Demographic characteristics and processes

Sex is biological; gender is the social/cultural construction (gender roles, gender identity) — and gender stratification distributes power unequally by gender. Race and ethnicity are largely socially constructed (race ~ perceived physical traits; ethnicity ~ shared culture); racialization and racial formation describe how racial categories are created and change. Aging brings age-cohort effects and a rising dependency ratio as populations age (the "graying" of society). Immigration status and sexual orientation are additional stratifying categories.

Core measures: fertility/birth rate (the total fertility rate; ~2.1 = replacement level) and fecundity (the biological capacity to reproduce, ≠ actual fertility), mortality/death rate, and migration (push factors drive people out, pull factors draw them in). The demographic transition model tracks population as societies industrialize: the death rate falls first (Stage 2), producing rapid growth, and only later does the birth rate fall (Stage 3), re-stabilizing at low birth/low death (Stage 4) — contrast Malthusian theory (population outgrows resources). The lag between falling death and birth rates is the feature AAMC tests. Drivers of social change:

• Social movements — collective efforts for or against change; explained by relative deprivation (perceived unfair gap) and resource mobilization (organization and resources). Types: reform, revolutionary, etc.
• Globalization — increasing interconnection of economies/cultures (world-systems theory: wealthy core nations, dependent periphery nations, and a semi-periphery between).
• Urbanization — growth of cities; suburbanization, gentrification, and urban decline/renewal.
• Modernization — the shift toward industrial, rational, differentiated societies.