Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Late modernity

Late modernity denotes the contemporary phase of modern society, emerging roughly from the mid-20th century onward, in which core modern institutions and processes—such as industrialization, rationalization, and expert systems—persist and intensify amid globalization, technological acceleration, and reflexive monitoring of social practices, rather than dissolving into a purported postmodern rupture.^[1] This perspective, advanced by sociologists rejecting postmodernist claims of meta-narrative collapse, posits that societies remain dynamically modern, with traditions eroded not by cultural relativism but by ongoing disembedding of social relations from local contexts via abstract systems like finance and communication networks.^[2] Key to this era is heightened reflexivity, whereby individuals and institutions continually revise actions based on new knowledge, fostering both innovation and ontological insecurity—the pervasive doubt about self-identity and stability in a world of manufactured risks.^[3] Prominent theorists include Anthony Giddens, who in The Consequences of Modernity (1990) framed late modernity as a "juggernaut" of unstoppable momentum, driven by time-space distanciation that separates social ties from physical presence, enabling global flows but amplifying uncertainty.^[2] Ulrich Beck extended this with "risk society," arguing that late modernity shifts from wealth distribution to risk distribution, where hazards like environmental threats and financial volatility, produced by modernization itself, demand reflexive governance beyond traditional state controls.^[4] Zygmunt Bauman's "liquid modernity," articulated in his 2000 work, emphasizes fluidity over solidity: social structures melt into transient, consumer-oriented forms, prioritizing adaptability and individual entrepreneurship amid deregulation and individualism, yet yielding precariousness without the securities of earlier modern phases.^[5] These frameworks highlight achievements like expanded personal agency and technological connectivity, but also controversies over rising inequality, identity fragmentation, and institutional distrust, as empirical trends in migration, digital surveillance, and economic volatility underscore causal links between modernizing forces and late-modern dilemmas, challenging optimistic narratives of progress.^[6] While critiqued for underemphasizing cultural fragmentation evident in media and politics, late modernity theory maintains causal realism by tracing instabilities to modernity's internal logics rather than external breaks, aligning with observable data on persistent rational-bureaucratic dominance in global institutions.^[7]

Origins and Theoretical Foundations

Historical Emergence from High Modernity

High modernity, as conceptualized by Anthony Giddens, refers to the phase of modernity from approximately 1945 to the mid-1970s, characterized by the expansion of industrial production, the consolidation of nation-state welfare systems, and intensified bureaucratic control over social life following World War II.^[8] This period saw the peak of Fordist economies, with mass manufacturing, stable employment structures, and modernist faith in expert-driven progress, as evidenced by rapid GDP growth in Western nations averaging 4-5% annually in the 1950s and 1960s.^[9] The transition to late modernity began to manifest in the 1970s amid economic disruptions, including the 1973 oil crisis, which triggered stagflation—simultaneous high inflation and unemployment rates exceeding 10% in the U.S. and Europe—and eroded confidence in Keynesian interventionism.^[10] Ulrich Beck frames this emergence as a shift from "first" or industrial modernity, focused on wealth distribution, to "second" or reflexive modernity, where manufactured risks—such as nuclear accidents, environmental degradation, and biotechnological uncertainties—supersede class-based conflicts as organizing principles of society.^[11] Beck dates the onset to the late 1960s and 1970s, coinciding with events like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and the 1979 Three Mile Island incident, which highlighted the unintended consequences of industrial progress and spurred global environmental awareness, with membership in organizations like Greenpeace surging from thousands to millions by the 1980s.^[12] Giddens complements this by emphasizing "time-space distanciation," where advancements in information technology and transportation—from the widespread adoption of jet travel (passenger numbers rising from 30 million in 1960 to over 1 billion by 2000) to early internet precursors—facilitated disembedding of social relations from local contexts, accelerating reflexivity in institutions.^[9] This historical pivot was not a rupture but an intensification, as both theorists argue against postmodernist claims of epochal break; instead, late modernity radicalized modern dynamics through institutional self-critique, evident in policy shifts like the 1980s deregulation waves under Thatcher and Reagan, which dismantled rigid Fordist structures in favor of flexible accumulation and global supply chains.^[13] Empirical markers include the decline of manufacturing employment—from 30% of U.S. jobs in 1970 to under 10% by 2000—and the rise of service and knowledge economies, underscoring a causal continuity where high modernity's expansive logic generated its own reflexive undoing.^[14]

Principal Theorists and Core Concepts

Anthony Giddens, in his 1990 work The Consequences of Modernity, conceptualized late modernity as an advanced phase of modernity characterized by intensified dynamism rather than a rupture into postmodernity.^[14] Giddens argued that this stage emerged post-World War II, driven by global interconnections and expert systems that extend beyond local contexts.^[15] He employed the "juggernaut" metaphor to describe modernity's unstoppable momentum, where social structures propel change while generating unintended consequences that actors must reflexively manage.^[2] Ulrich Beck, building on similar premises in Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (first published in German in 1986 and English in 1992), identified late modernity through the lens of "manufactured uncertainties" produced by industrial progress, such as environmental hazards and technological risks that transcend national boundaries.^[11] Beck emphasized individualization, where traditional class-based identities dissolve, compelling individuals to construct biographies amid reflexive choices in a "risk society" dominated by probabilistic threats rather than wealth distribution.^[16] Zygmunt Bauman extended these ideas with "liquid modernity" in his 2000 book, portraying late modern societies as fluid and ephemeral, where solid institutions melt into networks of transient relationships and consumer-driven identities.^[16] Unlike Giddens' and Beck's focus on reflexive agency enabling adaptation, Bauman highlighted structural insecurity, arguing that globalization erodes certainties, fostering a "liquid" fear where individuals navigate perpetual instability without reliable anchors.^[17] Core concepts uniting these theorists include reflexivity, defined by Giddens as the constant monitoring and revision of social practices based on accumulating knowledge, which accelerates in late modernity due to information proliferation and expert reliance.^[15] This contrasts with earlier modernity's routinized traditions, enabling both innovation and ontological insecurity as certainties fragment. Beck's sub-politics complements this, referring to decision-making on risks occurring outside formal politics, such as through scientific debates or activism, reflecting a shift from distributive to risk-based conflicts.^[18] Disembedding mechanisms, per Giddens, involve "lifting out" social relations from local locales via symbolic tokens (e.g., money) and expert systems (e.g., global finance), fostering time-space distanciation that compresses geography through technology.^[19] Beck's individualization process similarly detaches people from ascribed roles, promoting "do-it-yourself biography" amid global risks, evidenced by rising personal responsibility for life outcomes in welfare states post-1970s.^[20] These concepts underscore late modernity's continuity with high modernity—intensified by post-1945 developments like nuclear power and informatics—while rejecting postmodern claims of grand narrative collapse, as empirical social transformations remain rooted in modern rationalization.^[14]

