Author: Brandon Seidman

In the film, ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ I feel as though a lot of the themes presented relate to the books ‘Cheap Sex’ and ‘Race, Wrongs, and Remedies’. The film, which presents ideas about marriage, emphasizes the importance of such an instance.  Upon Ted Kramer’s wife leaving him, there is controversy over who gets custody of their son, Billy. The separation effect is important to Ted due to his care and well being of his son. As touched on in the various readings we’ve had this semester, marriage separation rates upon being previously engaged play a role in the life of children. Statistics show that children are ‘better off’ in life if their parents stay together throughout their childhoods. These characteristics directly relate to education and crime. It has been inferred that education rates are higher and crime rates are lower for those who have parents who are still together.

In the book, ‘Cheap Sex’ written by Mark Regnerus, chapter 5, ‘The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy’ focuses on marriage rate differences from 2000 to 2014. Early on in the chapter, we were presented with a graph that clearly shows a decrease in those who have been married before. In relation to this, there has been an increase in those who haven’t been married before. The group that was being studied included individuals from 25-34 years of age, an ideal time period in which couples agree to get married to one another. There was a 21% point gap difference between married and never-married 25-to-34-year-olds in the U.S. Less than 10 years later, this gap created not only vanished but also reversed.

In the book, ‘Cheap Sex’ written by Mark Regnerus, chapter 3, ‘Cheaper, Faster, Better, More? Contemporary Sex in America’ highlights the dating scene within this specific time period. Early on in the chapter, there is much discussion about the dating app called ‘Tinder’. Tinder is a meetup application that can be used for straight or gay peoples. Author, Nancy Jo Sales spoke out on this new and modern technology describing it as a dating apocalypse. One of her interviews was conducted with a psychologist by the name of David Buss. Buss also had comments on this new advancement. In his terms, dating apps are the free-market economy that comes to sex. He further states that the act of choosing consumer brands and sex partners has become interchangeable. Moving off of general comments and statements, Sales performed another interview with Elizabeth Armstrong, a sociologist from the University of Michigan who was investigating into the sexual decisions of undergraduate women at the University of Indiana. I found that most of her comments seemed to be quite bold as she implied that young women have problems navigating sexuality and relationships due to gender inequality. Furthermore, historian Stephanie Coontz makes claims that make Armstrong’s come off as mild. Coontz exclaims that exploitative and disrespectful men have always existed. The new era of hookup culture is said to be preventing men from evolving for the better. These various statements imply that her position on males as a whole is negative and not wholesome by any means.

In George Borjas’s ‘We Wanted Workers: Unraveling the Immigration Narrative’, there is much discussion about the lack of benefits that immigrants bring to American society from an economic standpoint. It can be inferred that immigration plays a vital position in the status of the socioeconomic classifications that are presented within the United States. Generally speaking, immigrants who enter the American workforce create a burden for those who are previously there because they make the working class market more competitive and only a small percentage of the native population is at an advantage.

As Borjas argues, the debate over the wage effects of immigration is propelled by ideas that it makes native groups worse off from an economic standpoint. A 10% increase in supply reduces the wage of natives by 3% in the short run. Supplementary calculations reveal that a small surplus entails a large redistribution of wealth.  Furthermore, native workers lose 516$ billion, while native firms gain 566$ billion. Obviously, those who command certain business are making the most out of this situation; those who bite the bullet is the working class. As a result of there being a larger quantity of workers to choose from, native working-class markets become more competitive. Business owners find immigrants to be more attractive as employees because their chances of getting more out of them in terms of economic success are higher than that of a native employee. The reason being has to do with an assortment of variables, but the primary being that immigrants can tend to be naïve about American culture. A fresh body and mind that is seeking economic progress will more likely than not be more motivated to make money. In this example, the fresh body and mind would belong to an immigrant; immigration does not make natives wealthier. While it can be inferred that there is a good deal of competition going on at the bottom end of the class order, the upper class is observing and taking notes. Current levels of immigration within the United States generated a 2.1$ trillion increase in gross domestic product. The differing factor in this instance is that 98% of this increase belongs to the immigrants as opposed to the natives. From a logical standpoint, it would make sense for an immigrant to come to the United States because such a place provides substantial economic opportunity. Wage payments to immigrants have estimated just over 2$ trillion dollars, which is a significantly higher income than what they were previously receiving while in their native countries.

Borjas argues that a significant segment of the American population is economically harmed by mass immigration as the country is currently experiencing it, but he further explains how it is a necessary cost that the country will just have to bear because the benefits reaped by others as well as the unquestionable value of increasing cultural pluralism outweigh those negative effects. This thought process generates many different responses. The social status would most likely determine one’s position on this idea. As a native working-class member, an individual would be opposed to such an idea due to the risk that is at hand. As a business owner or member of the upper class, a person would be in favor of immigration due to the benefits that it has the potential to generate. The quantity of peoples within American society who belong to the working class is significantly higher than that of who belong to the upper class. Generally speaking, immigrants who enter the American workforce create a burden for those who are previously there because they make the working class market more competitive and only a small percentage of the native population is at an advantage.

In George Borjas’s, ‘We Wanted Workers: Unraveling the Immigration Narrative’ the fifth chapter highlights economic assimilation in regards to immigrants. In short terms, economic assimilation is the amount of time it takes immigrants to close the wage gap with natives of a specific country. As of recently, economic assimilation has slowed down between the US and Mexico in recent years for two reasons. The reason one is that the tracking of immigration waves from census to census doesn’t seize the catch-up process correctly.  The second reason is that the tracking exercises reveal that recent waves of immigration are not acquiring valuable skills at the same rate as earlier waves did. Beyond the short-term effects of economic and social impacts of immigration, there are long ones too.