The new poverty is about the economic fall of individuals and countries who used to be affluent and who once dreamed that their affluence would go on forever. It is about the experience of free-falling, without a parachute and without much of a safety net. The new poverty is about people who lose their jobs when their company downsizes. It is about people whose hours of employment are cut in half when the work runs out. And it is about couples who separate, thereby plunging one of them--and probably their children--into a low income level that they had never anticipated.

What is new...

Cheal argues that the sociology of poverty has entered a new postmodern phase. The new poverty is about loss of faith--in relationships that were once believed to last a lifetime, and in government programs that we used to think would last for generations.

The new poverty is about the economic fall of individuals and countries who used to be affluent and who once dreamed that their affluence would go on forever. It is about the experience of free-falling, without a parachute and without much of a safety net. The new poverty is about people who lose their jobs when their company...

Family studies play an increasintyy important role in contemporary sociology. David Cheal provides an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of modern socological theories about family life. While recognizing that these theories are both diverse and fragmented, he argues that such divisions are a positive and integral aspect of studying contemporary family theory.

Cheal takes a broad comparitive approach to the theories analysed, using empirical examples from North America, Europe, and Australia, and examining how old and new approaches interact with one another. He argues that it is...

The Canadian population is aging. As the "Baby-Boomer" generation reaches retirement age, policy-makers have begun to fear the economic and demographic challenges ahead. Aging and Demographic Change in Canadian Context responds to this alarmist view. The contributors present several alternative perspectives and question whether an aging society is necessarily inferior or problematic compared with the recent past, cautioning that exaggerated concerns about population aging can be harmful to rational policy making. The contributors argue that it is important to develop forward-looking...

Until recently we have known more about gift giving practices in primitive societies than about those of industrial western society. In this book, first published in 1988, David Cheal shows that the process of present giving and receiving is a vital element in contemporary social life, relevant to some of the most important theoretical traditions in sociology, particularly those of Durkheim and Weber, and to the social constructionism of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. This volume is the result of a major study of gift rituals carried out by David Cheal and his associates in which...