Core Characteristics

In Anthony Giddens' theory of late modernity, reflexivity constitutes a defining feature whereby social practices are subject to continuous examination and reformulation in response to incoming knowledge about those practices themselves, thereby altering their nature in an ongoing process.^[9] This contrasts with pre-modern societies, where routines were sustained by tradition and habit without systematic self-interrogation; in late modernity, reflexivity permeates institutions and individual actions alike, driven by the democratization of knowledge through mass media and information technologies.^[21] For instance, Giddens notes that modern reflexivity extends to the very production of knowledge, as sociological insights "spiral in and out" of social life, reflexively reshaping institutions such as education and governance.^[22] Social disembedding complements reflexivity by "lifting out" social relations from their local contexts of place and time, reorganizing them via abstract systems that operate independently of face-to-face interactions.^[9] Giddens identifies two primary disembedding mechanisms: symbolic tokens, exemplified by money, which standardize exchanges across vast distances (e.g., global financial transactions processed electronically since the mid-20th century expansion of credit systems), and expert systems, such as scientific medicine or engineering, which generate trust through impersonal competence rather than personal acquaintance.^[21] These mechanisms intensified in the post-World War II era, with advancements like computerized banking in the 1960s and the regulatory frameworks of international bodies like the International Monetary Fund (established 1944), enabling economic relations to transcend territorial boundaries.^[22] The interplay between reflexivity and disembedding underscores late modernity's dynamism: disembedding creates the conditions for reflexive monitoring by detaching practices from tradition-bound locales, while reflexivity, in turn, critiques and refines these abstract systems, fostering innovation but also ontological insecurity as individuals navigate "empty" time-space without inherited certainties.^[9] Empirical manifestations include the rise of lifestyle choices informed by expert advice—such as the proliferation of self-help industries, with U.S. sales exceeding $11 billion annually by 1997—and the reflexive adaptation of corporations to market feedback loops via data analytics, as seen in the adoption of just-in-time manufacturing by firms like Toyota from the 1980s onward.^[21] Giddens emphasizes that this dual process does not imply societal collapse but an intensification of modernity's juggernaut, where re-embedding efforts, such as local trust networks, provide partial anchors amid disembedding's reach.^[22]

Globalization and Time-Space Distanciation

In late modernity, globalization manifests through intensified time-space distanciation, a core mechanism theorized by Anthony Giddens whereby social relations are systematically stretched across extended temporal and spatial distances, decoupling local actions from immediate co-presence. Giddens posits that this distanciation organizes time and space to bridge presence and absence, enabling coordination via abstract systems like symbolic tokens (e.g., currency) and expert knowledge that disembed social practices from their original contexts.^[9] This process, rooted in modernity's institutional dynamics, reaches its apex in late modernity as technological and organizational innovations amplify the scope and velocity of global interconnections.^[22] Giddens defines globalization specifically as "the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa," directly embodying time-space distanciation by rendering distant influences routine in everyday life.^[23] Empirical indicators include the surge in global trade integration: merchandise trade as a share of world GDP climbed from 36% in 1979 to 60% by 2019, reflecting stretched supply chains where production in one locality (e.g., electronics assembly in East Asia) instantaneously affects consumption in another (e.g., Europe or North America).^[24] Similarly, the container shipping revolution, initiated with the first standardized containers deployed in 1956, reduced maritime transport costs by up to 90% over decades, facilitating just-in-time global logistics that collapse temporal lags between manufacturing and delivery.^[25] Digital communication technologies further exemplify this distanciation, with the internet's expansion enabling near-instantaneous data exchange across hemispheres; by 2023, over 5 billion people—roughly 65% of the global population—had internet access, supporting real-time financial transactions and virtual collaborations that erode traditional spatial barriers. In global capital markets, this manifests in 24-hour trading across exchanges like New York, London, and Tokyo, where algorithmic systems process trillions in daily volume, linking investor decisions in one timezone to asset prices worldwide without physical proximity.^[26] Such developments underscore late modernity's causal reality: while pre-modern societies confined interactions to proximate locales, late-modern globalization leverages causal chains of technology and institutions to sustain high-trust, abstract relations over indefinite distances, though not without generating reflexive uncertainties like synchronized economic shocks.^[9]

Manufactured Risks and Individualization

In late modernity, manufactured risks refer to hazards generated by the very processes of modernization, such as advanced industrialization, scientific innovation, and technological intervention, which contrast with pre-modern natural or ecological risks like famines or epidemics. Ulrich Beck introduced this concept in his 1986 work Risikogesellschaft (translated as Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity in 1992), arguing that these risks—exemplified by nuclear accidents, climate change induced by emissions, and genetic modification uncertainties—are not merely side effects but inherent outcomes of wealth-producing systems that prioritize innovation over containment.^[11] Unlike calculable insurance-based risks of early industrial society, manufactured risks are often invisible, global in scope, and irreversible, demanding proactive, reflexive institutional responses rather than reactive distribution of harms.^[27] Beck emphasized that by the late 20th century, such risks had shifted societal focus from the logic of producing goods to avoiding "bads," with events like the 1986 Chernobyl disaster illustrating how human-engineered systems amplify uncontrollable consequences across borders.^[28] Individualization, as theorized by Anthony Giddens, complements this framework by describing the corollary at the personal level: the detachment of individuals from traditional class, kinship, and community structures, compelling them to author their own life narratives amid heightened uncertainty. In Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), Giddens posited that late modernity's reflexivity—constant self-monitoring and adaptation—forces people to treat existence as a "reflexive project," where lifestyle choices in consumption, relationships, and career become central to identity formation.^[3] This process, accelerated by globalization and expert systems, erodes ascribed roles (e.g., lifelong employment or arranged marriages) prevalent in high modernity, replacing them with elective affinities and ongoing biographical planning, as evidenced by rising divorce rates and delayed family formation in Western societies post-1970s.^[29] Giddens argued that while empowering, individualization generates ontological insecurity, as individuals bear responsibility for outcomes once buffered by social norms, with empirical patterns like increasing single-person households in Europe (reaching 34% by 2010 in the EU) underscoring this shift.^[20] The interplay between manufactured risks and individualization underscores late modernity's reflexive dynamics, where Beck and Giddens converge: risks propel individualization by necessitating personal risk management strategies, as collective institutions falter in addressing global threats like biodiversity loss or cyber vulnerabilities. Beck extended this to "institutional individualization," where state welfare systems, strained by risks such as pension shortfalls from demographic aging (e.g., Europe's old-age dependency ratio rising from 25% in 1990 to 35% by 2020), devolve responsibilities onto individuals via private insurance and self-provisioning. Giddens similarly viewed reflexivity as a response to risk's disembedding effects, fostering "plastic sexuality" and expert-dependent trust (e.g., in medical or financial advice), yet exposing vulnerabilities like mental health crises linked to identity flux, with UK anxiety disorders doubling from 1993 to 2014 per NHS data.^[30] This synthesis highlights late modernity not as decline but as intensified modernity, where individuals navigate manufactured uncertainties through autonomous yet interdependent agency, though critics note uneven application across classes, with lower strata facing "zombie individualism" trapped in precarious routines rather than true choice.^[17]

