Kruse Kronicle

American Social Indicators, 2006: Getting Better but Feeling Worse

Over the past month, I have done twelve posts on American cultural indicators. Here is an index to those posts:

• Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy
• Suicide
• Crime (Part 1)
• Crime (Part 2)
• Substance Abuse
• Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 1)
• Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 2)
• Education
• Economic Status (Part 1)
• Economic Status (Part 2)
• Ethnicity
• Environment

What can we conclude from these indicators? First, we can say that the worst year in American history over the last fifty years was probably about 1981.

• The property crime rate hit its high in 1975, but violent crime was at its worst in 1981. The highest murder rate was in 1980.
• The suicide rate peaked in 1977.
• The abortion rate peaked in 1981.
• The divorce rate peaked in 1981.
• The highest rate for illicit drug use for high school seniors was in 1979, and for illegal drug use, excluding marijuana, was in 1981.
• The highest rate of cigarette use for high school seniors was in 1975, and for alcohol was in 1978.
• The rate for all (combined) sexually transmitted diseases was highest in 1977.
• The high school dropout rate declined steadily in the years before 1973. It flattened out and peaked in 1979 before continuing the historical pattern of decline.
• Composite SAT scores hit their lowest levels in 1980 and 1981.
• The highest rate of inflation was in 1980.
• The highest rate of poverty was in 1983.
• Unemployment hit its highest rate in 1982.
• Median household inflation-adjusted income was lower in 1981-1983 than in 1972.

Second, over the last twenty-five years, there has been at least modest improvement in all these measures and substantial improvement in several. Additionally, life expectancy continues a 150-year trend of increases, and infant mortality is at all-time lows.

This is not to say that every trend is positive:

• Sexually transmitted diseases have been on the rise in recent years.
• The rate of children born outside of two-parent environments is at historical highs and is slowly growing.
• The status of African Americans as a group relative to Whites has been slowly improving but at a snail's pace in too many regards. (Approximately two-thirds of African American children are in single-parent homes. The rate among Whites is slowly closing the gap.)

Still, the overall picture is remarkably positive.

Third, and most importantly, these indicators tell me that there is a significant disconnect between what is happening and what the general populace perceives is happening. There is a sense of gloom when I talk with people, regardless of political or ideological persuasion. There is a belief that our culture is in decay (although sometimes for opposing reasons depending on ideology.) Some reference the fall of the Roman Empire (due to cultural decay) as a metaphor for our day. Yet as I have shown, many of the most significant indicators point towards improving cultural health, not decay. So why do we feel so gloomy?

Some suggest that the War in Iraq and America's response to threats of terrorism have heightened our anxiety. I don't dismiss this altogether, but the sense of gloom precedes the events of 9/11, so I think there must be something deeper.

Some would suggest that major media outlets harp on the negative and the sensational to make money. Consequently, we get an exaggerated and distorted nature of how things are. The increased competition between media has brought this about. I suspect there is some truth in this claim. However, I think at least two other factors are more central.

First, I think there is a combination of rising expectations and the law of diminishing returns. When we begin to make headway on addressing some issue, expectations rise. We believe we should be able to do even more. Often, substantial improvements can easily and quickly be made in addressing almost any social problem, but each succeeding level of improvement tends to get exponentially more difficult and costly while rendering more modest levels of change. Thus, even though great progress is made over time, a growing sense of frustration develops with the inability to effect improvements in the present. 

Second, probably most significant, is a cultural divide about what a healthy culture looks like and what creates it. If we polled a broad spectrum of Americans, I don't think there would be much disagreement about my assessment of most of the variables I have reviewed. However, if we polled about what has led to these improvements and what will lead to more improvement, I expect we might find a stark divide.

I expect that there would be one group that would say that the return to traditional family values, economic freedom, law enforcement, and alternatives to public education has led to the turnaround we see in the culture. Another group would say it is the enforcement of constitutional rights (especially for women and minorities), government intervention, freedom from oppressive traditionalism (including religion), and public education that has made the difference. I suspect that these two groups are both minorities, but they are highly agitated and energized minorities. Each group sees the other's vision as an apocalyptic destruction of the gains made and a deterrent to future progress. Both factions are now led by idealistic, militant Baby Boomers who, feeling a creeping sense of their own mortality, are rallying for one last charge to conform the world to their idealistic visions. Because these camps are the energized people in the electorate, these are the people to whom the political parties cater.

Meanwhile, a third group of Americans (probably also a minority) is not swayed by either of the camps and takes a variety of more nuanced perspectives. Yet they feel pessimistic about the future because of the rancorous vitriol of the other two groups. In short, there is no consensus about the direction the nation needs to go to move forward.

For those who have read the works of William Strauss and Neil Howe, you will know this is not the first time we have been in this predicament. Our era is very similar to the mood of the late 1930s, the late 1850s (especially with an eerie similarity of having two different kinds of states: slave/free, red/blue), or the 1760s. There is an ebb and flow to cultural consensus, and right now, I suspect we are at low tide. I doubt the tide will be perceptibly rolling in for at least another decade.

Without consensus about direction or cause and effect in cultural change, every move on one or more of the social indicators only reinforces the templates used by those with the biggest cultural megaphones of our time. While things are getting better, everyone views things as becoming more precarious.

These are just some of my thoughts. I wonder what thoughts you might have?

Environment

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Environment

There is a long history of environmentalism in American life. Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872. The Audubon Society, formed in 1905, was one of the earliest environmental groups. President Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909) was probably the first "environmental president" with his conservationist policies. More modern environmental groups can be traced to events like the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Conservation was reborn, and concern about environmental issues became an increasingly important factor in assessing the quality of life.

Over the past fifteen years, global warming has become the central topic dominating the environmental debate. The concern is that industrialization has increased levels of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere, and the temperature of the Earth is rising. This is believed to be responsible for everything from the melting of polar icecaps to the increased frequency of hurricanes to species extinction. Some environmentalists are calling for radical measures to reduce the production of greenhouse gases, most notably the Kyoto Protocol. So, are we on the brink of a human-induced disaster? Let's take a look at some facts.

If the burning of fossil fuels is responsible for the increase in global warming, we should expect to see a noticeable rise in global warming correlated with the rapid growth of fossil fuel usage in the Twentieth Century. Have average temperatures risen over the last century? Yes. The average temperature has increased by about 2°C (less than 4°F.) But take a closer look at the average temperature history for the United States over the last century.

The real acceleration of greenhouse gas emissions is believed to have started after World War II. Notice the trend line from 1910 to 1940. It is the steepest temperature increase and was before the greenhouse gases really got flowing. During the period of increased gas emissions from 1940-1970, the average temperature cooled! Since then, the average temperature has risen at a slightly slower rate than 1910-1930. Is there something else that might better explain this change? Take a look at the following chart:

This chart shows a remarkable correspondence between solar irradiation (dotted line) and temperature changes (solid line.) Also, notice the CO2 levels charted in the lower right-hand part of the graph and the lack of correspondence.

Earlier this year, former Vice-President Al Gore made a movie called The Inconvenient Truth, where he dramatized his conclusions about the impact of global warming. (See movie review.) One of the most frequently referenced parts of the movie is the "hockey stick" effect of global warming. Gore shows a wall-length chart plotting the annual global temperature for several centuries. We see minor fluctuations up and down until the late nineteenth century when the temperature begins and unabated rise until the present. Thus, the line on the chart looks like a hockey stick with a long straight handle, and then the stick curves sharply upward, indicating a rise in temperatures. If you have seen the movie, you know that Gore gets inside an elevator basket and raises himself in the basket. He uses his pointer to indicate how high on the graph the temperature will go if unabated. It is all quite dramatic.

Mr. Gore failed to tell us that his temperature estimates were mainly based on tree ring data. When temperatures are warmer, the tree rings get wider, and when the temperature gets cooler, the rings get narrower. However, temperature isn't the only thing that affects tree ring width. CO2 also affects the width of rings. Thus, when looking at tree rings from the past century or two, what he sees is heavily influenced by increasing levels of CO2, not temperature change. Gore's hockey stick based on tree rings merely tells us that CO2 levels have significantly increased but little about recent temperatures compared to past temperatures.

When taking a historical look at temperatures using more reliable measures, we see results like the following:

This data from the Sargasso Sea studies (the area of the Atlantic between the West Indies and the Azores) shows that we are emerging from a mini-ice age. Temperatures were much warmer in the Middle Ages than at present.

In short, global warming is more likely a product of the natural ebb and flow of the Earth's ecology in relation to the sun's activity. The predictions of a human-induced catastrophe are more than a little exaggerated. In fact, increased carbon dioxide levels may be beneficial in some ways. Plants feed on carbon dioxide, and increased levels may contribute to plant growth and crop production for an expanding human population. Yes, there may be changes in sea levels and shifts in some weather patterns, but could we stop them if we tried? The net pluses and minuses are not clear.

More intriguing than the climatology behind global warming is the sociology and economics behind it. I wrote about last year in Publicly Funded Science, Global Warming, and Christian Responsibility. I will not recap that here. One website has a petition signed by nearly 18,000 scientists (as I recall) who reject the human culpability angle in the global warming dialog and reject the Kyoto Agreements. (Petition Project) Much is made of consensus among scientists, but science is not done by consensus. It is done by a rigorous study that develops models with explanatory and predictive value. Those models do not exist, and significant changes are introduced almost monthly.

This is not to say that there might not be harmful effects from pollutants we put into the environment (CO2 technically is not a pollutant). Clean and safe environments are important matters. Conservation is a desirable aim. Finding less toxic and more renewable energy sources is important to society's long-term well-being. Finding effective ways of reducing waste is essential. From a geopolitical standpoint, reducing dependence on fossil fuels would significantly reduce the influence of unstable oil-producing nations to influence world affairs. However, "crying wolf" only harms future environmental efforts and makes people cynical about legitimate environmental concerns.

The good news is that we are reducing our levels of pollution.

Emissions of the six principal pollutants dropped 25% between 1970 and 2001. Aggregate emissions have leveled in the past decade, but per capita emissions are in decline. We have much room for improvement but are hardly in an environmental apocalypse.

Conclusions

The nature of global warming is not as well understood as is often reported in the media, and the human influence on the phenomenon is not clear. Global warming may change our lives, but radical changes to the world economy to stop the unstoppable will negatively impact the quality of life of millions of people worldwide, especially the poor. Air pollution is in decline, and quality of life with regard to the environment is stable if not improving in the US. However, major cities in some developing nations are polluted and need cleaner technologies. We also cannot turn a blind eye to the impact "greenhouse gases" might have locally and globally. It is reasonable to conclude that excessive production of such gases could have a net negative effect on humanity, and efforts to reduce them are warranted. That said, the apocalyptic claims of impending doom are overblown.

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Ethnicity

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Ethnicity

I have avoided giving an extensive analysis of subgroups within American culture during this series on social indicators. I have been focused on trends at the most aggregate level. However, one measure of quality of life for the whole society is the degree to which each person has an opportunity for a quality of life similar to other cultural groups. Because of their unique place in American history, African Americans have been subjected to the greatest oppression of any ethnic group within our culture. Their status with regard to the privileged status of White Americans can serve as a measure of how well we are doing in achieving equal opportunity for a high quality of life.

The first social indicators I mentioned in this series were life expectancy and the infant mortality rate. These rates are two of the best indicators for overall quality of life. Life Expectancy tells about the chances of living a long life. The infant mortality rate (number of deaths before age 1 per 1,000 births) tells about the most vulnerable among us and how well our cultural infrastructure meets their needs.

