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Lifestyles in The United States including the American Way of Life and the Role of the American FamilyPictured: Americans in prayer, at a Mets baseball game and about living the American Dream
The term lifestyle can denote the interests, opinions, behaviors, and behavioral orientations of an individual, group, or culture.

The term "lifestyle" refers to a combination of determining intangible or tangible factors. Tangible factors relate specifically to demographic variables, i.e. an individual's demographic profile, whereas intangible factors concern the psychological aspects of an individual such as personal values, preferences, and outlooks.

A rural environment has different lifestyles compared to an urban metropolis. Location is important even within an urban scope. The nature of the neighborhood in which a person resides affects the set of lifestyles available to that person due to differences between various neighborhoods' degrees of affluence and proximity to natural and cultural environments. For example, in areas within a close proximity to the sea, a surf culture or lifestyle is often present.

A lifestyle typically reflects an individual's attitudes, way of life, values, or world view. Therefore, a lifestyle is a means of forging a sense of self and to create cultural symbols that resonate with personal identity. Not all aspects of a lifestyle are voluntary. Surrounding social and technical systems can constrain the lifestyle choices available to the individual and the symbols she/he is able to project to others and the self.

The lines between personal identity and the everyday doings that signal a particular lifestyle become blurred in modern society. For example, "green lifestyle" means holding beliefs and engaging in activities that consume fewer resources and produce less harmful waste (i.e. a smaller ecological footprint), and deriving a sense of self from holding these beliefs and engaging in these activities.

Some commentators argue that, in modernity, the cornerstone of lifestyle construction is consumption behavior, which offers the possibility to create and further individualize the self with different products or services that signal different ways of life.

Lifestyle may include views on politics, religion, health, intimacy, and more. All of these aspects play a role in shaping someone's lifestyle. In the magazine and television industries, "lifestyle" is used to describe a category of publications or programs.

A healthy or unhealthy lifestyle will most likely be transmitted across generations. According to the study done by Case et al. (2002), when a 0-3 year old child has a mother who practices a healthy lifestyle, this child will be 27% more likely to become healthy and adopt the same lifestyle. 

For instance, high income parents are more likely to eat organic food, have time to exercise, and provide the best living condition to their children. On the other hand, low income parents are more likely to participate in unhealthy activities such as smoking to help them release poverty-related stress and depression. Parents are the first teacher for every child. Everything that parents do will be very likely transferred to their children through the learning process.
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The American way of life, or simply the American way, is the unique lifestyle, real or imagined, of the people living in the United States of America. It refers to a nationalist ethos that purports to adhere to principles of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." At the center of the American way is the American Dream, the idea that upward mobility is achievable by any American through hard work. This concept is intertwined with the concept of American exceptionalism, the notion that the American way is only possible in the U.S. because of the unique culture of the nation.

This way of life, which developed from the 17th century onward, is an example of a behavioral modality, a set of behavioral norms which develops in a group.
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The traditional family structure in the United States is considered a family support system involving two married individuals providing care and stability for their biological offspring. However, this two-parent, nuclear family has become less prevalent, and alternative family forms have become more common. The family is created at birth and establishes ties across generations. Those generations, the extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, can hold significant emotional and economic roles for the nuclear family.
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Over time, the traditional structure has had to adapt to very influential changes, including divorce and the introduction of single-parent families, teenage pregnancy and unwed mothers, and same-sex marriage, and increased interest in adoption. Social movements such as the feminist movement and the stay-at-home dad have contributed to the creation of alternative family forms, generating new versions of the American family.

The nuclear family has been considered the "traditional" family since the communist scare in the cold war of the 1950s. The nuclear family consists of a mother, father, and the children.

The two-parent nuclear family has become less prevalent, and pre-American and European family forms have become more common.

These include same-sex relationships, single-parent households, adopting individuals, and extended family systems living together. The nuclear family is also choosing to have fewer children than in the past. The percentage of married-couple households with children under 18 has declined to 23.5% of all households in 2000 from 25.6% in 1990, and from 45% in 1960.


See also: Teenage pregnancy

A single parent (also termed lone parent or sole parent) is a parent who cares for one or more children without the assistance of the other biological parent. Historically, single-parent families often resulted from death of a spouse, for instance in childbirth. Single-parent homes are increasing as married couples divorce, or as unmarried couples have children. Although widely believed to be detrimental to the mental and physical well being of a child, this type of household is tolerated.

The percentage of single-parent households has doubled in the last three decades, but that percentage tripled between 1900 and 1950.

The sense of marriage as a "permanent" institution has been weakened, allowing individuals to consider leaving marriages more readily than they may have in the past. Increasingly single parent families are due to out of wedlock births, especially those due to unintended pregnancy.


Stepfamilies are becoming more familiar in America. Divorce rates are rising and the remarriage rate is rising as well, therefore, bringing two families together making step families. Statistics show that there are 1,300 new step families forming every day.

Over half of American families are remarried, that is 75% of marriages ending in divorce, remarry.

The extended family consists of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. In some circumstances, the extended family comes to live either with or in place of a member of the nuclear family. An example includes elderly parents who move in with their children due to old age. This places large demands on the caregivers, particularly the female relatives who choose to perform these duties for their extended family.

Historically, among certain Asian and Native American cultures the family structure consisted of a grandmother and her children, especially daughters, who raised their own children together and shared child care responsibilities. Uncles, brothers, and other male relatives sometimes helped out. Romantic relationships between men and women were formed and dissolved with little impact on the children who remained in the mother's extended family.

Marriage in the United States: A married couple was defined as a "husband and wife enumerated as members of the same household" by the U.S. Census Bureau, but they will be categorizing same-sex couples as married couples if they are married.

Same-sex couples who were married were previously recognized by the Census Bureau as unmarried partners. Same-sex marriage is legally permitted across the country since June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. 

Polygamy is illegal throughout the U.S.

Although Cousin marriages are illegal in most states, they are legal in many states, the District of Columbia and some territories. Some states have some restrictions or exceptions for cousin marriages and/or recognize such marriages performed out-of-state. Since the 1940s, the United States marriage rate has decreased, whereas rates of divorce have increased.

Unwed partners (See also: Cohabitation in the United States):

Living as unwed partners is also known as cohabitation. The number of heterosexual unmarried couples in the United States has increased tenfold, from about 400,000 in 1960 to more than five million in 2005. This number would increase by at least another 594,000 if same-sex partners were included. Of all unmarried couples, about 1 in 9 (11.1% of all unmarried-partner households) are homosexual.

The cohabitation lifestyle is becoming more popular in today's generation. It is more convenient for couples not to get married because it can be cheaper and simpler. As divorce rates rise in society, the desire to get married is less attractive for couples uncertain of their long-term plans.


Parents can be either the biological mother or biological father, or the legal guardian for adopted children. Traditionally, mothers were responsible for raising the kids while the father was out providing financially for the family. The age group for parents ranges from teenage parents to grandparents who have decided to raise their grandchildren, with teenage pregnancies fluctuating based on race and culture. Older parents are financially established and generally have fewer problems raising children compared to their teenage counterparts.


Housewife: A housewife is a married woman who does not work outside of the home for income but stays and takes care of the home and children. This includes doing the cooking, washing, cleaning, etc.

The roles of women working within the house has changed drastically as more women start to pursue careers. The amount of time women spend doing housework declined from 27 hours per week in 1965 to less than 16 hours in 1995, but it is still substantially more housework than their male partners.
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A breadwinner is the main financial provider in the family. Historically the husband has been the breadwinner; that trend is changing as wives start to take advantage of the women's movement to gain financial independence for themselves.

According to the New York Times, "In 2001, wives earned more than their spouses in almost a third of married households where the wife worked." Yet, even within nuclear families in which both spouses are employed outside of the home, many men are still responsible for a substantially smaller share of household duties.

Stay-at-home dads are fathers that do not participate in the labor market and raise their children—the male equivalent to housewives. Stay-at-home dads are not as popular in American society. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, "There are an estimated 105,000 'stay-at-home' dads. These are married fathers with children under 15 who are not in the labor force primarily so they can care for family members while their wives work outside the home. Stay-at-home dads care for 189,000 children."

Children: (See also family planning):

An only child (single child) is one without any biological or adopted brothers or sisters. Single children are stereotypically portrayed as spoiled, self-centered, and selfish. Single children often excel more in school and in their careers than children with siblings.

Childfree couples chose to not have children. These include young couples, who intend to have children later, as well as those who do not plan to have any children.

Involuntary childlessness may be caused by infertility, medical problems, death of a child, or other factors.
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Adopted children are children that were given up at birth, abandoned or were unable to be cared for by their biological parents. They may have been put into foster care before finding their permanent residence.

It is particularly hard for adopted children to get adopted from foster care: only 50,000 children were adopted in 2001. The average age of these children was 7 years old, which shows that fewer older children were adopted.


Same-sex marriage in the United States and Same-sex adoption Same-sex parents are gay or lesbian couples that choose to raise children. Nationally, 66% of female same-sex couples and 44% of male same-sex couples live with children under 18 years old. 

In the 2000 census, there were 594,000 households that claimed to be headed by same-sex couples, with 72% of those having children. In July 2004, the American Psychological Association concluded that "Overall results of research suggests that the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents."

Single-parent homes in America are starting to become more common in today's society. With more children being born to unmarried couples and to couples whose marriages subsequently dissolve, children increasingly live with only one parent.

​The proportion of children living with a never-married parent has also grown, from 4% in 1960 to 42% in 2001. Of all one parent families, 83% are mother–child families.

Adoption in the United States: The adoption requirements and policies for adopting children have made it harder for foster families and potential adoptive families to adopt kids. Before a family can adopt they must go through state, county, and agency criteria.

Adoption agencies' criteria express the importance of age of the adoptive parents, as well as the agency's desire for married couples over single adopters. Adoptive parents also have to deal with criteria that are given by the birth parents of the adoptive child.

The different criteria for adopting children makes it harder for couples to adopt children in need, but the strict requirements can help protect the foster children from unqualified couples.

Currently 1.5 million (2%) of all U.S children are adopted. There are different types of adoption:
  • embryo adoption when a couple is having trouble conceiving a child and instead choose to have their sperm and egg conjoined outside the womb, 
  • international adoption where couples adopt children that come from foreign countries,
  • and private adoption which is the most common form of adoption. In private adoption, families can adopt children via licensed agencies or with by directly contacting the child's biological parents.

Male/female role pressures: Gender role 

The traditional "father" and "mother" roles of the nuclear family have become blurred over time. Because of the women's movement's push for women to engage in traditionally masculine pursuits in society, as women choose to sacrifice their child-bearing years to establish their careers, and as fathers feel increasing pressure to be involved with tending to children, the traditional roles of fathers as the "breadwinners" and mothers as the "caretakers" have come into question.


African-American family structure:

The African-American family structure has long been a matter of national public policy interest. The 1965 report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, known as The Moynihan Report, examined the link between black poverty and family structure. It hypothesized that the destruction of the black nuclear family structure would hinder further progress toward economic and political equality.

When Moynihan wrote in 1965 on the coming destruction of the black family, the out-of-wedlock birthrate was 25 percent among blacks. In 1991, 68 percent of black children were born outside of marriage. In 2011, 72% of black babies were born to unwed mothers.

Television portrayals:

The television industry initially helped create a stereotype of the American nuclear family. During the era of the baby boomers, families became a popular social topic, especially on television. Family shows such as the following TV series have portrayed different social classes of families growing up in America:
​Those "perfect" nuclear families have changed as the years passed and have become more inclusive, showing single-parent and divorced families, as well as older singles.

Television shows that show single-parent families include Half & Half, One on One, Murphy Brown, and Gilmore Girls.

While it did not become a common occurrence the iconic image of the American family was started in the early 1930s. It was not until WWII that families generally had the economical income in which to successfully propagate this lifestyle.

See also:






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Living the American Dream vs. Today's Shrinking Middle Income Class

YouTube Video: INEQUALITY FOR ALL - Official Documentary* Trailer
* --A passionate argument on behalf of the middle class, INEQUALITY FOR ALL features Robert Reich as he demonstrates how the widening income gap has a devastating impact on the American economy. In this INCONVENIENT TRUTH for the economy, Reich uses humor and a wide array of facts to explain how the issue of economic inequality affects each and every one of us.

Pictured: LEFT: For many immigrants, the Statue of Liberty was their first view of the United States, signifying new opportunities in life. The statue is an iconic symbol of the American Dream; RIGHT: White House: “The American middle class is shrinking” (as reported by David Rohde of Reuters (1/13/2012)

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity, and equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers.

In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.

The American Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal" with the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification: ___________________________________________________________________________

​American Middle Class:

​The American middle class is a social class in the United States. While the concept is typically ambiguous in popular opinion and common language use, contemporary social scientists have put forward several ostensibly congruent theories on the American middle class. Depending on the class model used, the middle class constitutes anywhere from 25% to 66% of households.

Constituting roughly 15% to 20% of households is the upper or professional middle class consisting of highly educated, salaried professionals and managers. Constituting roughly one third of households is the lower middle class consisting mostly of semi-professionals, skilled craftsmen and lower-level management.

Middle-class persons commonly have a comfortable standard of living, significant economic security, considerable work autonomy and rely on their expertise to sustain themselves.

Members of the middle class belong to diverse groups which overlap with each other. Overall, middle-class persons, especially upper-middle-class individuals, are characterized by conceptualizing, creating and consulting.