Continuity and Intensification from Early/High Modernity

Late modernity, as conceptualized by sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck, represents not a fundamental break from earlier phases of modernity but rather their extension and acceleration, with core modern institutions and dynamics persisting while undergoing heightened dynamism. Giddens, in his analysis of high modernity, posits that processes originating in early modern Europe—such as the emergence of nation-states, capitalist markets, and rational scientific inquiry from the 17th century onward—continue to propel social organization, albeit with intensified global reach and institutional reflexivity.^[9] Beck similarly frames the "risk society" as a second phase of modernity emerging from the industrial society's focus on wealth distribution, where rationalization and industrialization, hallmarks of 19th-century high modernity, evolve into systems producing manufactured uncertainties like environmental degradation and nuclear threats.^[11] This continuity underscores modernity's "juggernaut" quality, where momentum from Enlightenment-era progress and Industrial Revolution mechanization (circa 1760–1840) propels ongoing transformations without supplanting foundational structures like expert systems and abstract time-space coordination.^[9] Key continuities manifest in the persistence of modern rationalization and disembedding mechanisms, which detach social relations from local traditions and rearticulate them through standardized tokens and expertise. Early modern innovations, including mechanical clocks for time standardization (widespread by the 18th century) and monetary systems enabling market abstraction, laid the groundwork for these, allowing coordination beyond face-to-face locales—a feature Giddens traces from 16th–17th-century capitalism to contemporary global finance.^[9] Beck extends this by noting how industrial modernity's (post-1800) emphasis on production and progress carries forward into late phases, where risks like chemical pollution from factories—evident in events such as the 1984 Bhopal disaster—stem directly from earlier modern imperatives for efficiency and growth rather than pre-modern scarcity.^[11] Thus, late modernity inherits and sustains high modernity's secular trust in science and bureaucracy, evident in the post-World War II expansion of welfare states and international organizations like the United Nations (founded 1945), which embody extended modern governance without rejecting its Enlightenment roots.^[9] Intensification in late modernity arises from amplified reflexivity and time-space distanciation, where knowledge production constantly revises social practices, accelerating change beyond early modern levels. Giddens describes reflexivity as building on early modern empirical observation but radicalized in the late 20th century through global information flows, such as post-1970s computing advancements enabling real-time expert system feedback (e.g., algorithmic trading in stock markets).^[9] Beck highlights how this manifests in risk perception: whereas high modernity (e.g., 19th-century urbanization) managed localized threats like cholera outbreaks via public health reforms, late modernity confronts borderless perils—nuclear accidents like Chernobyl in 1986 or climate change projections from 1990s IPCC reports—demanding reflexive sub-politics and individualized risk management.^[11] Empirical indicators include the post-1945 globalization surge, with world trade volume rising from $58 billion in 1948 to over $18 trillion by 2008, intensifying disembedding and exposing societies to synchronized crises, as seen in the 2008 financial meltdown's global ripple effects.^[9] These developments reject postmodern claims of rupture, as Giddens argues that apparent fragmentation—such as cultural pluralism in late 20th-century multiculturalism—is an internal radicalization of modern universalism, not its dissolution, supported by ongoing faith in progress despite ontological insecurity from risks.^[9] Beck concurs, viewing reflexive modernization as modernity's self-critique, where 1980s environmental movements (e.g., Greenpeace's growth from 1971 founding) challenge industrial excesses without abandoning rational discourse.^[11] Overall, late modernity thus amplifies early/high modernity's causal engines—innovation, expansion, and abstraction—yielding denser interconnections and uncertainties, as quantified by metrics like the Internet's user base exploding from 16 million in 1995 to over 5 billion by 2023, embedding daily life in reflexive global systems.^[9]

Rejection of Postmodern Rupture

Theorists of late modernity, such as Anthony Giddens, explicitly reject the postmodernist thesis of a decisive epistemological and social rupture from modernity, arguing instead that apparent discontinuities represent the radicalization and universalization of modern institutions and processes. In The Consequences of Modernity (1990), Giddens contends that society has not transitioned into a post-modern era but is experiencing an intensification of modernity's core features, including disembedding mechanisms, reflexivity, and time-space distanciation, which extend rather than supplant earlier modern dynamics.^[21]^[9] This perspective emphasizes empirical continuity in structures like the capitalist economy and nation-state, which persist amid globalization and technological acceleration, countering postmodern claims—advanced by figures like Jean-François Lyotard—of the collapse of grand narratives and metanarratives.^[31] Postmodernism's assertion of fragmented, simulacral realities, as articulated by Jean Baudrillard, is critiqued by late modernists for overemphasizing cultural ephemera while neglecting causal persistence of modern rationalization and risk management. Giddens, for instance, highlights how reflexivity— the constant monitoring and revision of social practices—drives innovation within modern frameworks, as evidenced by ongoing advancements in science and engineering since the late 20th century, rather than signaling a break toward irrational pluralism.^[32] Empirical indicators, such as the sustained growth of global GDP from $33 trillion in 1990 to over $100 trillion by 2023 under capitalist logics, underscore this continuity, undermining postmodern predictions of systemic implosion.^[7] Ulrich Beck's concept of the "risk society," integral to late modernity, further illustrates how manufactured uncertainties (e.g., climate change, financial crises) arise from modernity's own juggernaut-like momentum, not a postmodern void of meaning.^[33] This rejection also stems from methodological concerns: postmodernism's relativism, which privileges deconstruction over falsifiable analysis, is seen as evading the causal realism required to explain institutional resilience. Jürgen Habermas, aligned with late modern critiques, argues in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985) that postmodern skepticism toward reason fosters performative contradictions, as it relies on modern communicative rationality to mount its attacks.^[34] Data from the 2020s, including the rapid deployment of mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic (authorizing over 13 billion doses globally by 2023 via modern scientific paradigms), affirm the endurance of Enlightenment-derived progress, not its postmodern eclipse. Late modernists thus prioritize verifiable institutional trajectories over postmodern hyperbole, attributing the latter's academic prominence partly to its accommodation of identity-based fragmentation amid declining traditional authorities since the 1960s.^[35]

