, illiteracy, poor health, and other difficulties. If instead we
blame the system, we would focus our attention on the various social conditions (decrepit
schools, inadequate health facilities, and the like) that account for these difficulties. A
sociological understanding suggests that the latter approach is ultimately needed to help us deal
successfully with the social problems facing us today.

Theoretical Perspectives

Three theoretical perspectives guide sociological thinking on social

problems: functionalist theory, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionist theory. These
perspectives look at the same social problems, but they do so in different ways. Their views
taken together offer a fuller understanding of social problems than any of the views can offer
alone. Table 1.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes the three perspectives.

Table 1.1 Theory Snapshot

Theoretical
Major assumptions Views of social problems
perspective

Social problems weaken a society’s

Social stability is necessary for a stability but do not reflect
strong society, and adequate fundamental faults in how the
socialization and social integration are society is structured. Solutions to
necessary for social stability. social problems should take the
Functionalism Society’s social institutions perform form of gradual social reform rather
important functions to help ensure than sudden and far-reaching
social stability. Slow social change is change. Despite their negative
desirable, but rapid social change effects, social problems often also
threatens social order. serve important functions for
society.

Social problems arise from

fundamental faults in the structure
Society is characterized by pervasive
of a society and both reflect and
inequality based on social class, race,
reinforce inequalities based on
Conflict gender, and other factors. Far-
social class, race, gender, and other
theory reaching social change is needed to
dimensions. Successful solutions to
reduce or eliminate social inequality
social problems must involve far-
and to create an egalitarian society.
reaching change in the structure of
society.

People construct their roles as they

interact; they do not merely learn the
Social problems arise from the
roles that society has set out for them.
interaction of individuals. People
As this interaction occurs, individuals
who engage in socially problematic
negotiate their definitions of the
Symbolic behaviors often learn these
situations in which they find
interactionism behaviors from other people.
themselves and socially construct the
Individuals also learn their
reality of these situations. In so doing,
perceptions of social problems from
they rely heavily on symbols such as
other people.
words and gestures to reach a shared
understanding of their interaction.
 Applying the Three Perspectives

To explain armed robbery, symbolic interactionists focus on how armed robbers decide when
and where to rob a victim and on how their interactions with other criminals reinforce their own
criminal tendencies.

To help you further understand the different views of these three theoretical perspectives, let’s
see what they would probably say about armed robbery, a very serious form of crime, while
recognizing that the three perspectives together provide a more comprehensive understanding of
armed robbery than any one perspective provides by itself.

A functionalist approach might suggest that armed robbery actually serves positive functions for
society, such as the job-creating function mentioned earlier for crime in general. It would still
think that efforts should be made to reduce armed robbery, but it would also assume that far-
reaching changes in our society would be neither wise nor necessary as part of the effort to
reduce crime.

Conflict theory would take a very different approach to understanding armed robbery. It might
note that most street criminals are poor and thus emphasize that armed robbery is the result of the
despair and frustration of living in poverty and facing a lack of jobs and other opportunities for
economic and social success. The roots of street crime, from the perspective of conflict theory,
thus lie in society at least as much as they lie in the individuals committing such crime. To
reduce armed robbery and other street crime, conflict theory would advocate far-reaching
changes in the economic structure of society.

For its part, symbolic interactionism would focus on how armed robbers make such decisions as
when and where to rob someone and on how their interactions with other criminals reinforce
their own criminal tendencies. It would also investigate how victims of armed robbery behave
when confronted by a robber. To reduce armed robbery, it would advocate programs that
reduce the opportunities for interaction among potential criminal offenders, for example,
after-school programs that keep at-risk youths busy in “conventional” activities so that they have
less time to spend with youths who might help them get into trouble.

Key Takeaways

 According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to recognize
that private troubles are rooted in public issues and structural problems.
 Functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions for social stability and implies
that far-reaching social change will be socially harmful.
 Conflict theory emphasizes social inequality and suggests that far-reaching social change is
needed to achieve a just society.
 Symbolic interactionism emphasizes the social meanings and understandings that individuals
derive from their social interaction.

For Your Review

1. Select an example of a “private trouble” and explain how and why it may reflect a structural
problem in society.
2. At this point in your study of social problems, which one of the three sociological theoretical
perspectives sounds most appealing to you? Why?

2.3 Continuity and Change in Social Problems

Learning Objectives

1. List the three sources of changes to social problems.

2. Describe how the United States compares to other democracies regarding the seriousness of
social problems.

Although social problems are indeed persistent, it is also true that certain problems are less
serious now than in the past. Change is possible.

How does change occur?

1. One source of change in social problems is social science theory and research. Over the
decades, theory and research in sociology and the other social sciences have pointed to
the reasons for social problems, to potentially successful ways of addressing them, and to
actual policies that succeeded in addressing some aspect of a social problem.

The actions of individuals and groups may also make a difference. Many people have public-
service jobs or volunteer in all sorts of activities involving a social problem. Others take on a
more activist orientation by becoming involved in small social change groups or a larger social
movement..

Sharing this view, anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Change thus is not easy, but it can and does occur. Eleanor Roosevelt (Roosevelt, 1960)
recognized this when she wrote, “Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope
rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing
has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’” In the optimistic spirit of
these two famous women, we will see examples throughout this book of people making a
difference in their jobs, volunteer activities, and involvement in social change efforts.

2. Change also occurs in social problems because policymakers (elected or appointed

officials and other individuals) pass laws or enact policies that successfully address a
social problem. They often do so only because of the pressure of a social movement, but
sometimes they have the vision to act without such pressure. It is also true that many
officials fail to take action despite the pressure of a social movement, so those who do
take action should be applauded.
 3. A final source of change is the lessons learned from other nations’ experiences with
social problems.

Key Takeaways

 Social problems are persistent, but they have also changed over the years, and many social
problems are less serious now than in the past.
 Three sources of change to social problems include social science research, the efforts of
citizens acting alone or especially in social change groups, and the experiences of other
nations.

For Your Review

1. Have you participated in any volunteer or other activity involving a social problem? If so, why
did you do so? If not, why have you not participated in such an effort?
2. Do you share Eleanor Roosevelt’s optimism that social change is possible? Why or why not?

Summary

1. Some sociologists favor the social constructionist view that negative social conditions or
behaviors are not social problems unless they are generally perceived as a social problem, but
other sociologists say that these conditions and behaviors are still social problems even if they
are not perceived as such.
2. According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to realize that
personal troubles are rooted in problems in the larger social structure. The sociological
imagination thus supports a blaming-the-system view over a blaming-the-victim view.
3. Social problems have existed for decades or even centuries, but many of these have also
lessened in their seriousness over time, and change in the future is indeed possible.
4. Several theoretical perspectives in sociology exist. Functionalism emphasizes the functions that
social institutions serve to ensure the ongoing stability of society, while conflict theory focuses
on the conflict among different racial, ethnic, social class, and other groups and emphasizes
how social institutions help ensure inequality. Symbolic interactionism focuses on how
individuals interpret the meanings of the situations in which they find themselves.

PART 3
Poverty
3.1 Explaining Poverty

Learning Objectives
1. Describe the assumptions of the functionalist and conflict views of stratification and of
poverty.
2. Explain the focus of symbolic interactionist work on poverty.
3. Understand the difference between the individualist and structural explanations of poverty.

Why does poverty exist, and why and how do poor people end up being poor? The
sociological perspectives provide some possible answers to these questions through their attempt
to explain why society is stratified—that is, why it has a range of wealth ranging from the
extremely wealthy to the extremely poor. We review what these perspectives say generally
about social stratification (rankings of people based on wealth and other resources a society
values) before turning to explanations focusing specifically on poverty.

In general, the functionalist perspective and conflict perspective both try to explain why social
stratification exists and endures, while the symbolic interactionist perspective discusses the
differences that stratification produces for everyday interaction. Table 2.1 “Theory
Snapshot” summarizes these three approaches.

Table 3.1. Theory Snapshot

Theoretical
Major assumptions
perspective

Stratification is necessary to induce people with special intelligence,

Functionalism knowledge, and skills to enter the most important occupations. For this
reason, stratification is necessary and inevitable.

Stratification results from lack of opportunity and from discrimination and

Conflict theory prejudice against the poor, women, and people of color. It is neither
necessary nor inevitable.

Symbolic Stratification affects people’s beliefs, lifestyles, daily interaction, and

interactionism conceptions of themselves.

The Functionalist View

 Functionalist theory assumes that society’s structures and processes exist because they serve
important functions for society’s stability and continuity. In line with this view, functionalist
theorists in sociology assume that stratification exists because it also serves important functions
for society. This explanation was developed more than sixty years ago by Kingsley Davis and
Wilbert Moore (Davis & Moore, 1945) in the form of several logical assumptions that imply
stratification is both necessary and inevitable. When applied to developed societies, their
assumptions would be as follows:

1. Some jobs are more important than other jobs. For example, the job of a brain surgeon is
more important than the job of shoe shining.
2. Some jobs require more skills and knowledge than other jobs. To stay with our example, it
takes more skills and knowledge to perform brain surgery than to shine shoes.
3. Relatively few people have the ability to acquire the skills and knowledge that are needed
to do these important, highly skilled jobs. Most of us would be able to do a decent job of
shining shoes, but very few of us would be able to become brain surgeons.
4. To encourage the people with the skills and knowledge to do the important, highly skilled
jobs, society must promise them higher incomes or other rewards. If this is true, some people
automatically end up higher in society’s ranking system than others, and stratification is thus
necessary and inevitable.

To illustrate their assumptions, say we have a society where shining shoes and doing brain
surgery both give us incomes of $150,000 per year. (This example is very hypothetical, but
please keep reading.) If you decide to shine shoes, you can begin making this money at age 16,
but if you decide to become a brain surgeon, you will not start making this same amount until
about age 35, as you must first go to college and medical school and then acquire several more
years of medical training. While you have spent nineteen additional years beyond age 16 getting
this education and training and taking out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, you could
have spent those years shining shoes and making $150,000 a year, or $2.85 million overall.
Which job would you choose?

Functional theory argues that the promise of very high incomes is necessary to encourage
talented people to pursue important careers such as surgery. If physicians and shoe shiners
made the same high income, would enough people decide to become physicians?

As this example suggests, many people might not choose to become brain surgeons unless
considerable financial and other rewards awaited them. By extension, we might not have enough
people filling society’s important jobs unless they know they will be similarly rewarded. If this is
true, we must have stratification. And if we must have stratification, then that means some
people will have much less money than other people. If stratification is inevitable, then, poverty
is also inevitable. The functionalist view further implies that if people are poor, it is because they
do not have the ability to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary for the important, high-
paying jobs.
The functionalist view sounds very logical, but a few years after Davis and Moore published
their theory, other sociologists pointed out some serious problems in their argument (Tumin,
1953; Wrong, 1959).

