Word: social
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Moreover, Wattenberg writes, the tide of Third World immigrants to the U.S., combined with the lower ratio of white births to domestic black and Hispanic births, may reduce the proportion of European-descended stock in this country from the present 80% to 60% by 2080. The upshot could be social "divisiveness and turmoil." All of which, he believes, raises the key question: "Over time, will Western values prevail...
...popularized the concept of the underclass in his 1978 book The Declining Significance of Race. Wilson and his philosophical allies reject the simplistic single-factor theories of cause and effect, which range from the permissiveness of welfare to the pervasiveness of racism. Instead, they stress the ever widening social and economic gap between ghetto residents and the rest of American society, both white and black...
Where once the ghetto provided a mix of black social classes, now residents are bound together under the yoke of poverty and impoverished aspirations. In a forthcoming book, The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson argues that those who have been left behind in the ghetto have inherited not "a culture of poverty but social isolation." Inner-city residents can go weeks without encountering anyone, black or white, who is a middle-class achiever...
...serious cause of the misery of the ghetto: the shockingly high jobless rate among young black men. Unskilled and ill-educated, these young men are the true victims of America's dramatic transition away from a manufacturing base. Even when there is decent-paying work available, Wilson contends that social isolation excludes the black underclass from the "job- network system" that permeates other neighborhoods. One statistic tells it all: in 1985, 43% of all black male high school dropouts in their early 20s reported earning no money whatsoever. As recently as 1973, that figure was just...
...take responsibility for the children they father. This, Wilson argues, helps explain the staggering growth of inner-city illegitimacy. A recent study by the Children's Defense Fund found that 90% of all babies of black teenage mothers are born out of wedlock. As Harriette McAdoo, professor of social work at Howard University, puts it, "Men are unable to maintain themselves in the labor market, and they are unable to maintain their families...