Thus, college education is one of the main indicators of middle-class status. Largely attributed to the nature of middle-class occupations, middle class values tend to emphasize independence, adherence to intrinsic standards, valuing innovation and respecting non-conformity.

Politically more active than other demographics, college educated middle class professionals are split between the two major parties.

Income varies considerably from near the national median to well in excess of US$100,000. Household income figures, however, do not always reflect class status and standard of living, as they are largely influenced by the number of income earners and fail to recognize household size.

It is therefore possible for a large, dual-earner, lower middle class household to out-earn a small, one-earner, upper middle class household. The middle classes are very influential, as they encompass the majority of voters, writers, teachers, journalists, and editors. Most societal trends in the US originate within the middle classes.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification:







Comparison of Lifestyles When Living in: ​YouTube Videos: Pictured below:
TOP ROW: (L) The States of Rural America; (R) Suburbs boomed in the 1950s
BOTTOM ROW: Austin, Texas, ranked as the No. 1 place to live in the United States in 2017. (As originally reported by U.S. News & Report magazine)
In general, a rural area or countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities.

The Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines the word rural as encompassing "...all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area. Whatever is not urban is considered rural."

Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas are commonly rural, as are other types of areas such as forests. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.

Main article: Rural areas in the United States:

84% of the United States' inhabitants live in suburban and urban areas, but cities occupy only 10 percent of the country.

Rural areas (villages) occupy the remaining 90 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau, the USDA's Economic Research Service, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have come together to help define rural areas.

United States Census Bureau: The Census Bureau definitions (new to the 2000 census), which are based on population density, defines rural areas as all territory outside Census Bureau-defined urbanized areas and urban clusters:
  • An urbanized area consists of a central surrounding areas whose population ("urban nucleus") is greater than 50,000. They may or may not contain individual cities with 50,000 or more; rather, they must have a core with a population density generally exceeding 1,000 persons per square mile; and may contain adjoining territory with at least 500 persons per square mile (other towns outside an urbanized area whose population exceeds 2,500).
  • Thus, rural areas comprise open country and settlements with fewer than 2,500 residents; areas designated as rural can have population densities as high as 999 per square mile or as low as 1 person per square mile.

​USDA:
  • The USDA's Office of Rural Development may define rural by various population thresholds. The 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171, Sec. 6020) defined rural and rural area as any area other than (1) a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants, and (2) the urbanized areas contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town.
  • The rural-urban continuum codes, urban influence code, and rural county typology codes developed by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) allow researchers to break out the standard metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas into smaller residential groups. For example, a metropolitan county is one that contains an urbanized area, or one that has a twenty-five percent commuter rate to an urbanized area regardless of population.

OMB:

Under the Core Based Statistical Areas used by the OMB (commonly referred to as 'CBSA Codes'),
  • a metropolitan county, or Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) consists of (1) central counties with one or more urbanized areas (as defined by the Census Bureau) and (2) outlying counties that are economically tied to the core counties as measured by worker commuting data (i.e. if 25% of workers living there commute to the core counties, or if 25% of the employment in the county consists of workers coming from the central counties).
  • Non-metro counties are outside the boundaries of metro areas and are further subdivided into Micropolitan Statistical Areas centered on urban clusters of 10,000–50,000 residents, and all remaining non-core counties.

In 2014, the USDA updated their rural / non-rural area definitions based on the 2010 Census counts.

Rural schools:

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revised its definition of rural schools in 2006 after working with the Census Bureau to create a new locale classification system to capitalize on improved geocoding technology.

Rural health:

Rural health definitions can be different for establishing under-served areas or health care accessibility in rural areas of the United States. According to the handbook, Definitions of Rural: A Handbook for Health Policy Makers and Researchers, "Residents of metropolitan counties are generally thought to have easy access to the relatively concentrated health services of the county's central areas.

However, some metropolitan counties are so large that they contain small towns and rural, sparsely populated areas that are isolated from these central clusters and their corresponding health services by physical barriers."

To address this type of rural area, "Harold Goldsmith, Dena Puskin, and Dianne Stiles (1992) described a methodology to identify small towns and rural areas within large metropolitan counties (LMCs) that were isolated from central areas by distance or other physical features."

This became the Goldsmith Modification definition of rural. "Bhoomeet rural education The Goldsmith Modification has been useful for expanding the eligibility for federal programs that assist rural populations—to include the isolated rural populations of large metropolitan counties."

Health care delivery in rural areas of the United States can be challenging. From 2005-2011, the rate of potentially preventable hospitalizations for acute conditions was highest in rural areas (as compared to large metropolitan, small metropolitan, or micropolitan areas).

Human Fertility:

Rural residence is a fertility factor, with total fertility rates and pregnancy being higher among women in rural areas than among women in urban areas and the rural population is much younger than urban areas.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

The Suburbs:

A suburb is a mixed-use or residential area, existing either as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city.

In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central or inner-city areas.

In some areas, such as Australia, India, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and a few U.S. states, new suburbs are routinely annexed by adjacent cities. In others, such as Saudi Arabia, Canada, France, and much of the United States, many suburbs remain separate municipalities or are governed as part of a larger local government area such as a county.

Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting.

In general, the suburbs have lower population densities than inner city neighborhoods within a metropolitan area, and most residents commute to central cities or other business districts; however, there are many exceptions, including industrial suburbs, planned communities, and satellite cities.

Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks to learn more about Suburban Living: ___________________________________________________________________________


Suburbanization:

Suburbanization is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. Sub-urbanization is inversely related to urbanization, which denotes a population shift from rural areas into urban centers.

Many residents of metropolitan regions work within the central urban area, and choose to live in satellite communities called suburbs and commute to work via automobile or mass transit. Others have taken advantage of technological advances to work from their homes.

These processes often occur in more economically developed countries, especially in the United States, which is believed to be the first country in which the majority of the population lives in the suburbs, rather than in the cities or in rural areas. Proponents of containing urban sprawl argue that sprawl leads to urban decay and a concentration of lower income residents in the inner city.

In the United States, suburbanization began to occur in mass amounts after World War II, when soldiers returned home from war and wanted to live in houses outside of the city.

During this time America had a prosperous postwar economy, there was more leisure time available and an increased priority in creating a family unit. Throughout the years, the desire to separate work life and home life has increased, causing an increase in suburban populations.

Suburbs are built for particular groups of people and around certain industries like restaurants, shopping, and entertainment which allows suburban residents to travel less and interact more in the suburban area.
Suburbs in the United States have also evolved by increases in technology, which allows residents to work from home rather than commute.

Recent developments in communication technology, such as the spread of broadband services, the growth of e-mail and the advent of practical home video conferencing, have enabled more people to work from home rather than commuting.

Although this can occur either in the city or in the suburbs, the effect is generally decentralizing, which works against the largest advantage of the centre city, which is easier access to information and supplies due to centralization.

Similarly, the rise of efficient package expresses delivery systems, such as FedEx and UPS, which take advantage of computerization and the availability of an efficient air transportation system, also eliminates some of the advantages that were once to be had from having a business located in the city.

Industrial, warehousing, and factory land uses have also moved to suburban areas. Cheap telecommunications remove the need for company headquarters to be within quick courier distance of the warehouses and ports. Urban areas suffer from traffic congestion, which creates costs in extra driver costs for the company which can be reduced if they were in a suburban area near a highway.

As with residential, lower property taxes and low land prices encourage selling industrial land for profitable brownfield redevelopment.

Suburban areas also offer more land to use as a buffer between industrial and residential and retail space to avoid NIMBY sentiments and gentrification pressure from the local community when residential and retail is adjacent to industrial space in an urban area.

Suburban municipalities can offer tax breaks, specialized zoning, and regulatory incentives to attract industrial land users to their area, such as City of Industry, California. The overall effect of these developments is that businesses as well, and not just individuals, now see an advantage to locating in the suburbs, where the cost of buying land, renting space, and running their operations, is cheaper than in the city.

This continuing dispersal from a single city center has led to other recent phenomena in American suburbs, the advent of edge cities and exurbs, arising out of clusters of office buildings built in suburban commercial centers on shopping malls and higher density developments.

With more and more jobs for suburbanites being located in these areas rather than in the main city core that the suburbs grew out of, traffic patterns, which for decades centered on people commuting into the center city to work in the morning and then returning home in the evening, have become more complex, with the volume of intra-suburban traffic increasing tremendously. By 2000, half of the US population lived in suburban areas.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Suburbanization: ___________________________________________________________________________

Urban Areas:

The United States:
Main article: List of United States urban areas

In the United States, there are two categories of urban area. The term urbanized area denotes an urban area of 50,000 or more people. Urban areas under 50,000 people are called urban clusters. Urbanized areas were first delineated in the United States in the 1950 census, while urban clusters were added in the 2000 census. There are 1,371 urban areas and urban clusters with more than 10,000 people.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines an urban area as "core census block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile (386 per square kilometer) and surrounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile (193 per square kilometer)".

The largest urban area in the United States is the New York metropolitan area. The population of New York City, the core of the metropolitan area, exceeds 8.5 million people, its metropolitan statistical area has a population that is over 20 million, and its combined statistical area population is over 23 million.

The next six largest urban areas in the U.S. are as follows:
About 82 percent of the population of the United States lives within the boundaries of an urbanized area as of December, 2010. Combined, these areas occupy about 2 percent of the land area of the United States. Many Americans live in agglomerations of cities, suburbs, and towns that are adjacent to a metropolitan area's largest city.

The concept of Urbanized Areas as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau is often used as a more accurate gauge of the size of a city, since in different cities and states the lines between city borders and the urbanized area of that city are often not the same.

For example, the city of Greenville, South Carolina has a city population just over 64,000 and an urbanized area population of over 400,000, while Greensboro, North Carolina has a city population just over 285,000 and an urbanized area population of around 310,000 — meaning that Greenville is actually "larger" for some intents and purposes, but not for others, such as taxation, local elections, etc.
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In the U.S. Department of Agriculture's natural resources inventory, urban areas are officially known as developed areas or urban and built-up areas. Such areas include cities, ethnic villages, other built-up areas of more than 10 ac (4 ha), industrial sites, railroad yards, cemeteries, airports, golf courses, shooting ranges, institutional and public administration sites, and similar areas. The 1997 national resources inventory placed over 98,000,000 ac (40,000,000 ha) in this category, an increase of 25,000,000 ac (10,000,000 ha) since 1982.
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See Also:







Love, ​Romance,  and Marriage
YouTube Video of the Romantic Resort "Madonna Inn", San Luis Obispo CA
Pictured: Room at the Honeymoon Resort @  Madonna Inn

Love is a variety of different emotional and mental states, typically strongly and positively experienced, that ranges from deepest interpersonal affection to simple pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse differs from the love of food.

Most commonly, love refers to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment. Love can also be a virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection—"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another". It may also describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self or animals.

Ancient Greek philosophers identified four forms of love: essentially,
  1. familial love, 
  2. friendly love, 
  3. romantic love,
  4. and divine love.

Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of love: infatuated love, self-love, and courtly love. Non-Western traditions have also distinguished variants or symbioses of these states. 

Love has additional religious or spiritual meaning. This diversity of uses and meanings combined with the complexity of the feelings involved makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.

Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.

Love may be understood as a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.

The word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Many other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that in English are denoted as "love"; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love" which includes agape and eros. Cultural differences in conceptualizing love thus doubly impede the establishment of a universal definition.

Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love (antonyms of "love"). Love as a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like) is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is sometimes contrasted with friendship, although the word love is often applied to close friendships. (Further possible ambiguities come with usages "girlfriend", "boyfriend", "just good friends").

Abstractly discussed love usually refers to an experience one person feels for another. Love often involves caring for, or identifying with, a person or thing (cf. vulnerability and care theory of love), including oneself (cf. narcissism). In addition to cross-cultural differences in understanding love, ideas about love have also changed greatly over time.

Some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, although the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry.

The complex and abstract nature of love often reduces discourse of love to a thought-terminating cliché. Several common proverbs regard love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love". 

St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defines love as "to will the good of another." 

Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value," as opposed to relative value. 

Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of another." Meher Baba stated that in love there is a "feeling of unity" and an "active appreciation of the intrinsic worth of the object of love." Biologist Jeremy Griffith defines love as "unconditional selflessness".

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​Romance is the expressive and pleasurable feeling from an emotional attraction towards another person. This feeling is often associated with sexual attraction. It is eros rather than agape, philia, or storge.

In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's strong romantic love, or one's deep and strong emotional desires to connect with another person intimately or romantically. Historically, the term "romance" originates with the medieval ideal of chivalry as set out in its chivalric romance literature.

Humans have a natural inclination to form bonds with one another through social interactions, be it through verbal communication or nonverbal gestures.

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Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a socially or ritually recognised union between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between those spouses, as well as between them and any resulting biological or adopted children and affinity (in-laws and other family through marriage). 

The definition of marriage varies not only between cultures or religions, but also within them throughout their histories, evolving to both expand or contract in what is encompassed, but typically it is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity. When defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal.

Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, and religious purposes. Whom they marry may be influenced by socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice and individual desire.

In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, child marriage, polygamy, and sometimes forced marriage, may be practiced as a cultural tradition.

Conversely, such practices may be outlawed and penalized in parts of the world out of concerns of the infringement of women's rights, or the infringement of children's rights (both female and male children), and because of international law.

In developed parts of the world, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights within marriage for women and legally recognizing the marriages of interfaith, interracial, and same-sex couples. These trends coincide with the broader human rights movement.

Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, a religious authority, a tribal group, a local community, or peers. It is often viewed as a contract. Civil marriage, which does not exist in some countries, is marriage without religious content carried out by a government institution in accordance with the marriage laws of the jurisdiction, and recognised as creating the rights and obligations intrinsic to matrimony.

Marriages can be performed in a secular civil ceremony or in a religious setting via a wedding ceremony. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved, and any offspring they may produce or adopt. In terms of legal recognition, most sovereign states and other jurisdictions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples and a diminishing number of these permit polygyny, child marriages, and forced marriages.

Over the twentieth century, a growing number of countries and other jurisdictions have lifted bans on and have established legal recognition for interracial marriage, interfaith marriage, and most recently, gender-neutral marriage. Some cultures allow the dissolution of marriage through divorce or annulment. In some areas, child marriages and polygamy may occur in spite of national laws against the practice.

Since the late twentieth century, major social changes in Western countries have led to changes in the demographics of marriage, with the age of first marriage increasing, fewer people marrying, and more couples choosing to cohabit rather than marry. For example, the number of marriages in Europe decreased by 30% from 1975 to 2005.

Historically, in most cultures, married women had very few rights of their own, being considered, along with the family's children, the property of the husband; as such, they could not own or inherit property, or represent themselves legally (see for example coverture).

In Europe, the United States, and other places in the developed world, beginning in the late 19th century and lasting through the 21st century, marriage has undergone gradual legal changes, aimed at improving the rights of the wife.

These changes included giving wives legal identities of their own, abolishing the right of husbands to physically discipline their wives, giving wives property rights, liberalizing divorce laws, providing wives with reproductive rights of their own, and requiring a wife's consent when sexual relations occur.

These changes have occurred primarily in Western countries. In the 21st century, there continue to be controversies regarding the legal status of married women, legal acceptance of or leniency towards violence within marriage (especially sexual violence), traditional marriage customs such as dowry and bride price, forced marriage, marriageable age, and criminalization of consensual behaviors such as premarital and extramarital sex.

The word "marriage" derives from Middle English mariage, which first appears in 1250–1300 CE. This in turn is derived from Old French, marier (to marry), and ultimately Latin, marītāre, meaning to provide with a husband or wife and marītāri meaning to get married.

The adjective marīt-us -a, -um meaning matrimonial or nuptial could also be used in the masculine form as a noun for "husband" and in the feminine form for "wife". The related word "matrimony" derives from the Old French word matremoine, which appears around 1300 CE and ultimately derives from Latin mātrimōnium, which combines the two concepts: mater meaning "mother" and the suffix -monium signifying "action, state, or condition".

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​​The Modern American Family: Today's ideal family size is smaller than it used to be (by PEW Research 5/8/2015).
Pictured Below:  
Top Row (L-R): mother holding her new-born baby, Parents playing with their daughter,
Bottom Row (L-R): grand parents playing with their grandchild, and Parents at their daughter’s college graduation. 
​In the context of human society, a family is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage or other relationship), or co-residence (as implied by the etymology of the English word "family") or some combination of these.

Members of the immediate family may include spouses, parents, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. Members of the extended family may include grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, and siblings-in-law. Sometimes these are also considered members of the immediate family, depending on an individual's specific relationship with them.

In most societies, the family is the principal institution for the socialization of children. As the basic unit for raising children, anthropologists generally classify most family organizations as matrifocal (a mother and her children); conjugal (a wife, her husband, and children, also called the nuclear family); avuncular (for example, a grandparent, a brother, his sister, and her children); or extended (parents and children co-reside with other members of one parent's family).

Sexual relations among the members are regulated by rules concerning incest such as the incest taboo.

The word "family" can be used metaphorically to create more inclusive categories such as community, nationhood, global village, and humanism.

The field of genealogy aims to trace family lineages through history.

​The family is also an important economic unit studied in family economics.

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Human Nature
YouTube Video: RSA ANIMATE: Language as a Window into Human Nature
(In this new RSA Animate, renowned experimental psychologist Steven Pinker shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings. Taken from the RSA's free public events programme www.thersa.org/events.
Pictured: Human nature: Six things we all do
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—which humans tend to have naturally, independently of the influence of culture.

The questions of what these characteristics are, how fixed they are, and what causes them are among the oldest and most important questions in philosophy and science.

These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life.

The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, while the multiple branches of the humanities together form an important domain of inquiry into human nature and into the question of what it is to be human.

The branches of contemporary science associated with the study of human nature include anthropology, sociology, sociobiology, and psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology, which studies sexual selection in human evolution, as well as developmental psychology.

The "nature versus nurture" debate is a broadly inclusive and well-known instance of a discussion about human nature in the natural sciences.

These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life. The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, the question of what it is to be human.

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​Body Language including Sexual Attraction
YouTube Video: Make Body Language Your Superpower 
by Stanford Graduate School of Business
YouTube Video: Body Language & Sexual Attraction
Pictured below: TOP: Body Language; BOTTOM: Sexual Orientation
Body language is a type of non-verbal communication in which physical behavior, as opposed to words, are used to express or convey information. Such behavior includes facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use of space. Body language exists in both animals and humans, but this article focuses on interpretations of human body language. It is also known as kinesics.

Body language must not be confused with sign language, as sign languages are full languages like spoken languages and have their own complex grammar systems, as well as being able to exhibit the fundamental properties that exist in all languages.

Body language, on the other hand, does not have a grammar and must be interpreted broadly, instead of having an absolute meaning corresponding with a certain movement, so it is not a language like sign language, and is simply termed as a "language" due to popular culture.

In a community, there are agreed-upon interpretations of particular behavior. Interpretations may vary from country to country, or culture to culture. On this note, there is controversy on whether body language is universal. Body language, a subset of nonverbal communication, complements verbal communication in social interaction. In fact some researchers conclude that nonverbal communication accounts for the majority of information transmitted during interpersonal interactions.

It helps to establish the relationship between two people and regulates interaction, but can be ambiguous. Hence, it is crucial to accurately read body language to avoid misunderstanding in social interactions.

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Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract the sexual or erotic interest of another person, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context where they appear.

The attraction may be to a person's aesthetics or movements or to their voice or smell, besides other factors. The attraction may be enhanced by a person's adornments, clothing, perfume or style. It can be influenced by individual genetic, psychological, or cultural factors, or to other, more amorphous qualities. Sexual attraction is also a response to another person that depends on a combination of the person possessing the traits and on the criteria of the person who is attracted.

Though attempts have been made to devise objective criteria of sexual attractiveness and measure it as one of several bodily forms of capital asset (see erotic capital), a person's sexual attractiveness is to a large extent a subjective measure dependent on another person's interest, perception, and sexual orientation. For example, a gay or lesbian person would typically find a person of the same sex to be more attractive than one of the other sex.

A bisexual person would find either sex to be attractive. Asexuality refers to those who do not experience sexual attraction for either sex, though they may have romantic attraction (homoromantic, biromantic or heteroromantic) or a non-directed libido.

Interpersonal attraction includes factors such as physical or psychological similarity, familiarity or possessing a preponderance of common or familiar features, similarity, complementarity, reciprocal liking, and reinforcement.

The ability of a person's physical and other qualities to create a sexual interest in others is the basis of their use in advertising, film, and other visual media, as well as in modeling and other occupations.

In evolutionary terms, it is thought that female humans exhibit different sexual behaviors and desires at points in their menstrual cycle, as a means to ensure that they attract a high quality mate to copulate with during their most fertile time. Hormone levels throughout the menstrual cycle affect a woman's overt behaviours, influencing the way a woman presents herself to others during stages of her menstrual cycle, in attempt to attract high quality mates the closer the woman is to ovulation.

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The Human Condition including the Meaning of Life and One's Morality
YouTube Video by Monty Python and the Meaning of Life
Pictured: Clockwise from Upper Left Corner: The Inevitability of Death, Religion and the Meaning of Life, A Quote about the Meaning of Life; and Homer Simpson's constant struggle between Right and Wrong.
The human condition is "the characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of human existence, such as birth, growth, emotions, aspiration, conflict, and mortality." This is a very broad topic which has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed from many perspectives, including those of the following:
As a literary term, "the human condition" is typically used in the context of ambiguous subjects such as the meaning of life or moral concerns.

Each major religion has definitive beliefs regarding the human condition. For example, Buddhism teaches that life is a perpetual cycle without satisfaction, death, and rebirth from which humans can be liberated via the Noble Eightfold Path.

Meanwhile, Christianity teaches that humans are born in a sinful condition and are doomed in the afterlife unless they receive salvation through Jesus Christ.

Philosophers have provided many perspectives. An influential ancient view was that of the Republic in which Plato explored the question "what is justice?" and postulated that it is not primarily a matter among individuals but of society as a whole, prompting him to devise a utopia.

Two thousand years later René Descartes declared "I think, therefore I am" because he believed the human mind, particularly its faculty of reason, to be the primary determiner of truth; for this he is often credited as the father of modern philosophy. One such modern school, existentialism, attempts to reconcile an individual's sense of disorientation and confusion in a universe believed to be absurd.

Many works of literature provide perspective on the human condition. One famous example is Shakespeare's monologue "All the world's a stage" that pensively summarizes seven phases of human life.

Psychology has many theories, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the notion of identity crisis. It also has various methods, e.g. the logotherapy developed by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl to discover and affirm human meaning. Another method, cognitive behavioral therapy, has become a widespread treatment for clinical depression.

Ever since 1859, when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, the biological theory of evolution has been significant. The theory posits that the human species is related to all others, living and extinct, and that natural selection is the primary survival factor. This has provided a basis for new beliefs, e.g. social Darwinism, and for new technology, e.g. antibiotics.

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The meaning of life, or the answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?", pertains to the significance of living or existence in general. Many other related questions include "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", or "What is the purpose of existence?"

There have been a large number of proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. The search for life's meaning has produced much philosophical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical speculation throughout history.

Different people and cultures believe different things for the answer to this question.
The meaning of life as we perceive it is derived from philosophical and religious contemplation of, and scientific inquiries about existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness.

Many other issues are also involved, including: 
Scientific contributions focus primarily on describing related empirical facts about the universe, exploring the context and parameters concerning the "how" of life. Science also studies and can provide recommendations for the pursuit of well-being and a related conception of morality.

An alternative, humanistic approach poses the question, "What is the meaning of my life?"

Questions about the meaning of life have been expressed in a broad variety of ways, including the following:
  • What is the meaning of life? What's it all about? Who are we?
    Philosopher in Meditation (detail) by Rembrandt
  • Why are we here? What are we here for?
  • What is the origin of life?
  • What is the nature of life? What is the nature of reality?
  • What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of one's life?
  • What is the significance of life? – see also § Psychological significance and value in life
  • What is meaningful and valuable in life?
  • What is the value of life?
  • What is the reason to live? What are we living for?

These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

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Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper.

Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".

Moral philosophy includes moral ontology, or the origin of morals, as well as moral epistemology, or knowledge of morals.

Different systems of expressing morality have been proposed, including deontological ethical systems which adhere to a set of established rules, and normative ethical systems which consider the merits of actions themselves. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states that: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."

Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.

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​When Did the Human Mind Evolve to What It is Today? YouTube Video: The Evolution of the Human Mind.
When Did the Human Mind Evolve to What It is Today?
By Erin Wayman
Smithsonian Magazine
June 25, 2012

Archaeologists are finding signs of surprisingly sophisticated behavior in the ancient fossil record.

Archaeologists excavating a cave on the coast of South Africa not long ago unearthed an unusual abalone shell. Inside was a rusty red substance. After analyzing the mixture and nearby stone grinding tools, the researchers realized they had found the world’s earliest known paint, made 100,000 years ago from charcoal, crushed animal bones, iron-rich rock and an unknown liquid.

The abalone shell was a storage container—a prehistoric paint can.

The find revealed more than just the fact that people used paints so long ago. It provided a peek into the minds of early humans. Combining materials to create a product that doesn’t resemble the original ingredients and saving the concoction for later suggests people at the time were capable of abstract thinking, innovation and planning for the future.

These are among the mental abilities that many anthropologists say distinguished humans, Homo sapiens, from other hominids. Yet researchers have no agreed-upon definition of exactly what makes human cognition so special. 

“It’s hard enough to tell what the cognitive abilities are of somebody who’s standing in front of you,” says Alison Brooks, an archaeologist at George Washington University and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “So it’s really hard to tell for someone who’s been dead for half a million years or a quarter million years.”

Since archaeologists can’t administer psychological tests to early humans, they have to examine artifacts left behind. When new technologies or ways of living appear in the archaeological record, anthropologists try to determine what sort of novel thinking was required to fashion a spear, say, or mix paint or collect shellfish.

The past decade has been particularly fruitful for finding such evidence. And archaeologists are now piecing together the patterns of behavior recorded in the archaeological record of the past 200,000 years to reconstruct the trajectory of how and when humans started to think and act like modern people.

There was a time when they thought they had it all figured out. In the 1970s, the consensus was simple: Modern cognition evolved in Europe 40,000 years ago. That’s when cave art, jewelry and sculpted figurines all seemed to appear for the first time. The art was a sign that humans could use symbols to represent their world and themselves, archaeologists reasoned, and therefore probably had language, too.

Neanderthals living nearby didn’t appear to make art, and thus symbolic thinking and language formed the dividing line between the two species’ mental abilities. (Today, archaeologists debate whether, and to what degree, Neanderthals were symbolic beings.)

One problem with this analysis was that the earliest fossils of modern humans came from Africa and dated to as many as 200,000 years ago—roughly 150,000 years before people were depicting bison and horses on cave walls in Spain.