1. First, it is difficult to compare the importance of many types of jobs. For example,
which is more important, doing brain surgery or mining coal? Although you might be
tempted to answer with brain surgery, if no coal were mined then much of our society
could not function. In another example, which job is more important, attorney or
professor? (Be careful how you answer this one!)
2. Second, the functionalist explanation implies that the most important jobs have the
highest incomes and the least important jobs the lowest incomes, but many
examples, including the ones just mentioned, counter this view. Coal miners make
much less money than physicians, and professors, for better or worse, earn much less on
the average than lawyers. A professional athlete making millions of dollars a year earns
many times the income of the president of the United States, but who is more important
to the nation? Elementary school teachers do a very important job in our society, but their
salaries are much lower than those of sports agents, advertising executives, and many
other people whose jobs are far less essential.
3. Third, the functionalist view assumes that people move up the economic ladder
based on their abilities, skills, knowledge, and, more generally, their merit. This
implies that if they do not move up the ladder, they lack the necessary merit.
However, this view ignores the fact that much of our stratification stems from lack of
equal opportunity. As later chapters in this book discuss, because of their race,
ethnicity, gender, and class standing at birth, some people have less opportunity than
others to acquire the skills and training they need to fill the types of jobs addressed by the
functionalist approach.

Finally, the functionalist explanation might make sense up to a point, but it does not justify the
extremes of wealth and poverty. Even if we do have to promise higher incomes to get enough
people to become physicians, does that mean we also need the amount of poverty we have? Do
CEOs of corporations really need to make millions of dollars per year to get enough qualified
people to become CEOs? Do people take on a position as CEO or other high-paying job at least
partly because of the challenge, working conditions, and other positive aspects they offer? The
functionalist view does not answer these questions adequately.

One other line of functionalist thinking focuses more directly on poverty than generally on
stratification. This particular functionalist view provocatively argues that poverty exists because
it serves certain positive functions for our society. These functions include the following: (1)
poor people do the work that other people do not want to do; (2) the programs that help
poor people provide a lot of jobs for the people employed by the programs; (3) the poor
purchase goods, such as day-old bread and used clothing, that other people do not wish to
purchase, and thus extend the economic value of these goods; and (4) the poor provide jobs
for doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals who may not be competent enough
to be employed in positions catering to wealthier patients, clients, students, and so forth
(Gans, 1972). Because poverty serves all these functions and more, according to this
argument, the middle and upper classes have a vested interested in neglecting poverty to
help ensure its continued existence.
The Conflict View

Because he was born in a log cabin and later became president, Abraham Lincoln’s life
epitomizes the American Dream, which is the belief that people born into poverty can become
successful through hard work. The popularity of this belief leads many Americans to blame poor
people for their poverty.

Conflict theory’s explanation of stratification draws on Karl Marx’s view of class societies
and incorporates the critique of the functionalist view just discussed. Many different
explanations grounded in conflict theory exist, but they all assume that stratification stems from
a fundamental conflict between the needs and interests of the powerful, or “haves,” in society
and those of the weak, or “have-nots” (Kerbo, 2012). The former take advantage of their
position at the top of society to stay at the top, even if it means oppressing those at the
bottom. At a minimum, they can heavily influence the law, the media, and other
institutions in a way that maintains society’s class structure.

In general, conflict theory attributes stratification and thus poverty to lack of opportunity from
discrimination and prejudice against the poor, women, and people of color. In this regard, it
reflects one of the early critiques of the functionalist view that the previous section outlined. To
reiterate an earlier point, several of the remaining chapters of this book discuss the various
obstacles that make it difficult for the poor, women, and people of color in the United States to
move up the socioeconomic ladder and to otherwise enjoy healthy and productive lives.

Symbolic Interactionism

Consistent with its micro orientation, symbolic interactionism tries to understand

stratification and thus poverty by looking at people’s interaction and understandings in
their daily lives. Unlike the functionalist and conflict views, it does not try to explain why we
have stratification in the first place. Rather, it examines the differences that stratification
makes for people’s lifestyles and their interaction with other people.

Many detailed, insightful sociological books on the lives of the urban and rural poor reflect the
symbolic interactionist perspective (Anderson, 1999; C. M. Duncan, 2000; Liebow, 1993; Rank,
1994). These books focus on different people in different places, but they all make very clear that
the poor often lead lives of quiet desperation and must find ways of coping with the fact of
being poor. In these books, the consequences of poverty discussed later in this chapter acquire a
human face, and readers learn in great detail what it is like to live in poverty on a daily basis.

Some classic journalistic accounts by authors not trained in the social sciences also present
eloquent descriptions of poor people’s lives (Bagdikian, 1964; Harrington, 1962). Writing in this
tradition, a newspaper columnist who grew up in poverty recently recalled, “I know the feel of
thick calluses on the bottom of shoeless feet. I know the bite of the cold breeze that slithers
through a drafty house. I know the weight of constant worry over not having enough to fill a
belly or fight an illness…Poverty is brutal, consuming and unforgiving. It strikes at the soul”
(Blow, 2011).
Sociological accounts of the poor provide a vivid portrait of what it is like to live in poverty on a
daily basis.

On a more lighthearted note, examples of the symbolic interactionist framework are also seen in
the many literary works and films that portray the difficulties that the rich and poor have in
interacting on the relatively few occasions when they do interact. For example, in the
film Pretty Woman, Richard Gere plays a rich businessman who hires a prostitute, played by
Julia Roberts, to accompany him to swank parties and other affairs. Roberts has to buy a new
wardrobe and learn how to dine and behave in these social settings, and much of the film’s
humor and poignancy come from her awkwardness in learning the lifestyle of the rich.

Specific Explanations of Poverty

The functionalist and conflict views focus broadly on social stratification but only
indirectly on poverty. When poverty finally attracted national attention during the 1960s,
scholars began to try specifically to understand why poor people become poor and remain poor.
Two competing explanations developed, with the basic debate turning on whether poverty
arises from problems either within the poor themselves or in the society in which they live
(Rank, 2011). The first type of explanation follows logically from the functional theory of
stratification and may be considered an individualistic explanation. The second type of
explanation follows from conflict theory and is a structural explanation that focuses on
problems in American society that produce poverty. Table 2.2 “Explanations of
Poverty” summarizes these explanations.

Table 3.2 Explanations of Poverty

Explanation Major assumptions

Poverty results from the fact that poor people lack the motivation to work and
Individualistic
have certain beliefs and values that contribute to their poverty.

Poverty results from problems in society that lead to a lack of opportunity and
Structural
a lack of jobs.

It is critical to determine which explanation makes more sense because, as sociologist Theresa C.
Davidson (Davidson, 2009) observes, “beliefs about the causes of poverty shape attitudes
toward the poor.” To be more precise, the particular explanation that people favor affects their
view of government efforts to help the poor. Those who attribute poverty to problems in the
 larger society are much more likely than those who attribute it to deficiencies among the poor to
believe that the government should do more to help the poor (Bradley & Cole, 2002). The
explanation for poverty we favor presumably affects the amount of sympathy we have for the
poor, and our sympathy, or lack of sympathy, in turn affects our views about the government’s
role in helping the poor. With this backdrop in mind, what do the individualistic and structural
explanations of poverty say?

Individualistic Explanation

According to the individualistic explanation, the poor have personal problems and
deficiencies that are responsible for their poverty. In the past, the poor were thought to be
biologically inferior, a view that has not entirely faded, but today the much more common belief
is that they lack the ambition and motivation to work hard and to achieve success. Different
surveys indiacte that many people share this thinking. A more sophisticated version of this type
of explanation is called the culture of poverty theory (Banfield, 1974; Lewis, 1966; Murray,
2012). According to this theory, the poor generally have beliefs and values that differ from those
of the non-poor and that doom them to continued poverty. For example, they are said to be
impulsive and to live for the present rather than the future.

Regardless of which version one might hold, the individualistic explanation is a blaming-the-
victim approach. Critics say this explanation ignores discrimination and other problems in
different societies and exaggerates the degree to which the poor and nonpoor do in fact hold
different values (Ehrenreich, 2012; Holland, 2011; Schmidt, 2012). Regarding the latter point,
they note that poor employed adults work more hours per week than wealthier adults and that
poor parents interviewed in surveys value education for their children at least as much as
wealthier parents. These and other similarities in values and beliefs lead critics of the
individualistic explanation to conclude that poor people’s poverty cannot reasonably be said to
result from a culture of poverty.

Structural Explanation

According to the second, structural explanation, which is a blaming-the-system approach,

poverty stems from problems in the society that lead to a lack of equal opportunity and a
lack of jobs. These problems include (a) racial, ethnic, gender, and age discrimination; (b) lack
of good schooling and adequate health care; and (c) structural changes in the economic system.
These problems help create a vicious cycle of poverty in which children of the poor are often
fated to end up in poverty or near poverty themselves as adults.

Key Takeaways

 According to the functionalist view, stratification is a necessary and inevitable consequence of

the need to use the promise of financial reward to encourage talented people to pursue
important jobs and careers.
 According to conflict theory, stratification results from lack of opportunity and discrimination
against the poor and people of color.
 According to symbolic interactionism, social class affects how people interact in everyday life
and how they view certain aspects of the social world.
 The individualistic view attributes poverty to individual failings of poor people themselves,
while the structural view attributes poverty to problems in the larger society.

For Your Review

1. In explaining poverty in the United States, which view, individualist or structural, makes more
sense to you? Why?
2. Suppose you could wave a magic wand and invent a society where everyone had about the
same income no matter which job he or she performed. Do you think it would be difficult to
persuade enough people to become physicians or to pursue other important careers? Explain
your answer.

3.2 The Consequences of Poverty

Learning Objectives

1. Describe the family and housing problems associated with poverty.

2. Explain how poverty affects health and educational attainment.

Regardless of its causes, poverty has devastating consequences for the people who live in it.
Much research conducted and/or analyzed by scholars, government agencies, and nonprofit
organizations has documented the effects of poverty (and near poverty) on the lives of the poor.
Many of these studies focus on childhood poverty, and these studies make it very clear that
childhood poverty has lifelong consequences. In general, poor children are more likely to be poor
as adults, more likely to drop out of high school, more likely to become a teenaged parent, and
more likely to have employment problems. In the United States for example, although only 1
percent of children who are never poor end up being poor as young adults, 32 percent of poor
children become poor as young adults (Ratcliffe & McKernan, 2010).

Poor children are more likely to have inadequate nutrition and to experience health, behavioral,
and cognitive problems.

A study used government data to follow children born between 1968 and 1975 until they were
ages 30 to 37 (Duncan & Magnuson, 2011) in the US. The researchers compared individuals
who lived in poverty in early childhood to those whose families had incomes at least twice the
poverty line in early childhood. Compared to the latter group, adults who were poor in early
childhood
 had completed two fewer years of schooling on the average;
 had incomes that were less than half of those earned by adults who had wealthier childhoods;
 received $826 more annually in food stamps on the average;
 were almost three times more likely to report being in poor health;
 were twice as likely to have been arrested (males only); and
 were five times as likely to have borne a child (females only).

We discuss some of the major specific consequences of poverty here and will return to them in
later chapters.