Applications to Contemporary Institutions

Transformations in Economy and Work

In late modernity, economic structures have undergone profound changes driven by reflexivity, globalization, and the production of manufactured risks, as theorized by Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. Giddens describes the disembedding of social relations, including economic ones, through abstract systems like global financial markets and expert knowledge, which separate production from local traditions and enable time-space distanciation—allowing, for instance, a factory in one country to coordinate with suppliers across continents via real-time digital interfaces.^[9] This reflexivity demands constant adaptation in work practices, as organizations and individuals routinely reassess strategies in response to volatile global information flows, contrasting with the routinized industrial labor of high modernity. Beck complements this by framing late-modern economies as "risk societies," where subpolitical decisions—such as deregulatory policies—generate systemic uncertainties like financial crashes, shifting burdens onto individuals to navigate career paths amid individualized labor markets. A hallmark transformation is the decline of manufacturing and the ascent of service and knowledge-based economies. In the United States, manufacturing employment peaked at 19.6 million in June 1979 before falling to 12.8 million by June 2019, a 35% reduction attributable to productivity gains, automation, offshoring, and trade liberalization rather than solely technological displacement.^[37] Concurrently, the service sector expanded, comprising over 80% of GDP by 2000 from 65% in 1970, with jobs increasingly requiring higher skills in information processing and interpersonal coordination.^[38] Globalization intensified this shift, as multinational firms leveraged low-wage labor in developing regions post-1990s trade agreements, fostering intricate supply chains that heighten vulnerability to disruptions like the 2020-2022 pandemic-era shortages.^[39] Financialization emerged as a dominant feature from the 1980s onward, prioritizing financial motives, markets, and institutions over industrial production, with profits increasingly derived from speculation rather than tangible output.^[40] This process, accelerated by deregulations such as the U.S. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, elevated shareholder value metrics, leading firms to prioritize short-term returns via stock buybacks—totaling $5.1 trillion in the U.S. from 2012 to 2017—over long-term investments in wages or R&D.^[41] In work terms, it manifested as intensified pressure on employees to align with fluid capital demands, eroding job security and fostering a culture of perpetual upskilling. The rise of precarious and gig work exemplifies individualization in late-modern labor, where traditional lifelong employment gives way to self-managed biographies amid ontological insecurity. Platforms like Uber, launched in 2009, have expanded the gig economy, with U.S. gig workers numbering in the tens of millions by 2023, often facing variable incomes and lacking benefits like health insurance or pensions.^[42] Beck's framework highlights how such arrangements transfer risks from employers to workers, who must reflexively curate personal brands and networks for survival, while empirical data show heightened income volatility: median gig earnings fluctuate 20-30% monthly for many participants.^[42] This flexibility, while enabling geographic and temporal autonomy, correlates with broader trends of wage stagnation—real U.S. median wages rose only 9% from 1979 to 2019 despite productivity gains of 70%—underscoring causal disconnects between labor contributions and rewards in reflexively governed markets.^[38]

Shifts in Politics and Governance

In late modernity, Anthony Giddens posits a transition from emancipatory politics—focused on overcoming scarcity, oppression, and traditional authority—to life politics, which emphasizes self-actualization, identity construction, and ethical dilemmas in reflexive societies where individuals actively shape their biographies amid disembedded social relations.^[43]^[9] This evolution arises from intensified reflexivity, whereby political actors, including citizens and institutions, routinely reassess norms and practices in light of globalized knowledge flows and expert systems, diminishing reliance on fixed ideologies or hierarchical command structures.^[44] Ulrich Beck complements this with the notion of subpolitics in the risk society, where governance extends beyond formal state apparatuses and electoral politics into non-parliamentary domains such as corporate decisions, scientific expertise, and civil society initiatives addressing anthropogenic hazards like climate change or nuclear proliferation.^[45] Traditional redistributive welfare paradigms yield to precautionary frameworks prioritizing risk anticipation and mitigation, often through transnational collaborations that bypass national borders and foster cosmopolitan regulatory norms over methodological nationalism.^[17] Globalization accelerates these shifts by eroding exclusive nation-state sovereignty through economic interdependence, capital mobility, and supranational institutions, compelling governments to negotiate policies within constraints imposed by international financial markets and trade regimes.^[46]^[47] Empirical analyses show states facing reduced autonomy in fiscal and monetary matters, as evidenced by the delegation of authority in entities like the World Trade Organization, established in 1995 with 164 members by 2023 enforcing binding dispute resolutions.^[48] The Maastricht Treaty, signed on 7 February 1992 and effective from 1 November 1993, institutionalized this via the European Union, where 27 member states as of 2023 pool competencies in areas including competition policy and the single market, limiting unilateral action.^[49] These dynamics manifest in observable declines in conventional political participation; International IDEA records average voter turnout in established democracies falling from peaks above 75% in the 1940s-1960s to 65-70% by the 2010s, attributed to disenchantment with representative institutions amid fragmented, issue-driven engagement.^[50]^[51] Concurrently, governance increasingly relies on technocratic and hybrid models, blending state oversight with private-sector and NGO inputs to navigate reflexive uncertainties, as seen in global responses to pandemics via frameworks like the WHO's 2021-2030 roadmap involving non-state stakeholders.

