Population problems, a cultural interpretation

"Population courses are usually taught by sociologists, but as yet, unfortunately, much of the literature in the field has had a strong biological and/or economic orientation rather than a sociological one, or has escaped into a sheltered world of facts, failing to be concerned with their social meaning, or their social origin. In this book an attempt is made to give the student and general reader a meaningful picture of population unencumbered by numerous historical speculations concerning population and population laws so-called, few of which contribute anything to an understanding of concrete population data or their interpretation. This book aims to present a treatment of population which will meet at least four standards: (1) proper emphasis on social and cultural factors as forces in the biological behavior of man; (2) primary stress upon social implications of population data and their human significance rather than on a statistical presentation of biosocial facts; (3) classification of population into categories that have sociological meaning, and analysis of data within these categories; (4) proper presentation of population movements as a function of changing culture patterns. Part One is devoted to a consideration of the numbers of people in the world and in the United States, giving some attention to the probable future growth of mankind, and to population theory. Part Two is concerned with an exhaustive analysis of vital processes as affected by human motives, values, and goals. At all points social and cultural forces are shown to be dynamic factors in determining biosocial behavior, suck as is manifest in birth- and death-rate phenomena, and in the selection of biological types. In Part Three the population is broken down into its biological structural elements--sex, age, and ethnic composition. The changing significance of these elements, as they affect fertility and social roles in a dynamic society, is considered. In Part Four the distribution of the population of the United States by functional roles is analyzed, as well as distribution in rural and urban habitat and in geographic-cultural regions. Migration of population, internal and international, its extent, the selective processes involved, and its significance to the social order, is the subject of Part Five. A final chapter is devoted to consideration of a population policy for the United States. Throughout, the best available data, derived from numerous specialized researches, are employed within the interpretive framework of current sociological thought in an attempt to give a brief but clear and systematic picture of the nation's population in its world setting"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)