Family Problems

The poor are at greater risk for family problems, including divorce and domestic violence. A
major reason for many of the problems families experience is stress. Even in families that are not
poor, running a household can cause stress, children can cause stress, and paying the bills can
cause stress. Families that are poor have more stress because of their poverty, and the ordinary
stresses of family life become even more intense in poor families. The various kinds of family
problems thus happen more commonly in poor families than in wealthier families. Compounding
this situation, when these problems occur, poor families have fewer resources than wealthier
families to deal with these problems.

Health, Illness, and Medical Care

The poor are also more likely to have many kinds of health problems, including infant mortality,
earlier adulthood mortality, and mental illness, and they are also more likely to receive
inadequate medical care. Poor children are more likely to have inadequate nutrition and, partly
for this reason, to suffer health, behavioral, and cognitive problems. These problems in turn
impair their ability to do well in school and land stable employment as adults, helping to ensure
that poverty will persist across generations.

Education

Poor children typically go to rundown schools with inadequate facilities where they receive
inadequate schooling. They are much less likely than wealthier children to graduate from high
school or to go to college. Their lack of education in turn restricts them and their own children to
poverty, once again helping to ensure a vicious cycle of continuing poverty across generations.

Scholars debate whether the poor school performance of poor children stems more from the
inadequacy of their schools and schooling versus their own poverty. Regardless of exactly why
poor children are more likely to do poorly in school and to have low educational attainment,
these educational problems are another major consequence of poverty.
 Housing and Homelessness

The poor are, not surprisingly, more likely to be homeless than the nonpoor but also more likely
to live in dilapidated housing and unable to buy their own homes. Many poor families spend
more than half their income on rent, and they tend to live in poor neighborhoods that lack job
opportunities, good schools, and other features of modern life that wealthier people take for
granted. The lack of adequate housing for the poor remains a major national problem. Even
worse is outright homelessness. An estimated 1.6 million people, including more than 300,000
children, are homeless at least part of the year (Lee, et. al., 2010).

Key Takeaways

 Poor people are more likely to have several kinds of family problems, including divorce and
family conflict.
 Poor people are more likely to have several kinds of health problems.
 Children growing up in poverty are less likely to graduate high school or go to college, and
they are more likely to commit street crime.

For Your Review

1. Write a brief essay that summarizes the consequences of poverty.

2. Why do you think poor children are more likely to develop health problems?

3.3 Reducing Poverty

Learning Objectives

1. Describe how to reduce global poverty from a sociological perspective.

Global Poverty

Years of international aid to poor nations have helped them somewhat, but still their situation
remains dire. International aid experts acknowledge that efforts to achieve economic growth in
poor nations have largely failed, but they disagree why this is so and what alternative strategies
may prove more successful (Cohen & Easterly, 2009).Cohen, J., & Easterly, W. (Eds.).
(2009). What works in development? Thinking big and thinking small. Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution Press.

One very promising trend has been a switch from macro efforts focusing on infrastructure
problems and on social institutions, such as the schools, to micro efforts, such as providing
 cash payments or small loans directly to poor people in poor nations (a practice
called microfinancing) and giving them bed nets to prevent mosquito bites (Banerjee & Duflo,
2011; Hanlon, Barrientos, & Hulme, 2010; Karlan & Appel, 2011).Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E.
(2011). Poor economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty. New York, NY:
PublicAffairs; Hanlon, J., Barrientos, A., & Hulme, D. (2010). Just give money to the poor: The
development revolution from the global south. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press; Karlan, D., &
Appel, J. (2011). More than good intentions: How a new economics is helping to solve global
poverty. New York, NY: Dutton. However, the evidence on the success of these efforts is mixed
(Bennett, 2009; The Economist, 2010).Bennett, D. (2009, September 20). Small change. The
Boston Globe. Retrieved
from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/20/small_change_does_microle
nding_actually_fight_poverty/; The Economist. (2010). A better mattress. The Economist,
394(8673), 75–76. Much more to help the world’s poor certainly needs to be done.

In this regard, sociology’s structural approach is in line with dependency theory and
suggests that global stratification results from the history of colonialism and from
continuing exploitation today of poor nations’ resources by wealthy nations and
multinational corporations. To the extent such exploitation exists, global poverty will lessen if
and only if this exploitation lessens. A sociological approach also emphasizes the role that
class, gender, and ethnic inequality play in perpetuating global poverty. For global poverty to be
reduced, gender and ethnic inequality must be reduced.

Writers Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (2010)Kristoff, N. D., & WuDunn, S.
(2010). Half the sky: Turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide. New York, NY:
Vintage Books. emphasize the need to focus efforts to reduce global poverty of women. This is
mainly because women are much worse off than men in poor nations in many ways, so helping
them is crucial for both economic and humanitarian reasons. An additional reason is especially
illuminating: When women in poor nations acquire extra money, they typically spend it on food,
clothing, and medicine, essentials for their families. However, when men in poor nations acquire
extra money, they often spend it on alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. This gender difference
might sound like a stereotype, but it does indicate that aid to women will help in many ways,
while aid to men might be less effective and often even wasted.

Key Takeaways

 To help people in poor nations, gender and ethnic inequality must be addressed.

For Your Review

1. Write a brief essay summarizing any policy or programs that could potentially lower poverty
that exists in Ethiopia.

Summary
1. Poverty statistics are misleading in at least two ways. First, the way that poverty is measured is
inadequate for several reasons, and more accurate measures of poverty that have recently been
developed suggest that poverty is higher than the official poverty measure indicates. Second,
even if people live slightly above the poverty line, they are still living in very difficult
circumstances and are having trouble making ends meet.
2. To explain social stratification and thus poverty, functionalist theory says that stratification is
necessary and inevitable because of the need to encourage people with the needed knowledge
and skills to decide to pursue the careers that are most important to society. Conflict theory
says stratification exists because of discrimination against, and blocked opportunities for, the
have-nots of society. Symbolic interactionist theory does not try to explain why stratification
and poverty exist, but it does attempt to understand the experience of being poor.
3. The individualistic explanation attributes poverty to individual failings of poor people
themselves, while the structuralist explanation attributes poverty to lack of jobs and lack of
opportunity in the larger society.
4. Poverty has serious consequences in many respects. Among other problems, poor children are
more likely to grow up to be poor, to have health problems, to commit street crime, and to have
lower levels of formal education.
5. The nations of the world differ dramatically in wealth and other resources, with the poorest
nations being found in Africa and parts of Asia.
6. Global poverty has a devastating impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people
throughout the world. Poor nations have much higher rates of mortality and disease and lower
rates of literacy.
7. Modernization theory attributes global poverty to the failure of poor nations to develop the
necessary beliefs, values, and practices to achieve economic growth, while dependency theory
attributes global poverty to the colonization and exploitation by European nations of nations in
other parts of the world.
8. A sociological perspective suggests that poverty reduction in the United States and around the
world can occur if the structural causes of poverty are successfully addressed.

What You Can Do

To help fight poverty and the effects of poverty, what can you do?.

PART 4

Emerging and Contemporary Social Issues

4.1. Unemployment and Inequality

4.1.1 What Is Unemployment?

 Learning Objectives

1/ Define “unemployment.”

2/ Explain the types of unemployment.

Meaning of Unemployment

Unemployment is a term referring to individuals who are employable and actively seeking a job
but are unable to find a job. Included in this group are those people in the workforce who are
working but do not have an appropriate job. Usually measured by the unemployment rate, which
is dividing the number of unemployed people by the total number of people in the workforce,
unemployment serves as one of the indicators - Economic Indicators. An economic indicator is
a metric used to assess, measure, and evaluate the overall state of health of the macro economy.

The term “unemployment” is often misunderstood, it as it includes people who are waiting to
return to a job after being discharged, yet it does not include individuals who have stopped
looking for work in the past four weeks due to various reasons such as leaving work to pursue
higher education, retirement or people who are on Social Security - government program that
provides social insurance and benefits to people with inadequate or no income. Also people who
are not actively seeking a job but do want to work are not classified as unemployed.

Interestingly, people who have not looked for a job in the past four weeks but have been actively
seeking one in the last 12 months are put into a category called the “marginally attached to the
labor force.” Within this category is another category called “discouraged workers,” which
refers to people who have given up looking for a job.

The categories mentioned above sometimes causes confusion and debate as to whether the
unemployment rate fully represents the actual number of people who are unemployed. For a full
understanding, one should juxtapose “unemployment” with the term “employment,” which is
described as individuals of legal age who have recently put hours into work in the past week,
paid or otherwise, because of self-employment.

Types of Unemployment

There are basically four types of unemployment: (1) demand deficient, (2) frictional, (3)
structural, and (4) voluntary unemployment.

1. Demand deficient unemployment

Demand deficit unemployment is the biggest cause of unemployment that typically happens
during a recession. When companies experience a reduction in the demand for their products or
services, they respond by cutting back on their production, making it necessary to reduce their
workforce within the organization. In effect, workers are laid off.

2. Frictional unemployment
 Frictional unemployment is a type of unemployment that arises when workers are searching for
new jobs or are transitioning from one job to refers to those workers who are in between jobs.
An example is a worker who recently quit or was fired and is looking for a job in an economy
that is not experiencing a recession. It is not an unhealthy thing because it is usually caused by
workers trying to find a job that is most suitable to their skills.

3. Structural unemployment

Structural unemployment is a category of unemployment caused by differences between the

skills possessed by the unemployed population and this happens when the skills set of a worker
does not match the skills demanded by the jobs available, or alternatively when workers are
available but are unable to reach the geographical location of the jobs.

An example is a teaching job that requires relocation to China, but the worker cannot secure a
work visa due to certain visa restrictions. It can also happen when there is a technological change
in the organization, such as workflow automation that displaces the need for human labor.

4. Voluntary unemployment

Voluntary unemployment happens when a worker decides to leave a job because it is no longer
financially compelling. An example is a worker whose take-home pay is less than his or her cost
of living.

Key Takeaways

 Unemployment occurs when someone could work and wants to work but is unable to find
employment
 Unemployment is the state in which one has no job and has been looking for work for the past
month. Those who have stopped job searching are not counted as part of the unemployed labor
force.
 Unemployment may be classified as either a frictional, structural, cyclical, or demand-deficit
type.

For Your Review

3. Among the four types of unemployment, what do you think is the major type of unemployment
that is prevalent in the Ethiopian context? Why?

4.1.2 Causes and Effects of Unemployment?

Learning Objectives

1. Explain the cause of unemployment.

2. Describe the cause of unemployment vis-à-vis the types of unemployment.
3. Describe the effects of unemployment.

Unemployment is an economic condition in which individuals actively seeking jobs remain un-
hired. The term unemployment is used to describe anyone who is able to work, but doesn’t have
an occupation. Unemployment is one of the most common and chronic problems worldwide. The
problem of unemployment is a world-wide reality; the developed countries as well as the
developing countries suffer from it. It is a concern for individuals as well as global communities.
Unemployment is expressed as percentage of the total available work force that is unemployed,
but actively seeking employment and willing to work which is known as the unemployment rate.

