The Globalization and American and Indian Families - Essay Example

A nation is formed by various societies and families which follow the same tradition, culture, practice or ethos form a society. Although broadly the same concept is applicable to any nation whether it be a developed or a developing nation but the underlying culture or family values may be different as per the economic status of the nation. United States of America can be one of the most suitable candidates for a study on an economically developed nation whereas the fast emerging nation India will be better suited for the developing nations, so I have based my study on these nations. Globalization has lead to a paradigm shift in the lives of two nations where a typical Indian family has generally benefitted from globalization where as in the recent past; America has struggled to hold against the competition faced from the exporters of the world mainly China and India. Also the period of recession, economical development/ advancement have has a major impact on the families of the two country. Owing to the globalization, the families in the two countries have started to come a lot closer with Indians adopting the pub culture from West and Americans shifting to meditation and Yoga, generally considered a heritage of India. Still, there is some difference in the two families owing to the long held cultural values by the residents as well as because of the economical strata of the two countries. My study is based on the similarity as well as the difference in the family lives of these two countries which are about 8000 miles apart from each other. What is a Family A Family denotes a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," some anthropologists have argued that one must understand the notion of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' through other concepts rather than through genetic distance. The family can broadly be divided into two types:- 1. Nuclear family 2. Joint Family 1. Nuclear family is a one which generally includes husband, wife and children. 2. Joint family is a one which typically includes husband, wife, children, parents, uncles, aunt, servants etc. A group of family constitutes a society. A society is generally responsible for determining the behavior pattern for the families. The cultural ethoses are perpetuated from society to future generations via the head of the family. The primary responsibility of every family is to work for the betterment of society as a whole. From the perspective of children, the family is a family of orientation: the family serves to locate children socially, and plays a major role in their enculturation and socialization. Although the above mentioned pattern is common to most of the societies, irrespective of the fact whether they are based in developed country or the developing country, but there are certain difference in terms of the cultural ethos and the behavioral pattern observed. We in our study will take example of family from a developed nation - USA and a developing nation India to mark the similarity and the difference. Developed Country- USA American Family: Belonging to a family is one bond almost everyone in the world shares, but as we have discussed family patterns vary from country to country, region to region and may even vary between various castes and creeds. The United States has many different types of families, but the traditional structure of a typical American family, a nuclear family, is still persistent for a very long time now. Yet, over a span of few years, American society has witnessed an evolution in family structure and daily life in many respects, because of various different factors, emerging from a huge development in the field of science and technology. But as said by wise people, there are no free lunches, this advancement in science and technology has lead to a greater commitment in the professional life thereby giving a jolt to work life balance and hampering the social life with an increased rate of divorce leading to issues like single parenthood, adoptive households and step parenting. What is it like to be a young person in the United States It is true that schools are second home for American kids. They spend approximately 30 hours in a week in their schools. Literacy rate in America is almost 99%. It is not only academics that kids learn at school. More than 80 percent of the students participate in extracurricular activities like sports, drama, vocal, bands etc. As discussed earlier, an American family is generally a nuclear family. American is typically a debt oriented economy. Generally both the parents contribute in earnings in America and even the kids start engaging themselves in minor work, permissible under child labor laws, at a young age. Marriage and Families About 52% of American adults in 2000 were married and living with their spouse. Another 24% had never married, 7% were widowed and 10% were divorced. Of the 105.5 mil households in the United States, 71.8 % included or constituted a family -- that is, 2 or more people related by blood, marriage, or adoption. The remaining households consisted of a person living alone (25.8%) or 2 or more unrelated people (6.1%). Less Developed Country- India Indian Family: India is a diverse country. Owing to the diversity of the nation, there is huge difference in the family living of the people with respect to their geographical locations. While the families of Northern India are generally more traditional in nature and are engaged majorly in agriculture, the western part is modern. A typical family in North India is a joint family in which the ladies are generally house wives whereas in the western part of the nation families are more nuclear