So how are African-Americans fairing compared to White Americans?

Life expectancy for African Americans as a percentage of life expectancy for White Americans increased for several years up to the mid-1980s. It appeared to be on a trajectory to equal that of White Americans by early this century. However, the rate took a noticeable dive in the late 1980s and stayed flat for the first years of the 1990s. Since then, the gap has been closing again at a rate similar to before 1984.

What happened? I suspect that rate declined due to the devastating crack cocaine epidemic that hit many Black communities in the late 1980s. Murder rates and drug-related deaths soared for young African Americans. (See Crime (Part 1) ) I don't think this was the only cause, but I suspect it was a strong contributor.

The African American infant mortality rate declined from 32.6 in 1970 to 14.0 in 2003. However, the rate for White Americans declined even more precipitously. The rate of infant deaths for African Americans compared to White Americans was less than 2 to 1 in 1970, but by 2001 the rate was 2.5 to 1. There are likely several reasons for this, including a disparity in healthcare quality. The disparity seems to have leveled out in 1992 and has varied within a narrow range ever since. This trend also correlates well with the increasing ratio of African American single women having children versus White single women having children over the same period.

Another important indicator of equality is the degree of poverty. How have African Americans faired compared to White Americans?

Some estimates place African American poverty rates above 80% before World War II. By 1975, the rate had dropped to 31.3%. The ratio of the African American rate to the rate of White Americans was 3.5 to 1 in 1975. Except for the minor setback in the 1980s (drug epidemic?), the ratio has slowly declined to a rate of less than 2.5 to 1.

Directly tied to economic viability is education.

The high school graduation rate is nearly approaching the rate for White Americans. The rate of college completion is also improving at a little slower pace. It was just under 40% of the rate for White Americans in 1966 and is now over 60% of that rate. As education is one of the most important components of economic advancement, this gives some hope for gains in quality of life for African Americans in the future.

Possibly the most disturbing of all statistics is the ratio of black men ages 18-24 in college versus being in prison. For White males aged 18-24, there are 28 men in college for every 1 in prison. For African American men ages 18-24, the ratio is 2.6 to 1. (See More Brothers in Prison Than In College?) I don't know how this compares historically, but it indicates that we have a long road to equality.

Conclusions

When we look at group measures over time, there has been significant improvement in the absolute quality of life for African Americans. However, when we look at the quality of life relative to White Americans, we get a mixed picture of modest improvement. The quality of life for African Americans relative to White Americans is improving but disappointingly slowly.

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Economic Status (Part 2)

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Economic Status (Part 2)

The Gini Index is a measure of income inequality. The index ranks income distributions from 0 to 1, where 0 equals equality, and 1 equals inequality. Gini indexes had been calculated for families from 1947 to the present in the US. However, household income is now the preferred indicator, and that data is available from 1967.

The Gini Index declined slowly over the 1950s and 1960s until it reached a low of .388 in 1968. Based on earlier data for the entire century, I suspect 1968 was the low point of the century. Over the past four decades, the rate has climbed to .466 in 2004. That is an increase of 20%. Is that significant? Yes.

The following is a chart that shows the percentage of income earned by the top 1% of taxpayers from 1913-1998.

The Gini Index growth rate flattened out in 2000, and I suspect this chart would show a similar leveling or decline if extended for five more years. The percentages preceding 1913 were likely higher than the 1913 percentage. This indicates that income distribution in the 1950s through 1970s may have been an aberration and not the norm.

Many attribute the rising inequality to the tax cuts implemented by Ronald Reagan in 1981. However, the rise in the Gini index began earlier:

Some estimates suggest the poverty rate in the United States in 1939 was more than 40%. This would undoubtedly have given a high Gini Index. We also know that the Gini Index fell steadily from World War II's end until 1968. The Gini index fluctuated near the 1968 level until 1974. The rate began to grow in 1975 and continued steadily until early 1992, set back only by the 1980 and 1990 recessions. If not for the recession and economic woes of the mid-1970s, the origin of the increase might have been as far back as 1968. The calculation methods for the Gini Index were revised in 1993, and indexes after that date are not strictly comparable with previous years. The period of 1993-2000 shows slower growth and 2001-2004 shows virtually no change.

So why did the Gini Index contract and then grow? Frankly, I don't think anyone knows with certainty. Changes in taxation were not a primary factor.

• After the 1964 Kennedy tax cut, inequality continued to decline for the next four years before leveling off in the following years.
• Ronald Regan cut taxes in 1981, and inequality increased through the 1980s at or above the rate it started in 1975.
• Bill Clinton raised taxes, and inequality kept growing, although at a slower rate.
• George W. Bush cut taxes, and inequality stayed constant.

There is no doubt that taxation impacts distributive inequality, but it is also clear that a host of other factors are involved as well.

Is unequal distribution a problem, and if so, why? Here is a bell curve graph that shows the median household income for each fifth of the US population in 1968 and 2004 (the lowest and highest points of income inequality in the last fifty years, respectively.) The "2004" line shows the distribution of median incomes for each fifth of American society in 2004. The "1968 Adjusted" line shows how 2004 income would have been distributed if the 1968 distribution had held constant.

The chart shows that the poorest fifth would have received $5,000 more, and the wealthiest fifth would have received $32,500 less if the 1968 income distribution had remained constant. Or does it? We know that the wealthiest among us are more likely to save and invest each succeeding dollar than the rest of us. If the money that went to the wealthiest fifth had not gone to them, would it have been saved and invested similarly? Might the poorest fifth have become even poorer? Should we try to reduce economic inequality?

Some economists say no. The growing inequality sends signals through the marketplace. For instance, a gap between high school and college graduates motivates more people to pursue more education, thus improving the workforce. It reduces the number of unskilled laborers, causing the wages for unskilled laborers to go higher. Also, why does it matter that some are becoming very wealthy if everyone is getting better off with rising inequality?

On the other hand, in his book Naked Economics, Charles Wheelan tells of a study by economist Robert Frank. Frank offered people an option of living in one of two worlds: (A) You earn $110,000 a year, and everyone else earns $200,000 a year, or (B) You earn $100,000 a year, and everyone else earns $85,000 a year. Which would you pick? Most Americans chose option B. Relative status is more important than absolute status to much of the population. Great inequality will lead to higher levels of dissatisfaction in the culture.

Furthermore, inequality could reach such high levels that significant numbers of people are discouraged from work and achievement. They would no longer feel they have ownership in the institutions of society and cease to respect them. Maintaining order would begin to become costly, crippling a productive economy.

Too little inequality could hamstring economic growth by diverting wealth from those most likely to save and invest in productive economic efforts. Too much inequality could lead to a breakdown in respect for social order, which would also hamstring the economy. There are dangers in either direction. However, I do not believe we are near either extreme, and our economy continues to grow at healthy rates. Most European democracies with more equality have sluggish economies and higher unemployment and find themselves confronting hard decisions about reductions in government welfare programs. For these reasons, I do not necessarily view our present levels of income inequality as purely negative.

Conclusions:

• Unemployment and inflation rates have been hovering below or just barely above thirty-year lows.
• Median household income has grown by 30% since 1967.
• Since the mid-1990s, the poverty rate has fluctuated in the 11.5-13.5% range, just slightly above the historic lows of the early 1970s.
• The percentage of Seniors living in poverty has dropped below 10%, but poverty for children is nearly 18%.
• Since 1967, the Gini Index of income inequality has risen by 20%, while median household income has risen by over 30%.

The overall economic picture is one of improvement, though it may be less than we might wish. The economic indicators suggest an overall improvement in quality of life.

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Economic Status (Part 1)

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Economic Status (Part 1)

Economic status is usually cast in terms of income and wealth. When discussing economic justice, we typically have one of two things in mind. First, we ask if each person has sufficient resources to live on. Second, we are asking how income and wealth are distributed throughout society. Is it concentrated in the hands of a few, or is it widely shared? I will focus primarily on income and its distribution as a proxy for economic status.

Whether we employ ourselves or are employed by others, employment is a fundamental necessity for economic survival. Low unemployment is a sign of economic health. The question is, how low should unemployment be? A portion of the population is always in transition between jobs. Then some are chronically unemployed. If the employment rate gets too high, a labor shortage ensues, and employers begin offering higher wages to attract qualified workers. Businesses raise prices to compensate for the increased wages. The workers must pay higher prices for goods and services, thus creating a cycle of inflation. As long as consumer confidence remains high about the future, the cycle continues upward.

As wages escalate, businesses begin to automate and find labor-saving options to avoid paying increasing wages. This eventually reduces jobs, and labor becomes cheaper because more laborers are looking for work. Consumers become more anxious about spending, and businesses lose revenue. They cut more workers. Some businesses close or drastically reduce, which means less competition for the remaining businesses. It soon reaches a point where employers hire workers because their wages are relatively cheaper, and employers believe they can expand sales again. Then the upward spiral begins again. This is the business cycle.

What have been the recent trends with unemployment and inflation?

 

The Unemployment and inflation rates have been decreasing since the early 1980s. Unemployment was 5.1% at the end of 2005. Some economic experts believe 5% unemployment is optimal, striking a balance between overheating the job market and leaving too many people without work. Inflation has hovered around a modest 3% over the past decade. This has been one of the most stable economies ever.

So how have people faired in this stable economy? Median household income is a frequently used barometer of people's economic activity. The "median" is the amount made by the person who is halfway between the person making the most and the person making the least:

Median household income has risen steadily over the last thirty-seven years, increasing by almost 30% in constant dollars (2005 dollars.) Minor dips in the growth are all directly linked to recessions starting in 1969, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1990, and 2001. What is noteworthy is the continuous growth.

So how have low-income people, seniors, and children faired during this time?

The poverty rate for families dropped by half between 1960 (22.2%) and 1973 (11.1%). It stayed below the 12% level until 1980. From then until the early 1990s, the rate stayed mainly in the 13-15% range. The rate has remained in the 11-12% range since then.

An important aspect of this poverty rate is the increasingly "younger face" it has. It was common to think of older Americans a generation ago when one thought of poverty. About 35% of seniors were in poverty in 1960. That number dropped to less than 15% in 1974. The rate for seniors dropped below the overall rate in 1982. Since then it has continued on a steady decline, with minor fluctuations, to a rate of 10.1% in 2004.

The rate for children declined from 26.9 in 1960 to 14.0 in 1969. The rate climbed slightly over the next decade but climbed steeply to 22% in 1983. It stayed at or above 20% for the next ten years. After 1993, the child poverty rate declined to a level in the mid-teens, but it has risen in the past couple of years to 17.8%. The child poverty rate is almost 150% of the overall rate. Single-parent homes are three times more likely to be in poverty than two-parent homes, and the continual growth in single-parent homes contributes to the high child poverty rate.

The overall poverty rate is near all-time lows in the mid-1970s, although it has crept a little higher in the last few years after the recession. Census studies suggest that half of all people in poverty are not in poverty three years later, which means there is considerable movement in and out of poverty. Economic status is highly complex, and poverty rates hide several other issues (ex., underemployment, wage discrimination, etc.). Still, as an overall measure, poverty is quite low by historical standards.

So how are we doing in terms of income distribution?

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Education

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Education

Education is critical for societies with complex modern economic systems. However, measuring the quality of education over time is difficult. As the economy and society become more complex, so do the educational needs. As the rate of technology change increases, some jobs disappear, and others are created. Workers have to be more adaptable than ever before and must be continually learning if they are to keep up with a rapidly changing job market.