With the passage of time it has become worse especially after the global economic crisis, and it
has become a threat to social development, whilst consideration must be given to
global economics. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 178 million women
and men are officially counted as unemployed in 2007 and another billion or more people are
underemployed or working low wage jobs. These numbers has increased to 212 million in late
2009. The level of unemployment varies with economic conditions and other circumstances.
Unemployment is caused by various reasons that come from either the demand side, or
employer, the supply side, or the worker. The causes of unemployment include increased
population, rapid technological change, lack of education or skills and rising cost lead to
financial, social and psychological problems.

Causes of Unemployment

There are four main causes of unemployment.

1. Increased population which leads to higher unemployment rates.

As the number of people who are looking for jobs is increasing, it is more difficult to arrange
jobs for all these huge numbers of workers. In this situation the demand for work will be more
than the available occupations. This will result in increased number of unemployed individuals.
An unemployment situation continues as long as the demand-supply gap persists.

2. Global rapid technological change

Global rapid technological change which plays a big role in the increased unemployment
problem. Many jobs which were handled by hands are being done by different machines and
technology nowadays. The new advanced technology replaced the low skilled or unskilled
workers in different factories. This made production faster and more accurate, but it resulted in
more unemployed people. For example; when personal computers replaced typewriters,
typewriter become unemployed and had to find other industries to be employed in. Additionally,
according to the International Labour Office technological progress may have had a more
substantial impact. The new technological advances have eliminated the less complicated tasks;
while at the same time require workers to have higher levels of skills. However, it is doubtful
whether technological change is leading to a net destruction of employment, if both direct and
indirect impacts are accounted for. (Combating Unemployment and Exclusion: Issues and Policy
Options, Contribution to the G7 Employment Conference submitted by the Director-General of
the International Office, Lille, 1-2 April 1996. ISBN 92-2-110158-4. International Labour
Office, Geneva, 1996.)

3. Lack of education or skills for employment.

This happens when the qualifications of a person are not sufficient to meet his job
responsibilities. If the education was not directed towards the labour market then a mismatch
occurs thus leading to structural unemployment. These individuals face difficulties in learning
new skills applicable for the required job e.g. computer skills, management and communication.
As the need for skilled and educated workers increase for employers, the employment
opportunities for those without a college education decrease leading to higher unemployment
rate. (Morgan Drake Eckstein , nd)

4. Rising Cost

Unemployment can be due to the rising cost. The rising cost makes it hard for the companies to
pay the usual optimum salary for the employees or even the minimum wage in some cases.
Hence, the employees reject low wage jobs and leave the companies. For example if the price of
petrol or electricity has increased this definitely will affect the industries or factories which
depend on these energy sources. Moreover, sometimes companies need to cut down the budget
due to an economic crisis, industrial decline, company bankruptcy, or organizational
restructuring, so the number of employees is reduced or some positions are cancelled which
increases the unemployment rates.

Causes of Unemployment by Type of Unemployment

There are seven causes of unemployment in general. Among these seven causes, four causes
create frictional unemployment. This type of unemployment is when employees leave their
job to find a better one. Two causes create structural unemployment. That is when
workers' skills or income requirements no longer match the jobs available. The seventh
cause leads to cyclical unemployment.

1. Four Causes of Frictional Unemployment

One cause of unemployment is voluntarily leaving the workforce. Some of the unemployed have
saved enough money so they can quit unfulfilling jobs. They have the luxury to search until they
find just the right opportunity.

The second cause is when workers relocate. They are unemployed until they find a position in
the new town.
The third cause is when new workers enter the workforce. This includes students who graduate
from high school, college or any higher degree program. They look for a job that fits their new
skills and qualifications. That is a primary cause of youth unemployment.

The fourth cause is when job seekers re-enter the workforce. These are people who went through
a period in their lives when they stopped looking for work. They could have stopped working to
raise children, get married or care for elderly relatives. These four causes are an unavoidable part
of the job search process. The good news is that frictional unemployment is usually voluntary
and short-term.

2. Two Causes of Structural Unemployment

Structural unemployment is neither voluntary nor short-term. These next two causes lead to
long-term unemployment.

The fifth cause is advances in technology. This is when computers or robots replace workers.
Most of these workers need more training before they can find a new job in their field.

The sixth cause is job outsourcing. That is when a company moves its manufacturing or call
centers to another country. Labor costs are cheaper in countries (Asia or Africa) with a
lower cost of living.

3. Causes of Cyclical Unemployment

The seventh cause of unemployment is when there are fewer jobs than applicants. The technical
term is demand-deficient unemployment. When it happens during the recession phase of
the business cycle, it's called cyclical unemployment.

Low consumer demand creates cyclical unemployment. Companies lose too much profit when
demand falls. If they don't expect sales to pick up anytime soon, they must lay off workers. The
higher unemployment causes consumer demand to drop even more, which is why it’s cyclical.
It results in large-scale unemployment.

Examples include the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Depression of 1929.

Not All Causes of Joblessness Create Unemployment

If someone gives up looking for work, it does not count as unemployment rate. If someone
retires, goes back to school or leaves the workforce to take care of children or other family
members, that is not unemployment because they no longer look for work.

People who have searched in the past year, but not the past month, are called marginally
unemployed. This is what is referred as “real unemployment rate.” In most cases. Some people
say the government undercounts unemployment by reporting the official rate, rather than the
“real” rate.
 Key Takeaways

 On a national level, unemployment is caused by a slowing economy. Competition in particular

industries, advancing technology, and outsourcing can also cause unemployment.
 The top causes are increased population, rapid technological change, lack of education or skills
and rising cost.

For Your Review

o What is/are the causes of unemployment in the Ethiopian context? Why?

o What is/are the impacts of unemployment in the Ethiopian context?
o What do you think is the difference between unemployment and joblessness?

Effects of Unemployment

The impact of unemployment can be felt by both the workers and the national economy and
can cause a ripple effect. Unemployment causes workers to suffer financial hardship that
impacts families, relationships, and communities. The consequences of unemployment for
individuals are financially and emotionally destructive. The consequences can also be harmful
to the economy.

1. Financial problems

First, the financial problems which are rising from prolonged unemployment. It is known that we
can not buy anything without money; the constant income buys food, clothing and shelter. Due
to the loss of income, unemployed individuals will be unable to earn money to meet financial
obligations. For example, people who fail to pay mortgage payments or to pay rent will loss their
housing properties and become homeless. Unemployment also prevents one from doing many
things and involving in different activities. Consequently, this affects the national economy
leads to poverty. As a result of the financial crisis and the reduced overall purchasing capacity
of a country the unemployed individuals are unable to maintain the minimum standard of living.

2. Social Problems

There are many obvious and well-documented social problems which are caused by
unemployment. Because of the increased spare time and stress there will be an increase in the
rates of alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic violence. Moreover, high unemployment often
results in increased marriage breakdown, divisions and discrimination in society, suicide
rates and crime rates especially among the young (Garry Ottosen and Douglas Thompson,
1996).

3. Impaired family functioning

Unemployment also has been connected to the impaired family functioning as it affects the
parents’ interactions with their children and their spouse as well. Unemployed parents spend
more time with their children, but the quality of these interactions suffers in comparison
with those of employed parents. (Liker and Elder 1983; Barling 1990) On the other hand, it is
not clear how the unemployment play a role in these adverse events and what is the significance
of other related factors.

4. Psychological problems

Unemployment affects a person psychologically too. Numerous studies have revealed a

relationship between unemployment and lack of self-esteem and confidence leading to
depression. Besides, there is an increased anxiety and stress levels which lead to psychosomatic
diseases, personal worthlessness and powerlessness.

5. Economic Impact

When many people are unemployed, the economy loses one of its key drivers of
growth: consumer spending. Quite simply, workers have less money to spend until they find
another job. When consumer spending goes down, it leads to a recession or even a depression
when left unaddressed. Unemployment results in reduced demand, consumption, and buying
power, which in turn causes lower profits for businesses and leads to budget cuts and workforce
reductions. It creates a cycle that goes on and on that is difficult to reverse without some type of
intervention.

6. Impact on Communities

High rates of long-term unemployment can devastate local communities, as reduced lifetime
income prospects induce a variety of behavioral changes, and alter social networks. Wilson
(1987) building on Kain (1968), argued that a lack of available jobs close to where the
disadvantaged unemployed workers live, or “spatial mismatch,” contributes to long durations of
joblessness, in part because social networks become largely populated by other jobless
workers. Persistent joblessness for men is then linked to breakdowns in traditional family
arrangements, and high crime. In addition to engaging in riskier health behavior and
reducing investments in housing and other capital stocks that benefit the community as a whole,
the long-term unemployed may be induced to seek out work in the illegal sector.

4.1.3 Effects of Unemployment

Learning Objectives

1. Explain the effects of unemployment.

2. Describe the long term unemployment effect on the individual, family and the wider society.
 Long-term Unemployment vs. Short-term Unemployment

Unemployment that lasts longer than 27 weeks even if the individual has sought employment in
the last four weeks is called long-term unemployment. Its effects are far worse than short-term
unemployment for obvious reasons, and the following are noted as some of its effects.

 Long-term unemployment causes a significant decrease in net worth of individuals.

 Financial problems are not the only effects of long-term unemployment as individuals
will experience strained family relationships.
 Long-term unemployment has a significant effect on individual’s ability to achieve
their career goals.
 Long-term unemployment causes individuals to lose their self-respect and consequently
to seek professional help.
 Unemployment is a serious social and economic issue that results in a tremendous impact
on everything but is often overlooked. A stronger system of assessing unemployment
should be put in place in order to determine its causes and how to address it better.
 The extensive evidence on far-reaching negative consequences of job loss is clear. Loss
of a job can lead to losses of income in the short run, permanently lower wages, and
result in worse mental and physical health. Further, parental job loss hampers
children’s educational progress and lowers their future earnings.
 Being out of work for six months or more is associated with lower well-being among the
long-term unemployed, their families, and their communities. Each week out of work
means more lost income.
 The long-term unemployed also tend to earn less once they find new jobs. They tend to
be in poorer health and have children with worse academic performance than
similar workers who avoided unemployment.
 Communities with a higher share of long-term unemployed workers also tend to have
higher rates of crime and violence.

If high national unemployment continues, it can deepen a recession or even cause a depression.

For Your Review

o Is the impact of short and long term unemployment the same on individuals, families, and the
wider society?

4.2: Alcohol and Other Drugs

4.2. 1 What Is a Drug?

4.2.2. Socio patterning of Drug Use
4.2.3 Explaining Drug Use
 4.2.4 Drug Treatment

4.2.1. Drugs and Drug Use Today

Learning Objectives

1. Summarize the different types of drugs.

2. Explain the various harms caused by alcohol and tobacco.
3. Understand the effects of marijuana, cocaine, and other illegal drugs.

A drug may be defined as any substance other than food that, when taken into the body,
affects the structure and/or functioning of the body. Defined this way, many common
substances contain drugs or are drugs: coffee and other products to keep us alert; aspirin,
acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and other pain relievers; other cold medicines; and so forth. If
you have ever used one of these products, you are technically a drug user, however silly that
might sound.