Richard Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford University, suggested that a genetic mutation occurred 40,000 years ago and caused an abrupt revolution in the way people thought and behaved.

In the decades following, however, archaeologists working in Africa brought down the notion that there was a lag between when the human body evolved and when modern thinking emerged. “As researchers began to more intensely investigate regions outside of Europe, the evidence of symbolic behavior got older and older,” says archaeologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria in Canada.

For instance, artifacts recovered over the past decade in South Africa— such as pigments made from red ochre, perforated shell beads and ostrich shells engraved with geometric designs—have pushed back the origins of symbolic thinking to more than 70,000 years ago, and in some cases, to as early as 164,000 years ago.

Now many anthropologists agree that modern cognition was probably in place when Homo sapiens emerged.

“It always made sense that the origins of modern human behavior, the full assembly of modern uniqueness, had to occur at the origin point of the lineage,” says Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Marean thinks symbolic thinking was a crucial change in the evolution of the human mind. “When you have that, you have the ability to develop language. You have the ability to exchange recipes of technology,” he says. It also aided the formation of extended, long-distance social and trading networks, which other hominids such as Neanderthals lacked.

These advances enabled humans to spread into new, more complex environments, such as coastal locales, and eventually across the entire planet. “The world was their oyster,” Marean says.

But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.

But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.

Working memory allows the brain to retrieve, process and hold in mind several chunks of information all at one time to complete a task. A particularly sophisticated kind of working memory “involves the ability to hold something in attention while you’re being distracted,” Wynn says.

In some ways, it’s kind of like multitasking. And it’s needed in problem solving, strategizing, innovating and planning. In chess, for example, the brain has to keep track of the pieces on the board, anticipate the opponent’s next several steps and prepare (and remember) countermoves for each possible outcome.

Finding evidence of this kind of cognition is challenging because humans don’t use advanced working memory all that much. “It requires a lot of effort,” Wynn says. “If we don’t have to use it, we don’t.” Instead, during routine tasks, the brain is sort of on autopilot, like when you drive your car to work.

You’re not really thinking about it. Based on frequency alone, behaviors requiring working memory are less likely to be preserved than common activities that don’t need it, such as making simple stone choppers and handaxes.

Yet there are artifacts that do seem to relate to advanced working memory. Making tools composed of separate pieces, like a hafted spear or a bow and arrow, are examples that date to more than 70,000 years ago. But the most convincing example may be animal traps, Wynn says.

At South Africa’s Sibudu cave, Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, has found clues that humans were hunting large numbers of small, and sometimes dangerous, forest animals, including bush pigs and diminutive antelopes called blue duikers. The only plausible way to capture such critters was with snares and traps.

With a trap, you have to think up a device that can snag and hold an animal and then return later to see whether it worked. “That’s the kind of thing working memory does for us,” Wynn says. “It allows us to work out those kinds of problems by holding the necessary information in mind.”

It may be too simple to say that symbolic thinking, language or working memory is the single thing that defines modern cognition, Marean says. And there still could be important components that haven’t yet been identified.

What’s needed now, Wynn adds, is more experimental archaeology. He suggests bringing people into a psych lab to evaluate what cognitive processes are engaged when participants make and use the tools and technology of early humans.

Another area that needs more investigation is what happened after modern cognition evolved. The pattern in the archaeological record shows a gradual accumulation of new and more sophisticated behaviors, Brooks says. Making complex tools, moving into new environments, engaging in long distance trade and wearing personal adornments didn’t all show up at once at the dawn of modern thinking.

The appearance of a slow and steady buildup may just be a consequence of the quirks of preservation. Organic materials like wood often decompose without a trace, so some signs of behavior may be too ephemeral to find. It’s also hard to spot new behaviors until they become widely adopted, so archaeologists are unlikely to ever locate the earliest instances of novel ways of living.

Complex lifestyles might not have been needed early on in the history of Homo sapiens, even if humans were capable of sophisticated thinking. Sally McBrearty, an archaeologist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, points out in the 2007 book Rethinking the Human Revolution that certain developments might have been spurred by the need to find additional resources as populations expanded. Hunting and gathering new types of food, such as blue duikers, required new technologies.

Some see a slow progression in the accumulation of knowledge, while others see modern behavior evolving in fits and starts. Archaeologist Franceso d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France suggests certain advances show up early in the archaeological record only to disappear for tens of thousands of years before these behaviors—for whatever reason—get permanently incorporated into the human repertoire about 40,000 years ago.  “It’s probably due to climatic changes, environmental variability and population size,” d’Errico says.

He notes that several tool technologies and aspects of symbolic expression, such as pigments and engraved artifacts, seem to disappear after 70,000 years ago. The timing coincides with a global cold spell that made Africa drier. Populations probably dwindled and fragmented in response to the climate change. Innovations might have been lost in a prehistoric version of the Dark Ages. And various groups probably reacted in different ways depending on cultural variation, d’Errico says.  “Some cultures for example are more open to innovation.”

​Perhaps the best way to settle whether the buildup of modern behavior was steady or punctuated is to find more archaeological sites to fill in the gaps. There are only a handful of sites, for example, that cover the beginning of human history. “We need those [sites] that date between 125,000 and 250,000 years ago,” Marean says. “That’s really the sweet spot.”

​[End of Article]
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The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately 7 million years, from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago.

The first 3 million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following 2 million concern Australopithecus and the final 2 million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era.

Many traits of human intelligence, such as empathy, theory of mind, mourning, ritual, and the use of symbols and tools, are apparent in great apes although in less sophisticated forms than found in humans, such as great ape language.

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Outline of Human Intelligence:
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human intelligence:
Human intelligence is, in the human species, the mental capacities to learn, understand, and reason, including the capacities to comprehend ideas, plan, solve problems, and use language to communicate.

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Fashion Design and Body Attire, including a List of Fashion Designers Pictured below: The 50 Greatest Fashion Quotes of All Time (Harper's Bazaar)
Click here for a List of Fashion Designers.

Fashion design is the art of applying design, aesthetics and natural beauty to clothing and its accessories. It is influenced by cultural and social attitudes, and has varied over time and place.

Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories such as bracelets and necklaces. Because of the time required to bring a garment onto the market, designers must at times anticipate changes to consumer tastes.

Designers conduct research on fashion trends and interpret them for their audience. Their specific designs are used by manufacturers. This is the essence of a designer’s role; however, there is variation within this that is determined by the buying and merchandising approach, and product quality; for example, budget retailers will use inexpensive fabrics to interpret trends, but high-end retailers will ensure that the best available fabrics are used.

Fashion designers attempt to design clothes which are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. They consider who is likely to wear a garment and the situations in which it will be worn, and they work within a wide range of materials, colors, patterns and styles. Though most clothing worn for everyday wear falls within a narrow range of conventional styles, unusual garments are usually sought for special occasions such as evening wear or party dresses.

Some clothes are made specifically for an individual, as in the case of haute couture or bespoke tailoring. Today, most clothing is designed for the mass market, especially casual and every-day wear are called ready to wear.

Fashion designers may work full-time for one fashion house, as 'in-house designers', which owns the designs, or they work alone or as part of a team.

Freelance designers work for themselves, selling their designs to fashion houses, directly to shops, or to clothing manufacturers.

The garments bear the buyer's label. Some fashion designers set up their own labels, under which their designs are marketed. Some fashion designers are self-employed and design for individual clients.

Other high-end fashion designers cater to specialty stores or high-end fashion department stores. These designers create original garments, as well as those that follow established fashion trends. Most fashion designers, however, work for apparel manufacturers, creating designs of men's, women's, and children's fashions for the mass market.

Large designer brands which have a 'name' as their brand such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Justice, or Juicy are likely to be designed by a team of individual designers under the direction of a design director.

Fashion designers work in different ways. Some sketch their ideas on paper, while others drape fabric on a dress form. When a designer is completely satisfied with the fit of the toile (or muslin), he or she will consult a professional pattern maker who then makes the finished, working version of the pattern out of card or via a computerized system. Finally, a sample garment is made up and tested on a model to make sure it is an operational outfit.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Fashion Design: ___________________________________________________________________________

Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel and attire) is a collective term for items worn on the body. Clothing can be made of textiles, animal skin, or other thin sheets of materials put together.

The wearing of clothing is mostly restricted to human beings and is a feature of all human societies. The amount and type of clothing worn depend on body type, social, and geographic considerations. Some clothing can be gender-specific.

Physically, clothing serves many purposes: it can serve as protection from the elements and can enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking. It protects the wearer from rough surfaces, rash-causing plants, insect bites, splinters, thorns and prickles by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment.

Clothes can insulate against cold or hot conditions, and they can provide a hygienic barrier, keeping infectious and toxic materials away from the body. Clothing also provides protection from ultraviolet radiation.

Wearing clothes is also a social norm, and being deprived of clothing in front of others may be embarrassing, or not wearing clothes in public such that genitals, breasts or buttocks are visible could be seen as indecent exposure.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Clothing:






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Recreational Vehicles, including a List of Recreational Vehicles, and featuring the Good Sam Club as well as "Snow Bird" Winter Migration Pictured below: OUR RV & TRUCK- WHY WE CHOSE WHAT WE DID
Click here for a List of Recreational Vehicles

A recreational vehicle, often abbreviated as RV, is a motor vehicle or trailer which includes living quarters designed for accommodation. Types of RVs include: 
Typical amenities of an RV include a kitchen, a bathroom, and one or more sleeping facilities. RVs can range from the utilitarian — containing only sleeping quarters and basic cooking facilities — to the luxurious, with features like air conditioning (AC), water heaters, televisions and satellite receptors, and quartz countertops, for example.

RVs can either be trailers (which are towed behind motor vehicles) or self-motorized. Most RVs are single-deck; however, double-deck RVs also exist. To allow a more compact size while in transit, larger RVs often have expandable sides, called slide-outs, or canopies.

Although the most common usage of RVs is as temporary accommodation when traveling, some people use an RV as their main residence. In the United States and Canada, travelling south each winter to a warmer climate is referred to as snowbirding (see later below).

Some owners fit solar panels to the roof of their RV.

Usage of RVs is common at rural festivals such as Burning Man.

As of 2016, the average age of a person owning a recreational vehicle in the United States was 45, with a three year decrease since 2015.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Good Sam Club:

The Good Sam Club is an international organization of recreational vehicle (RV) owners and the largest organization of RV owners in the world. It is focused upon making RVing safer and more enjoyable, and to save members money through club-endorsed benefits and services. It states that it has over 1.8 million members. It was founded in 1966, and is currently owned by Good Sam Enterprises. The organization is affiliated with RV parks and campgrounds.

Good Sam Club is based in Englewood, Colorado The organization also owns: 
  • Camping World (an American corporation specializing in selling parts and service for recreational vehicles and supplies for camping),
  • Coast to Coast Resorts,
  • Trailer Life Publications,
  • MotorHome Publications
  • and the Good Sam RV Travel Guide & Campground Directory.

The organization also offers additional services such as roadside assistance, RV insurance and RV extended warranties for additional fees.

​History:

Credited as the founder of the Good Sam Club is Art Rouse, founder of TL Enterprises, a California-based publishing company responsible for Trailer Life magazine  and MotorHome magazine.

Rouse and his two sons acquired the organization in 1968 and further developed member benefits and RV-related services for which the club is known. Rouse sold TL Enterprises in the 1980s and died on June 19, 2007 following head injuries suffered as a result of a fall, at 89 years old.

Membership:

In 1985, the club had over 450,000 members, and today has over 1.7 million members.

Nomenclature:

The club's name comes from the Bible parable of the Good Samaritan, which tells of a traveler from the region of Samaria who helped a person along the road who had been robbed and beaten.

RV park affiliations:

In 2017, there were over 2,100 RV parks and campgrounds affiliated with the Good Sam organization in which club members receive a 10% discount on the nightly rate for staying in their parks. These RV parks have to meet a minimum standard of services and appearance to be considered for association.

Good Sam also publishes information to help members find parks that provide stated levels of services.

NASCAR:

The club sponsored the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race Good Sam Club 500 at Talladega Superspeedway and the Camping World Truck Series' Good Sam Roadside Assistance Carolina 200 at Rockingham Speedway.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

"Snowbird" (Winter Migration):

"Snowbird" is a North American term for a person who migrates from the higher latitudes and colder climates of the northern United States and Canada in the southward direction in winter to warmer locales such as Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, or elsewhere along the Sun Belt of the southern United States, Mexico, and areas of the Caribbean.

Although snowbirds used to be associated with retired or older persons, snowbirds increasingly are of all ages. Many residents in the colder areas of the USA and Canada vacation in warmer southern locations to escape winter weather.

A sunbird is one who leaves the lower latitudes and hot climates of the southern United States and migrates northward in summer to cooler locales such as the high elevation of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming or elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains, the mountains of North Carolina, or Northern New England.

​Profile:

Snowbirds are typically retirees who wish to avoid the snow and cold temperatures of northern winter, but maintain ties with family and friends by staying there the rest of the year.

In recent years, younger people with jobs tied to seasonal tourists often migrate southward, following the tourist season to southern resorts. Some are also business owners who have a second home in a warmer location or whose business can be easily moved from place to place.

Many families in the United States often spend their Christmas holiday time (up to 2 weeks) at beach resorts in Florida and California.  Some are people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder who wish to enjoy the longer daylight hours in the southern latitudes in winter.

Some snowbirds bring their homes with them, as campers (mounted on bus or truck frames) or as boats following the East Coast Intracoastal waterway southward.