Changes in Family, Identity, and Culture

In late modernity, family structures have undergone significant transformation, marked by a decline in traditional nuclear families and a rise in diverse arrangements driven by individual choice and reflexivity. In the United States, the proportion of families consisting of a married couple with children fell from 67% in 1970 to 37% by 2023, coinciding with increased cohabitation, single-parent households, and remarriages following higher divorce rates.^[52] Marriage rates in Western societies, including the US, have declined steadily since the 1970s, reaching historic lows by the 2020s, while divorce rates peaked in the 1980s before stabilizing at elevated levels compared to mid-20th-century norms.^[53] Sociologist Anthony Giddens attributes these shifts to the emergence of "pure relationships," where partnerships are sustained by emotional satisfaction, mutual disclosure, and equality rather than institutional or economic imperatives, enabling greater personal autonomy but also higher instability if reflexivity reveals incompatibilities.^[54] Empirical data supports this, with cohabitation rates rising and marriage deferral linked to individualized life planning, though critics note that such flexibility correlates with lower fertility—total fertility rates in OECD countries dropping below replacement levels (e.g., 1.6 in the US by 2020)—potentially straining social reproduction.^[55]^[56] Identity formation in late modernity emphasizes reflexive self-construction, detached from ascribed roles toward biographical narratives shaped by personal choices amid disembedding influences like globalization and media. Giddens describes this as a "reflexive project of the self," where individuals continuously monitor and revise identities through lifestyle options, contrasting with earlier modernity's class- or tradition-bound selves.^[57] Ulrich Beck's individualization thesis extends this, positing that welfare state expansions and labor market flexibilization erode traditional solidarities, compelling agents to negotiate risks and biographies independently, as evidenced by rising educational attainment and delayed life transitions (e.g., average age of first marriage rising to 28-30 in Western Europe by the 2010s).^[11] However, empirical studies reveal uneven application: while urban, educated cohorts exhibit high reflexivity, lower socioeconomic groups face "institutionalized individualism" with limited choices, challenging the universality of these theories.^[58] This process fosters fluid identities, incorporating multicultural elements via migration and digital connectivity, yet risks alienation when reflexive demands outpace supportive structures. Cultural dynamics reflect detraditionalization and intensified consumerism, with traditions yielding to reflexive, globalized practices amid manufactured uncertainties. Giddens and Beck argue that late modernity erodes unquestioned customs, replacing them with expert systems and personal narratives, as seen in secularization trends—religious "nones" rising to 30% in the US by 2020—and the commodification of lifestyles through consumer markets.^[20] Multiculturalism emerges from time-space distanciation, with immigration diversifying cultural repertoires (e.g., non-Western born populations reaching 15% in the UK by 2021), prompting hybrid identities but also reflexive contestations over values.^[59] Consumer culture amplifies this, as identities increasingly derive from branded experiences and media narratives, with global advertising expenditures surpassing $800 billion annually by 2020, fostering individualism over collective norms.^[60] Data from cross-national surveys indicate persistent traditional residues in rural or conservative demographics, suggesting intensification rather than rupture, with causal links to economic deregulation and digital reflexivity enabling cultural pluralism alongside fragmentation.^[61]

Criticisms, Debates, and Empirical Realities

Internal Theoretical Challenges

One prominent internal challenge to late modernity theory concerns the tension between proclaimed individualization and the persistence of class structures. Theorists like Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens posit that reflexive modernization erodes traditional class boundaries through individual choice and self-identity construction, yet empirical analyses reveal class habitus continues to differentially shape reflexive capacities and opportunities. For instance, Will Atkinson argues that while individualization processes exist, they operate within class-stratified fields, where working-class individuals exhibit less strategic reflexivity compared to their middle-class counterparts due to inherited dispositions and resource disparities, thus contradicting the theory's emphasis on universal agency enhancement.^[62] This internal critique leverages the reflexive framework itself to highlight its incomplete accounting for enduring structural constraints, suggesting individualization is modulated rather than supplanted by class dynamics.^[63] Another theoretical inconsistency arises within Giddens' oeuvre, where his earlier structuration theory—emphasizing the duality of structure and agency as recursively co-constituted—clashes with later depictions of late modernity's heightened reflexivity as a break from routinized practices. Critics contend this shift undermines the paradigmatic balance, portraying reflexivity not as an ongoing structurational process but as an epochal rupture driven by disembedding forces like globalization, which risks overemphasizing contingency at the expense of structural reproduction.^[64] Such debates expose foundational paradoxes: if structures are continually instantiated through agency, the radical destabilization claimed for late modernity appears overstated, potentially reverting to deterministic narratives of unstoppable "juggernaut" modernity without sufficient reconciliation.^[9] Furthermore, late modernity frameworks by Beck, Giddens, and Zygmunt Bauman grapple with an underdeveloped conception of power, often subordinating it to reflexive risks or liquid flows without fully integrating agency against entrenched hierarchies. This lacuna hampers explanations of political stasis amid proclaimed dynamism, as power relations—manifest in institutional inertia or elite capture of reflexivity—persistently thwart individualization's democratizing potential.^[17] Internal reflections, such as those framing "risk society" as partly mythical discourse, underscore how the theory's optimism about self-critique overlooks cultural embeddedness, where narratives of endangerment may reinforce rather than dissolve traditional solidarities.^[65] These challenges collectively urge refinements to avoid underestimating modernity's inertial forces.

Conservative and Traditionalist Critiques

Conservative and traditionalist thinkers maintain that late modernity's core dynamics—reflexivity and detraditionalization—accelerate the erosion of inherited social structures essential for moral and communal stability, replacing them with unstable personal biographies prone to alienation. Anthony Giddens' portrayal of traditions as rigid and non-reflexive is rejected as a caricature that justifies their wholesale displacement by individualized choice, ignoring how traditions themselves evolve through practical deliberation and provide the narrative continuity MacIntyre deems indispensable for virtuous living.^[66]^[67] Alasdair MacIntyre argues that modernity's Enlightenment legacy fragments ethics into emotivist fragments, where preferences supplant telos; late modernity's intensified reflexivity, per Beck and Giddens, compounds this by subjecting all authorities to perpetual scrutiny, yielding moral relativism without grounding.^[68] Roger Scruton critiques this trajectory in cultural terms, asserting that late modernity severs aesthetics and architecture from sacred traditions, producing profane environments that alienate rather than elevate. In Modern Culture, Scruton traces high culture's religious origins and condemns modernist desecration as symptomatic of a broader loss of reverence, where individual expression supplants communal symbols of transcendence.^[69]^[70] Traditionalists extend this to warn against Ulrich Beck's "individualization" as institutionalizing isolation, where reflexive risk management supplants familial and religious solidarities evolved for resilience against uncertainty. Empirical patterns underscore these concerns: U.S. marriage rates among adults fell from 72% in 1960 to 50% by 2019, paralleling cultural emphases on autonomy that conservatives link to familial destabilization and child outcomes.^[71] Total fertility rates in high-income nations averaged 1.5 children per woman in 2019, below replacement levels, with analyses attributing delays in family formation to individualized priorities over collective reproduction.^[72]^[73] Such trends, per Heritage Foundation assessments, reflect late modernity's crossroads, where tradition's dilution fosters broader societal vulnerabilities like rising mental health disorders, unmitigated by the purported empowerment of reflexivity.^[74]