Here is some of what we know about education in America:

Only 48% of adults age 25 and older had a high school education in 1964. By 2005, the number rose to 85%. The population completing college tripled from 9% to 28.7% over the same timeframe. So how do the most recent graduates compare to students in previous years?

College Board has adjusted the above statistics to compensate for changes made to the SAT in the 1990s. These statistics show the highest composite score (mean of the verbal and math scores) was 529.5 in 1967 and 1968. The composite score declined significantly over the next decade and bottomed out in 1980 and 1981 at 497. That score has risen steadily to 514 in 2005, the highest rate since 1974.

The math score has increased from an all-time low of 492 in 1981 to 520 in 2005. For the last three years, the math score has been higher than the previous high of 517 in 1969. However, after an initial rise, the verbal score declined to an all-time low of 499 in 1991 and 1994. It improved over the next decade to 508. Some speculate that the verbal score was depressed by an increasing number of people taking the test who did not have English as their first language, namely immigrants and non-USA students.

These statistics suggest a significant increase in the proportion of people receiving a diploma and that the quality of education for college-bound students is improving. Still, the quality of education is a relative standard. Forty years ago, more than sixty percent of jobs were considered unskilled labor. That percentage has dropped by more than half since that time. More and more jobs require greater technical skills. The economy increasingly demands that workers be involved in continual education throughout their careers. There is also an increasing demand for people with aptitudes for science and technology. Yet nearly a third of high school graduates can not read at a level beyond the most basic level needed to function in society. Are we effectively equipping students with the skills they will need?

Of the four major areas measured in NEAP tests, only mathematics showed improvement for the oldest children over the past two or three decades. Reading has remained at the same level while writing and science have actually declined. For the youngest children, there is an improvement in mathematics and science scores but no change in the reading and writing scores. It remains to be seen if these improvements will continue with younger children in their academic lives, but it is a good start.

Conclusions:

There is room for improvement within our educational institutions. The rate of people earning high school, college, and advanced diplomas is the highest it has ever been. SAT scores suggest improvement in the preparation of college-bound high school students over the past twenty years. However, the NEAP scores suggest little improvement in the quality of education across the whole spectrum of high school students. These indicators seem to suggest a quality of life that is modestly improving.

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Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 2)

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 2)

Despite the decrease in teenage sexual behavior and less unprotected sexual behavior, there is a rapid increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases:

After declining somewhat erratically from 1975 to 1997, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) rose by 28% between 1997 and 2004. The rate for Chlamydia rose 55.5%. The CDC estimates one in five adolescent and adult Americans has genital herpes.

The rate of people contracting Aids, the deadliest of sexually transmitted diseases, is also not good:

After peaking in 1992, the rate of new Aids declined almost by half between 1992 and 1997. However, the rate has flattened out since then and may be poised to increase based on some assessments.

All of these statistics point to significant changes in family and sexuality. The recent debate on same-sex unions shows that the very ideas of marriage and family are in flux. If we accept the premise that the two-parent household is the optimal circumstance for raising children, and marriage the optimal circumstance for engaging in sexual behavior, then the picture is not good.

While the abortion rate has declined by about 20% over the last twenty years, it is still true that one in four pregnancies ends in abortion. More than one-third of children are born to unmarried women. Some of these women, no doubt, go on to marry or live in stable relationships with their fathers, but many children born into two-parent families also experience divorce and loss of the two-parent status. (I want to be clear here that I am not saying that any particular one-parent home is a hopeless situation by any means. I am addressing public policy and what we know from looking at the aggregate.) While there is some modest good news about teen sexual behavior, the overall increase in sexually transmitted diseases is very high and rising.

Another cultural factor related to this is the rise in the availability of pornography. The pornography industry was in retreat as recently as the early 1990s, but the rise of the internet has brought it roaring back to life. It is easily a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. Images and videos graphically portraying virtually every imaginable sexual act can be accessed with a few mouse clicks by children with unfiltered internet access. Even with filtered access, children can be confronted with pornography. Chat rooms provide ready-made connections with children for sexual predators. All this is not to mention the potential desensitizing impact of pornography on significant numbers of adults in our culture. The pornography industry has surged in the last four to five years, and most social indicators like the ones above only report up to 2001-2003. It remains to be seen what impact pornography will have.

Conclusions

• Two-parent families have declined from 87.7% in 1960 to about 67% over the last decade.
• The divorce rate has remained constant at 50% since 1977.
• The percentage of births to unwed mothers has increased from 10% in 1970 to 35.8% in 2004.
• The percentage of births to unwed teens, after rising from 5.4% in 1970 to 9.9% in 1994, has declined to 8.3% in 2004.
• After reaching an abortion rate high of 30.4 per 100 pregnancies in 1983, the rate dropped to 24.2 in 2002.
• The percentage of unmarried nineteen-year-olds who reported having ever had sexual intercourse in 1988 and 2002 dropped from 76.5 to 70.1 for girls and from 78% to 65.2% for boys. For seventeen-year-olds, the percentage rose from 38.3% to 43.1% for girls and declined from 57.2% to 39.4%.
• After declining from a 1975 high of 1,075 cases of sexually transmitted diseases per 100,000 population to at least a forty-year low of 607 cases in 1997, the rate increased by 33.3% to 809 in 2004. About 1 in 5 Americans has genital herpes.
• New incidences of Aids reached a high in 1992 of 31.2 new cases per 100,000 population before dropping by half to 16 in 1997. Since then, the rate has bottomed at 13.8 but rose to 14.4 in 2004.
• Pornography has become a multi-billion-dollar industry in less than a decade through internet marketing, creating anonymity and low cost for a rapidly growing base of consumers.

Most indicators related to family formation and sexuality suggest a significantly declining quality of life.

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Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 1)

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 1)

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act was passed by Congress in 1996. Two of the Act’s goals were to reduce out-of-wedlock births and to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. Scholars and politicians generally agree that the most desirable form of the family for the nurture of children is a household where both the mother and father are present. Therefore, one measure of societal decline would seem to be a decrease in the number of children born into and raised in two-parent families.

The percentage of families with both parents present declined from 87.7% in 1960 to 85% in 1970. Except for a brief plateau in the late 1980s, the percentage steadily declined to 69.2% in 1993. From 1993 until 2003, the percentage stayed between 68% and the 1993 level. Over the last two years, it has fallen to 67.3%. In 1968, 10.7% of children lived only with their mother, 1.1% with their father, 2.4% with other relatives, and .4% with no relatives. By 2003, those percentages were 23.4% with their mother, 4.8% with their father, 3.4% with other relatives, and .9% with no relative. Government policy appears to be moving even more toward advancing two-parent families, but it remains to be seen if societal values will move toward two-parent homes.

The divorce rate plays a role in the rate of families without two parents.

The rate of divorces to marriages was about 25-27% from 1950-1967. That rate doubled to more than 50% ten years later, in 1977. Since that time, it has remained remarkably constant at about 50%. Divorce may have impacted the initial rise in one-parent households, but it does not explain everything.

Approximately 10% of all births were to unwed mothers in 1970. That ratio has been about 1 in 3 for the last ten years and is still rising. The percentage of all births to teenagers was 5.4% in 1970. That grew to 9.9% in 1994. A slight decline began in 1999; by 2004, it was 8.3%. The more significant trend is the percentage of births to unwed mothers twenty years old or older. The rate was 5.3% in 1970, but by 2004 that rate had increased fivefold to 27.5%. It has increased by 0.5-1.0 percentage points a year since 1999. The behavior of White women drives this increase.

Abortion also has a direct impact on all of these statistics:

Approximately 80% of abortions are to unmarried women. Had those pregnancies come to full term unmarried women would have given birth to 45% of all births in 2002. That rate has been stable for almost a decade.

These statistics all suggest more sexual activity outside the marriage relationship. Finding reliable time series data on sexual activity is difficult. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been doing ongoing research on teenagers and has learned the following:

It is hard to know how these numbers compare to earlier eras. Many are inclined to think these numbers were much lower as late as the 1960s, but reliable data is hard to come by. This chart shows increased sexual activity among teenagers in the seven years from 1988-1995. There was a modest decline in the rate from 1995-2002, especially for males and those under eighteen. The CDC also says there has been an increased use of contraception. These factors have likely contributed to a reduced rate of unmarried teen births.

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Substance Abuse

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Substance Abuse

Until recently, drug abuse was primarily confined to the poor and certain subcultures. Drug abuse escalated and entered mainstream culture during the 1960s and 1970s. Few reliable time-series statistics exist that measure levels of drug abuse over an extended period. The most widely used statistics come from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). From about 1979 to 1991, these surveys were conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). From 1991 to the present, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has conducted the survey. The survey was redesigned in 1999 and again in 2001, with each change making the newer data strictly non-comparable with earlier data.

The existing data suggest that substance abuse by the overall population peaked in the late 1970s. The percentage of the population age 12 and older that had used any illicit drug in the last month in 1979 was 14.1%. This number declined to 12.1% by 1985. Three years later, that percentage had dropped to 7.9%, and by 1992 it hit a low of 5.8%. By the late 1990s, the rate had leveled off at about the 6.3% range. It may have risen slightly since that time. The amount of Substance abuse is likely about half the level it was twenty-five years ago.

Substance abuse by youth has been consistently measured since 1975 by an organization called Monitoring the Future at the University of Michigan. Their data reveals the following:

 

• The use of any illicit drugs among high school seniors peaked in 1979.
• The use of any illicit drug excluding marijuana peaked in 1981.
• Both measures hit thirty-year lows in 1992.
• Both measures increased significantly over the next four years before stabilizing. (Likely due to a de-emphasis on enforcement of drug laws during the Clinton Administration.)
• Current rates are higher than a decade ago but are still as low as rates in the early 1970s.

 

• The 30-year peak in Alcohol use by High School Seniors was in 1978.
• Alcohol use declined from 1980 until 1993. It increased slightly over four years and then has declined somewhat since 1997.
• The 30-year peak in cigarette use was in 1976.
• Cigarette usage dropped from 1976 until 1980, when it reached about 30%, and remained until 1993.
• Cigarette usage experienced a brief spike from 1994-1997 but has since declined to its lowest rate in thirty years.
• Present usage of both Alcohol and Cigarettes is about one-third lower than their 1978 and 1976 respective highs.

The survey data does not include High School dropouts or absentees. Drug abuse is believed to be much higher among this population, but they are a small portion of the youth population. While drug use is undoubtedly much higher than before the mid-1960s, it is lower by nearly 40% from the late 1970s. There is no evidence of a widespread drug abuse epidemic in schools or among youth in general.

Conclusion

Rates of substance abuse give a mixed message since they have fluctuated over the last decade, but they have declined over the long term. These indicators suggest a stabilized, if not improving, quality of life.

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Crime (Part 2)

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Crime (Part 2)

The Columbine High School tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999 has come to symbolize a culture of pervasive youth violence. There is no question that the Columbine episode was well beyond the ordinary expression of youth violence, but was it truly symbolic of trends in youth culture?

Historical statistics about youth violence are often hard to access and assess. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has published data on school violence and crime dating from the 1992-1993 school year. Here is a summary of their findings concerning youth homicides and suicides:

 

The number of homicides and suicides at school has remained constant over the last decade. Homicides away from school have dropped dramatically, and suicides away from school have declined at a less rapid rate. This has occurred during a time of growth in the student population. Therefore, the homicide and suicide rates are actually falling.