RVers:

A significant portion of the snowbird community is made up of recreational vehicle users (RVers). Many own a motorhome for the sole purpose of traveling south in the winter. Often they go to the same location every year and consider the other RVers that do the same a "second family".

Many RV parks label themselves "snowbird friendly" and get the majority of their income from the influx of RVing snowbirds. Several areas in Florida and Arizona have large RV communities that appear and disappear seasonally. Quartzsite, Arizona, has been labeled "white city", because from a bird's-eye view all the motorhomes cover the landscape in white and then in the summer are gone.

While historically Florida and Arizona have been the top RV snowbird locations, other southern U.S. states are experiencing a boom from snowbirds enjoying the southern climate.

Legal status:

Many of these "snowbirds" also use their vacation time to declare permanent residency in low- or no-tax income tax states (where the tax bases are augmented by high tourism taxes), and claim lower non-resident income taxes in their home states.

Canadian snowbirds usually retain residency in Canada in order to retain health benefits. Due to the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act there are now additional implications for Canadian snowbirds in the United States.

In the United States, the right to vote for local office is governed by local and state law, so it may be possible to vote for local offices in both places if the locality permits nonresident voting based on property ownership. However, representation in the United States Congress is for residents as enumerated by the decennial census and voting in U.S. federal elections in more than one jurisdiction is deemed to be electoral fraud.

See also:​



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Concerts, including a List of the Highest Grossing ConcertsPictured below: The 360° Tour by U2 is the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. (Courtesy of Kristian Strøbech)
​Click here for a List of highest-grossing concert tours

A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band.

Concerts are held in a wide variety and size of settings, from private houses and small nightclubs, dedicated concert halls, arenas and parks to large multipurpose buildings, and even sports stadiums. Indoor concerts held in the largest venues are sometimes called arena concerts or amphitheatre concerts. Informal names for a concert include show and gig.

Regardless of the venue, musicians usually perform on a stage. Concerts often require live event support with professional audio equipment. Before recorded music, concerts provided the main opportunity to hear musicians play.

Types of Concerts:
​
The nature of a concert varies by musical genre, individual performers, and the venue.

Concerts by a small jazz combo or small bluegrass band may have the same order of program, mood, and volume—but vary in music and dress. In a similar way, a particular musician, band, or genre of music might attract concert attendees with similar dress, hairstyle, and behavior. For example, concert goers in the 1960s often had long hair (sometimes in dread lock form), sandals and inexpensive clothing made of natural fibers.

Regular attendees to a concert venue might also have a recognizable style that comprises that venue's scene.

Recital:

A recital is a concert by a soloist or small group which follows a program. It can highlight a single performer, sometimes accompanied by piano, or a performance of the works of a single composer, or a single instrument (organ recital).

The invention of the solo piano recital has been attributed to Franz Liszt. Also, a recital may have many participants, as for a dance recital. A dance recital is a presentation of choreographed moves for an audience, usually in an established performing arts venue, possibly competitively. Some dance recitals are seasonal.

Theatrical:

Some performers or groups put on very elaborate and expensive shows. To create a memorable and exciting atmosphere and increase the spectacle, performers frequently include additional entertainment devices.

These can include:
Some singers, especially popular music, augment concert sound with pre-recorded accompaniment, back-up dancers, and even broadcast vocal tracks of the singer's own voice. Activities during these concerts can include dancing, sing-alongs, and moshing.

Performers known for including these elements in their performances include: :
Classical:
Main article: Concert version

Classical concerts embody two different styles of classical music — orchestral and choral. They are performed by a plethora of different groups in concert halls or other performing art venues.

For orchestra, depending on the number of performers and the instruments used, concerts include chamber music, chamber orchestra, or symphony orchestra.

Chamber orchestra is a small-scale orchestra containing between ten to forty members, mostly string instruments, and likely led by a conductor.

Symphony orchestra, on the other hand, is a large-scale orchestra that can have up to eighty or more members, which is led by a conductor and is performed with instruments such as strings, woodwinds, brass instruments, and percussion.

For choral style pieces, concerts include Choral music, Opera, and musical theater. Each encompassing a variety of singers who are organized by a conductor or director.

Venues:

There are a wide variety of concert venues that can range in size, location, and the type of music that is hosted at that particular venue.

A concert hall is a concert venue which hosts mainly classical music such as a symphony, and they are often a part of a larger performing arts center. One of the most famous concert halls is Royal Albert Hall located in the United Kingdom. This venue hosts a wide variety of genres of music from classical concerts to pop concerts.

An amphitheater is an uncovered circular or oval-shaped venue with tiers of seats surrounding the stage. Amphitheaters such as the well-known Red Rocks Amphitheatre, located in Colorado, hosts mainly rock and pop concerts.

Rock and pop concerts, however, are mainly held in sports stadiums and arenas such as Madison Square Garden because of the tendency for these stadiums to have a larger capacity. 

Formats:
​Festivals Main articles: Music festival and List of music festivals

Concerts involving a greater number of artists, especially those that last for multiple days, are known as festivals. Unlike other concerts, which typically remain in a single genre of music or work of a particular artist, festivals often cover a broad scope of music and arts. Due to their size, festivals are almost exclusively held outdoors.

New platforms for festivals are becoming increasingly popular such as Jam Cruise, which is a festival held on a cruise ship, as well as Mayan Holidaze, which is a destination festival held in Tulum.

A few examples of the hundreds of festivals around the world include:
​Tour:
Main article: Concert tour

A concert tour is a series of concerts by an artist or group of artists in different cities, countries or locations. Often concert tours are named, to differentiate different tours by the same artist and associate a specific tour with a particular album or product (for example Ariana Grande: Dangerous Woman Tour).

Especially in the popular music world, such tours can become large-scale enterprises that last for several months or even years, are seen by hundreds of thousands or millions of people, and bring in millions of dollars (or the equivalent) in ticket revenues.

Residency:
Main article: Concert residency

A concert residency or musical residency is a series of live music concerts similar to a concert tour, but only performed at one location.

Revenue and Attendance:
Main article: List of highest-attended concerts

While admission to some concerts is free, it is common practice to charge money for concerts by selling admission tickets. Before the advent of recorded-music sales and mechanical royalties in the early 20th century, concerts were the primary source of revenue for musicians.

Revenue from ticket sales typically goes to the performing artists, producers, venue, organizers and the brokers. In the case of benefit concerts, a portion of profits often go towards a charitable organization.

Additional revenue is also often raised through in-concert advertising, from free local concerts for local sponsorships to sponsorships from corporations during major tours e.g. 2009's "Vans' Warped Tour Presented by AT&T". Both Vans and AT&T would have paid significant amounts to have their company names included at the forefront in all marketing material for the Warped Tour.

Concessions and merchandise are also often sold during and after concerts; often by the venue in the case of the former, and by the performing band or artist in the case of the latter.

As of 2017, Italian singer Vasco Rossi holds the record for the biggest attendance of a ticketed concert with a total of 220,000 tickets sold for his show at Enzo Ferrari Park, Modena, Italy on 1 July 2017.

The record was previously held by Paul McCartney's 1990 concert with a paying audience of 185,000 in Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro. 

Rod Stewart also holds the record for the biggest attendance in a free concert, with an estimated audience of 3.5 million during his 1994 New Year's Eve concert in Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro.

See also:

​





Drinking Alcohol, including a List of Alcoholic Beverages, the Inherent Risk of Alcoholism, and Alcoholics Anonymous​Pictured below:
TOP: A selection of alcoholic drinks. From left to right: red wine, malt whisky, lager, sparkling wine, lager, cherry liqueur and red wine.
BOTTOM: some of the possible long-term effects of ethanol an individual may develop. Additionally, in pregnant women, alcohol can cause fetal alcohol syndrome.​
Click here for a List of Alcoholic Drinks.

An alcoholic drink (or alcoholic beverage) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. Drinking alcohol plays an important social role in many cultures.

Most countries have laws regulating the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Some countries ban such activities entirely, but alcoholic drinks are legal in most parts of the world. The global alcoholic drink industry exceeded $1 trillion in 2014.

Alcohol is a depressant, which in low doses causes euphoria, reduces anxiety, and improves sociability. In higher doses, it causes drunkenness, stupor, unconsciousness, or death.

Long-term use can lead to alcohol abuse, cancer, physical dependence, and alcoholism.

Alcohol is one of the most widely used recreational drugs in the world with about 33% of people being current drinkers. As of 2016 women on average drink 0.7 drinks and males 1.7 drinks a day. 

In 2015, among Americans, 86% of adults had consumed alcohol at some point, 70% had drunk it in the last year, and 56% in the last month. Alcoholic drinks are typically divided into three classes--beers, wines, and spirits—and typically their alcohol content is between 3% and 50%.

Discovery of late Stone Age jugs suggest that intentionally fermented drinks existed at least as early as the Neolithic period (cir. 10,000 BC). Many animals also consume alcohol when given the opportunity and are affected in much the same way as humans, although humans are the only species known to produce alcoholic drinks intentionally

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Alcoholic Drinks: ___________________________________________________________________________

​Alcoholism, also known as alcohol use disorder (AUD), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems. The disorder was previously divided into two types: alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence.

In a medical context, alcoholism is said to exist when two or more of the following conditions are present: a person drinks large amounts of alcohol over a long time period, has difficulty cutting down, acquiring and drinking alcohol takes up a great deal of time, alcohol is strongly desired, usage results in not fulfilling responsibilities, usage results in social problems, usage results in health problems, usage results in risky situations, withdrawal occurs when stopping, and alcohol tolerance has occurred with use.

Risky situations include drinking and driving or having unsafe sex, among other things. Alcohol use can affect all parts of the body, but it particularly affects the brain, heart, liver, pancreas and immune system. This can result in mental illness, Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome, irregular heartbeat, an impaired immune response, liver cirrhosis and increased cancer risk, among other diseases.

Drinking during pregnancy can cause damage to the baby resulting in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Women are generally more sensitive than men to the harmful physical and mental effects of alcohol.

Environmental factors and genetics are two components associated with alcoholism, with about half the risk attributed to each. Someone with a parent or sibling with alcoholism is three to four times more likely to become an alcoholic themselves Environmental factors include social, cultural and behavioral influences.

High stress levels and anxiety, as well as alcohol's inexpensive cost and easy accessibility, increase the risk. People may continue to drink partly to prevent or improve symptoms of withdrawal. After a person stops drinking alcohol, they may experience a low level of withdrawal lasting for months. Medically, alcoholism is considered both a physical and mental illness.

Questionnaires and certain blood tests may both detect people with possible alcoholism. Further information is then collected to confirm the diagnosis.

Prevention of alcoholism may be attempted by regulating and limiting the sale of alcohol, taxing alcohol to increase its cost, and providing inexpensive treatment.

Treatment may take several steps. Due to medical problems that can occur during withdrawal, alcohol detoxification should be carefully controlled/ One common method involves the use of benzodiazepine medications, such as diazepam. These can be either given while admitted to a health care institution or occasionally while a person remains in the community with close supervision.

Mental illness or other addictions may complicate treatment. After detoxification, support such as group therapy or support groups are used to help keep a person from returning to drinking. One commonly used form of support is the group Alcoholics Anonymous (see below).

The medications acamprosate, disulfiram or naltrexone may also be used to help prevent further drinking.

The World Health Organization estimates that as of 2010 there were 208 million people with alcoholism worldwide (4.1% of the population over 15 years of age). 

In the United States, about 17 million (7%) of adults and 0.7 million (2.8%) of those age 12 to 17 years of age are affected. It is more common among males and young adults, becoming less common in middle and old age. It is the least common in Africa, at 1.1%, and has the highest rates in Eastern Europe, at 11%. 

Alcoholism directly resulted in 139,000 deaths in 2013, up from 112,000 deaths in 1990. A total of 3.3 million deaths (5.9% of all deaths) are believed to be due to alcohol. It often reduces a person's life expectancy by around ten years. In the United States, it resulted in economic costs of US$224 billion in 2006. 

Many terms, some insulting and others informal, have been used to refer to people affected by alcoholism; the expressions include tippler, drunkard, dipsomaniac and souse. In 1979, the World Health Organization discouraged the use of "alcoholism" due to its inexact meaning, preferring "alcohol dependence syndrome".

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Alcoholism:​
​ ___________________________________________________________________________

​​Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international fellowship of men and women who have had a drinking problem. Their stated purpose is to enable “members to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety."

AA is nonprofessional, self-supporting, and apolitical. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. The AA program is set forth in the Twelve Steps and discussed at AA group meetings.

It was founded in Akron, Ohio when in 1935 one alcoholic, Bill Wilson, talked to another alcoholic, Bob Smith, about the nature of alcoholism and a possible solution. With the help of other early members, the book Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism was written in 1939. Its title became the name of the organization and is now usually referred to as "The Big Book". AA's initial Twelve Traditions were introduced in 1946 to help the fellowship be stable and unified while disengaged from "outside issues" and influences.

The Traditions recommend that members remain anonymous in public media, altruistically help other alcoholics, and that AA groups avoid official affiliations with other organizations.

They also advise against dogma and coercive hierarchies. Subsequent fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous have adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their respective primary purposes.

AA membership has since spread internationally "across diverse cultures holding different beliefs and values", including geopolitical areas resistant to grassroots movements. Close to two million people worldwide are estimated to be members of AA as of 2016.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Alcoholics Anonymous:







​Society in the United States including Demographic Makeup, Religion, as well as Race and Ethnicity
YouTube Video: Robert Reich: Inequality for All (11/20/13)​
Pictured: Graphics of the Population Makeup of the United States as  (Top) Race/Ethnicity and (Bottom) Religions
The society or culture of the United States is a Western culture, and has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, folklore, etc.