The following substances are also drugs: alcohol, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, marijuana,
methamphetamine, and tobacco. Much has been written about these drugs, and we will discuss
them further later in this section. But note that two of these drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are legal
after a certain age, while the remaining drugs are illegal.

One of the problems in deciding how to think about and deal with drugs is that this distinction
between legal drugs and illegal drugs has no logical basis. It makes sense to assume that the
illegal drugs should be the ones that are the most dangerous and cause the most physical and
social harm, but that is not true. Rather, alcohol and tobacco cause the most harm even though
they are legal. As Kleiman et al. (2011, p. xviii) note about alcohol, “When we read that one in
twelve adults suffers from a substance abuse disorder or that 8 million children are living with an
addicted parent, it is important to remember that alcohol abuse drives those numbers to a much
greater extent than does dependence on illegal drugs.” Tobacco kills about 435,000 Americans
annually by causing premature death, and alcohol kills about 85,000 annually through its effects
on the liver and other body organs (Mokdad, Marks, Stroup, & Gerberding, 2004).

On top of facts and figures, it is good to emphasis on two related facts: (1) all drugs can be
dangerous, and (2) some drugs are much more dangerous than others. Two aspirins are safe
to take, but a bottle of aspirin can kill someone. Two cups of coffee a day are fine, but drinking
many cups a day can cause anxiety, insomnia, and headaches. One drink of alcohol is safe to
take, but several drinks in a short time amount to binge drinking, and long-term use of alcohol
can kill someone. One snort of cocaine is usually safe, but even one snort can result in a sudden
fatal heart attack, and long-term use often has serious health consequences.

Types of Drugs

Drugs are commonly classified into certain categories according to their physiological effects.
All drugs may make us feel good, but they do so in different ways. Because some drugs are
much more potent than other drugs, there is much variation within each category. Partly because
many drugs have multiple effects, many different classifications of drugs exist. A common
classification includes the following categories: depressants, hallucinogens, marijuana,
narcotics, and stimulants.

Depressants

Depressants slow down the activity of the central nervous system. Depending on the specific
drug, they help induce drowsiness and relaxation, and they can reduce anxiety and pain. Several
types of depressants exist. Analgesics reduce pain and include over-the-counter products such as
aspirin, acetaminophen (the major ingredient in Tylenol), and ibuprofen (the major ingredient in
Advil and Motrin), and many prescription medicines that contain acetaminophen.

Sedatives help people relax and include alcohol, barbiturates, and sleep medicines such as
Sominex and Tylenol PM (both over-the-counter) and Ambien and Valium (both prescription).
Large doses of depressants may lead to physical dependence and sometimes death.

Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens are mind-altering drugs that cause delusions or hallucinations. Their ranks
include ecstasy, mescaline, and so on. Many people who use a hallucinogen report that the mind-
altering effects of the drug provide them a truly wonderful experience, but many also find the
effects to be troubling at best and horrible and terrifying at worst. Long-term effects include
hallucinations that occur without any drug use preceding them.

Marijuana

Because marijuana’s effects do not fit neatly into any other category of drug, marijuana (along
with its close cousin, hashish) is often considered to be its own category. It is by far the most
popular illegal drug. Its effects include distortion of time and space, euphoria, hunger, increased
sensory perception, and relaxation.

Narcotics

Narcotics are sometimes classified under depressants because they slow down the central
nervous system, but they are often still considered as their own category. They are highly
effective at relieving pain and are a common substance in prescription medicines for severe pain.
By definition, all narcotics are derived from opium, either in its natural form or in a synthesized
form. Examples of narcotics include codeine, heroin, methadone, and morphine. In addition to
relieving pain, narcotics may induce drowsiness, euphoria, and relaxation. Although narcotics do
not damage bodily organs, they are very physically addictive, and high doses can be fatal.
Stimulants

Stimulants have the opposite effect of depressants by speeding up the central nervous
system. They increase alertness and energy and can produce euphoria or anxiety. Some are legal
and some are illegal, and many very different drugs are all considered stimulants: caffeine,
cocaine, methamphetamine and other amphetamines, nicotine (tobacco), and Ritalin. Stimulants
can be very physically addictive, and nicotine is thought to be more addictive than heroin. While
caffeine is very safe as long as someone does not have too many cups of coffee daily, many other
stimulants may have dangerous short-term or long-term side effects on the cardiovascular
system.

Legal Drugs

As noted earlier, alcohol and tobacco (nicotine) are two legal drugs that are very common and
that together kill hundreds of thousands of people annually.

Alcohol

Moderate alcohol use (more than one drink per day for an adult female and two drinks per day
for an adult male) is relatively safe for most people and may even have health benefits (Harvard
School of Public Health, 2012). The problem is that many people drink much more than
moderately. As the Harvard School of Public Health (2012) explains, “If all drinkers limited
themselves to a single drink a day, we probably wouldn’t need as many cardiologists, liver
specialists, mental health professionals, and substance abuse counselors. But not everyone who
likes to drink alcohol stops at just one. While most people drink in moderation, some don’t.”

SAMHSA survey data show the extent of such problem drinking, as its survey measures
both binge drinking (five or more drinks on the same occasion—within two hours of each other
—on at least one day in the past month) and heavy drinking (binge drinking on at least five days
in the past month).

The Alcohol and Tobacco Industry

Like the tobacco industry, the alcohol industry produces a legal, widely consumed drug; is
dominated by relatively few producers; and utilizes a powerful combination of advertising
dollars, savvy marketing, political campaign contributions, and sophisticated lobbying tactics to
create and maintain an environment favorable to its economic and political interests. It requires
the recruitment of new, youthful drinkers to maintain and build its customer base…As a
chemical that affects our bodies, alcohol is a powerful drug resulting in more premature deaths
and illnesses than all illicit drugs combined. Yet the industry has shaped public opinion and
forced government to treat it not as a drug but as a cultural artifact, a valued legal commodity,
almost a food, even a necessity of life.
Consequences of Alcohol Abuse

Despite alcohol’s immense popularity, the fact remains that many millions abuse it (Harvard
School of Public Health, 2012). This heavy rate of abuse means that alcohol has serious personal
and social consequences.

Health problems: One set of consequences involves personal health. Alcohol abuse is
responsible for millions of deaths through the physiological damage it does. Heavy alcohol use
can destroy the liver, increase blood pressure, weaken the heart and immune system, and cause
sexual dysfunction. It can lead to neurological problems and also raises the risk of incurring
several kinds of cancer. Binge drinking can cause serious immediate health problems because it
may lead to someone overdosing on alcohol.

Social Problems: In addition to these health problems, alcohol use is responsible for more many
traffic fatalities annually, and it plays an important role in violent crime. As almost anyone with
an alcoholic family member can attest, alcohol abuse can also cause many problems for families,
including domestic violence and divorce and the stress that results from having to deal with
someone’s alcoholism on a daily basis.

Children of Alcoholics

As with so many social problems, one of the saddest consequences of alcohol abuse involves
children. About one-fifth of children have lived with an alcoholic parent or other adult. Whether
because alcoholism is partly inherited or because children tend to use their parents as role
models, children of alcoholics are four times more likely than children of nonalcoholics to
become alcoholics themselves by the time they reach adulthood.

Because living with an alcoholic parent is often both chaotic and unpredictable, it is no surprise
that children of alcoholics often experience a great deal of stress and other difficulties that may
also account for their greater tendency to become alcoholics. Compared to other children, they
are more likely to be neglected and/or abused by their parents, and they are also more likely to
miss school, have lower grades, and engage in disruptive behavior. In addition, they are at great
risk for eating disorders and substance abuse other than alcohol abuse.

The stress they experience can also harm their neurological development and immune system
and put them at greater risk for different kinds of illness and disease. Children of alcoholics are
also at greater risk for several kinds of psychological and emotional problems. These include
(1) guilt, because they may blame themselves for their parent’s drinking; (2) anxiety, because
they worry about their parent’s health and may see their parents arguing and fighting;
(3) embarrassment that leads them not to invite friends over to visit nor to ask another adult for
help; (4) lack of trust in other people, because they have learned not to trust their alcoholic
parent; and (5) anger, confusion, and depression.

One special problem that children of alcoholics face is that they are “forced into adulthood.”
They often find themselves having to care for younger siblings and even for their alcoholic
parent. By taking on such a heavy responsibility, they in effect become adults at too tender an
 age. This responsibility weighs on them and helps account for the psychological and emotional
difficulties they often experience.

Mental health professionals strongly advise that children of alcoholics receive counseling and
other kinds of support to help them deal with their family experiences. Group support programs
for teenaged children may be very helpful.

College Students

Alcohol abuse is also a problem on college and university campuses across the many countries.
For example in the United States, the SAMHSA survey indicated that full-time college students
ages 18–22 drink more often and more heavily than their peers who are not in college
(Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2008). Among full-time college
students ages 18–20, who are all too young to drink legally, about 40 percent have engaged in
binge drinking in the past month, and 17 percent have engaged in heavy drinking as defined
earlier. Binge drinking on and off campus is so common that binge drinkers consume 91 percent
of all the alcohol that college students drink.

Binge drinking by college students has many serious consequences (Center for Science in the
Public Interest, 2008; National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 2007). The following
are consequences with approximate figures:

 Binge drinkers are much more likely than other students to miss class, get poor grades, be
injured, have unprotected sex, and to drive after drinking.
 Six hundred thousand college students suffer alcohol-related injuries (from motor vehicle crashes
and other accidents) each year, and 1,700 die from these injuries.
 Thirty thousand college students need medical attention annually to treat alcohol overdosing.
 Seven hundred thousand students are assaulted annually by a student who has been drinking, and
three hundred students die from these assaults.
 Students who attend colleges with high rates of binge drinking are more likely to experience
sleep disruption, property damage, and physical and sexual assaults than those who attend
colleges with low rates of binge drinking.

Tobacco and Nicotine

Nicotine, the major drug in tobacco, is another legal but very dangerous drug. As we saw earlier,
its use kills four times as many people every year as those killed by alcohol use. Tobacco is a
slow poison. If it were not already a legal drug used by millions, and a company had just
manufactured cigarettes for the first time, the Food and Drug Administration would never
approve this product. Fortunately for tobacco companies, nicotine does not distort perception the
way that alcohol and many other psychoactive drugs do. Someone smoking or otherwise using
tobacco can safely drive a car, operate machinery, and so forth, and someone “under the
influence” of tobacco does not become violent.

Consequences of Tobacco

Health problems: Tobacco kills in several ways. Smoking causes 80–90 percent of all lung
cancers, and it greatly increases the risk of emphysema and other lung disease, coronary heart
disease, and stroke. In addition to lung cancer, tobacco use also causes several other cancers,
including bladder cancer, cervical cancer, esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, and throat cancer.
Women who smoke are at greater risk for lower bone density and hip fracture when they get
older.

