Deck 3: Social Class, Occupation, and Social Change

Question 1

What research team reconstructed life in Middletown in 1890 and documented the way in which industrialization had affected the town's class structure using historical research?

A) Lee Rainwater and W. Lloyd Warner
B) Lee Rainwater and Robert Coleman
C) Max Weber and Karl Marx
D) Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd

Answer 1

D

Question 2

The Lynds suggested that the gap in Middletown between the business class and working class was a consequence of moving from a small market town to a town in which machine production was ascendant. Which of the following is one of the causes to which the Lynds attributed this change?

A) an increased emphasis on money
B) a decline in religious values
C) increased immigration
D) organized labor activity

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following would NOT be considered a "pink-collar" occupation?

A) secretary
B) nurse
C) elementary school teacher
D) high school teacher

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following has been a characteristic of job earnings since the mid-1970s?

A) On average, men's earnings have stagnated.
B) Women's earnings have declined steadily.
C) Both men's and women's earnings have increased substantially.
D) Both the distribution of men's earnings and the distribution of women's earnings have become more equal.

Question 5

Of the following options, which has been identified by social scientists as contributing to the growing inequality of wages?

A) economic restructuring
B) globalization
C) technological change
D) all of these

Question 6

In 1870, approximately ______ of the population was rural.

A) 75%
B) 50%
C) 99%
D) 10%

Question 7

Ward McAllister's "400" list ______.

A) attempted to define membership in New York's upper-class
B) was published in 1892
C) attempted to define membership in New York's and Chicago's upper-class
D) both attempted to define membership in New York's upper-class and was published in 1892

Question 8

Which team of researchers argued that corporate leaders, in response to declining profits since the mid-1960s, instituted a number of strategies that had adverse effects for the bottom half of the labor market?

A) Harrison and Bluestone
B) Frank and Cook
C) Robert and Helen Lynd
D) Gilbert and Kahl

Question 9

Corporate strategies to hold down costs include all of the following EXCEPT ______.

A) wage freezes
B) reduction in employee benefits
C) required certification of all employees
D) outsourcing

Question 10

Which of the following is NOT an example of the poor situation of the American working class at the end of the 19th century?

A) lack of voting rights
B) an average workweek of nearly 60 hr
C) unsafe working conditions
D) low pay

Question 11

In which of the following occupations has there been a decrease in workers from 1870 to 2000?

A) farmers
B) service workers
C) sales workers
D) clerical workers

Question 12

By 2000, women constituted almost ______ of the labor force.

A) 10%
B) 25%
C) 50%
D) 75%

Question 13

Which of the following was NOT a reason women entered the workforce in greater numbers beginning in the 1970s?

A) They were drawn by the possibility of earning higher wages than men.
B) There was an increased recognition that living standards required two incomes.
C) The once sharply defined traditional marital family roles were collapsing.
D) Later marriage and delayed and declining birth rates opened up new opportunities.

Question 14

Because the majority of women ______, their yearly earnings are advancing but still likely to lag behind men's.

A) do not work full time, year-round
B) do not earn the same educational credentials
C) do not have equal voting rights
D) always provide benefits for children in the family

Question 15

In 2016, 20% of men were earning poverty-level wages. For women, it was ______.

A) 10%
B) 23%
C) 29%
D) 36%

Question 16

Hispanic workers are most likely to be represented in the ______ occupation.

A) technicians
B) crafts
C) services
D) operatives

Question 17

Which category of women workers has been outearning men?

A) single, childless women under 30
B) married women with children
C) single women with children over 30
D) married, childless women over 30

Question 18

Who conducted the classic 1944 report on Black America in which he declared, "The economic situation of the Negroes in America is pathological. Except for a small minority enjoying upper or middle class status, the masses of American Negroes . . . are destitute?"

A) Lee Rainwater
B) Gunner Myrdal
C) W. Lloyd Warner
D) C. Wright Mills

Question 19

What sector of the economy now employs the majority of Americans?