Today the United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country as result of large-scale immigration from many different countries throughout its history.

Its chief early influences came from English and Irish settlers of colonial America. British culture, due to colonial ties with Britain that spread the English language, legal system and other cultural inheritances, had a formative influence. Other important influences came from other parts of Europe.

The United States has often been thought of as a melting pot, but recent developments tend towards cultural diversity, pluralism and the image of a salad bowl rather than a melting pot.

Due to the extent of American culture there are many integrated but unique social subcultures within the United States. The cultural affiliations an individual in the United States may have commonly depend on social class, political orientation and a multitude of demographic characteristics such as religious background, occupation and ethnic group membership. 

The strongest influences on American culture came from northern European cultures, most prominently from Britain, Ireland, and Germany.

For Amplification, click on any of the following Hyperlinks: ​






​
​How Americans Spend their Leisure Time*
*--reported by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS.Gov)
YouTube Video: Mid-Morning Panel On How We Spend Our Time
​​*- Reported by WCCO - CBS Minnesota
Below Chart: On an average day, individuals age 15 and over spent more than half of their leisure time watching TV. (Data are from the 2014 survey).
___________________________________________________________________________
​Below Chart: Individuals age 75 and over spent more of their leisure time watching TV, reading, and relaxing and thinking than individuals ages 15 to 19. The younger age group spent more of its leisure time engaging in sports and exercise and playing games and using the computer for leisure. (Data are from the 2014 survey).
More findings from the 2014 survey:
  • On an average day, nearly everyone age 15 and over (96 percent) engaged in some sort of leisure activity such as watching TV, socializing, or exercising. Of those who engaged in leisure activities, men spent more time in these activities (6.0 hours) than did women (5.2 hours).
  • Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for more than half of leisure time, on average, for those age 15 and over.
  • Socializing, such as visiting with friends or attending or hosting social events, was the next most common leisure activity, accounting for 43 minutes per day.
  • Men were more likely than women to participate in sports, exercise, or recreation on a given day—22 percent compared with 17 percent. On days they participated, men also spent more time in these activities than did women—1.8 hours compared with 1.3 hours.
  • On an average day, adults age 75 and over spent 8.0 hours engaged in leisure activities—more than any other age group; 35- to 44-year-olds spent 4.1 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities—less than other age groups.
  • Employed adults living in households with no children under age 18 engaged in leisure activities for 4.6 hours per day, almost an hour more than employed adults living with a child under age 6.








​​Sociology as the Scientific Study of Society
Sociology is the scientific study of society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture of everyday life. It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order, acceptance, and change or social evolution.

Many sociologists aim to conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter ranges from the micro-sociology level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and the social structure.

The different traditional focuses of sociology include: 
As all spheres of human activity are affected by the interplay between social structure and individual agency, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to other subjects, such as: 
The range of social scientific methods has also expanded. Social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of society.

Conversely, the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s have seen the rise of new analytically, mathematically, and computationally rigorous techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social network analysis.

Social research informs the following in general: 
There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Study of Sociology:






​
​Social Class in the United States Pictured below:
TOP: The Ladder of Social Class
BOTTOM: How America's Marriage Crisis Makes Income Inequality So Much Worse*
* -- The Atlantic 10-1-2013
Social class in the United States is a controversial issue, having many competing definitions, models, and even disagreements over its very existence. Many Americans believe that in the country there are just three classes: the American rich; the American middle class; the American poor.

More complex models that have been proposed describe as many as a dozen class levels; while still others deny the very existence, in the European sense, of social class in American society.

Most definitions of class structure group people according to wealth, income, education, type of occupation, and membership in a specific subculture or social network. Most of the social classes entirely ignore the existence of parallel Black, Hispanic and minorities societies.

Sociologists Dennis Gilbert, William Thompson, Joseph Hickey, and James Henslin have proposed class systems with six distinct social classes.

These class models feature:
  1. an upper or capitalist class consisting of the rich and powerful,
  2. an upper middle class consisting of highly educated and affluent professionals,
  3. a middle class consisting of college-educated individuals employed in white-collar industries,
  4. a lower middle class composed of semi-professionals with typically some college education, a working class constituted by clerical and blue collar workers whose work is highly routinized, and a lower class divided between the working poor and the unemployed underclass.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Social Class in the United States:






​
​Social Science
YouTube Video: An Animated Introduction to Social Science
Social science is a major category of academic disciplines, concerned with society and the relationships among individuals within a society. It in turn has many branches, each of which is considered a "social science".

Social sciences often include, 
​The term is also sometimes used to refer specifically to the field of sociology, the original 'science of society', established in the 19th century.

Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. 

Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by combining the quantitative and qualitative techniques).

The term social research has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share in its aims and methods.

For further information, click on any of the following hyperlinks:









​The Great Society
​(Domestic Programs of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidency (LBJ)
​The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65.

The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan.

New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation were launched during this period. The program and its initiatives were subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s and years following. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. Johnson's success depended on his skills of persuasion, coupled with the Democratic landslide in the 1964 election that brought in many new liberals to Congress, making the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938.

Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great Society. While some of the programs have been eliminated or had their funding reduced, many of them, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act and federal education funding, continue to the present.

The Great Society's programs expanded under the administrations of Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about LBJ's Great Society Programs:






​
Cannabis in the United States  including a List of cannabis rights organizations Pictured below:
The use, sale, and possession of cannabis over 0.3% THC in the United States, despite state laws, is illegal under federal law.

As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, cannabis over 0.3% THC (legal term marijuana) is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and have a high potential for abuse and physical or psychological dependence.

Cannabis use is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs. However, individual states have enacted legislation permitting exemptions for various uses, mainly for medical and industrial use but also including recreational use.

Cannabis for industrial uses (hemp) was made illegal to grow without a permit under the Controlled Substances Act because of its relation to cannabis as a drug, and any imported products must adhere to a zero tolerance policy.

​The Agricultural Act of 2014 allows for universities and state-level departments of agriculture to cultivate cannabis for research into its industrial potential.

As a psychoactive drug, cannabis continues to find extensive favor among recreational and medical users in the United States. As of 2019, eleven states, two U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational use of cannabis.

Thirty-three states, four U.S. territories, and D.C. have legalized medical use of the drug. Multiple efforts to reschedule cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act have failed, and the United States Supreme Court has ruled in United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative (2001) and Gonzales v. Raich (2005) that the federal government has a right to regulate and criminalize cannabis, whether medical or recreational.

As a result, cannabis dispensaries are licensed by each state; these businesses sell cannabis products that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, nor are they legally registered with the federal government to sell controlled substances.

Although cannabis has not been approved, the FDA recognizes the potential benefits and has approved two drugs that contain components of marijuana.

The ability of states to implement cannabis legalization policies was weakened after US Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memorandum on January 4, 2018 and issued a new memo instructing US Attorneys to enforce federal law related to marijuana.

The Cole memo, issued by former Deputy Attorney General James Cole in 2013, urged federal prosecutors to refrain from targeting state-legal marijuana operations. Regarding the medical use of cannabis, the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment still remains in effect to protect state-legal medical cannabis activities from enforcement of federal law.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Cannabis in the United States: ___________________________________________________________________________

The following is a list of cannabis rights organizations:

Cannabis rights or marijuana rights are individual civil and human rights that vary by jurisdiction. The rights of people who consume cannabis include the right to be free from employment discrimination and housing discrimination.

Anti-cannabis laws include civil infractions and fines, imprisonment, and even the death penalty.

Click here for more about Cannabis/Marijuana Rights.
The following is a list of cannabis rights organizations:







Plastic Surgery, including Constructive vs. Cosmetic Surgery* -- Hollywood stars Lisa Rinna and Dana Delaney regret having had plastic surgery.
Pictured below:
TOP: What is Cosmetic Plastic Surgery?
BOTTOM: What is Reconstructive  Plastic Surgery?
Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two categories:
  1. The first is reconstructive surgery which includes craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns.
  2. The other is cosmetic or aesthetic surgery. While reconstructive surgery aims to reconstruct a part of the body or improve its functioning, cosmetic surgery aims at improving the appearance of it.

Both of these techniques are used throughout the world.

In the term "plastic surgery," the adjective plastic implies sculpting and/or reshaping, which is derived from the Greek πλαστική (τέχνη), plastikē (tekhnē), "the art of modelling" of malleable flesh. This meaning in English is seen as early as 1598.
​
The surgical definition of "plastic" first appeared in 1839, preceding the modern "engineering material made from petroleum" sense of plastic (coined by Leo Baekeland in 1909) by 70 years.

The current semantic diversity of the word plastic has a long history of development. Essentially, there are two ways of using this term. In its original sense plastic relates to formation or shaping of matter, i.e. to plastic art. Plastic can also be used figuratively in the meaning of formation of non-material things (e.g. writing a poem, creating a piece of music, and so on), i.e. in the meaning of the power to create. Both notions have been around for thousands of years.

The origin of the dual history of the materialistic and philosophical use of plastic can be traced back to the ancient Greek craft of pottery and mythology, respectively. Wider textual use of the term plastic began with Pliny the Elder’s (23 – 79 AD) Plastice, a chapter in his Natural History.

The semantic flourish of plastic started only at the end of the 18th century when Johann Gottfried Herder introduced the concept of “plastic sense” in his aesthetic essay Plastik (Sculpture) of 1778.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Plastic Surgery:







Domesticated Animals, including a List
This page gives a list of domestic animals, also including a list of animals which are or may be currently undergoing the process of domestication and animals that have an extensive relationship with humans beyond simple predation. This includes species which are semi-domesticated, undomesticated but captive-bred on a commercial scale, or commonly wild-caught, at least occasionally captive-bred, and tameable.

In order to be considered fully domesticated, most species have undergone significant genetic, behavioral and/or morphological changes from their wild ancestors; while others have been changed very little from their wild ancestors despite hundreds or thousands of years of potential selective breeding.

A number of factors determine how quickly any changes may occur in a species, however, there isn't always a desire to improve a species from its wild form. Domestication is a gradual process, i.e., there is no precise moment in the history of a given species when it can be considered to have become fully domesticated.

Archaeozoology has identified three classes of animal domesticates:
  1. commensals, adapted to a human niche (e.g., dogs, cats, guinea pigs)
  2. prey animals sought for food (e.g., cows, sheep, pig, goats)
  3. targeted animals for draft and nonfood resources (e.g., horse, camel, donkey).

To sort the following tables chronologically by date of domestication, refresh your browser window, as clicking the Date column heading will mix CE and BCE dates.

Click on any of the following blue  hyperlinks for more about Domesticated Animals:






​
Household Pets, with a focus on Dogs and Cats Pictured below: Play between Dogs and Cats: Keeping Them Safe
Click here for a List of the Most Popular Dog Breeds.

Click here for a List of the Most Popular Cat Breeds.

A pet or companion animal is an animal kept primarily for a person's company, entertainment, or as an act of compassion such as taking in and protecting a hungry stray cat, rather than as a working animal, livestock, or laboratory animal. Popular pets are often noted for their attractive appearances, intelligence, and personalities, or may just be accepted as they are because they need a home.

Two of the most popular pets are dogs and cats. The technical term for a cat lover is an ailurophile, and for a dog lover, a cynophile.

Other animals commonly kept include: 
Small pets may be grouped together as pocket pets, while the equine and bovine group include the largest companion animals.

Pets provide their owners (or "guardians" both physical and emotional benefits. Walking a dog can provide both the human and the dog with exercise, fresh air, and social interaction.

Pets can give companionship to people who are living alone or elderly adults who do not have adequate social interaction with other people.

There is a medically approved class of therapy animals, mostly dogs or cats, that are brought to visit confined humans, such as children in hospitals or elders in nursing homes. Pet therapy utilizes trained animals and handlers to achieve specific physical, social, cognitive or emotional goals with patients.

Some scholars, ethicists and animal rights organizations have raised concerns over keeping pets because of the lack of autonomy and objectification of nonhuman animals.

Click on any of the following blue  hyperlinks for more about Pets: See also:





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Dogs as Pets, Dog Breeds as well as the Bond between a Man and His Dog including Service Dogs Pictured below, by Row:
TOP: (L) The surprising reason more police dogs are dying in the line of duty; (R) 10 Breeds That Make the Best Hunting Dogs
BOTTOM: (L) Pet Therapy for the Elderly – Your Ultimate Guide; (R) All About Guide Dogs for the Blind
The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris when considered a subspecies of the wolf or Canis familiaris when considered a distinct species) is a member of the genus Canis (canines), which forms part of the wolf-like canids, and is the most widely abundant terrestrial carnivore.

The dog and the extant gray wolf are sister taxa as modern wolves are not closely related to the wolves that were first domesticated, which implies that the direct ancestor of the dog is extinct. The dog was the first species to be domesticated and has been selectively bred over millennia for various behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes.
Their long association with humans has led dogs to be uniquely attuned to human behavior and they are able to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canid species.

Dogs vary widely in shape, size and colors. They perform many roles for humans, including: 
​This influence on human society has given them the sobriquet of "man's best friend".