Economic problem: The economics of tobacco use are also worth knowing. Americans spend
about $90 billion annually on tobacco products, with most of this amount spent on cigarettes
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). They purchase more than 300 billion
cigarettes annually, with most of the cigarettes sold by three companies. Cigarette smoking is
estimated to cost almost $200 billion annually in medical expenses and lost economic
productivity. This works out to a national economic loss of about $10.50 for every pack of
cigarettes that is sold.

One interesting and very important fact about the economics of cigarette smoking is what
happens when the cost of cigarettes is increased. Most smokers begin their deadly habit during
adolescence or young adulthood. Because this is a period of their lives when they do not have
much money, increases in the cost of cigarettes are particularly useful in persuading some of
these young people not to buy cigarettes.

Illegal Drugs

Marijuana

Marijuana is easily the most widely used illegal drug in the world.

Health and social problems: Marijuana use can cause several problems (National Institute on
Drug Abuse, 2010). Marijuana distorts perception, impairs coordination, and can cause short-
term memory loss, and people who are high from marijuana may be unable to safely drive a
motor vehicle or operate machinery. In addition, regular pot smokers are at risk for respiratory
problems, though not lung cancer. Chronic marijuana use is also associated with absence from
school and the workplace and with social relationship problems, although it is difficult to
determine whether marijuana is causing these effects or whether the association exists because
someone with personal problems begins using marijuana regularly.

The millions of marijuana users have broken the law. In most countries, marijuana possession is
a crime punishable by a jail or prison term that depends on the amount of marijuana involved.
Cocaine

Cocaine produces a high that is considered more pleasurable than that for any other drug.
According to sociologist Erich Goode (2008, p. 288), “Cocaine’s principal effects are
exhilaration, elation, and euphoria—voluptuous, joyous feelings accompanied by a sense of
grandiosity.” As a stimulant, cocaine also increases energy, alertness, and a sense of self-
confidence. It is not physiologically addictive, but it is considered psychologically addictive: The
high it produces is so pleasurable that some users find they need to keep using it.

Cocaine is made from coca plants grown in South America. It most often appears in a powdered
form that is sniffed (or, to use the more common term for this method, snorted). The high it
produces takes some time to occur but may last up to thirty minutes once it does arrive.

Heath problems: In terms of health risks, cocaine is a much more dangerous drug than
marijuana. As a stimulant, cocaine speeds up the central nervous system. Because it does so
much more intensely than most other stimulants, its use poses special dangers for the
cardiovascular system (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2011). In particular, it can disrupt the
heart’s normal rhythm and cause ventricular fibrillations, and it can speed up the heart and raise
blood pressure. An overdose of cocaine can thus be deadly, and long-term use produces an
increased risk of stroke, seizure, and heart disease. Because cocaine also constricts blood vessels
in the brain, long-term use raises the risk of attention deficit, memory loss, and other cognitive
problems. Long-term abuse has also caused panic attacks, paranoia, and even psychosis.

Heroin

Heroin is derived from opium (and more immediately from morphine, an opium derivative) and
is almost certainly the most notorious opiate. It was one of the popular opiate drugs that, were
used so widely during the late nineteenth century. Heroin was first marketed as a painkiller and
cough suppressant by the company that makes Bayer aspirin. As the United States became more
concerned about opium use, Bayer Laboratories discontinued heroin marketing in 1910, and
heroin, like other opiates, was banned under the 1914 Harrison Narcotic Act.

Like other narcotics, heroin use produces a feeling of euphoria. After it is injected, “the user
feels a flash, a rush, which has been described as an intense, voluptuous, orgasmlike sensation.
Following this is the feeling of well-being, tranquility, ease, and calm, the sensation that
everything in the user’s life is just fine. Tensions, worries, problems, the rough edges of life—all
seem simply to melt away” (Goode, 2008, pp. 308–309).

Although heroin use is uncommon, it continues to capture the public’s concern more than
perhaps any other illegal drug.

Health problems: Users typically take heroin into their body by injecting it into a vein. This
mode of administration is undoubtedly a major reason for the public’s very negative image of
heroin users. Indeed, the image of a heroin addict “shooting up” is one that has appeared in many
 movies and television shows past and present. Many heroin addicts share their needles, a practice
that increases their risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis.

Prescription Drug Abuse

Many people used prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes. This type of use is illegal
though common especially among adolescents. The prescription drugs that are most often abused
are those containing narcotics, tranquilizers, and stimulants; Because prescription drugs are
beneficial for so many people even if they are abused, countries faces a special difficulty in
dealing with the abuse of these drugs.

Prescription drug abuse is thought to be growing for two reasons (National Institute on Drug
Abuse, 2005). First, physicians’ prescriptions for painkillers and other drugs continue to
rise, creating a greater supply of prescription drugs that can be abused. Second, online
pharmacies and pain clinics have made it easier to obtain prescription drugs, with or
without an actual prescription.

Key Takeaways

 The distinction between legal drugs and illegal drugs has no logical basis; legal drugs cause
much more harm than illegal drugs.
 Legal and Illegal drugs have health and social consequences on the individual, family, society
and the nation in general.
 Marijuana is by far the most commonly used illegal drug.

For Your Review

1. Do you agree or disagree that the distinction between legal drugs and illegal drugs is not
logical? Explain your answer.
2. Do you agree that binge drinking is a problem that campuses should address, or do you think
that it’s a relatively harmless activity that lets students have some fun? Explain your answer.

4.2. 2 Social Patterning of Drug Use

Learning Objectives

1. Outline the nature of gender differences in drug use.

2. Explain whether education and religiosity are related to drug use.

It is a sociological truism that our sociodemographic backgrounds—gender, race and ethnicity,

social class, and so forth—influence many of our behaviors and attitudes. Drug use is no
different. By examining the social patterning of drug use, we can see which kinds of people, in
terms of their sociodemographic backgrounds, are more or less at risk for using drugs. And by
understanding these sociodemographic differences, we begin to understand why some people are
more likely than others to use drugs.

Gender

In the study of crime and deviance, gender is an important predictor: Males are more likely than
females to commit the more serious forms of crime and deviance, such as homicide, robbery, and
burglary. This pattern generally holds true for drug use of various types.

Why do these gender differences exist? A common thread underlines gender differences in
criminal behavior and in drug use of various kinds, and that is masculinity (Lindsey, 2011).
Compared to girls, boys are raised to be more active, assertive, and daring, and to be less
concerned about the effects of their behavior on others. As they grow older, these traits make
them more likely to use drugs and also to commit various types of crimes. Ironically, the way
that most parents raise their sons helps make their sons more likely than their daughters to drink,
smoke, and use illegal drugs once they reach adolescence and in the many decades of their
adulthood.

In an important exception to the general gender difference just discussed, females are more likely
than males to use prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons (Ford, 2009). The reasons for this
counterintuitive finding are unclear, but scholars speculate that because girls and women obtain
more prescription drugs than do boys and men, their greater nonmedical use of prescription
drugs reflects the fact that they have more access to these drugs in the first place.

Race and Ethnicity

Racial and ethnic differences in drug use of various types exist to some extent but are less clear-
cut than the gender differences. For alcohol use, whites have the highest rate of drinking, and
Native Americans, despite the popular image that they have alcohol problems, have the lowest
rate. For tobacco use, Native Americans have the highest rate of use, and Asians have the lowest
rate. For illegal drugs, Native Americans again have the highest rate of use, and Hispanics have
the lowest rate. Note that African Americans have roughly the same illegal drug use rate as
whites, and have lower rates of alcohol and tobacco use than whites do. Although many people
believe that African Americans are more likely than whites to use drugs, research data show that
this belief is a myth.

Education

Education differences in drug use depend on the type of drug. For alcohol, higher levels of
education are associated with a higher likelihood of drinking. One possible reason for this
association is that people with lower levels of education are more likely to be religious, and
people who are religious are less likely to drink. For tobacco, higher levels of education are
associated with lower levels of tobacco use. In particular, college graduates are much less likely
 to use tobacco than people without a college degree. For illegal drugs, there is no clear
association between education and use of these drugs, although college graduates report the
lowest past-month use.

Religiosity

A growing number of studies finds that religiosity—how religious someone is—affects how
often people use various drugs: The more religious people are, the lower their drug use;
conversely, the less religious they are, the higher their drug use (Desmond, Soper, & Purpura,
2009).
.
Key Takeaways

 Drug use is socially patterned: Aspects of our sociodemographic backgrounds affect our
likelihood of using various drugs.
 Perhaps the clearest social pattern involves gender, with males more likely than females to use
and abuse alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs.
 Despite common beliefs, the rate of illegal drug use is lower for African Americans than for
whites.

For Your Review

1. What is the existing situation in our context?

4.2.3 Explaining Drug Use

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the possible biological origins of drug addiction.

2. Explain why longitudinal research on personality traits and drug use is important.
3. Outline the aspects of the social environment that may influence drug use.

To know how to reduce drug use, we must first know what explains it. The major explanations
for drug use come from the fields of biology, psychology, and sociology.

Biological Explanations

In looking at drug use, the field of biology focuses on two related major questions. First, how
and why do drugs affect a person’s behavior, mood, perception, and other qualities? Second,
what biological factors explain why some people are more likely than others to use drugs?

Regarding the first question, the field of biology has an excellent understanding of how drugs
work. The details of this understanding are beyond the scope of this chapter, but they involve
how drugs affect areas in the brain and the neurotransmitters that cause a particular drug’s
effects. For example, cocaine produces euphoria and other positive emotions in part because it
first produces an accumulation of dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to feelings of pleasure and
enjoyment.

Regarding the second question, biological research is more speculative, but it assumes that some
people are particularly vulnerable to the effects of drugs. These people are more likely to
experience very intense effects and to become physiologically and/or psychologically addicted to
a particular drug. To the extent this process occurs, the people in question are assumed to have a
biological predisposition for drug addiction that is thought to be a genetic predisposition.

Most research on genetic predisposition has focused on alcohol and alcoholism (Hanson et al.,
2012). Studies of twins find that identical twins are more likely than fraternal twins (who are not
genetically identical) to both have alcohol problems or not to have them. In addition, studies of
children of alcoholic parents who are adopted by nonalcoholic parents find that these children are
more likely than those born to nonalcoholic parents to develop alcohol problems themselves.
Although a genetic predisposition for alcoholism might exist for reasons not yet well understood,
there is not enough similar research on other types of drug addiction to assume that a genetic
predisposition exists for these types. Many nonbiological factors also explain the use of, and
addiction to, alcohol and other drugs. We now turn to these factors.

Psychological Explanations

Psychological explanations join biological explanations in focusing on why certain individuals

are more likely than others to use drugs and to be addicted to drugs (Hanson et al., 2012). Some
popular psychological explanations center on personality differences between drug users and
nonusers. These explanations assume that users have personality traits that predispose them to
drug use. These traits include low self-esteem and low self-confidence, low trust in others, and a
need for thrills and stimulation. In effect, drug users have inadequate personalities, or personality
defects, that make them prone to drug use, and once they start using drugs, their personality
problems multiply.