Empirical Evidence and Outcomes in the 2020s

In the 2020s, global fertility rates continued a decades-long decline, reaching an average of 2.3 children per woman by 2023, below the replacement level of 2.1 in many developed nations and approaching it worldwide.^[75] This trend reflects intensified individualization, with delayed marriage, higher female workforce participation, and shifting priorities toward career and self-fulfillment over traditional family expansion, as evidenced by cross-country data linking economic growth to fertility drops amid persistent gender role expectations.^[76] In the United States, births fell to 3.59 million in 2023, yielding a total fertility rate of 1.62, correlating with urban, higher-education demographics exhibiting lower reproduction rates.^[77] Economic structures exhibited hallmarks of late modern flexibility, with gig economy platforms expanding but comprising only 1-3% of total employment in OECD countries by the early 2020s, driven by digital intermediation rather than wholesale labor market displacement.^[78] Income inequality persisted and widened in many advanced economies; the richest 10% of the OECD population earned 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10% as of recent data, up from a 7:1 ratio in the 1980s, fueled by technological disruption and globalization's uneven benefits.^[79] Post-2020, self-employment surged temporarily due to pandemic-induced reporting changes and platform entry, with U.S. platform gig workers doubling in 2020 compared to 2019, underscoring reflexive adaptation to manufactured risks like economic lockdowns.^[80] Social trust eroded further, with U.S. interpersonal trust stagnant or declining amid polarization, while institutional confidence plummeted—only 22% of Americans expressed high trust in government by 2024, per surveys tracking long-term distrust.^[81] World Values Survey data from the 2010s-2020s revealed variability, but overall declines in generalized trust across Western societies aligned with rising populism, where unhappiness and low social cohesion explained up to 40% of anti-system voting shifts in Europe and the U.S.^[82] ^[83] Digitalization amplified reflexivity, with accelerated adoption during COVID-19 enabling remote work and social connectivity but also fragmenting communities, as empirical reviews documented firms' digital transformations reshaping societal interactions without resolving underlying liquidity in relationships.^[84] Risk society dynamics manifested acutely in the 2020s through pandemics and environmental threats. COVID-19 elicited uniformly high risk perceptions globally, with 80%+ of respondents in multiple nations viewing it as a severe threat, prompting reflexive policy shifts like lockdowns that exposed institutional vulnerabilities and uneven compliance.^[85] Climate change perceptions paralleled this, with fear reinforced by pandemic experiences rather than displaced, as multilevel models across countries showed COVID anxiety amplifying environmental concerns, though actual behavioral shifts toward sustainability remained limited.^[86] Post-pandemic uncertainty correlated with heightened anxiety and mental health declines, particularly among midlife adults in the U.S., where empirical longitudinal data indicated worsening well-being compared to prior generations, attributing it to amplified risks from globalization and technological flux.^[87] ^[88]