 

The violent crime (victimization) rate has dropped from 96 to 33 per 1,000 since 1993, and the theft crime rate has dropped from 59 to 22 per 1,000. NCES estimates that juvenile crime victimization is at its lowest since the early 1970s. There is no evidence of a youth crime epidemic.

We are in one of the least violent and crime-prone eras in over thirty years, and the rates appear to be on a downward trend. Youth violence, which had surged in the early 1990s, appears to have been driven partly by a drug sub-culture and not by widespread violent youth behavior. The highest levels of crime and violence were twenty-five years ago, as evidenced by the following data:

 

Conclusions

• After declining from at least a fifty-year high in 1981, declining in the early 1980s, and then rising again through the early 1990s, violent crime has steadily declined since 1994.
• Property crime has been in decline since the mid-1970s.
• Violent crime is less than half as frequent as its 1981 high.
• Property crime is less than one-third as frequent as its 1975 high.
• After peaking in the early 1990s, juvenile crime has rapidly declined.
• There is no evidence of a widespread youth culture of violence.

Crime rates suggest an improving quality of life.

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Crime (Part 1)

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Crime (Part 1)

A fundamental indicator of a deteriorating society is increased criminal behavior. Crime analysis in the United States has focused on two primary measures over the last few decades. One measure is based on crimes reported to law enforcement officers. These are compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and presented in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The UCR data has the advantage of measuring officially recorded events, but it is not an ideal indicator of actual crime incidents. Different types of crimes are reported at varying frequencies. For instance, nearly all murders are reported, but less than half of some property crimes are reported.

Furthermore, depending on various political concerns, law enforcement agencies occasionally focus more resources on some crimes to the detriment of enforcement against other types of crime. This leads to higher reporting and a higher crime rate. Also, public education and changing values can cause a change in the frequency of reported crime. Nevertheless, UCR statistics are considered an important measure.

A better measure of actual crime is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the US Department of Justice. The data is based on surveys of a scientifically selected population sample. Unfortunately, the survey only dates to 1973. What do UCR and NCVS data reveal?

The UCR data shows:

• A steadily increasing crime rate until about 1980.
• A decline in crime during the early 1980s.
• Violent crime rates reached a fifty-year high in 1991.
• Property crime had a less dramatic increase but also hit a peak in 1991.
• Both violent and property crime rates dropped dramatically in the years after 1991.
• The 2003 levels for both types of crime are similar to rates in the early 1970s.

NCVS data tell a different tale.

The NCVS data shows:

• A peak in the property crime rate in the mid-1970s.
• A steady decline in property crime until the mid-1980s, when the rate stabilized.
• Another decline in property crime during the early 1990s.
• The property crime rate plateaued in 2003, at less than one-third of the rate in 1973.
• Violent crime peaked in 1981 and then declined before stabilizing in the Mid-1980s.
• Violent crime began rising again in 1990 and nearly reached the 1981 peak in 1994.
• Violent crime has declined since 1994 to less than one-half the peak rate in 1981.

The NCVS data seems to tell a different story from the UCR Data. How are these two measures to be reconciled?

Rarely are changes in complex phenomena like national crime rates the consequence of a single factor. That is true here. Much of what has unfolded over the last twenty years occurs against the backdrop of drug use and law enforcement efforts concerning drug use.

The peak year for the use of illicit drugs was 1981. The UCR and NCVS data show this was also a peak time for criminal behavior. Crime rates dropped for a few years after the 1981 peak. Both measures show increased violent crime rates beginning about 1985 when a crack cocaine epidemic emerged. In response to the epidemic, the Regan Administration established the Office of National Drug Control Policy in 1988, headed by a "Drug Czar," to coordinate efforts at reducing drug abuse. Law enforcement resources were targeted toward reducing drug abuse and related crime.

There were more crime incidents during this time, as evidenced by the victimization rate. However, a higher percentage of crimes were adjudicated because of the increased focus of resources by law enforcement and the courts. A higher percentage of reported crime during a time of increasing actual instances of crime, resulted in a spike in the UCR data.

The increased enforcement efforts also resulted in overcrowded prisons. Initially, some perpetrators served less prison time than they otherwise would have. The building boom for new prisons in the 1990s rectified this problem and has likely contributed to the declining crime rates. There was also a boom in private sector security technology and personnel over the past decade. This also likely contributed to the decline. [1]

Clearly, there was an increase in violent crime in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but not nearly as dramatic as the UCR statistics would suggest. Property crime declined during this time. While the UCR data shows a return to early 1970s UCR rates, the NCVS data shows a drop to levels that are less than half its early 1970s rate. This may mean more crimes are reported and adjudicated than 30 years ago.

Other nuances to the 1994 peak of violent crime are worthy of note. The age-adjusted homicide rate was 10.7 in 1980 and again in 1993. Notice the difference in the age configuration of the murder victims for these two years:

The homicide victimization rate declined significantly for age groups over 24 years old. The rate dramatically increased for those under age 25 and doubled for teenagers. But this is not the whole story. Note the following differences between White and Black males:

The death rate for Black males ages 20-24 in 1993 reached a staggering 190 per 100,000 people. (Age-adjusted rate for the nation was 10.2.)  This was overwhelmingly Black on Black crime. One-third of juvenile homicide arrests happened in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit, even though these cities had just 5.8% of juveniles nationwide. [2] About 1 in four juvenile homicide cases occurred in just five of the nation's more than 3,000 counties. [3] The 1980 homicide rate appears to have been more geographically and demographically disbursed. The early 1990s surge was concentrated among urban male teenagers and young men, especially Black men. It was directly related to the crack cocaine epidemic. [4] While the homicide rate for young Black males has been significantly decreasing in recent years, it has not decreased at the rate of other demographic groups. That such an episode occurred points to several disturbing social problems, but it does not support the idea of a broad-based cultural slide into violence.

[Continued Social Indicators: Crime (Part 2 of 2)]

[1] Bruce L. Benson, "Why Crime Declines," The Freeman, Foundation for Economic Education, January 2000. www.fee.org.

 

[2] Erik Lotke and Vincent Shiraldi, "An Analysis of Juvenile Homicides: Where They Occur and the Effectiveness of Adult Court Intervention," National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, July 16, 1996. 66.165.94.98/stories/analysjuv0796.html

 

[3] Howard N. Snyder and Melissa Sickmund, "Juvenile Victims and Offenders: 1999 National Report," National Center for Juvenile Justice, Washington, DC, September 1999. Chapter 2, p. 21. www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/nationalreport99/toc.html

 

[4] Ibid. Chapter 3.

 

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Suicide

SOCIAL INIDCATORS 2006

Suicide

The ultimate pathology is suicide. Suicide should be on the increase in a society that is in decline. Due to the stresses and strains of decaying society, people whose mental health is at risk should increasingly be pushed over the edge. What is happening with suicide in the United States?

The basic measure of suicide is the crude suicide rate. The suicide rate is the number of suicides per 100,000 people. However, because suicide rates vary considerably by stage of life, an age-adjusted suicide rate is also calculated. This rate is obtained by dividing the population into age segments and calculating the rate per 100,000 people for that segment. Each segment rate is then weighted by its proportion of the total population. The sum of these weighted age-specific rates is the age-adjusted rate. Here is the Age-Adjusted Suicide rate for 1960-2003.

 

The age-adjusted rate peaked in 1977 at 13.7. It declined significantly over the next three years but steadily increased to 12.8 in 1986. It declined steadily to a 40-year low of 10.4 in 2000. This is a decline of nearly 25% over the past 25 years.

The overall rate does not tell the whole story. When rates are examined by five-year age categories, a more nuanced story emerges. Look at the years for the highest and lowest suicide rates by age for the period 1960-2002:

 

The trend for teenagers has been a steady increase in the suicide rate until about 1987. The rate plateaued until about 1994 and began to decline again. (This parallels some of the youth murder rates which we will visit later.) Young adults experienced an increase, but the rate peaked in the late 1970s. It declined some in the early 1980s and plateaued. The rate began dropping again in the mid-1990s.

The oldest half of the age range experienced the highest rates in the early 1960s. The rates declined until about 1980, when the rates began to rise again, although they did not go to previous heights. By 1990 the rates had begun to decline.

Conclusions

• The age-adjusted suicide rate is near a forty-year low.
• Suicide rates have improved for adults and worsened for children over the past forty years, although that rate for children has been dropping for the last decade.

This seems to suggest an overall improvement in quality of life.

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Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy

Several factors contribute to having a high quality of life. These include safe environments, adequate diet, adequate health care, sufficient education, adequate financial resources, nurturing families and communities, to name just a few. Some measures tell us about each of these variables, but demographers tend to start with two when looking for broad quality-of-life measures. One is the infant mortality rate, and the other is life expectancy at birth.

The infant mortality rate is the number of children that die between birth to 1 year of age per 1,000 live births. This measure is important because these children are the most vulnerable members of any society. Measuring how well the most vulnerable survive tells us something about a population's overall quality of life.

The second measure is life expectancy at birth. Everyone dies eventually, but a society with a high quality of life will have organized itself to minimize the number of premature deaths in its population.

What do these two measures tell us about American society?

Throughout most of recorded history, the infant mortality rate has been estimated to be about 250 per 1,000 live births. Early in the 1900s, the rate was well over 100 in the United States. The rate appears to have leveled off in recent years, and it remains to be seen if some minimum barrier has been attained.

Life expectancy at birth in the United States in 1900 was just under 50 years. While life expectancy has increased by eight or nine years over the last fifty years, it improved by nearly twenty years in the first fifty years of the Twentieth Century. With continued advances in biotechnology, how high this rate may rise remains to be seen.

These two measures illustrate the remarkable advances we have experienced in recent generations due to health care, sanitation, education, workplace reforms, and technology. No populations in the past, and few populations in the present, have experienced the high quality of life Americans enjoy today.

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Social Indicators 2006

Is America in decline? Is society coming apart? This is a question I have heard people raise several times in recent conversations about American society. On more than one occasion, I have heard comparisons made to the moral decay and fall of the Roman Empire.

Frankly, I think most of us suffer from a parochialism of the present (Phrase stolen from George Will). Idealist and intellectuals are often inclined to see themselves out on the bleeding edge of the next great leap in human existence. The traditionalists often believe that the present is the worst era yet in American history. For nearly all of us, only those events that have happened during our lifetime seem to have substance. Everything else seems to be a part of a murky, distant past.

Last night I watched a two-hour special about the political career of Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in June of 1968. That assassination occurred when I was a child, and it is one of my first memories of events with national/international importance. Many people just a little older than I remember the JFK assassination as an important moment in their lives. While I was alive at the time, I have no memory of it. It might as well have been the assassination of Abraham Lincoln or Julius Caesar. Some folks just a few years younger than me do not remember Watergate and Nixon’s resignation from office. It is as distant in time for them as the JFK assassination is for me.

Parochialism of the present is an understandable human proclivity. However, when people start embracing utopian solutions to problems without having learned from those who have gone before, or when others support draconian measures to prevent the collapse of society without placing present problems within the ebbs and flows of history, we tend to create bigger problems than the ones we think we are addressing.

Over the next three weeks, I will resurrect and update a series I did last November on social indicators. I will look at some statistical indicators from demography, sociology, economics, and other fields social scientists consider broad quality-of-life indicators. Depending on the indicator, we will look at timeframes of 30-50 years to get a sense of what trajectory things are on. I am sure you have heard the expression, “It’s easy to lie with statistics.” That is true. But it is even easier to lie without them! Quantified observations are a good place to start a conversation about social forces at work in the culture.

