Help on Sociology?

Question

I need some help with a question that is for an assignment due tomorrow night online.

Here's the question:

You are taking the role of a thirty year old male or female (depending upon your gender). Write what your role would have been twenty years ago and compare how it is the same and different to the role of a thirty year old today. Will it continue to be redefined in the next twenty years? How to you project the role to be at that time?

Best answer = 10 POINTS. :)

Answer 1

This will be a much easier question for me, because I am a 30-year old male (and I have a BA in Sociology to boot).  I'm going to be upfront - my answer to this question - twenty years ago - is going to be way different than if the teacher had asked FORTY years ago. Also, my answer is very pessimistic - I hope I'm wrong.

If I was a 30-year old in 1988, the value of the minimum wage in inflation-adjusted terms was nearly the same as it had been during the Great Depression - but, at 30, I didn't make the minimum wage.  Ronald Reagan was ending his presidency, and yuppies were in vogue.  My 4-year college degree was worth a lot more than in 2008, because fewer people attained a 4-year degree or higher.  College tuition rates were quite low compared to 2008, so my student loan debt was a lot less of a burden. Housing prices were starting to inch way up from what they were in the 1970s, but a 30-year mortgage was very much manageable. I would have been an early Gen Xer that was reaping the benefits of a stock boom that had only come crashing down in late 1987. The feminist movement was waning in strength, but women were an ever increasing portion of my co-workers. I was celebrating the recent collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union, and the US had shown the world that capitalism was the way to go. As I watched the news, crime was rampant, crack was an epidemic, and I was scared to death of AIDS - but America was still the land of the American Dream.

Being 30 today? What a different story.  My BA in Sociology has qualified me to work in fast food, blue collar, and entry level positions.  So many people have 4-year degrees, that the value of mine has eroded.  The value of my wages, while it was on the decline in 1988, has eroded to absurd levels in 2008.  I cannot own a home, a car, groceries, and gas - one of them has to fall by the wayside just to make ends meet.  My grandfather's retirement, which seemed so secure in 1988, is up in smoke. My parents will never be able to retire, it seems. I will never be able to service my college loans. As much as I was not looking forward to George H. Bush being the president-elect in late 1988, he was a genius compared to his son. I've made no progress in the last ten years. In fact, I long for the "good old days" at the end of the Clinton Administration. Sure, we have the internet - and I am buying electronics that i never even dreamed of in 1988. But they are small consolation for the fact that I have yet to actually make $20,000 in a given year, even though I have been "on pace" several times. In 1988, it was clear that manufacturing was on the decline. But, in 2008, it seems like all of my potential tickets into the middle class -like the once heralded IT field - are all being outsourced away. Just as I had secured my real estate license, the market went sour. I have a kid out of wedlock, and I don't even live with him. I'm just not marriageable material. We need a savior to get us out of this mess.

Twenty years from now? (My son will almost be thirty then). At least a thirty-year old in 2008 could move back in with their parents when times got rough. My dad doesn't even have a home. Houses are completely unaffordable now that the market has bounced back - who can pay off $400,000 homes.  The Fed's inflationary policies have led to the total collapse of the economic system. All the industries that made our country great are overseas. The US is a service/tourist economy, like the Carribean islands were service economies in the 1990s, early 2000s.  Well, at least the country is more diverse - we are roughly 15% black, 5% other, 40% Hispanic, and 40% white. In fact, we are considering dropping racial classifications all together. Too bad all this diversity had to happen in such a miserable economy. We were once the most powerful, wealthiest nation on earth - now look at us. Maybe dad and I should move to Canada or Europe. The only thing that could save us now is a strong dictator.

Answer 2

a strong dictator?!! whoa easy fella! hey wasn't it the germans whose country was on the decline several decades ago, who appointed that a*****e hitler?

i understand times may be hard, but be careful what you wish for...