Other psychological explanations are based on the classic concept from behavioral psychology
of operant conditioning—the idea that people and animals are more likely to engage in a
behavior when they are rewarded, or reinforced, for it. These explanations assume that people
use drugs because drugs are positive reinforcers in two respects. First, drugs provide pleasurable
effects themselves and thus provide direct reinforcement. Second, drug use often is communal:
People frequently use drugs (alcohol is certainly a prime example, but so are many other drugs)
with other people, and they enjoy this type of social activity. In this manner, drug use
provides indirect reinforcement.

Sociological Explanations

Sociological explanations emphasize the importance of certain aspects of the social environment
—social structure, social bonds to family and school, social interaction, and culture—or drug
use, depending on the type of drug. For drugs like heroin and crack that tend to be used mostly in
large urban areas, the social structure, or, to be more precise, social inequality, certainly seems to
matter.

Social bonds to families and schools also make a difference. Adolescents with weak bonds to
their families and schools, as measured by such factors as the closeness they feel to their parents
and teachers, are more likely to use drugs of various types than adolescents with stronger bonds
to their families and schools. Their weaker bonds prompt them to be less likely to accept
conventional norms and more likely to use drugs and engage in other delinquent behavior.

Regarding social interaction, sociologists emphasize that peer influences greatly influence one’s
likelihood of using alcohol, tobacco, and a host of other drugs (Hanson et al., 2012). Much and
probably most drug use begins during adolescence, when peer influences are especially
important. When our friends during this stage of life are drinking, smoking, or using other drugs,
many of us want to fit in with the crowd and thus use one of these drugs ourselves. In a related
explanation, sociologists also emphasize that society’s “drug culture” matters for drug use. For
example, because we have a culture that so favors alcohol, many people drink alcohol. And
because we have a drug culture in general, it is no surprise, sociologically speaking, that drug use
of many types is so common.

To the extent that social inequality, social interaction, and a drug culture matter for drug use,
sociologists say, it is a mistake to view most drug use as stemming from an individual’s
biological or psychological problems. Although these problems do play a role for some
individuals’ use of some drugs, drug use as a whole stems to a large degree from the social
environment and must be understood as a social problem, and not just as an individual problem.

Beyond these general explanations of why people use drugs, sociological discussions of drug use
reflect the three sociological perspectives introduced in Chapter 1 “Understanding Social
Problems”—functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism—as we shall now
discuss. Table 7.6 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes this discussion.

Table 4.2.3: Theory Snapshot

Theoretical
Contributions to understanding of drug use
perspective

Functionalism Drug use is functional for several parties in society. It provides drug users
the various positive physiological effects that drugs have; it provides the
sellers of legal or illegal drugs a source of income; and it provides jobs for
the criminal justice system and the various other parties that deal with drug
use. At the same time, both legal drugs and illegal drugs contribute to
 Theoretical
Contributions to understanding of drug use
perspective

dysfunctions in society.

Much drug use in poor urban areas results from the poverty, racial
inequality, and other conditions affecting people in these locations. Racial
and ethnic prejudice and inequality help determine why some drugs are
Conflict theory illegal as well as the legal penalties for these drugs. The large multinational
corporations that market and sell alcohol, tobacco, and other legal drugs
play a powerful role in the popularity of these drugs and lobby Congress to
minimize regulation of these drugs.

Drug use arises from an individual’s interaction with people who engage in
Symbolic drug use. From this type of social interaction, an individual learns how to
interactionism use a drug and also learns various attitudes that justify drug use and define
the effects of a drug as effects that are enjoyable.

Key Takeaways

 Biological theories assume that some people are especially vulnerable to drug addiction for
genetic reasons.
 A popular set of psychological theories assumes that drug addiction results from certain
personality traits and problems.
 Sociological theories attribute drug use to various aspects of the social environment, including
peer influences, weak social bonds, and the larger drug culture.

For Your Review

1. When you think about the reasons for drug use and addiction, do you think biological factors,
psychological factors, or the social environment play the most important role? Explain you
answer.

4.2.4 Drug Treatment

 Learning Objectives

1. Explain whether treatment is effective.

2. Outline the goals and examples of a harm reduction approach to drug use.

Treatment

Treatment programs are intended for people who already are using drugs, perceive they have a
drug problem, and want to reduce or eliminate their drug use. Treatment programs often involve
a group setting, but many drug users also receive individual treatment from a psychiatrist,
psychologist, or drug counselor. Perhaps the most famous treatment program is Alcoholics
Anonymous, a program that involves alcoholics meeting in a group setting, acknowledging their
drinking problem and its effects on family members and other loved ones, and listening to each
other talk about their situations.

Other group settings are residential settings, sometimes called detox units. In these settings,
people check themselves into an institution and stay there for several weeks until they and the
professionals who treat them are satisfied.

In addition to or in conjunction with group treatment programs, individual treatment for drug
addiction may involve the use of “good” drugs designed to help wean addicts off the drug to
which they are addicted. For example, nicotine gum, patches, and other products are designed to
help cigarette smokers stop smoking.

The various forms of treatment can be very effective for some addicts and less effective or not
effective at all for other addicts; most treatment programs have a high failure rate (Goode, 2012).
A sociological perspective suggests that however effective treatment might be for some people,
the origins of drug use ultimately lie in the larger society—its social structure, social interaction,
and the drug culture—and that these roots must be addressed for serious reductions in drug use to
occur.

Prevention

Because it is always best to try to prevent a problem before it begins, an important strategy to
deal with drug use involves prevention. The major prevention strategies involve drug education
or drug testing (Faupel et al., 2010). Many education-based prevention programs focus on
children and adolescents. This focus reflects the fact that use of most drugs begins during
adolescence, and that if adolescents do not begin using drugs during this period of their lives,
they are much less likely to do so when they become adults. Some education strategies follow
what is called an informational model: they involve public-service advertising, the distribution of
drug pamphlets in medical offices, and other such efforts. Several studies question the
effectiveness of strategies based on this model (Faupel et al., 2010).

Other education programs take place in the secondary school system and on college campuses.
 Drug testing is very common in today’s society, and you may well have been required to have a
drug test as part of a requirement.

Harm Reduction

A third strategy involves harm reduction. As this term implies, this strategy attempts to minimize
the harm caused by drugs. It recognizes that many people will use drugs despite efforts to
prevent or persuade them from doing so and despite any punishment they might receive for using
illegal drugs. Many nations are currently using a harm reduction approach with regard to alcohol
and tobacco. It recognizes that tens of millions of people use these products, and designated-
driving programs and other efforts try to minimize the considerable harm these two drugs cause.

A specific harm reduction strategy with regard to illegal drugs is the provision of clean, sterile
needles for people who inject themselves with heroin, cocaine/crack, or other drugs. Many of
these users share needles, and this sharing spreads HIV, hepatitis, and other diseases. If they
have a supply to sterile needles, the reasoning goes, the transmission of these diseases will be
reduced even if use of the drugs with the aid of the needles does not reduce. Critics say the
provision of sterile needles in effect says that drug use is OK and may even encourage drug use.
Proponents reply that needle-based drug use will occur whether or not sterile needles are
provided, and that the provision of sterile needles does more good than harm. Other nations have
adopted this type of harm reduction much more extensively than the United States.

The War on Illegal Drugs

The most controversial drug strategy involves the criminalization of many drugs and the use of
the police and the rest of the criminal justice system to apprehend and punish the users,
manufacturers, and sellers of illegal drugs.

Critics of today’s war on illegal drugs say that it has reproduced the same problems that
Prohibition produced. Among these problems are the following:

 Drug gangs and individual drug sellers engage in deadly fights with each other and also kill or
wound police officers and other law enforcement personnel who fight the war on drugs.
 Many innocent bystanders, including children, are wounded or killed by stray bullets.
 Many police officers take bribes to ignore drug law violations and/or sell drugs confiscated from
dealers.
 The criminal justice system and other agencies spend much time, money, and energy in the war
against illegal drugs, just as they did during Prohibition.
 The drug war has focused disproportionately on African Americans and Latinos and greatly
increased their numbers who have gone to jail or prison. Even though illegal drug use is more
common among whites than among blacks, the arrest rate for drug offenses is ten times higher
for African Americans than the rate for whites (Blow, 2011). Partly because of the drug war,
about one-third of young African American men have prison records.
 Key Takeaways

 To deal with drugs, there are several strategies, including treatment, prevention, harm
reduction, and the legal war on illegal drugs.
 According to its critics, the war on illegal drugs has done much more harm than good and in
this respect is repeating the example of Prohibition.

For Your Review

1. Can the above mentioned treatments be applied in our situation?

2. Do you agree or disagree that the war on illegal drugs is doing more harm than good? Explain
your answer.

4.3: Violence

1/What Is Violence?

2/ Categories and Types of Violence

3/ Violence and Crime

4/ Forms of Violence

5/ Causes and Effects of Violence

4.3.1 What Is Violence?

Learning Objectives

1. Define “Violence.”
2. Explain categories and types of violence.
3. Explain between the violence and crime
4. Explain the forms of violence
5. Explain the causes and effects of violence

Introduction
Violence is a global phenomenon resulting in the deaths of more than 1.6 million people each
year, making it one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
While no country is untouched by violence, the vast majority of its resultant deaths occur in low-
to middle-income countries, many of which are stricken with internal conflicts. However, it
should be kept in mind that violent deaths cannot simply be attributed to war, and more than 80%
of such deaths occur outside of armed conflicts.
Violence has also shown to be an incredibly costly issue, and in 2015 alone the total impact of
violence to the world economy was estimated at $13.6 trillion – a figure which is equivalent to
13.3% of world GDP.
Violence has become increasingly interpersonal and tied in with criminal activity, particularly in
urban areas. According to the UN's Global Study on Homicide, intentional homicide was the
cause of the deaths of almost half a million people across the world in 2012.
It is also important to note that deaths only constitute a part of the health and social burden which
can be attributed to violence, which also results in non-fatal, sexual and psychological abuse. In
addition, violence places a heavy burden on health and justice systems, social welfare services,
and the economy of communities.

A societal challenge
High levels of violence and crime in countries are often the symptoms of underlying social,
economic and political challenges such as social inequality, rapid urbanisation, poverty,
unemployment and institutional shortcomings.
The adverse effects of violence on a country are harmful not only to its citizens, but the
wellbeing of the community and country as a whole. In many countries, the impact of violence
has significantly and directly reduced economic growth, and poses an obstacle in reducing
poverty, while violence also causes profound psychological and physical trauma, reducing the
quality of life for all of society.
Although violence is often seen and responded to as an inevitable part of the human condition,
such assumptions are shifting, focus is broadening, and an increased emphasis is being placed on
prevention of violent behaviour and consequences.
In order for prevention efforts to be successful, there needs to be an increase in our
understanding of this complex phenomenon. Moral codes may vary vastly throughout the wold,
making it more of a challenge to address the often sensitive topic of violence, its causes and its
consequences, however some form of shared understanding needs to be reached in order to
protect human life and dignity effectively.