References

[1]
Late modernity - Oxford Reference
A term used by writers who do not accept that there has been a transition to a new societal stage of post-modernity.
[2]
Giddens' Theory of Late Modernity: It is Multi-Dimensional (4 ...
The late modernity has a few more characteristics, namely, distanciation, power, trust and risk, which also need to be explained as sub-parts of Giddens' ...
[3]
Giddens: Modernity and Self-Identity - Introduction and Chapter One ...
May 27, 2016 · Late Modernity has the following characteristics: · It is more intensely reflexive. · There has been a profound reorganisation of time and space – ...
[4]
The Years and Years of Late Modernity: Ulrich Beck and Risk Society
Aug 27, 2021 · Beck contends that first modernity structures must adapt to a risk society. Structures like schools, banks, and governments have atrophied in ...
[5]
Liquid Modernity - Polity books
In this new book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a 'heavy' and 'solid', hardware-focused modernity to a 'light' and 'liquid', software-based ...
[6]
Late Modernity: An Overview - Easy Sociology
Jan 14, 2024 · Late modernity is a concept in sociology that explores the social, cultural, and economic changes that have occurred in modern societies ...
[7]
Modernity, Postmodernity, Modernism and Late Modernity in Sociology
Sep 16, 2025 · Late Modernity argues that we are still living in modernity, but in a more advanced or intensified stage. Thinkers like Giddens and Beck argue ...
[8]
Anthony Giddens On Modernity - PureSociology
Aug 23, 2023 · Giddens' concept of modernity is based on the idea that modern society is undergoing a radical transformation that affects all aspects of social life.
[9]
[PDF] The Consequences of Modernity by Anthony Giddens | Void Network
This book, an extended essay, explores the consequences of modernity, including topics like 'The Discontinuities of Modernity' and 'Security and Danger, Trust ...
[10]
Beck and Giddens: Risk and Reflexive Modernity - Sage Knowledge
Giddens, for example, claims that 'post-modernism is an aesthetic reflection upon the nature of modernity', and that, as such, it cannot explain the structural ...
[11]
[PDF] Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992)
Ulrich Beck's Risk Society is already one of the most influential European works of social analysis in the late twentieth century. Risikogesellschaft was ...
[12]
Risk Society - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
In Risk Society, Beck argues that forces of rationalization and industrialization gave rise to what he terms 'early modern' (later called 'first modernity') ...
[13]
[PDF] Reading Guide to: Beck, U, Giddens, A, Turner, B, Robertson, R
Giddens talks of radicalised modernity rather than postmodernity, and emphasises the discontinuities between this stage and the past. These include increased ...
[14]
Theories of Late Modernity and Sociology of Education:: Focusing ...
Aug 7, 2025 · First, Giddens produced both structuration theory as a basic sociological theory and his discussion about high modernity as contemporary social ...
[15]
Theories of Late Modernity - S.O.S Sociology
Mar 23, 2013 · A defining characteristic of late modernity is rapid social change and Giddens argues this is the result of two factors – disembedding and reflexivity.
[16]
Late Modernity: An Overview - Easy Sociology
Jul 3, 2024 · Late modernity emerged as a concept to describe the period from the late 20th century onwards, marked by rapid technological advancements, ...
[17]
Bauman, Beck, Giddens and our understanding of politics in late ...
This article considers the political sociology of three prominent thinkers who describe a phase of 'late modernity': Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Anthony ...
[18]
Theories of Late Modernity | A Level Sociology Revision Notes
Oct 2, 2025 · Giddens argues that we are still in modernity, but it is now more dynamic, unstable and global. There are two key features of late modernity:.
[19]
Late Modernity – @revise-sociology-aqa on Tumblr
Thistheory emerged in the 70's and is considered to be the period we are living in now. It is characterised by being unstable and fragmented but also global. We ...
[20]
Late modern perspectives on the family - ReviseSociology
Feb 10, 2014 · Late-Modernists such as Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck recognise that people have more choice in terms of their relationships and family arrangements.
[21]
The Consequences of Modernity | Stanford University Press
In this major theoretical statement, the author offers a new and provocative interpretation of institutional transformations associated with modernity.
[22]
Giddens, A (1991) The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge
Sociology is part of the reflexivity of modernity, but it needs to be reformed to take into account the space/time manipulations and dimensions of late ...
[23]
[PDF] The Global Transformations Reader, edited by David Held and ...
The conceptual framework of time-space distanciation directs our attention to the complex relations between local involvements (circumstances of co-presence) ...
[24]
Evolution of the world's 25 top trading nations - UNCTAD
May 10, 2021 · In 1979, trade represented 36% of global GDP and by 2019 the figure had grown to 60%. This expansion came with changes in the competitive ...
[25]
Trade and Globalization - Our World in Data
The chart shows an extraordinary growth in international trade over the last couple of centuries: the volume of trade today is more than fifty times larger than ...
[26]
[PDF] World Trade Statistical Review 2020
In 2019, even before the pandemic, world merchandise trade declined in volume terms by 0.1 per cent, weighed down by political tensions and protectionist ...
[27]
RISK SOCIETY - Sage Publishing
Beck's unusually broad-based approach to social constructions of risk and identity in late industrial society would be potentially a rich basis to examine these ...
[28]
[PDF] Revisiting Risk Society: A Conversation with Ulrich Beck
Beck argues that uncertain- ties are a paradigmatic aspect of late modernity, since risks emerge as side effects of the very production of scientific ...
[29]
Giddens - Dilemmas of the Self
'Living in the world', where the world is that of late modernity, involves various distinctive tensions and difficulties on the level of the self.Missing: timeline | Show results with:timeline
[30]
[PDF] Beck's Risk Society and Giddens' Search for Ontological Security
Risks that may always have been part of human history have an intrinsic difference within late modernity. The difference is that many of them arise from, rather ...
[31]
Critical Responses to Postmodernism - ReviseSociology
May 2, 2016 · Anthony Giddens attacks post-modernity firstly because he believes that we have not yet left modernity – and thus the sociology of modernity still provides the ...
[32]
Views of Giddens on Post-Modernism | Sociology Theory
Postmodernism denies any meaningful continuity in history. It is a new historical epoch that is supposed to have succeeded the modern era or modernity.
[33]
Postmodern and Late Modern Sociological Thought - ReviseSociology
Jul 18, 2016 · A brief summary of post and late modern thought, for A Level Sociology.
[34]
[PDF] Modernity, Modern Social Theory, and the Postmodern Critique
The postmodern critique holds that virtually all modern social theory springs from Enlightenment faith in science and reason and leads to "grand narratives" ...
[35]
Postmodernism and Its Critics - Anthropology
Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
[36]
Forty years of falling manufacturing employment
Nov 20, 2020 · In June 1979, manufacturing employment reached an all-time peak of 19.6 million. In June 2019, employment was at 12.8 million, down 6.7 million or 35 percent ...
[37]
Changes in the American workplace - Pew Research Center
Oct 6, 2016 · A shifting economic landscape is driving significant changes in the American workplace. Employment opportunities increasingly lie in jobs requiring higher- ...
[38]
The future of work in the developing world - Brookings Institution
Jan 31, 2017 · The twin forces of technological change and globalization are reshaping the global economy in multiple and important ways.Missing: late | Show results with:late
[39]
The Profits of Financialization - Monthly Review
Financialized capitalism, emerging in mature industrial countries in the late twentieth century, is marked by the profit-making characteristic of the sphere of ...
[40]
The rising financialization of the U.S. economy harms workers and ...
May 11, 2021 · The financialization of the US economy over the past five decades contributed to income and wealth inequality, stifled economic growth, and exacerbated ...
[41]
The rise of gig workers is changing the face of the US economy - CNN
Jul 25, 2023 · Labor market experts say the number of gig workers is growing, and their alternative working arrangements are rippling through the economy.Missing: modernity | Show results with:modernity
[42]
Anthony Giddens and the Emergence of Life Politics - Counterpunch
Mar 18, 2016 · Anthony Giddens (like the late Ulrich Beck of “risk society” fame) argues that transformations within modernity itself have precipitated a new form of politics ...
[43]
The Political Consequences of Late Modernity - SpringerLink
Having told the story of globalization, post-traditionalism and reflexivity, and having provided evidence that he is essentially aware of structural constraints ...
[44]
Subpolitics - Ulrich Beck, 1997 - Sage Journals
In the world risk society, politics is made in various realms of subpolitics, whether it is in the finn, the laboratory, at the gas station, or in the ...
[45]
Globalization and the Erosion of National Sovereignty - ResearchGate