Terminology
  • The term dog typically is applied both to the species (or subspecies) as a whole, and any adult male member of the same.
  • An adult female is a bitch.
  • An adult male capable of reproduction is a stud.
  • An adult female capable of reproduction is a brood bitch, or brood mother.
  • Immature males or females (that is, animals that are incapable of reproduction) are pups or puppies.
  • A group of pups from the same gestation period is called a litter.
  • The father of a litter is a sire. It is possible for one litter to have multiple sires.
  • The mother of a litter is a dam.
  • A group of any three or more adults is a pack.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Dogs: ___________________________________________________________________________

Dog breeds are dogs that have relatively uniform physical characteristics developed by humans, with breeding animals selected for phenotypic traits such as size, coat color, structure, and behavior. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale recognizes 337 pure dog breeds.

Other uses of the term breed when referring to dogs may include pure breeds, cross-breeds, mixed breeds and natural breeds.

​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Dog Breeds: ​___________________________________________________________________________

Bond between a Man and His Dog

Human–canine bonding is the relationship between dogs and humans.

This bond can be traced back at least 15,000 to 30,000 years ago to the Bonn-Oberkassel dog that was found buried with two humans.

In the United States, over 48% of households have a pet dog. For centuries, dogs have been labeled as "man's best friend," offering love and loyalty to their human counterparts. This is evident in most homes where dogs are domesticated. Children and adults have cordial relationships with all kinds of dogs.

A study conducted by J.S.J Odendaal in 2003 showed that when humans pet dogs, their bodies release oxytocin, a hormone associated with not only happiness, but bonding and affection as well. According to the social support theory, animals are a source of social support and companionship, which are necessary for well-being.

Canines' social impact on humans is especially significant for those who tend to be more isolated, such as children with no siblings or elderly persons. In this view, the animal is part of our community and is an important determinant for psychological well-being.

According to self psychology, an animal can be a "self-object" that gives a sense of cohesion, support, or sustenance to a person's sense of self. Self-psychology explains why some animals are so crucial to a person's sense of self and well-being.

Dog companionship often gives people a sense of purpose by causing them to develop a daily routine and giving them something to look forward to each day. Studies also show owning a dog reduces stress and alleviates anxiety. Despite the positive relationship, there are instances where dogs have turned on their owner or other humans.

The reasons for a dog to break the normally positive social bond are varied and include a background of abuse against the animal, inherent psychological issues of the dog, and where the dog may have been trained for heightened aggression.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about a Man and his Dog: ___________________________________________________________________________

​A service dog, as the term is used in the United States, refers to any dog trained to help a person who has a disability, such as: 
The right of service dogs in the US to accompany their owners everywhere their owners go is protected under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and parallel state and city laws, and significant monetary penalties have been assessed by courts against those who have sought to abridge those rights.

Outside the US, the term "service dog" refers to a dog that works for police, military, or search and rescue services, while the term "assistance dog" is the legal term for a dog that is trained to provide assistance and support for a disabled person.

Desirable character traits in service animals typically include good temperament or psychological make-up (including biddability and trainability), and good health (including physical structure and stamina). Some service dogs are bred and trained by service dog organizations, while others are bred by breeders and trained by private trainers, or trained by the individuals with disabilities who become their partners. 

Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retriever/Golden Retriever crossbred dogs, and German Shepherd Dogs are among the most common dog breeds working as service dogs today in the United States. The term "seeing eye dog" is sometimes used as a generic label referring to any dog assisting an individual who has a visual impairment.

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Cats as Pets, including Cat Breeds Pictured below: Most Popular Cat Breeds - With Pictures!
*Click here for a List of Cat Breeds.

The cat (Felis catus) is a small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from wild members of the family. The cat is either a house cat or a farm cat, which are pets, or a feral cat, which ranges freely and avoids human contact. A house cat is valued by humans for companionship and for its ability to hunt rodents. About 60 cat breeds are recognized by various cat registries.

Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felid species, with a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth and retractable claws adapted to killing small prey.

Cats are predators who are most active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular). Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small animals. Compared to humans, they see better in the dark (they see in near total darkness) and have a better sense of smell, but poorer color vision.

Cats, despite being solitary hunters, are a social species. Cat communication includes the use of vocalizations including meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting as well as cat-specific body language. Cats also communicate by secreting and perceiving pheromones.

Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn, with litter sizes ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats can be bred and shown as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by spaying and neutering, as well as abandonment of pets, has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of entire bird species, and evoking population control.

It was long thought that cat domestication was initiated in Egypt, because cats in ancient Egypt were venerated from around 3100 BC. However, the earliest indication for the taming of an African wildcat (F. lybica) was found in Cyprus, where a cat skeleton was excavated close by a human Neolithic grave dating to around 7500 BC. African wildcats were probably first domesticated in the Near East.

The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) was tamed independently in China around 5500 BC, though this line of partially domesticated cats leaves no trace in the domestic cat populations of today.

As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second-most popular pet in the U.S. by number of pets owned, after freshwater fish, with 95 million cats owned. In the United Kingdom, around 7.3 million cats lived in more than 4.8 million households as of 2019. In 1965, the country's cat population was 4.1 million.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Cats:







Veterinary Medicine including in the United States Pictured below: University of California Davis’ Veterinary Science Ranked Top in World for 4th Consecutive Year
​Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, disorder and injury in animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all animal species, both domesticated and wild, with a wide range of conditions which can affect different species.

Veterinary medicine is widely practiced, both with and without professional supervision.

Professional care is most often led by a veterinary physician (also known as a vet, veterinary surgeon or veterinarian), but also by paraveterinary workers such as veterinary nurses or technicians. This can be augmented by other paraprofessionals with specific specialisms such as animal physiotherapy or dentistry, and species relevant roles such as farriers.

Veterinary science helps human health through the monitoring and control of zoonotic disease (infectious disease transmitted from non-human animals to humans), food safety, and indirectly through human applications from basic medical research. They also help to maintain food supply through livestock health monitoring and treatment, and mental health by keeping pets healthy and long living. Veterinary scientists often collaborate with epidemiologists, and other health or natural scientists depending on type of work.

Ethically, veterinarians are usually obliged to look after animal welfare.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Veterinary Medicine: ___________________________________________________________________________

Veterinary medicine in the United States is the performance of veterinary medicine in the United States, normally performed by licensed professionals, and subject to provisions of statute law which vary by state.
​
Veterinary medicine is normally led by veterinary physicians, normally termed veterinarians or vets.

Veterinarians are often assisted by paraveterinary workers including veterinary technicians and veterinary assistants, and in some cases, these para-professionals may perform work on their own.

Dependent on the jurisdiction, other professionals may be permitted to perform some animal treatment, through either specific exemptions in the law or through a lack of prohibitive legislation. This can include manipulation techniques such as: 
Veterinarian's Oath:

The Veterinarian's Oath was adopted by the American Veterinary Medical Association's House of Delegates July 1969, and amended by the AVMA Executive Board, November 1999 and December 2010, as follows:
​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Veterinary Medicine as practiced in the United States:






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Interpersonal Relationships Pictured below: Interpersonal Relationship Skills You Are Going to Need in Life
An interpersonal relationship is a strong, deep, or close association or acquaintance between two or more people that may range in duration from brief to enduring. The context can vary from family or kinship relations, friendship, marriage, relations with associates, work, clubs, neighborhoods, and places of worship. Relationships may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and of society as a whole.

This association may be based on: 
Interpersonal relationships thrive through equitable and reciprocal compromise, they form in the context of social, cultural and other influences.

The study of interpersonal relationships involves several branches of the social sciences, including such disciplines as: 
Interpersonal ties are also a subject in mathematical sociology.

The scientific study of relationships evolved during the 1990s and came to be referred to as "relationship science", which distinguishes itself from anecdotal evidence or from pseudo-experts by basing conclusions on data and on objective analysis.

Types:
Main article: Outline of relationships § Types of relationships

Intimate relationships:

Romantic relationships generally:

Romantic relationships have been defined in countless ways, by writers, philosophers, religions, scientists, and in the modern day, relationship counselors. Two popular definitions of love are Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love and Fisher's theory of love.

Sternberg defines love in terms of intimacy, passion, and commitment, which he claims exist in varying levels in different romantic relationships. Fisher defines love as composed of three stages: attraction, romantic love, and attachment. Romantic relationships may exist between two people of any gender, or among a group of people (see polyamory).

Romance (love):

The single defining quality of a romantic relationship is the presence of love. Love is therefore equally difficult to define. Hazan and Shaver define love, using Ainsworth's attachment theory, as comprising proximity, emotional support, self-exploration, and separation distress when parted from the loved one. Other components commonly agreed to be necessary for love are physical attraction, similarity, reciprocity, and self-disclosure.

Platonic love:

An intimate but non-romantic relationship is known as a platonic relationship.

Life stages:

Early adolescent relationships are characterized by companionship, reciprocity, and sexual experiences. As emerging adults mature, they begin to develop attachment and caring qualities in their relationships, including love, bonding, security, and support for partners.

Earlier relationships also tend to be shorter and exhibit greater involvement with social networks.

Later relationships are often marked by shrinking social networks, as the couple dedicates more time to each other than to associates. Later relationships also tend to exhibit higher levels of commitment.

Most psychologists and relationship counselors predict a decline of intimacy and passion over time, replaced by a greater emphasis on companionate love (differing from adolescent companionship, love in the caring, committed, and partner-focused qualities).

However, couple studies have found no decline in intimacy nor in the importance of sex, intimacy, and passionate love to those in longer or later-life relationships.

Older people tend to be more satisfied in their relationships, but face greater barriers to entering new relationships than do younger or middle-aged people. Older women in particular face social, demographic, and personal barriers; men aged 65 and older are nearly twice as likely as women to be married, and widowers are nearly three times as likely to be dating 18 months following their partner's loss compared to widows.

Significant other:

The term significant other gained popularity during the 1990s, reflecting the growing acceptance of 'non-heteronormative' relationships. It can be used to avoid making an assumption about the gender or relational status (e.g. married, living together, civil union) of a person's intimate partner.

Cohabiting relationships continue to rise, with many partners considering cohabitation to be nearly as serious as, or a substitute for, marriage.

LGBT, on the other hand, face unique challenges in establishing and maintaining intimate relationships. The strain of 'internalized homo-negativity' and of presenting themselves in line with socially acceptable gender norms can reduce the satisfaction and emotional and health benefits they experience in their relationships. LGBT youth also lack the social support and peer connections enjoyed by hetero-normative young people.

Nonetheless, comparative studies of homosexual and heterosexual couples have found few differences in relationship intensity, quality, satisfaction, or commitment.

Marital relationship:

Although nontraditional relationships continue to rise, marriage still makes up the majority of relationships except among emerging adults. It is also still considered by many to occupy a place of greater importance among family and social structures.

Familial relationships:

Parent-child:

In ancient times, parent-child relationships were often marked by fear, either of rebellion or abandonment, resulting in the strict filial roles in, for example, ancient Rome and China.

Freud conceived of the Oedipal complex, the supposed obsession that young boys have towards their mother and the accompanying fear and rivalry with their father, and the Electra complex, in which the young girl feels that her mother has castrated her and therefore becomes obsessed with her father. Freud's ideas influenced thought on parent-child relationships for decades.

Another early conception of parent-child relationships was that love only existed as a biological drive for survival and comfort on the child's part. In 1958, however, Harry Harlow’s study comparing rhesus’ reactions to wire “mothers” and cloth “mothers” demonstrated the depth of emotion felt by infants.

The study laid the groundwork for Mary Ainsworth’s attachment theory, showing how the infants used their cloth “mothers” as a secure base from which to explore.

In a series of studies using the strange situation, a scenario in which an infant is separated from then reunited with the parent, Ainsworth defined three styles of parent-child relationship:
  • securely attached infants miss the parent, greet them happily upon return, and show normal exploration and lack of fear when the parent is present
  • insecure avoidant infants show little distress upon separation and ignore the caregiver when they return; they explore little when the parent is present
  • insecure ambivalent infants are highly distressed by separation, but continue to be distressed upon the parent's return; these infants also explore little and display fear even when the parent is present

Some psychologists have suggested a fourth attachment style, disorganized, so called because the infants’ behavior appeared disorganized or disoriented.

Secure attachments are linked to better social and academic outcomes, greater moral internalization, and less delinquency for children, and have been found to predict later relationship success.

For most of the late nineteenth through the twentieth century, the perception of adolescent-parent relationships was that of a time of upheaval. G. Stanley Hall popularized the “Sturm und drang”, or storm and stress, model of adolescence.

Psychological research has painted a much tamer picture. Although adolescents are more risk-seeking, and emerging adults have higher suicide rates, they are largely less volatile and have much better relationships with their parents than this model would suggest.

Early adolescence often marks a decline in parent-child relationship quality, which then re-stabilizes through adolescence, and relationships are sometimes better in late adolescence than prior to its onset.

With the increasing average age at marriage and more youths attending college and living with parents past their teens, the concept of a new period called emerging adulthood gained popularity. This is considered a period of uncertainty and experimentation between adolescence and adulthood. During this stage, interpersonal relationships are considered to be more self-focused, and relationships with parents may still be influential.

Siblings:

Sibling relationships have a profound effect on social, psychological, emotional, and academic outcomes. Although proximity and contact usually decreases over time, sibling bonds continue to affect people throughout their lives. Sibling relationships are affected by parent-child relationships, such that sibling relationships in childhood often reflect the positive or negative aspects of children's relationships with their parents.

Other examples of interpersonal relationship:
Stages:

Interpersonal relationships are dynamic systems that change continuously during their existence. Like living organisms, relationships have a beginning, a lifespan, and an end. They tend to grow and improve gradually, as people get to know each other and become closer emotionally, or they gradually deteriorate as people drift apart, move on with their lives and form new relationships with others.