Defining violence
As a result of violence being such a complex phenomenon, there is no clear definition for it.
Therefore, it is often understood differently by different people in different contexts - such as
those from different countries, cultures, or belief systems.
While no standard definition of violence has been established, it is important, when developing
effective prevention strategies, to have a clear understanding of violence and the context in
which it occurs. In its 2002 World Report on Violence and Health, the World Health
Organisation (WHO) proposes a definition of violence that has since become a working term for
many international organizations working in the field:
WHO definition of violence

“The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another
person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of
resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.”

4.3.2 Categories and Types of violence

Categories of violence
On the basis of the WHO’s definition of violence, an elaborate “typology of violence” has been
developed that characterizes different categories and types of violence, as well as the links
between them (allowing for a holistic approach to intervention). A typology of violence
presented in the world report on violence and health divides violence into three broad categories
according to who commits the violent act: self directed violence, interpersonal violence, and
collective violence. It further captures the nature of the violent acts that can be physical, sexual,
or psychological, including deprivation and neglect.
It divides violence into three broad categories according to who the perpetrators and victims are
of violent acts:
 Self directed violence
 Interpersonal violence
 Collective violence

Self-directed violence refers to violent acts a person inflicts upon him- or herself, and includes
self-abuse (such as self-mutilation) and suicidal behaviour (including suicidal thoughts, as well
as attempted and completed suicide).

Types of violence
By looking more closely at the nature of acts of violence, these three categories can be further
divided into four, more specific, types of violence:
 Physical violence
 Sexual violence
 Psychological violence
 Neglect

Physical violence is the intentional use of physical force, used with the potential for causing
harm, injury, disability or death. This includes, but is not limited to: scratching, pushing,
shoving, grabbing, biting, choking, shaking, slapping, punching, hitting, burning, use of a
weapon, and use of restraint or one’s body against another person.
This type of violence does not only lead to physical harm, but can also have severe negative
psychological effects – for example, if a child is frequently a victim of physical violence at
home, he or she can suffer from mental health problems and be traumatised as a consequence of
this victimisation.
These four types of violence can occur in each of the previously mentioned broad categories, and
their subcategories (except for self-directed violence).
The graphic below illustrates these links between types of violence and the nature of violent acts.
Horizontally the graphic shows who is affected, while vertically it describes how they are
potentially affected.

This typology of violence provides a useful framework for understanding the complex patterns
of violence in the lives of individuals, families and communities. It captures the nature of violent
acts, the relevance of the setting, the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, and – in
the case of collective violence – possible motivations for the violence.
One should keep in mind that this is just a model and in reality the dividing lines between the
types or nature of violence are not always this clear - they can easily overlap, and influence or
reinforce each other.
Direct and indirect (structural) violence
The typology of violence clearly distinguishes between perpetrators of violence across different
levels. There are situations, however, when violence cannot be attributed to a specific actor but
rather to structures put in place that exert violence (in any of its forms) on individuals or
communities. The system of apartheid and its overt discrimination against a large part of the
South African population is one example.
In this context, Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung provides a useful distinction:

 Direct violence – this is where an actor or perpetrator can clearly be identified. All forms
of self-directed violence and interpersonal violence, as well as many forms of collective
violence, can also be understood as direct violence
 Indirect or structural violence – this is where no direct actor exists. Violence is rather
built into the structures, appearing as unequal power relations and, consequently, as
unequal opportunities.

Structural violence exists when certain groups, classes, genders or nationalities have privileged
access to goods, resources and opportunities over others, and when this unequal advantage is
built into the social, political and economic systems that govern their lives.
Structural violence requires both political and social change in order to transform the existing,
discriminatory structures and patterns that govern the lives of citizens.

4.3.3. Violence and crime: Drawing a distinction

A definition of violence should be fully capable of accounting for the exclusion of behaviors
such as accidents and self-defense, and the inclusion of behaviors such as child abuse, sexual
offenses, and manslaughter. To fully distinguish violence from other behaviors requires
incorporating elements from all of them. A comprehensive definition of violence includes 4
essential elements: behavior that is (a) intentional, (b) unwanted, (c) nonessential, and (d)
harmful.
The terms “violence” and “crime” are often closely linked and used interchangeably. They
should, however, not be confused.
Some types of crime are violent as per definition (such as armed crime or contact crimes,
including murder, assault and rape), while other crimes involve no direct violence at all (such as
tax evasion or illicit drug use). Similarly, not all types of violence are criminal, such as the
previously mentioned structural violence, or many forms of psychological violence.
In other words, not every case of violence is a crime, and not every crime is violent. Therefore it
is important to distinguish between violence and crime as two different terms that can overlap
each other (and often do), but need not necessarily do so.
Example
Smacking a woman or child is a violent act. However, whether acts of corporal punishment are
seen as a criminal offence varies according to a country's law and social attitudes towards
women and children.
In some countries, laws classify corporal punishment as a criminal act. While in many other
countries, it is not a crime and justified as a necessary disciplinary measure.
Whether an act is classified as a crime or not depends on the laws of a country. Crime can
therefore be defined as a violation of the law and an act of deviance from established rules, or a
non-commission of an action that is required by law.
Violence, on the other hand, is an act of physical aggression that in most cases results in harm.
Whether a violent act is considered a crime changes from country to country, and it might
change over time, as countries adapt their laws due to changing political systems and social
values. Understanding the difference between these two concepts is important in responding
appropriately and adopting effective prevention strategies.

4.3.4. Forms of violence

Defining Violence Against Women & Gender Based Violence (GBV)
The term violence against women encompasses a multitude of abuses directed at women and
girls over the life span.
The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (defines violence against
women as: ‘‘….any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical,
sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or
arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life’’.2 This statement
defines violence as acts that cause, or have the potential to cause harm, and by introducing the
term ‘‘gender based’’ emphasizes that it is rooted in inequality between women and men. The
term gender based violence has been defined as ‘‘acts or threats of acts intended to hurt or make
women suffer physically, sexually or psychologically, and which affect women because they are
women or affect women disproportionally’’.3 Thus, gender based violence is often used
interchangeably with violence against women. Both these definitions point at violence against
women as a result of gender inequality. This inequality can be described as discrimination in
opportunities and responsibilities and in access to and control of resources that is rooted in the
socio-culturally ascribed notion of masculinity as superior to femininity

Gender-based violence is enacted under many different manifestations, from its most widespread
form, intimate partner violence, to acts of violence carried out in online spaces. These different
forms are not mutually exclusive and multiple incidences of violence can be happening at once
and reinforcing each other. Inequalities experienced by a person related to their race, (dis)ability,
age, social class, religion, sexuality can also drive acts of violence. This means that while women
face violence and discrimination based on gender, some women experience multiple and
interlocking forms of violence.

The Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe, Convention on preventing and combating violence
against women and domestic violence), defines violence against women as falling under four key
forms: physical, sexual, psychological and economic.

Physical violence
Any act which causes physical harm as a result of unlawful physical force. Physical violence can
take the form of, among others, serious and minor assault, deprivation of liberty and
manslaughter.
Sexual violence
Any sexual act perfomed on an individual without their consent. Sexual violence can take the
form of rape or sexual assault.
Psychological violence
Any act which causes psychological harm to an individual. Psychological violence can take the
form of, for example, coercion, defamation, verbal insult or harassment.
Economic violence
Any act or behavior which causes economic harm to an individual. Economic violence can take
the form of, for example, property damage, restricting access to financial resources, education or
the labor market, or not complying with economic responsibilities, such as alimony.

It is also important to recognize that gender-based violence may be normalized and reproduced
due to structural inequalities, such as societal norms, attitudes and stereotypes around gender
generally and violence against women specifically. Therefore it is important to
acknowledge structural or institutional violence, which can be defined as the subordination of
women in economic, social and political life, when attempting to explain the prevalence of
violence against women within our societies.

4.3.5. Causes and Effects of Violence

Causes of violence

There are many causes of violence including “frustration, exposure to violent media, violence in
the home or neighborhood and a tendency to see other people’s actions as hostile even when
they’re not. Certain situations also increase the risk of aggression, such as drinking, insults and
other provocations and environmental factors like heat and overcrowding” (American
Psychological Association’s website).
A Psychological Insight into the Causes of Violence
The most common motivations for violence can be viewed as inappropriate attempts to handle
emotions. Often, violence is the medium used by an individual to openly express their feelings
such as anger, frustration, or sadness. Other times, violence can be considered as a form of
manipulation for individuals to try and get what they want or need. Aggressive behavior can also
be used as a form of retaliation; a means by which one uses to even the score. Finally, violent
behavior is sometimes caused because people grow up seeing violence openly displayed.
Violence then becomes learned as an “appropriate” way to behave.

Individuals who act violently overlook healthier behaviour and safer forms of expression to deal
with their emotions or to meet their needs). Sometimes, individuals will choose violence as a
means to manipulate others to gain control over a situation.

Other factors which can be causes of violence include:

 The influence of one’s peers
 Having a lack of attention or respect
 Having low self-worth
 Experiencing abuse or neglect
 Witnessing violence in the home, community, or medias
 Access to weapons
It is common for those who act violently to have difficulty controlling their emotions. For some,
behaviour can be attributed to past abuse or neglect, false beliefs that intimidating others will
gain them respect, or a belief that using violence will solve his or her problems. However,
violent actions often work against the individual, and they often lose respect or become
increasingly isolated because others view them as dangerous.

Over time, violence and aggressive behaviour often escalates when not addressed; however,
there are signs that can help identify potential or immediate violence.

What are Some of the Indicators of Violence?

Signs for potential immediate or increased violence include, but are not limited to:

 Porting a weapon
 Pleasure in hurting animals
 Voicing threats or plans to hurt others
 Risk-taking behaviour
 Use of alcohol and drugs
 Destruction of property or vandalism
 Loss of control over emotions
Warning signs for the potential development of violent behaviour and acts include, but are not
limited to:

 Having a record of past violent behaviour

 Membership/affiliation with organized crime
 Having an interest in weapons
 Isolation
 Harbouring feelings of rejection
 Being a victim of bullying
 Poor academic performance

Effects of Violence

Regardless of its cause, violence has a negative impact on those who experience or witness it.
Violence can cause physical injury as well as psychological harm. Several psychological
disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and borderline
personality disorder, are associated with experiencing or witnessing violence. Other
psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and mood swings (see bipolar disorder),
are common in victims of violence.

Children seem to be particularly susceptible to the negative effects of violence. Those who
experience or witness violence may develop a variety of problems, including anxiety, depression,
insecurity, anger, poor anger management, poor social skills, pathological lying, manipulative
behaviour, impulsiveness, and lack of empathy. As such examples show, some children may
respond to violence in “internalizing” ways, such as by developing feelings of insecurity,
anxiety, and depression, whereas others may react in “externalizing” ways, such as by feeling
 angry and behaving in an antisocial manner. Although some of the effects of violence
may manifest themselves during childhood, others may not appear until adulthood. For example,
abused girls are more likely than nonabused girls to have substance-abuse problems as adults.

Key Takeaways

 Violence is a problem for all of us.

 Violence is committed on women than men.

For Your Review

3. List all forms of GBV that exists within our country.

4. What are the root causes of violence in our country?