Is America in decline? Let’s take a look.

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Social Indicators: Indexed and Rated

Any economist, sociologist, or other person who quantifies human behavior knows the mantra: “It’s easy to lie with statistics.” True. But it is even easier to lie without them! Quantified observations are a good place to start a conversation about social forces at work in the culture.

Over the past three weeks, I have written twelve posts on nine social indicators for quality of life in America. I intended to find indicators that tell us what is happening at the aggregate level in our culture. Therefore, I have purposely avoided much information segmenting by age, sex, ethnicity, and region. I have also tried to focus on indicators for which data is readily accessible so you can verify (or not) my observations here.

Below are 35 indicators grouped by links to my twelve posts. You can click on the heading and read the post about that collection of indicators. Under each heading are specific indicators followed by a “CHART” link that will pop up a graph or chart about that indicator (if there is a chart.) In front of each hand is one of three signs indicating my estimation of which way the trend is headed:

+  = Quality of life is improving.

-  = Quality of life is diminishing.

*  = Unclear or mixed message.

As you look down the list, it is striking how many negative trends have to do with weak family formation and sexual behavior. Most everything else is improving to one degree or another. Assuming you buy my assessment of these indicators and believe I have not utterly neglected some catastrophic phenomenon in our society (and I covet your input on this), an interesting question emerges: If things are so good, why do we feel so bad? There seems to be a consensus that our culture is disintegrating. (Do you agree?)

I have some thoughts about this disconnect in future posts, but here is a recap for now.

SOCIAL INDICATORS

Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy

+ Infant deaths per 1,000 births dropped from 29.2 to 6.9 between 1950 to 2003. CHART

+ Life expectancy at birth rose from 68.2 to 77.6 between 1950 to 2003. CHART

Suicide

+ Age-adjusted suicide rate per 100,000 population dropped from a high in 1977 of 13.3 to 10.5 in 2003. The lowest rate since before 1959 was 10.4 in 2000. CHART

Crime (Part 1 of 2)

+ Property crime victimization is down from a high of 553.6 incidents per 1,000 households in 1975 to 161.1 in 2004, a 70.9% drop. The lowest year was 2002 at 159. CHART

+ Violent crime victimization is down from a high of 52.4 cases per 1,000 people in 1981 to 21.2 in 2004, a 59.5% drop. CHART

Crime (Part 2 of 2)

+ Theft victimization at school dropped 58% between 1992-2002. CHART

+ Violent crime victimization at school dropped 50% between 1992-2002. CHART

Substance Abuse

+ Substance abuse (measured as a person over 12 who had used in the previous month) declined from about 14% in 1979 to about 6.3% in 2001.

+ Any illicit drug use by youths (measured as a high school senior who had used in the previous month) dropped from a high of 38.9% in 1978 and 1979 to 23.4% in 2004. CHART

+ Any illicit drug use excluding marijuana by youths (measured as a high school senior who had used in the previous month) dropped from a high of 15.3% in 1977 to 10.8% in 2004. CHART

+ Alcohol use by youths (measured as a high school senior who had used in the previous month) dropped from a high of 71.5% in 1979 to 48.8% in 2004. CHART

+ Cigarette use by youths (measured as a high school senior who had used in the previous month) dropped from a high of 37% in 1977 to 27.4% in 2004. CHART

Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 1 of 2)

- Percentage of children living in families with two parents present dropped from 85.4% in 1968 to 68.4% in 2003. The rate has hovered in the 68% to 69% range since 1995. CHART

* Divorce rate has remained constant at 50% since 1975. CHART

- Percentage of births to unmarried women has risen from 10.7% in 1970 to 34.6% in 2003. CHART

+ Abortion, after reaching a high of 30.1 per 100 births in 1981, declined to 24.2 in 2002. CHART

+ Percentage of 19 year old males who had ever had sexual intercourse dropped 78% in 1988 to 65.2% in 2002. The rate for females dropped from 76.5% to 70.1%. CHART

Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 2 of 2)

- The rate of sexually transmitted diseases, after declining from 1975-1997, rose 20% by 2003. CHART

* The rate of new AIDS cases rose steadily from 1980 until 1992 when it reached a rate of 31.2 cases per 100,000 population. The rate dropped to 14.9 cases in 1997 but has stayed constant at that level through 2003. CHART

Education

+ The Percentage of adults over 24 years old who have completed high school rose from 48% in 1964 to 83.9% in 2004. CHART

+ The Percentage of adults over 24 years old who have completed college rose from 9.1% in 1964 to 27% in 2004. CHART

+ Composite SAT Scores rose from a low of 497 in 1980 and 1981 to 513 in 2004. CHART

* Performance of 17 year olds on the National Education Assessment Progress tests showed no overall improvement from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. CHART

Economic Status (Part 1 of 2)

+ The unemployment rate was 5.5% in 2004 which is below the rate of all but a couple of years in the 1970s-1990s. CHART

+ The inflation rate was 2.7% in 2004 which continues a trend of staying in the 2-3% range since the early 1990s. CHART

+ Median household real (adjusted for inflation) income rose 29.7% from $34,234 in 1967 to $44,389 in 2004. CHART

+ The percentage of people living in poverty declined from 22.4% in 1959 to 12.7% in 2004 (Although the rate had been as low as 11.3 in 2000.) CHART

Economic Status (Part 2 of 2)

* The Gini Index of economic inequality rose from an all time low in 1968 of .399 to .466 in 2004. The rate has remained flat for the past five years. (The Gini formula changed in 1993 and earlier data should probably be made a point higher for similar comparison.) It is also unclear what level of inequality is optimal. CHART

Ethnicity

+ Life expectancy of African-Americans as a percentage of the expectancy for White Americans increased from 89.4% in 1970 to 92.9% in 2001. CHART

- Infant mortality rate of African-Americans as a percentage of the rate for White Americans increased from 183% in 1970 to 246% in 2001, although the growth has been minimal since 1992. CHART

+ The household poverty rate of African-Americans as a percentage of the rate for White Americans decreased from 323% in 1975 to 236% in 2002. CHART

+ The percentage of African-Americans (over age 24) completing high school as percentage of White Americans completing high school increased from 53.3% in 1966 to 94% in 2003. CHART

+ The percentage of African-Americans (over age 24) completing college as percentage of White Americans completing college increased from 36.5% in 1966 to 62.7% in 2003. CHART

Global Warming and Environment

* Global average temperatures have increased a little less than 2°C over the last century but little if any of it has to do with human behavior. (Thus, global warming is not an indicator of human activity.) CHART

+ Air polluting emissions have been reduced by 25% since 1970, although reductions have been minimal in the last decade. CHART

Social Indicators: Global Warming and Environment

There is a long history of environmentalism in American life. Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872. The Audubon Society, formed in 1905, was one of the earliest environmental groups. President Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909) was probably the first "environmental president" with his conservationist policies. More modern environmental groups can be traced to events like the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Conservation was reborn, and concern about environmental issues became an increasingly important factor in assessing the quality of life.

Over the past fifteen years, global warming has become the central topic dominating the environmental debate. The concern is that industrialization has increased levels of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere, and the temperature of the Earth is rising. This is believed to be responsible for everything from melting polar ice caps to increased frequency of hurricanes to species extinction. Some environmentalists are calling for radical measures to reduce the production of greenhouse gases, most notably the Kyoto Protocol. So, are we on the brink of a human-induced disaster? Let's take a look at some facts.

Suppose the burning of fossil fuels is responsible for the increase in global warming. In that case, we should expect a noticeable rise in global warming correlated with the rapid growth of fossil fuel usage in the Twentieth Century. Have average temperatures risen over the last century? Yes. The average temperature has increased by about 2°C (less than 4°F.) But take a closer look at the average temperature history for the United States over the last century.

The real acceleration of greenhouse gas emissions is believed to have started after World War II. Notice the trend line from 1910 to 1940. It is the steepest temperature increase and was before the greenhouse gases really got flowing. The average temperature cooled during the increased gas emissions from 1940-1970! Since then, the average temperature has risen at a slightly slower rate than 1910-1930. What does this mean? Let's step back and take a longer view of what has been happening and add a couple more variables.

Using a variety of data, scientists can reconstruct average temperatures from previous eras with a reasonable degree of confidence. By analyzing data about the appearance of sunspots (which causes fluctuations in the heat from the Sun) and data such as variance in tree rings, scientists can get a fairly accurate measure of approximate temperatures in the past. The above chart shows a remarkable correspondence between solar output (dotted line) and the reconstructed temperature history (solid line) from 1600 into the Twentieth Century.

Temperatures began to be recorded using thermometers in the mid-18th Century. The thermometer readings (dashed line) correspond well to the other two measures until the last thirty years, when thermometer readings show a rapid rise contrary to the other measures. What happened here?

About three weeks ago, in late October, I woke up in the morning with my left eye swollen nearly shut and my right itching and watery. Despite taking antihistamines and trying to stay in climate-controlled environments, allergies got the best of me. We usually have had a freeze by November in Kansas City but not this year. Last week there was a forecast for a freeze. Sure enough, one came, but only in the burbs. I live about a mile from downtown, where the temperature is always slightly warmer. We had roses blooming in our backyard a few days ago in mid-November. Finally, we had snow flurries yesterday, and the freeze finally came. 

My point is that it makes a difference where you place your thermometers. If you measured the average temperature at the spot where I live over the past 150 years and compared it with temperatures measured thirty miles to the west, you would see an increasing temperature change rate compared to the burbs. Some surface temperatures will be affected by human activity as cities expand and become industrialized. The reality is that the thermometers used for the temperature estimates are sparsely and unevenly dispersed across the planet. Fortunately, we have another option to compare to the thermometer readings. Satellite and weather balloon measurements give us another view. Satellites are particularly important because they give the planet more even and comprehensive coverage. What do these records tell us?

Satellite records are available back to 1979, and we learn that the average global temperature may have declined by 0.1°C between 1979 and 1997. Using more accurate and reliable temperature data, we get the following:

This chart shows a remarkable correspondence between solar irradiation (dotted line) and temperature changes (solid line.) Also notice the CO2 levels charted in the lower right-hand part of the graph and the lack of correspondence. Finally, let's step back and take a very broad look at the issue:

This data from the Sargasso Sea studies (the area of the Atlantic between the West Indies and the Azores) shows that we are emerging from a mini-ice age. Temperatures were much warmer in the Middle Ages than at present.

In short, global warming is a product of the natural ebb and flow of the Earth's ecology in relation to the Sun's activity. There is no human-induced catastrophe on the horizon. In fact, increased levels of carbon dioxide may be beneficial. Plants feed on carbon dioxide, and increased levels may contribute to plant growth and crop production for an expanding human population. Yes, there may be changes in sea levels and shifts in some weather patterns, but we could not stop them if we tried.

More intriguing than the climatology behind global warming is the sociology and economics behind it. I wrote about this two months ago in Publicly Funded Science, Global Warming, and Christian Responsibility. I will not recap that here. One website has a petition signed by nearly 18,000 scientists (as I recall) who reject the human culpability angle in the global warming dialog and reject the Kyoto Agreements. (Petition Project)

The real global warming danger is enacting legislation like the Kyoto Protocol by well-meaning, good-intentioned (and some not-so-well-meaning and good-intentioned) people. This type of measure risks driving the American economy into a major recession. This almost certainly would send the rest of the world into recession along with us. Those who will suffer the most are poor people around the world, who are seeing their quality of life improve through expanding global trade.