A) agriculture
B) technology
C) service-producing
D) manufacturing

Question 20

Who distinguished the old middle class from a new middle class in the book, White Collar?

A) Lee Rainwater
B) Gunnar Myrdal
C) W. Lloyd Warner
D) C. Wright Mills

Question 21

According to your textbook, what was the most consequential change that came with postindustrial society?

A) the loss of manufacturing jobs
B) the increase of women in the workforce
C) the decline in prestige of many blue-collar jobs
D) the need for outsourcing

Question 22

What was the relative pay rate for women in 2019?

A) 72 cents
B) 78 cents
C) 80 cents
D) 95 cents

Question 23

Fields in which rewards are heavily concentrated in the hands of a few top performers are known as ______.

A) two-tier wage systems
B) winner-take-all markets
C) weakened wage-setting institutions
D) economic restructuring

Question 24

The Social Register, published in 1887, was a directory of 881 elite families in what city?

A) Boston
B) New York City
C) Philadelphia
D) London

Question 25

Massive layoffs by major corporations, so-called downsizing, were commonplace during which decades?

A) 1960s and 1970s
B) 1970s and 1980s
C) 1980s and 1990s
D) 1990s and 2000s

Question 26

Ward McAllister's "400" list attempted to define membership in New York's upper-class society.

Question 27

The Social Register excluded new money families from its directory.

Question 28

When the Lynds revisited Middletown, they found that the relationships between business owners and their employees and customers had become more personal.

Question 29

In 1870, approximately a quarter of all Americans lived in a rural location (under 2,500 inhabitants).

Question 30

By 1920, 60% of the industrial labor force was foreign born.

Question 31

Two years after the publication of Middletown, the Lynds returned for a restudy.

Question 32

The service-producing sectors of the economy now employ the majority of Americans.

Question 33

Since the 1970s, the gender gap between men's and women's wages has declined.

Question 34

The period from the Revolutionary War to World War I saw the most violent labor confrontations in American history.

Question 35

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the U.S. workers adopted Marx's conception of a capitalist society.

Question 36

In 1943, while an employee of the U.S. Census Bureau, Alba Edwards developed a set of broad occupational groups which provided a "socioeconomic" hierarchy of earnings, education, and prestige, ascending together.

Question 37

Of the three white-collar groupings, it is the managerial occupation that has grown the most since 1980 in the United States.

Question 38

The majority of women professionals today work in just three fields: nursing, teaching, and social work.

Question 39

From 1979 to 2007, the relative pay rate for women had risen from 60 cents to 85 cents for every dollar earned by a similarly employed man.

Question 40

Despite the civil rights movement, antidiscrimination legislation, and affirmative action programs in government and private industry, a considerable occupational gap remains between Blacks and Whites.

Question 41

The term Hispanic only includes individuals with a Mexican ancestry.

Question 42

From 1973 to 2014, the real earnings of CEOs at major corporations rose by over 1,000%.

Question 43

Employment in a postindustrial society shifts away from manufacturing and related sectors and into the service-producing sectors of the economy.

Question 44

Fields in which rewards are heavily concentrated in the hands of a few top performers are called winner-take-all markets.

Question 45

The Social Register, published in 1887, was a directory of 881 elite families in Boston.

Question 46

What two tendencies prevented stark polarization between the capitalist class and the working class in the United States during the early part of the 20th century?

Question 47

Discuss the "sunny side" and "dark side" interpretations of postindustrial society. Using the current condition of the United States, explain whether you support the sunny or dark interpretation. Illustrate why using real-life examples.

Question 48

Explain why since the 1940s there has been such an increase of women in the labor market.

Question 49

List the four explanations offered by social scientists for the growing inequality of wages.

Question 50

American corporations were in serious trouble in the early 1970s. According to Harrison and Bluestone, why was this the case and how did companies respond?