with ladies also contributing to the income of the family while engaging themselves lesser with the homely work. People from diverse culture and religion reside in India. You can find Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism and many other religions getting practiced in India. Religion, caste and regional differences influence family structure as well. Although traditional roles are changing, especially in urban areas, there are important values shared by most Indian families. Generally, Indians hold family progress, unity and support in high regard throughout their lives. Many live in an extended family, in which every member has their own role, often determined by age and gender. There is typically a head of the family which takes all the major decision with respect to the family and his decision is generally respected by everyone in the family. Elders are supposed to use their experience and wisdom to help guide younger family members. A large number of marriages are arranged by children's parents. Marriage in India is considered to be a bonding between two families and therefore the permission of the members of the family needs to be sought before the knots are tied. Generally the marriage has to happen between the individuals from the same cast. Marriage partners are often found through the family network or, in urban areas, through newspaper advertisements and marriage bureaus. Traditionally men have held the primary responsibility for financially supporting their families, although many women, especially in rural areas, contribute to the family's income. In case a woman goes out for working, she still has to manage the entire show at home in India. There is generally a vast income gap between classes in India. Poor people in India thrive on less than 2 dollars a day. The middle classes usually live in apartments or smaller homes, while poor families live in simple huts or thatched houses. In cities, severe housing shortages mean that millions live in shacks or slums. India's lively blend of modern and traditional practices is evident in city streets, which are crowded with cars, buses, rickshaws, bicycles, ox-drawn carts, cows and other animals. What challenges confront families in both countries as they face major changes America, as a developed nation, has started to face problem in which even the nuclear family model is getting further subdivided onto either single mother or single father. The increased professional pressure has led to wreck havoc in the social lives of most Americans. As per the data collated in 1998, there were 2.1 million single fathers in the country and the number of mothers was as high as 9.8 million. About 28% of children under the age of 18 years lived with just 1 parent (around 23% with their mother only, 4% with their father only) and 4% with other relatives or people not related to them. With the increased work pressure, the family life has really started to come a cropper. The immediate need of America at the moment is to give due importance to social life while maintaining a proper work-life balance. With the global turmoil hitting the country as a result of subprime crisis has made the condition even worse. With increasing number of people losing job every single hour, it has become a mandate for everyone to deliver more than his 100% increasing the pressure further. A completely different problem surrounds India as a developing nation. The population of the country has reached in access of 1 billion. It is predicted that the population of India will surpass the population of China in a few decades now. The increase in population is giving its way to an increased inflation rate which. Although the population growth has started to come down, primarily in the urban India, as the country has started to come into a league of developing nations because as soon as a country starts progressing, the fertility rate starts coming down because of an increased stress levels of the individuals. In order to feed the growing population, especially in rural India, uneducated people are forcing their young kids into child labor. These child labors, deprived of any proper education because of their work schedule, are forced to spend their life in utmost penury and destitution and end up creating another battalion of uneducated men in the country by following the same cycle in their adulthood after producing scores of children themselves. Indian society has a huge role to play in curbing penury by a controlled population growth and proper education level to families, which is the major challenge ahead of societies in India. To what extent do the differences in economic circumstances impact upon the families Economic circumstances have a major role to play in the family. A typical poor farmer in India, depending entirely on the monsoon to provide water to his harvest, may not be even able to feed his family members in the event of a drought. His family generally lives in a hand to mouth condition throughout their lives. Such family has a greater chance of the internal ties getting broken into pieces with the family members putting a question into the poor head being a leader of the family, after being a failure in his professional life. His children may not accept him as a role model and may try to carve out their future themselves, aloof from the family. An educated father, on the other hand, earning a good income not only provides the family members an access to all the luxuries, but also provides a security for better future. There are more chances of the family accepting him as a natural head and a fitting role model and he definitely has a higher probability of keeping the family well knit together. He can not only provide his children a better education but also is able to imbibe in them the cultural ethos by acting as a role model himself. What difference does social class make In other words, are families from different cultures basically similar because of similar class standings Generally there are much wider income gaps in the developing nations as compared to the economically developed nations. Same goes for India and America. While in America, a high class family may be earning approx. 