Dec 29, 2024 · This article seeks how nation states have responded to these difficulties, highlighting the ways in which globalization has influenced sovereignty.
[46]
[PDF] The Death of State Sovereignty? An Empirical Exploration - OpenSIUC
Many scholars have suggested that the state has been reduced to nothing more than a facilitator of global political, legal, and economic system. As ...
[47]
[PDF] The impact of globalization on state sovereignty
Aug 4, 2024 · The aim of this study has been to demonstrate that economic globalization undermines state sovereignty, or the power monopoly states have held ...
[48]
[PDF] Treaty on European Union (Maastricht, 7 February 1992)
Nov 9, 2015 · Caption: The Treaty on European Union is signed in Maastricht on 7 February 1992 and enters into force on 1 November 1993. Source: Official ...Missing: sovereignty | Show results with:sovereignty
[49]
[PDF] Voter Turnout Trends around the World - International IDEA
Such a shift in the channels of political participation, from voting for traditional bodies of representation to new forms of democratic participation and ...
[50]
The Generational and Institutional Sources of the Global Decline in ...
Aug 31, 2021 · The figure draws on the first rounds of legislative (lower house) and presidential elections. Voter turnout is measured as percent of registered ...
[51]
The Modern American Family - Pew Research Center
Sep 14, 2023 · The share of families with a spouse and children dropped from 67% to 37%. More people are unmarried, interracial marriages increased, and more ...
[52]
Marriages and Divorces - Our World in Data
The long decline started in the 1970s. Since 1972, marriage rates in the US have fallen signficantly, and are currently at the lowest point in recorded history.
[53]
Intimacy Transformed? A Critical Look at the `Pure Relationship
Anthony Giddens (1992) postulates a transformation of intimacy in all personal relationships with radical consequences for the gender order. Popular discourse ...
[54]
The Demography of Families: A Review of Patterns and Change
In 1967, 70% of adults were living with a spouse compared with only 51% in 2018, and declines over the past decade matched those in the 1990s and 2000s (U.S. ...
[55]
Demographic Trends in the United States: A Review of Research in ...
Starting in the 1960s, however, levels of divorce, separation, and childbearing outside of marriage rose much faster than death rates fell, so that the overall ...
[56]
[PDF] Individualization | Void Network
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity. Giddens, A. (1994) Beyond Left and Right: The ...
[57]
Individualised or participatory? Exploring late-modern identity and ...
Aug 26, 2014 · The empirical evidence on the realities of individualisation is not nearly so clear-cut. Understanding who experiences individualisation and ...
[58]
Globalization and its Impact on Cultural Identity: An Analysis - Medium
Feb 26, 2023 · Globalization has significantly impacted cultural identity by homogenizing diverse cultural expressions into a single global culture.Missing: consumer data
[59]
Consumer Culture, Modernity and Identity - Sage Academic Books
The roots of consumer culture in American society are deep. The period following end of World War II marked an increase in the rate of consumption in America ...Missing: detraditionalization multiculturalism
[60]
Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional ...
Aug 8, 2025 · Modernization theorists from Karl Marx to Daniel Bell have argued that economic development brings pervasive cultural changes.Missing: detraditionalization multiculturalism consumer
[61]
Peter Beilharz, Socialism and Modernity - Nita Mathur, 2012
### Summary of Will Atkinson's Critique of Individualization in Late Modernity
[62]
Will Atkinson Class, Individualization and Late Modernity: In Search ...
Aug 13, 2012 · Social class has recently re-emerged as a popular topic for sociological analysis, yet scholarly debates about its salience and significance ...
[63]
Reflexivity Contra Structuration - jstor
Abstract: This paper argues that Giddens recent writings on reflexivity and modernity fundamentally contradict the underlying paradigm of agency and ...Missing: sources | Show results with:sources
[64]
Critical Reflections on `Reflexive Modernization - Sage Journals
An extensive criticism of Beck from a more culturalist perspective, and an alternative approach to contemporary environmentalism, see Alexander and Smith (1996 ...
[65]
[PDF] Reflexivity and tradition: a critique of the individualization thesis
The detraditionalization thesis relies on an account of increased reflexivity at an individual and institutional level to make sense of contemporary ...
[66]
Alasdair MacIntyre - Gary Kitchen, 1997 - Sage Journals
At the heart of MacIntyre's critique of modernity is the problem of moral truth. He argues that the 'Enlightenment project' of justifying morality has ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[67]
MacIntyre's Critique of Modernity (Chapter 7)
Nov 9, 2009 · Within a short period of time, “modernity” saw democratic revolutions, authoritarian revolutions, and the explosive growth of industrial society ...
[68]
Thoughts from a Life: On Modernity
Dec 14, 2020 · By Rémi Brague. 2 Newsletter-01.png. The main thrust of Sir Roger's thought may be an attempt at staving off the 'secularizing forces of ...
[69]
Modern Culture: Scruton, Roger - Books - Amazon.com
30-day returnsIn this thought-provoking book, Roger Scruton argues for the religious origin of culture in all its forms, and mounts a defence of the 'high culture' of our ...
[70]
The Decline of Marriage And Rise of New Families
Nov 18, 2010 · The transformative trends of the past 50 years that have led to a sharp decline in marriage and a rise of new family forms have been shaped by attitudes and ...Missing: breakdown critique
[71]
[PDF] Low fertility: A review of the determinants
Jul 2, 2019 · Yet nearly half of the global population now lives in a country with a period total fertility rate (TFR) below 2.1 children per woman (United ...
[72]
(PDF) Individualisation and Fertility - ResearchGate
Aug 5, 2025 · We discuss the relevance of these two dimensions of individualisation in the context of the first transition and the 1960s with its declining ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[73]
Crossroads: American Family Life at the Intersection of Tradition and ...
Mar 4, 2025 · American family life is at a crossroads. One path is marked by declining marriage, low birth rates, high unwed childbearing, casual divorce ...Missing: critique | Show results with:critique
[74]
Fertility Rate - Our World in Data
Globally, the total fertility rate was 2.3 children per woman in 2023. This is much lower than in the past; in the 1950s, it was more than twice as high: 4.9.The global decline of the... · Why the total fertility rate... · Wanted fertility rate
[75]
Economic Growth, Cultural Traditions, and Declining Fertility | NBER
Cross-country evidence shows that rapid economic growth coupled with persistent traditional gender roles can result in sharp fertility declines.
[76]
Deep-Blue Birth Dearth - City Journal
Jul 16, 2024 · Some 3.59 million babies were born in the United States in 2023. This rate, if it continues, translates to 1.62 children per woman over a ...<|separator|>
[77]
Gig economy platforms: Boon or Bane? - OECD
The results suggest that gig economy platforms' size remains modest (1-3 per cent of overall employment). Their growth has been most pronounced in a small ...
[78]
Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth
Today, the richest 10 per cent of the population in the OECD area earn 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent; in the 1980s this ratio stood at 7:1 ...
[79]
[PDF] The Evolution of Platform Gig Work, 2012-2021
workers entered the gig economy in 2020 who did not do have an information return from the platform gig economy in 2019, a 100% increase over 2019. An ...<|separator|>
[80]
Americans' Deepening Mistrust of Institutions
Oct 17, 2024 · From the federal government to the news media to higher education, some historically respected institutions are losing people's confidence.
[81]
Trusting others: How unhappiness and social distrust explain populism
The decline in happiness and social trust in Europe and the US explains a large share of the rise in political polarisation and anti-system votes. Subjective ...
[82]
Trust - Our World in Data
One of the most widely used tools to measure trust attitudes across the world comes from the World Values Survey – an international research project that has ...
[83]
Digital transformation: A review and research agenda - ScienceDirect
We conduct a systematic review of research on firms' digital transformation, generating a database of 537 peer-reviewed academic articles and analyzing it ...Missing: reflexivity 2020s
[84]
Full article: Risk perceptions of COVID-19 around the world
May 5, 2020 · Across all of our national surveys, we find that risk perception of COVID-19 is uniformly high. Several psychological factors emerged as ...
[85]
Climate change worry in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic ...
The results of the multilevel models showed that COVID-19 fear reinforces climate change concerns which contradicts the finite pool of worry theory.
[86]
Historical Change in Midlife Health, Well-Being, and Despair
Recent empirical evidence has documented that US middle-aged adults today are reporting lower mental and physical health than same-aged peers several decades ...
[87]
Uncertainty, Anxiety and the Post-Pandemic Economic Environment
This essay examines the connections between economic uncertainty, anxiety, and mental health. It suggests considering some relevant elements to estimate the ...