Think about the concept of poverty. How would a macro-level sociologist study this concept differently than a micro-level sociologist?
There is a variety of differences between macro and micro-level theories. Micro level deals with people and their interactions. The critics of micro level argue that they focus specifically on older people instead of social conditions and policies that force them to act the way such people do (Jones 112). Macro level concentrates more on social processes and problems, social structure and their interrelationships, as well. The best example is the way in which the impact of industrialization on older people’s status plus how income and gender influence older people's wellbeing. Bot micro and macro theories can take the form of three perspectives including normative, perspective, and conflict.
Normative perspective states that rules and status exist to provide social order and control in the society. Social order is indispensable for the purpose of survival. This perspective focuses on the macro level. Interpretive perspective is essential in the way it explores that the social world is created in an ongoing mode, through social interaction. This concept focuses upon micro level.
Macrosociologists are known to carry out studies across cultures and societies. Of key to note is that there are presently 191 members of the United Nations, who represent most of the nations in the world suffering extensively from poverty. Sociologists such as demographers have evaluated differences in such parameters like mortality, fertility, and immigration rates throughout the world. The major role of macrosociologists is to determine the rates of divergence and how the changing structural mechanisms in the society impact on the institution of the family. On the contrary, a microsociologist works hard to know the perceived causes and outcomes of people’s behavior as well as the rate in which certain limitations in people’s lives can be overcome.
Both the micro social and macro social analyses of poverty need full comprehension of the effects of the entire society on poverty. Social connotations provide a context for understanding interactions between persons. Social contexts normally range from a small group of people to the larger social and cultural conditions manifests in any society as a whole. Microsociologists are more likely than macrosociologists, to taken into account the impact of large structural forces on personal thoughts, behavior, and feelings (Geraldine 11). From the literature, America’s inner cities are flooded with problems that are interrelated in multifaceted ways. Huge figures of households are severely distressed by lack of education, overcrowded housing, unemployment, family dissolution, drug abuse, and crime. Poverty and inequality are higher in USA than the rest of other countries with similar average incomes. A high portion of workers live in poorly paid full time jobs. There is a very strong linkage between low pay and national poverty rates. Not everyone can manage to earn his or her living out of poverty. The lot who do not work, risk staying in a lifelong poverty. The rate of joblessness in inner cities has continued to grow by each passing day. Cokins (72) found out that, in the inner city of the country’s 100 largest cities in 1990, there were only 8 working adults in every 10 unemployed individuals. This denotes that; inner city neighborhood comprised of only underprivileged people, inclusive of those who work at low earning jobs and the rest who are unemployed. Form the argument of Cokins (79), we can deduce that, the impending problems in the inner city are directly related with the disappearance of work. The job predictions for inner city workers have been diminishing due to the decreasing comparative for low-skilled labor in the USA.
Works Cited
Cokins, Gary. Performance management integrating strategy execution, methodologies, risk, and analytics. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. Print.
Geraldine, Wagner. "Architectural Sociology." Architectural Sociology -- Research Starters Sociology 19.3 (2014): 1-15. Print.
Jones, John Bush. Our musicals, ourselves: a social history of the American musical theater. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, published by University Press of New England, 2003. Print.