10 times more than a lower class family, In India the same ratio is as high as one thousand. While it may be safely assumed that with respect to the living style of higher class families, the two nations are probably similar because of their class standings, but the scenario is completely different with respect to those in the lower income bracket. While a low class family in US may be earning around 10,000 USD per annum, the income for the low class family in India as low as 30,000 Indian rupees per annum equivalent to approx. 600 USD per annum that is less than 2 dollars a day. Needless to say such income brackets live in utter destitution in India and struggle to hard to earn even one meal per day which is not the case in US. What seems to matter most in understanding the contrast, culture or economic circumstances There has been a huge difference in the cultures of the two nations with father generally the head of the family in India, taking all the major decisions including the decision of marriage for his child which is not so in case of a typical American family, which generally is a nuclear and children separating at an early age. But, I think the contrast has more to do with the economic circumstances rather than anything else. India has emerged as a developing nation with a multifold increase in GDP over the past few years and the youth is therefore adopting some of western cultural ideas which gets considered as a debauchery to Indian culture by some of the orthodox people. Even if we have a broader look at the any country in general, we see that families although residing in the same country but having a difference in the earning capacity have quite a contrasting life style. While a poor family is busy in earning the bread for the family members throughout the day and even the night sometimes, an economically sound family has other things to worry about. It is because of the economy of the country, that an Indian family generally believes in saving a high percentage of money earned for the future, where as an American economy is typically debt oriented economy where a family generally enjoys a luxurious life today taking future credits. In what ways are families in the countries you select being impacted by globalization There has been a great impact in both the countries India as well as America because of globalization. India until the year 1992 was a closed economy mainly because the British came to Indian soil for trade and finally made them a slave of British Empire. So India tried to keep itself off from any trades with foreigners until 1992. Indian market freed up in the same year and it was anticipated that Indian traders, who until now were protected by introducing heavy import duties will fall prey to the world market. But things turned otherwise, India which was considered an underdeveloped nation until then flourished marvelously in the era of globalization. India was mainly dependent upon the manufacturing sector but suddenly with the help of its young and dynamic work force and an open market it made a mark on the world map in the field of Service Sector. It started to provide services at a much lower cost and a better expertise to the countries in the west and the lower cost was possible because the difference in the currency rates and cost of living in the two continents. A typically poor Indian family until the year 1992, with the youngsters in the family sitting idly without any job even after having master's degree has seen a paradigm shift today with the service class making loads of money because of the phenomenon called outsourcing. Apparently, a complete reverse trend has been seen in America. Globalization is considered to be an idea fostered by the America which has somehow worked against it. American manufacturing companies have migrated most of their manufacturing jobs to foreign countries where it is cheaper to do business. Furthermore, service and technical jobs are currently undergoing a large exodus to foreign labor too. The same phenomenon called outsourcing. This has been a huge dampener for local American residents who are facing a dearth of jobs at their end. The recent data shows that joblessness has touched a new high, employment figure worst since 1974. A typical American family which used to live a quite lavish life and seemed to never have a problem with money has recently been burning the midnight oil over the fears of joblessness and financial market turmoil. They have started to evacuate their country out searching for a job. Something needs to be done before more Americans leave for better opportunities in foreign lands and before the American economy permanently stagnates. References: American Teenagers. (July 2005). U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany. Retrieved February 11, 2009, from Family Life. (2002). Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Retrieved February 14, 2009, from How class works. The New York Times. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from Indian Family. (1995) Indianchild.com. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from U.S. Society > Census & Demographics. (January 2009). U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany. Retrieved February 10, 2009, from Read More