This is not to say that there might not be other harmful effects of the pollutants we put into the environment. Clean and safe environments are important matters. Conservation is a desirable aim. Finding less toxic and more renewable energy sources is important to society's long-term well-being. Finding effective ways of reducing waste is essential. However, "crying wolf" only harms future environmental efforts and makes people cynical about legitimate environmental concerns.

The good news is that we are reducing our levels of pollution.

Emissions of the six principal pollutants dropped 25% between 1970 and 2001. Aggregate emissions have leveled off in the past decade, but per capita emissions are in decline. We have much room for improvement but are hardly in an environmental crisis.

Conclusions

Global warming is not primarily, and probably not significantly, a human-influenced phenomenon. It may bring some changes to our lives, but radical changes to the world economy to stop the unstoppable will negatively impact the quality of life of millions of people worldwide, especially the poor. Air pollution is in decline, and quality of life with regard to the environment is stable if not improving in the US.

Social Indicators: Ethnicity

I have avoided giving an extensive analysis of subgroups within American culture during this series on social indicators. I have been focused on trends at the most aggregate level. However, one measure of the quality of life for the whole society is the degree to which each person has an opportunity for a quality of life similar to other cultural groups. Because of their unique place in American history, African Americans have been subjected to the greatest oppression of any ethnic group within our culture. Their status regarding the privileged status of White Americans can serve as a measure of how well we are doing in achieving equal opportunity for a quality life.

The first social indicators I mentioned in this series were life expectancy and the infant mortality rate. These rates are two of the best indicators for overall quality of life. Life Expectancy talks about the chances of living a long life. The infant mortality rate (number of deaths before age 1 per 1,000 births) talks about the most vulnerable among us and how well our cultural infrastructure meets their needs.

So how are African Americans fairing compared to White Americans?

Life expectancy for African Americans as a percentage of life expectancy for White Americans increased for several years up to the mid-1980s. It was on a trajectory to equal that of White Americans by early this century. However, the rate took a noticeable dive in the late 1980s and stayed flat for the first years of the 1990s. Since then, the gap has been closing again at a rate similar to before 1984.

What happened? My suspicion is that the rate declined due to the devastating crack cocaine epidemic that hit many Black communities in the late 1980s. Murder rates and drug-related deaths soared among young African Americans. (See Crime (Part 1 of 2) ) I don’t think this was the only cause, but I suspect it was a strong contributor.

The African American infant mortality rate declined from 32.6 in 1970 to 14.0 in 2001. However, the rate for White Americans declined even more precipitously. The rate of infant deaths for African Americans compared to White Americans was less than 2 to 1 in 1970, but by 2001 the rate was 2.5 to 1. Several reasons for this include a disparity in the quality of healthcare received. The disparity seems to have leveled out in 1992 and has varied within a narrow range ever since.

Another important indicator of equality is the degree of poverty. How have African Americans faired compared to White Americans?

Some estimates place African American poverty rates above 80% before World War II. By 1975, the rate had dropped to 31.3%. The ratio of the African American rate to the rate for White Americans was 3.5 to 1 in 1975. Except for the minor setback in the 1980s (drug epidemic?), the ratio has slowly declined to a rate of less than 2.5 to 1.

Directly tied to economic viability is education.

The high school graduation rate is nearly approaching the rate for White Americans. The rate of college completion is also improving at a little slower pace. It was just under 40% of the rate for White Americans in 1966 and is now over 60% of that rate. As education is one the most important components of economic advancement, this gives some hope for gains in quality of life for African Americans in the future.

Conclusions

When we look at group measures over time, there has been significant improvement in the absolute quality of life for African Americans. However, when we look at the quality of life relative to White Americans, we get a mixed picture of modest improvement. The quality of life for African Americans relative to White Americans is improving but disappointingly slowly.

Social Indicators: Economic Status (Part 2 of 2)

[Continued from Social Indicators: Economic Status (Part 1 of 2)]

The Gini Index is a measure of income inequality. The index ranks income distributions from 0 to 1, where 0 equals equality, and 1 equals inequality. Gini indexes had been calculated for families from 1947 to the present in the US. However, household income is now the preferred indicator, and that data is available from 1967 to the present.

The Gini Index declined slowly over the 1950s and 1960s until it reached a low of .388 in 1968. Based on earlier data for the entire century, I suspect 1968 was the low point of the century. Over the past four decades, the rate has climbed to .466 in 2004. That is an increase of 20%. Is that significant? Yes.

The following is a chart that shows the percentage of income earned by the top 1% of taxpayers from 1913-1998.

The Gini Index growth rate flattened out in 2000, and I suspect this chart would show a similar leveling or decline if extended for five more years. The percentages preceding 1913 were likely higher than the 1913 percentage. This indicates that income distribution in the 1950s through 1970s may have been an aberration and not the norm.

Many attribute the rising inequality to the tax cuts implemented by Ronald Reagan in 1981. However, the rise in the Gini index began earlier:

Some estimates suggest the poverty rate in the United States in 1939 was more than 40%. This would certainly have given a high Gini Index. We also know that the Gini Index fell steadily from the end of World War II until 1968. The Gini index fluctuated near the 1968 level until 1974. The rate began to grow in 1975 and continued steadily until early 1992, set back only by the 1980 and 1990 recessions. If not for the recession and economic woes of the mid-1970s, the origin of the increase might have been as far back as 1968. The calculation methods for the Gini Index were revised in 1993, and indexes after that date are not strictly comparable with previous years. The 1993-2000 shows slower growth and 2001-2004 shows virtually no change.

So why did the Gini Index contract and then grow? Frankly, I don't think anyone knows with certainty. It appears that changes in taxation were not a primary factor.

• After the 1964 Kennedy tax cut, inequality continued to decline for the next four years before leveling off in the following years.
• Ronald Regan cut taxes in 1981, and inequality increased through the 1980s at or above the rate it started in 1975.
• Bill Clinton raised taxes, and inequality kept growing, although at a slower rate.
• George W. Bush cut taxes, and inequality stayed constant.

There is no doubt that taxation impacts distributive inequality, but it is also clear that many other factors are involved.

Is unequal distribution a problem, and if so, why? Here is a bell curve graph that shows the median household income for each fifth of the US population in 1968 and 2004 (the lowest and highest points of income inequality in the last fifty years, respectively.) The "2004" line shows the distribution of median incomes for each fifth of American society in 2004. The "1968 Adjusted" line shows how 2004 income would have been distributed if the 1968 distribution had held constant.

The chart shows that the poorest fifth would have received $5,000 more, and the wealthiest fifth would have received $32,500 less if the 1968 distribution had remained constant. Or does it? We know the wealthiest are more likely to save and invest each succeeding dollar than the rest. If the money that went to the wealthiest fifth had not gone to them, would it have been saved and invested similarly? Might the poorest fifth have become even poorer? Should we try to reduce economic inequality?

Some economists say no. The growing inequality sends signals through the marketplace. For instance, a gap between high school and college graduates motivates more people to pursue more education, thus improving the workforce. It reduces the number of unskilled laborers causing the wages for unskilled laborers to go higher. Also, why does it matter that some are becoming very wealthy if everyone is getting better off with rising inequality?

On the other hand, in his book Naked Economics, Charles Wheelan tells of a study by economist Robert Frank. Frank offered people an option of living in one of two worlds: (A) You earn $110,000 a year, and everyone else earns $200,000 a year, or (B) you earn $100,000 a year, and everyone else earns $85,000 a year. Which would you pick? Most Americans picked option B. Relative status is more important than absolute status to much of the population. Great inequality will lead to higher levels of dissatisfaction in the culture.

Furthermore, inequality could reach such high levels that significant numbers of people are discouraged from work and achievement. They would no longer feel they have ownership in the institutions of society and cease to respect them. Maintaining order would begin to become costly, crippling a productive economy.

Too little inequality could hamstring economic growth by diverting wealth from those most likely to save and invest in productive economic efforts. Too much inequality could lead to a breakdown in respect for social order which would also hamstring the economy. There are dangers in either direction. However, I do not believe we are near either extreme, and our economy continues to grow at healthy rates. Most European democracies with more equality have sluggish economies and higher unemployment and confront hard decisions about government welfare program reductions. For these reasons, I do not necessarily view our present levels of income inequality as a pure negative.

Conclusions:

• Unemployment and inflation rates are just barely above thirty-year lows.
• Median household income has grown by 30% since 1967.
• Since the mid-1990s, the poverty rate has fluctuated in the 11.5-13.5% range, just slightly above the historic lows of the early 1970s.
• The percentage of seniors living in poverty has dropped below 10%, but poverty for children is nearly 18%.
• Since 1967, the Gini Index of income inequality has risen by 20%, while median household income has risen by over 30%.

The overall economic picture is one of improvement, though it may be less even than we might wish. The economic indicators suggest an overall improvement in quality of life.

Social Indicators: Economic Status (Part 1 of 2)

Economic status is usually cast in terms of income and wealth. When discussing economic justice, we typically have one of two things in mind. First, we ask if each person has sufficient resources to live on. Second, we are asking how income and wealth are distributed throughout society. Is it concentrated in the hands of a few, or is it widely shared? I will focus mostly on income and its distribution as a proxy for economic status.

Whether we employ ourselves or are employed by others, employment is a fundamental necessity for economic survival. Low unemployment is a sign of economic health. The question is, how low should unemployment be? A portion of the population is always in transition between jobs. Then some are chronically unemployed. The problem is that labor shortages ensue if the employment rate gets too high, and employers begin offering higher wages to attract qualified workers. Businesses raise prices to compensate for the increased wages. The workers must pay higher prices for goods and services, thus creating a cycle of inflation. As long as consumer confidence remains high about the future, the cycle continues upward.

As wages escalate, businesses begin to automate and find labor-saving options to avoid paying increasing wages. This eventually reduces jobs, and labor becomes cheaper because more laborers are looking for work. Consumers become more anxious about spending, and businesses lose revenue. They cut more workers. Some businesses close or drastically reduce, which means less competition for the remaining businesses. It soon reaches a point where employers hire workers because their wages are relatively cheaper, and employers believe they will expand sales again. Then the upward spiral begins again. This is the business cycle.

What have been the recent trends with unemployment and inflation?

The unemployment and inflation rates have been decreasing since the early 1980s. Unemployment was 5.5% at the end of 2004. Some economic experts believe that 5% unemployment is optimal, striking a balance between overheating the job market and leaving too many people without work. Inflation has hovered around a modest 3% over the past decade. This has been one of the most stable economies ever.

So how have people faired in this stable economy? Median household income is a frequently used barometer of people's economic activities. The "median" is the amount made by the person who is halfway between the person making the most and the person making the least:

 

Median household income has risen steadily over the last thirty-seven years, increasing by almost 30% in constant dollars (2004 dollars.) Minor dips in the growth are all directly linked to recessions starting in 1969, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1990, and 2001. What is noteworthy is the steady, continuous growth.

So how have poor people, older adults, and children faired during this time?

The poverty rate for families dropped by half between 1960 (22.2%) and 1973 (11.1%). It stayed below the 12% level until 1980. From then until the early 1990s, the rate remained mainly in the 13-15% range. The rate has stayed in the 11-12% range since then.

An important aspect of this poverty rate is the increasingly "younger face" it has. It was common to think of older Americans a generation ago when one thought of poverty. About 35% of seniors were in poverty in 1960. That number dropped to less than 15% in 1974. The rate for seniors dropped below the overall rate in 1982. Since then, it has continued steadily declining, with minor fluctuations, to a rate of 9.8% in 2004.

