Joblessness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Joblessness - Essay Example Apart form the recession, dynamic changes like globalization and free trade has had a negative impact on the employment situation in the United States. Jobs have been outsourced at the cost of employment back home, leaving many people in a state of joblessness. This paper studies the impact of joblessness among the middle and upper aged population in the United States with reference to sociological perspectives. Middle aged joblessness results in financial and psychological stress, but has one advantage in the sense that such persons are better equipped to teach their children how to cope in the ‘new risk economy’. During the course of this research, four arguments will be discussed. The first one is that, the new risk economy is harsher on middle aged and older employees with regard to being jobless. The second is that, in times of recession in the economy, qualification, experience and age is given preference over youth and lack of experience. The third argument is that joblessness will lead to lower levels of commitment and will result in unemployed middle aged and older workers to become free agents. The fourth is that the life course of the jobless has changed drastically when shifting from the Fordist era to the new risk economy era. According to Goldsmith et al, unemployment has two adverse effects on the society, the economy, and the individual and their families. For them, â€Å"one is the output foregone that could have been produced if unemployed workers had been productively employed. The second is the psychological damage suffered by unemployed workers and their families† ( Goldsmith, Veum & Darity, 1996). Companies are now looking at minimizing costs in order to remain competitive, and one of the ways in which this is accomplished is through reduction in the number of employees. Increasing globalization coupled with

Monkey in the Mirror Essays Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Monkey in the Mirror Essays - Essay Example But there are several things that mark us as being different from many of these other animals. Some of them are purely physical – for instance we have bipedal motion that is absent in the rest of apes (Tattersall, 2002 p. 89). But we also have many metaphysical qualities that mark us as different from our ancestors, such as the creation of music, art and culture. There is no one single thing that can truly account for all the ways in which we are different, but there are a few pieces that had to come together. One of which is our brain, which is by far the largest brain compared to body mass of any animal in the history of the world (Tattersall, 2002, p. 151). This probably had to develop in conjunction with a lot of other developments to be useful – for instance, larger brains would not have been useful if we were not already prehensile apes who were adapted to living in trees, and could thus use our prehensile hands to create and use tools (Tattersall, 2002 p. 69). Bu t probably one of the single things that sets humans apart from other animals the most is the development of speech. A change in our voice box and brain simultaneously occurred at some point in the evolution of homo sapiens, which allowed humans to differentiate themselves from previous iterations of humanity (or pre-humanity), and begin to do things that are truly novel in the animal kingdom Tattersall, 2002). One of the things that makes language so important is that it augments our innate intelligence, so that instead of things that become created instantly dying out when the person who created them dies, they can pass on the teaching to succeeding generations. This creates culture, which is probably the one biggest things that separates humans from other primates and other animals. If Gould and Tattersall were to have a conversation with each other, they would probably come to cross roads. Gould tended to entirely