The rate for children declined from 26.9 in 1960 to 14.0 in 1969. The rate climbed slightly over the next decade but climbed steeply to 22% in 1983. It stayed at or above 20% for the next ten years. After 1993, the child poverty rate declined to a level in the mid-teens, but it has risen in the past couple of years to 17.8%. The child poverty rate is almost 150% of the overall rate. Single-parent homes are three times more likely to be in poverty than two-parent homes, and the continual growth in single-parent homes contributes to the high child poverty rate.

The overall poverty rate is near all-time lows in the mid-1970s, although it has crept a little higher in the last few years after the recession. Census studies suggest that half of all people in poverty are not in poverty three years later, which means there is considerable movement in and out of poverty. Economic status is highly complex, and poverty rates hide several other issues (ex., underemployment, wage discrimination, etc.). Still, overall, poverty is quite low by historical standards.

So how are we doing in terms of income distribution?

[Continued Social Indicators: Economic Status (Part 2 of 2)]

Social Indicators: Education

Education is critical for societies with complex modern economic systems. However, measuring the quality of education over time is difficult. As the economy and society become more complex, so do educational needs. As the rate of technology change increases, some jobs disappear, and others are created. Workers must be more adaptable than ever before and must continually learn to keep up with a rapidly changing job market.

Here is some of what we do know about education in America:

 

Only 48% of adults aged 25 and older had a high school education in 1964. By 2004, the number rose to 84%. The population completing college tripled from 9% to 27% over the same timeframe. So how do the most recent graduates compare to students in previous years?

College Board has adjusted the above statistics to compensate for changes made to the SAT in the 1990s. These statistics show the highest composite score (mean of the verbal and math scores) was 529.5 in 1967 and 1968. The composite score declined significantly over the next decade and bottomed out in 1980 and 1981 at 497. That score has risen steadily to 513 in 2004, the highest rate since 1974.

The math score has increased from an all-time low of 492 in 1981 to 518 in 2004. (The score was 519 in 2003.) For the last two years, the math score has been higher than the previous high of 517 in 1969. However, after an initial rise, the verbal score declined to an all-time low of 499 in 1991 and 1994. It improved over the next ten years to 508. Some speculate that the verbal score was depressed by an increasing number of people taking the test who did not have English as their first language, namely immigrants and non-USA students.

These statistics suggest a significant increase in the proportion of people receiving a diploma and that the quality of education for college-bound students is improving. Still, the quality of education is a relative standard. Forty years ago, more than sixty percent of jobs were considered unskilled labor. That percentage has dropped by more than half since that time. More and more jobs require greater technical schools. The economy increasingly demands that workers be involved in continual education throughout their careers. There is also an increasing demand for people with aptitudes for science and technology. Yet nearly a third of high school graduates cannot read at a level beyond the most basic level needed to function in society. Are we effectively equipping students with the skills they will need?

Of the four major areas measured in NEAP tests, only mathematics showed improvement for the oldest children over the past two or three decades. Reading has remained at the same level while writing and science have actually declined. For the youngest children, there is an improvement in mathematics and science scores but no change in the reading and writing scores. It remains to be seen if these improvements with younger children will carry forward in their academic lives, but it is a good start.

Conclusions:

There is room for improvement within our educational institutions. The rate of people earning high school, college, and advanced diplomas is the highest it has ever been. SAT scores suggest improvement in the preparation of college-bound high school students over the past twenty years. However, the NEAP scores suggest little improvement in the quality of education across the whole spectrum of high school students. These indicators seem to indicate a quality of life that is modestly improving.

Social Indicators: Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 2 of 2)

[Continued from Social Indicators: Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 2 of 2)]

Despite the decrease in teenage sexual behavior and less unprotected sexual behavior, there is a rapid increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases:

After declining somewhat erratically from 1975 to 1997, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) rose more than 20% between 1997 and 2003. The rate for Chlamydia rose by 28.6%. The CDC estimates one in five adolescent and adult Americans has genital herpes.

The rate of people contracting Aids, the deadliest of sexually transmitted diseases, is also not good:

After peaking in 1992, the rate of new Aids declined by almost half between 1992 and 1997. However, the rate has flattened out since then and may be poised to increase based on some assessments.

All of these statistics point to significant changes regarding family and sexuality. The recent debate on same-sex unions shows that the very ideas of marriage and family are in flux. Suppose we accept the premise that the two-parent household is the optimal circumstance for raising children and marriage the optimal circumstance for engaging in sexual behavior. In that case, the picture is not good.

While the abortion rate has declined by about 20% over the last twenty years, it is still true that one in four pregnancies ends in abortion. More than one-third of children are born to unmarried women. Some of these women no doubt go on to marry or live in stable relationships with their fathers. Still, many children born into two-parent families also experience divorce and loss of the two-parent status. (I want to be clear here that I am not saying that any particular one-parent home is a hopeless situation by any means. I am addressing public policy and what we know from looking at the aggregate.) While there is some modest good news about teen sexual behavior, the overall increase in sexually transmitted diseases is rising.

Another cultural factor related to this is the rise in the availability of pornography. The pornography industry was in retreat as recently as the early 1990s, but the rise of the internet has brought it roaring back to life. It is easily a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States. Images and videos graphically portraying every imaginable sexual act can be accessed with a few mouse clicks by children with unfiltered internet access. Even with filtered access, children can be confronted with pornography. Chat rooms provide ready-made connections with children for sexual predators. All this is not to mention the potential desensitizing impact of pornography on significant numbers of adults in our culture. The pornography industry has surged in the last four to five years, and most social indicators like the ones above only report up to 2001-2003. It remains to be seen what impact pornography will have.

Conclusions

• Two-parent families have declined from 87.7% in 1960 to about 69% over the last decade.
• The divorce rate has remained constant at 50% since 1977.
• The percentage of births to unwed mothers has increased from 10% in 1970 to 34% in 2003.
• The percentage of births to unwed teens, after rising from 5.4% in 1970 to 9.9% in 1994, has declined to 8.2% in 2003.
• After reaching an abortion rate high of 30.4 per 100 pregnancies in 1983, the rate dropped to 24.2 in 2002.
• The percentage of unmarried nineteen-year-olds who reported having ever had sexual intercourse in 1988 and 2002 dropped from 76.5 to 70.1 for girls and from 78% to 65.2% for boys. For seventeen-year-olds, the percentage rose from 38.3% to 43.1% for girls and declined from 57.2% to 39.4%.
• After declining from a 1975 high of 1,075 cases of sexually transmitted diseases per 100,000 population to at least a forty-year low of 607 cases in 1997, the rate increased by 20% to 732 in 2003. About 1 in 5 Americans has genital herpes.
• New incidences of Aids reached a high in 1992 of 31.2 new cases per 100,000 population before dropping by half to 16 in 1997. Since then, the rate has bottomed out at 14.1 but rose to 14.9 in 2003.
• Pornography has become a multi-billion-dollar industry in less than a decade through internet marketing, creating anonymity and low cost for a rapidly growing base of consumers.

Most indicators related to family formation and sexuality suggest a significantly declining quality of life.

Social Indicators: Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 1 of 2)

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act was passed by Congress in 1996. Two of the Act’s goals were to reduce out-of-wedlock births and to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. Scholars and politicians generally agree that the most desirable form of the family for the nurture of children is a household where both the mother and father are present. Therefore, one measure of societal decline would seem to be a decrease in the number of children born into and raised in two-parent families.

The percentage of families with both parents present declined from 87.7% in 1960 to 85% in 1970. Except for a brief plateau in the late 1980s, the percentage steadily declined to 69.2% in 1993. Since then, the percentage has stayed between 68% and the 1993 level. In 1968, 10.7 of children lived only with their mother, 1.1% with their father, 2.4% with other relatives, and .4% with no relatives. By 2003, those percentages were 23% with their mother, 4.6% with their father, 3% with other relatives, and 1.1% with no relative. Government policy is moving even more toward advancing two-parent families, but it remains to be seen if societal values will move toward two-parent homes.

The divorce rate obviously plays a role in the rate of families without two parents.

The rate of divorces to marriages was about 25-27% from 1950-1967. That rate doubled to more than 50% ten years later, in 1977. Since that time, it has remained remarkably constant at about 50%. Divorce may have impacted the initial rise in one-parent households, but it does not explain everything.

Approximately 10% of all births were to unwed mothers in 1970. That ratio has been about 1 in 3 for the last ten years and is still rising. The percentage of all births to teenagers was 5.4% in 1970. That grew to 9.9% in 1994. A slight decline began in 1999; by 2003, it was 8.2%. The more significant trend is the percentage of births to unwed mothers twenty years old or older. The rate was 5.3% in 1970, but by 2003 that rate had increased fivefold to 26.4%. It has increased by 0.5-1.0 percentage points a year since 1999. This increase is driven by the behavior of White women.

Abortion also has a direct impact on all of these statistics:

Approximately 80% of abortions are done for unmarried women. Had those pregnancies come to full term unmarried women would have given birth to 45% of all births in 2002. That rate has been stable for almost a decade.

These statistics all suggest more sexual activity outside the marriage relationship. Finding reliable time series data on sexual activity is difficult. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been doing ongoing research on teenagers and has learned the following:

It is hard to know how these numbers compare to earlier eras. Many are inclined to think these numbers were much lower as late as the 1960s, but reliable data is hard to come by. This chart shows increased sexual activity among teenagers in the seven years from 1988-1995. There was a modest decline in the rate from 1995-2002, especially for males and those under 18. The CDC also says there has been an increased use of contraception. These factors have likely contributed to a reduced rate of unmarried teen births.

Continued Social Indicators: Family Formation (Part 2 of 2)

Social Indicators: Substance Abuse

Drug abuse was confined mainly to the poor and certain subcultures until recently. Drug abuse escalated and entered mainstream culture during the 1960s and 1970s. Few reliable time-series statistics exist that measure levels of drug abuse over an extended period. The most widely used statistics come from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). From about 1979 to 1991, these surveys were conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). From 1991 to the present, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has conducted the survey. The survey was redesigned in 1999 and again in 2001, with each change making the newer data strictly non-comparable with earlier data.

The existing data suggest that substance abuse by the overall population peaked in the late 1970s. The percentage of the population aged 12 and older that had used any illicit drug in the last month in 1979 was 14.1%. This number declined to 12.1% by 1985. Three years later, that percentage had dropped to 7.9%, and by 1992 it hit a low of 5.8%. By the late 1990s, the rate had leveled off at about the 6.3% range. It may have risen slightly since that time. The amount of Substance abuse is likely about half the level it was twenty-five years ago.

Substance abuse by youth data has been consistently measured since 1975 by Monitoring the Future at the University of Michigan. Their data reveals the following:

• The use of any illicit drugs among high school seniors peaked in 1979.
• The use of any illicit drug excluding marijuana, peaked in 1981.
• Both measures hit thirty-year lows in 1992.
• Both measures increased significantly over the next four years before stabilizing. (Likely due to a de-emphasis on enforcement of drug laws during the Clinton Administration.)
• Current rates are higher than a decade ago but are still as low as rates in the early 1970s.

 

• The 30-year peak in Alcohol use by High School Seniors was in 1978.
• Alcohol use declined from 1980 until 1993. It increased slightly over four years and then has declined somewhat since 1997.
• The 30-year peak in cigarette use was in 1976.
• Cigarette usage dropped from 1976 until 1980, reaching about 30%, and remained until 1993.
• Cigarette usage experienced a brief spike from 1994-1997 but has declined to its lowest rate in thirty years.
• Present usage of both Alcohol and Cigarettes is about one-third lower than their 1978 and 1976 respective highs.

The survey data does not include High School dropouts or absentees. Drug abuse is believed to be much higher among this population, but they are a small portion of the youth population. While drug use is undoubtedly much higher than before the mid-1960s, it is lower by nearly 40% from the late 1970s. There is no evidence of a widespread drug abuse epidemic in schools or among youth in general.

Conclusion

Rates of substance abuse give a mixed message since they have fluctuated over the last decade, but they have declined over the long term. This indicator suggests a stabilized, if not improving, quality of life.

Social Indicators: Crime (Part 2 of 2)

[Continued from Social Indicators: Crime (Part 1 of 2)

The Columbine High School tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999 has come to symbolize a culture of pervasive youth violence. There is no question that the Columbine episode was well beyond the ordinary expression of youth violence, but was it truly symbolic of trends in youth culture?

Historical statistics about youth violence are often hard to access and assess. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has published data on school violence and crime dating from the 1992-1993 school year. Here is a summary of their findings concerning youth homicides and suicides:

The number of homicides and suicides at school has remained constant over the last decade. Homicides away from school have dropped dramatically, and suicides away from school have declined at a less rapid rate. This has occurred during a time of growth in the student population. Therefore, the homicide and suicide rates are actually falling.

The overall violent crime (victimization) rate has dropped from 96 to 40 per 1,000 since 1993, and the theft crime rate has fallen from 59 to 24 per 1,000. NCES estimates that juvenile crime victimization is at its lowest since the early 1970s. There is no evidence of a youth crime epidemic.

We are in one of the least violent and crime-prone eras in over thirty years, and the rates appear to be on a downward trend. Youth violence, which had surged in the early 1990s, appears to have been driven partly by a drug sub-culture and not by widespread violent youth behavior. The highest levels of crime and violence were twenty-five years ago, as evidenced by the following data:

Conclusions

• Violent crime, after declining from at least a fifty-year high in 1981, falling in the early 1980s, and then rising again through the early 1990s, has been in a steady, significant decline since 1994.
• Property crime has been in decline since the mid-1970s.
• Violent crime is less than half as frequent as its 1981 high.
• Property crime is less than one-third as frequent as its 1975 high.
• After peaking in the early 1990s, juvenile crime has rapidly declined.
• There is no evidence of a widespread youth culture of violence.

Crime rates suggest an improving quality of life.

Social Indicators: Crime (Part 1 of 2)

A fundamental indicator of a deteriorating society is increased criminal behavior. Crime analysis in the United States has focused on two primary measures over the last few decades. One measure is based on crimes reported to law enforcement officers. These are compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and presented in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The UCR data has the advantage of measuring officially recorded events, but it is not an ideal indicator of actual crime incidents. Different types of crimes are reported at varying frequencies. For instance, nearly all murders are reported, but less than half of some property crimes are reported.

Furthermore, depending on an array of political concerns, law enforcement agencies occasionally focus more resources on some crimes to the detriment of enforcement against other types of crime. This leads to higher reporting and a higher crime rate. Also, public education and changing values can cause a change in the frequency of reported crime. Nevertheless, the UCR statistics are considered an important measure.

A better measure of actual crime is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the US Department of Justice. The data is based on surveys of a scientifically selected population sample. Unfortunately, the survey only dates to 1973. What do UCR and NCVS data reveal?

The UCR data shows:

• A steadily increasing crime rate until about 1980.
• A decline in crime during the early 1980s.
• Violent crime rates reached a fifty-year high in 1991.
• Property crime had a less dramatic increase but also peaked in 1991.
• Both violent and property crime rates dropped dramatically in the years after 1991.
• The 2003 levels for both types of crime are similar to rates in the early 1970s.

NCVS data tell a different tale.

The NCVS data shows:

• A peak in the property crime rate in the mid-1970s.
• A steady decline in property crime until the mid-1980s, when the rate stabilized.
• Another decline in property crime during the early 1990s.
• The property crime rate plateaued in 2003, at less than one-third of the rate in 1973.
• Violent crime peaked in 1981 and then declined before stabilizing in the Mid-1980s.
• Violent crime began rising again in 1990 and nearly reached the 1981 peak in 1994.
• Violent crime has declined since 1994 to less than one-half the peak rate in 1981.

The NCVS data seems to tell a different story from the UCR Data. How are these two measures to be reconciled?

Rarely are changes in complex phenomena like national crime rates the consequence of a single factor. That is true here. Much of what has unfolded over the last twenty years occurs against the backdrop of drug use and law enforcement efforts concerning drug use.

The peak year for the use of illicit drugs was 1981. The UCR and NCVS data show this was also a peak time for criminal behavior. Crime rates dropped for a few years after the 1981 peak. Both measures show increased violent crime rates beginning about 1985 when a crack cocaine epidemic emerged. In response to the epidemic, the Regan Administration established the Office of National Drug Control Policy in 1988, headed by a "Drug Czar," to coordinate efforts at reducing drug abuse. Law enforcement resources were targeted toward reducing drug abuse and related crime.

There were increasing crime incidents during this time, as evidenced by the victimization rate. However, a higher percentage of crimes were adjudicated because of the increased focus of resources by law enforcement and the courts. A higher percentage of reported crime during a time of increasing actual instances of crime resulted in a spike in the UCR data.

The increased enforcement efforts also resulted in overcrowded prisons. Initially, some perpetrators served less prison time than they otherwise would have. The building boom for new prisons in the 1990s rectified this problem and has likely contributed to the declining crime rates. There was also a boom in private sector security technology and personnel over the past decade. This also likely contributed to the decline. [1]

Clearly, there was an increase in violent crime in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but not as dramatic as the UCR statistics would suggest. Property crime actually declined during this time. While the UCR data shows a return to early 1970s UCR rates, the NCVS data shows a drop to levels that are less than half its early 1970s rate. This may mean that more crimes are being reported and adjudicated than 30 years ago.

Other nuances to the 1994 peak of violent crime are worthy of note. The age-adjusted homicide rate was 10.7 in 1980 and again in 1993. Notice the difference in the age configuration of the murder victims for these two years:

The homicide victimization rate declined significantly for age groups over 24 years old. The rate dramatically increased for those under 25 and doubled for teenagers. But this is not the whole story. Note the following differences between White and Black males:

The death rate for Black males ages 20-24 in 1993 reached a staggering 190 per 100,000 people. (Age-adjusted rate for the nation was 10.2.)  This was overwhelmingly Black-on-Black crime. One-third of juvenile homicide arrests happened in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit, even though these cities had just 5.8% of juveniles nationwide. [2] About 1 in four juvenile homicide cases occurred in just five of the nation's more than 3,000 counties. [3] The 1980 homicide rate appears to have been more geographically and demographically disbursed. The early 1990s surge was concentrated among urban male teenagers and young men, especially those who were Black. It was directly related to the crack cocaine epidemic. [4] While the homicide rate for young black males has been significantly decreasing in recent years, it has not decreased at the rate of other demographic groups. That such an episode occurred points to a number of disturbing social problems, but it does not support the idea of a broad-based cultural slide into violence.

[Continued Social Indicators: Crime (Part 2 of 2)]

[1] Bruce L. Benson, "Why Crime Declines," The Freeman, Foundation for Economic Education, January 2000. www.fee.org.

 

[2] Erik Lotke and Vincent Shiraldi, "An Analysis of Juvenile Homicides: Where They Occur and the Effectiveness of Adult Court Intervention," National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, July 16, 1996. 66.165.94.98/stories/analysjuv0796.html

 

[3] Howard N. Snyder and Melissa Sickmund, "Juvenile Victims and Offenders: 1999 National Report," National Center for Juvenile Justice, Washington, DC, September, 1999. Chapter 2, p. 21. www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/nationalreport99/toc.html

 

[4] Ibid. Chapter 3.

 

Social Indicators: Suicide

The ultimate pathology is suicide. Suicide should be on the increase in a society that is in decline. People whose mental health is at risk should increasingly be pushed over the edge due to the stresses and strains of decaying society. What is happening with suicide in the United States?

The most basic measure of suicide is the crude suicide rate. The rate is the number of suicides per 100,000 people. However, because suicide rates vary considerably by stage of life, an age-adjusted suicide rate is also calculated. This rate is obtained by dividing the population into age segments and calculating the rate per 100,000 people for that segment. Each segment rate is then weighted by its proportion of the total population. The sum of these weighted age-specific rates is the age-adjusted rate. Here is the Age-Adjusted Suicide rate for 1960-2003.

 

The age-adjusted rate peaked in 1977 at 13.7. It declined significantly over the next three years but steadily increased to 12.8 in 1986. It has declined steadily to a 40-year low of 10.4 in 2000. This is a decline of nearly 25% over the past 25 years.

The overall rate does not tell the whole story. A more nuanced story emerges when five-year age categories examine rates. Look at the years for the highest and lowest suicide rates by age for the period 1960-2002:

 

The trend for teenagers has been a steady increase in the suicide rate until about 1987. The rate plateaued until about 1994 and began to decline again. Young adults experienced an increase, but the rate peaked in the late 1970s. It fell some in the early 1980s and plateaued. The rate began dropping again in the mid-1990s. The oldest half of the age range experienced the highest rates in the early 1960s. The rates declined until about 1980, when they began to rise again, although they did not reach previous heights. By 1990 the rates had begun to decline.

Conclusions

• Age-adjusted suicide rate is near a forty-year low.
• Suicide rates have improved for adults and worsened for children over the past forty years, although that rate for children has been dropping for the last decade.

This seems to suggest an overall improvement in quality of life.

Social Indicators: Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy

There is a common perception that the quality of life in American society is in decline and has been in decline for some time. Is this perception accurate, and in what ways? If perception doesn't match reality, why? Over the next few weeks, I will write several posts looking at social indicators. After that, I will offer some thoughts about what may be happening in our culture. I hope you will offer your insights and suggest indicators that would help clarify issues.

Here are the first indicators.

Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy

Several factors contribute to having a high quality of life. These include safe environments, adequate diet, adequate health care, sufficient education, adequate financial resources, and nurturing families and communities, to name just a few. It is possible to find measures about each variable, but demographers tend to start with two measures when looking for broad quality-of-life measures. One is the infant mortality rate, and the other is the life expectancy at birth.

The infant mortality rate is the number of children that die from birth to 1 year of age per 1,000 live births. This measure is important because these children are the most vulnerable members of any society. Measuring how well the most vulnerable survive tells us something about a population's overall quality of life.

A second measure is life expectancy at birth. Everyone dies eventually, but a society with a high quality of life will have organized itself to minimize the number of premature deaths in its population.

What do these two measures tell us about American society?

Throughout most of recorded history, the infant mortality rate has been estimated to be about 250 per 1,000 live births. Early in the 1900s, the rate was well over 100 in the United States. The rate appears to have leveled off in recent years, and it remains to be seen if some minimum barrier has been attained.

Life expectancy at birth in the United States in 1900 was just under 50 years. While life expectancy has increased by eight or nine years over the last fifty years, it improved by nearly twenty in the first fifty years of the Twentieth Century. With continued advances in biotechnology, how high this rate may rise remains to be seen.

These two measures illustrate the remarkable advances we have experienced in recent generations due to health care, sanitation, education, workplace reforms, and technology. No populations in the past, and few populations in the present, have experienced the high quality of life Americans enjoy today.