One of the most influential models of relationship development was proposed by psychologist George Levinger. This model was formulated to describe heterosexual, adult romantic relationships, but it has been applied to other kinds of interpersonal relations as well.

According to the model, the natural development of a relationship follows five stages:
  1. Acquaintance and acquaintanceship – Becoming acquainted depends on previous relationships, physical proximity, first impressions, and a variety of other factors. If two people begin to like each other, continued interactions may lead to the next stage, but acquaintance can continue indefinitely. Another example is association.
  2. Buildup – During this stage, people begin to trust and care about each other. The need for intimacy, compatibility and such filtering agents as common background and goals will influence whether or not interaction continues.
  3. Continuation – This stage follows a mutual commitment to quite a strong and close long-term friendship, romantic relationship, or even marriage. It is generally a long, relatively stable period. Nevertheless, continued growth and development will occur during this time. Mutual trust is important for sustaining the relationship.
  4. Deterioration – Not all relationships deteriorate, but those that do tend to show signs of trouble. Boredom, resentment, and dissatisfaction may occur, and individuals may communicate less and avoid self-disclosure. Loss of trust and betrayals may take place as the downward spiral continues, eventually ending the relationship. (Alternately, the participants may find some way to resolve the problems and reestablish trust and belief in others.)
  5. Ending – The final stage marks the end of the relationship, either by breakups, death, or by spatial separation for quite some time and severing all existing ties of either friendship or romantic love.

Terminating a relationship:

According to the latest Systematic Review of the Economic Literature on the Factors associated with Life Satisfaction (dating from 2007), stable and secure relationships are beneficial, and correspondingly, relationship dissolution is harmful.

The American Psychological Association has summarized the evidence on breakups. Breaking up can actually be a positive experience when the relationship did not expand the self and when the breakup leads to personal growth. They also recommend some ways to cope with the experience:
  • Purposefully focussing on the positive aspects of the breakup ("factors leading up to the break-up, the actual break-up, and the time right after the break-up")
  • Minimising the negative emotions
  • Journaling the positive aspects of the breakup (e.g. "comfort, confidence, empowerment, energy, happiness, optimism, relief, satisfaction, thankfulness, and wisdom"). This exercise works best, although not exclusively, when the breakup is mutual.

Less time between a breakup and a subsequent relationship predicts higher self-esteem, attachment security, emotional stability, respect for your new partner, and greater well-being.

Furthermore, rebound relationships don't last any shorter than regular relationships: 
  • 60% of people are friends with one or more ex. 
  • 60% of people have had an off-and-on relationship.
  • 37% of cohabiting couples,
  • and 23% of the married, have broken up and gotten back together with their existing partner.

Terminating a marital relationship implies a divorce. One reason cited for divorce is infidelity. The determinants of unfaithfulness are debated by dating service providers, feminists, academics and science communicators.

According to Psychology Today, women's, rather than men's, level of commitment more strongly determines if a relationship will continue.

Pathological relationships:

Abusive:

Abusive relationships involve either maltreatment or violence from one individual to another and include physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional maltreatment. 

Abusive relationships within the family are very prevalent in the United States and usually involve women or children as victims.

Common individual factors for abusers include:
  • low self-esteem,
  • poor impulse control,
  • external locus of control,
  • drug use,
  • alcohol abuse,
  • and negative affectivity.

There are also external factors such as stress, poverty, and loss which contribute to likelihood of abuse.

Codependent:

Codependency initially focused on a codependent partner enabling substance abuse, but has become more broadly defined to describe a dysfunctional relationship with extreme dependence on or preoccupation with another person.

There are some who even refer to codependency as an addiction to the relationship. The focus of a codependent individual tends to be on the emotional state, behavioral choices, thoughts, and beliefs of another person. Often those who are codependent neglect themselves in favor of taking care of others and have difficulty fully developing their identity on their own.

Narcissists:

Narcissists focus on themselves and often distance themselves from intimate relationships; the focus of narcissistic interpersonal relationships is to promote one's self-concept.

Generally, narcissists show less empathy in relationships and view love pragmatically or as a game involving others' emotions.

Importance:

Human beings are innately social and are shaped by their experiences with others. There are multiple perspectives to understand this inherent motivation to interact with others.

Need to belong:

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, humans need to feel love (sexual/nonsexual) and acceptance from social groups (family, peer groups).

In fact, the need to belong is so innately ingrained that it may be strong enough to overcome physiological and safety needs, such as children's attachment to abusive parents or staying in abusive romantic relationships. Such examples illustrate the extent to which the psychobiological drive to belong is entrenched.

Social exchange:

Another way to appreciate the importance of relationships is in terms of a reward framework.

This perspective suggests that individuals engage in relations that are rewarding in both tangible and intangible ways. The concept fits into a larger theory of social exchange. This theory is based on the idea that relationships develop as a result of cost-benefit analysis.

Individuals seek out rewards in interactions with others and are willing to pay a cost for said rewards. In the best-case scenario, rewards will exceed costs, producing a net gain. This can lead to "shopping around" or constantly comparing alternatives to maximize the benefits or rewards while minimizing costs.

Relational self:

Relationships are also important for their ability to help individuals develop a sense of self.

The relational self is the part of an individual's self-concept that consists of the feelings and beliefs that one has regarding oneself that develops based on interactions with others. In other words, one's emotions and behaviors are shaped by prior relationships. Thus, relational self theory posits that prior and existing relationships influence one's emotions and behaviors in interactions with new individuals, particularly those individuals that remind him or her of others in his or her life.

Studies have shown that exposure to someone who resembles a significant other activates specific self-beliefs, changing how one thinks about oneself in the moment more so than exposure to someone who does not resemble one's significant other.

Power and dominance:

​Power is the ability to influence the behavior of other people. When two parties have or assert unequal levels of power, one is termed "dominant" and the other "submissive". 

Expressions of dominance can communicate intention to assert or maintain dominance in a relationship.

Being submissive can be beneficial because it saves time, emotional stress, and may avoid hostile actions such as withholding of resources, cessation of cooperation, termination of the relationship, maintaining a grudge, or even physical violence. Submission occurs in different degrees; for example, some employees may follow orders without question, whereas others might express disagreement but concede when pressed.

Groups of people can form a dominance hierarchy. For example, a hierarchical organization uses a command hierarchy for top-down management. This can reduce time wasted in conflict over unimportant decisions, prevents inconsistent decisions from harming the operations of the organization, maintain alignment of a large population of workers with the goals of the owners (which the workers might not personally share) and if promotion is based on merit, help ensure that the people with the best expertise make important decisions.

This contrasts with group decision-making and systems which encourage decision-making and self-organization by front-line employees, who in some cases may have better information about customer needs or how to work efficiently. Dominance is only one aspect of organizational structure.

A power structure describes power and dominance relationships in a larger society. For example, a feudal society under a monarchy exhibits a strong dominance hierarchy in both economics and physical power, whereas dominance relationships in a society with democracy and capitalism are more complicated.

In business relationships, dominance is often associated with economic power. For example, a business may adopt a submissive attitude to customer preferences (stocking what customers want to buy) and complaints ("the customer is always right") in order to earn more money.

A firm with monopoly power may be less responsive to customer complaints because it can afford to adopt a dominant position. In a business partnership a "silent partner" is one who adopts a submissive position in all aspects, but retains financial ownership and a share of the profits.

Two parties can be dominant in different areas. For example, in a friendship or romantic relationship, one person may have strong opinions about where to eat dinner, whereas the other has strong opinions about how to decorate a shared space. It could be beneficial for the party with weak preferences to be submissive in that area, because it will not make them unhappy and avoids conflict with the party that would be unhappy.

​The breadwinner model is associated with gender role assignments where the male in a heterosexual marriage would be dominant in all areas.

​Relationship satisfaction:

Social exchange theory and Rusbult's investment model shows that relationship satisfaction is based on three factors: rewards, costs, and comparison levels (Miller, 2012).

Rewards refer to any aspects of the partner or relationship that are positive. Conversely, costs are the negative or unpleasant aspects of the partner or their relationship. Comparison level includes what each partner expects of the relationship. The comparison level is influenced by past relationships, and general relationship expectations they are taught by family and friends.

Individuals in long-distance relationships, LDRs, rated their relationships as more satisfying than individuals in proximal relationship, PRs. Alternatively, Holt and Stone (1988) found that long-distance couples who were able to meet with their partner at least once a month had similar satisfaction levels to unmarried couples who cohabitated.

Also, the relationship satisfaction was lower for members of LDRs who saw their partner less frequently than once a month. LDR couples reported the same level of relationship satisfaction as couples in PRs, despite only seeing each other on average once every 23 days.

Social exchange theory and the investment model both theorize that relationships that are high in costs would be less satisfying than relationships that are low in costs. LDRs have a higher level of costs than PRs, therefore, one would assume that LDRs are less satisfying than PRs.

Individuals in LDRs are more satisfied with their relationships compared to individuals in PRs. This can be explained by unique aspects of the LDRs, how the individuals use relationship maintenance behaviors, and the attachment styles of the individuals in the relationships. Therefore, the costs and benefits of the relationship are subjective to the individual, and people in LDRs tend to report lower costs and higher rewards in their relationship compared to PRs.

Theories and empirical research:

Confucianism:

Confucianism is a study and theory of relationships especially within hierarchies. Social harmony—the central goal of Confucianism—results in part from every individual knowing his or her place in the social order, and playing his or her part well. Particular duties arise from each person's particular situation in relation to others.

The individual stands simultaneously in several different relationships with different people: as a junior in relation to parents and elders, and as a senior in relation to younger siblings, students, and others. Juniors are considered in Confucianism to owe their seniors reverence and seniors have duties of benevolence and concern toward juniors. A focus on mutuality is prevalent in East Asian cultures to this day.

Minding relationships:

The mindfulness theory of relationships shows how closeness in relationships may be enhanced. Minding is the "reciprocal knowing process involving the nonstop, interrelated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons in a relationship." Five components of "minding" include:
  1. Knowing and being known: seeking to understand the partner
  2. Making relationship-enhancing attributions for behaviors: giving the benefit of the doubt
  3. Accepting and respecting: empathy and social skills
  4. Maintaining reciprocity: active participation in relationship enhancement
  5. Continuity in minding: persisting in mindfulness

In popular culture:

Popular perceptions:

Popular perceptions of intimate relationships are strongly influenced by movies and television. Common messages are that love is predestined, love at first sight is possible, and that love with the right person always succeeds.

Those who consume the most romance-related media tend to believe in predestined romance and that those who are destined to be together implicitly understand each other. These beliefs, however, can lead to less communication and problem-solving as well as giving up on relationships more easily when conflict is encountered.

Social media:

Social media has changed the face of interpersonal relationships. Romantic interpersonal relationships are no less impacted. For example, in the United States, Facebook has become an integral part of the dating process for emerging adults.

Social media can have both positive and negative impacts on romantic relationships. For example, supportive social networks have been linked to more stable relationships.

However, social media usage can also facilitate conflict, jealousy, and passive aggressive behaviors such as spying on a partner. Aside from direct effects on the development, maintenance, and perception of romantic relationships, excessive social network usage is linked to jealousy and dissatisfaction in relationships.

A growing segment of the population is engaging in purely online dating, sometimes but not always moving towards traditional face-to-face interactions. These online relationships differ from face-to-face relationships; for example, self-disclosure may be of primary importance in developing an online relationship.

​Conflict management differs, since avoidance is easier and conflict resolution skills may not develop in the same way. Additionally, the definition of infidelity is both broadened and narrowed, since physical infidelity becomes easier to conceal but emotional infidelity (e.g. chatting with more than one online partner) becomes a more serious offense.

​See also:






​
Homemaker as Husband or Wife Pictured below: Who’s Cleaning the House?​ (Psychology Today 9/19/2017)
Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a house or estate, and the managing of other domestic concerns.

A person in charge of the homemaking, who is not employed outside the home, is in the United States is called a homemaker, a term for a housewife or a househusband. The term "homemaker", however, may also refer to a social worker who manages a household during the incapacity of the housewife or househusband.

Housework is not always a lifetime commitment; many, for economic or personal reasons, return to the workplace. In previous decades, there were a number of mandatory courses for the young to learn the skills of homemaking.

In high school, courses included: 
More recently, most of these courses have been abolished, and many youths in high school and college would likely study child development and the management of children's behavior.

Homemaking and marriage:

19th century: 

Early nineteenth-century ideals required homemaking be the responsibility of the woman; “the wife is properly supposed to be the light and centre of the home.” Traditional wives who stayed home and did not work were required by social ideals to create and maintain a peaceful space to provide to her husband and children.

For women in a pre-modern environment, “it is the duty and privilege and solemn responsibility, which make this art of home-making more interesting and important to her than any other art in the world.” Author of these statements, Annie Swan was not alone in the late 1800s viewpoint that women were encouraged, if not required, to maintain the home solely themselves.

In 1875, Harper’s Bazaar published an article outlining the duties of a housewife and the esteemed respect those duties deserve: “but if one only staid to think how countless and how onerous those duties really are, more respect would be paid to the faithful effort to perform the, and an added reverence extended to the mother who is also the housekeeper.” Although Harper’s Bazaar recognizes that women do the majority of the work within the home, the article suggests that the work is detailed and at many times, difficult.

20th century:

The 20th century began with similar homemaking roles as the 19th; however, the century concluded with a much different perception.

In the late 1990s, marriage consisted in most cases of both wife and husband participating in homemaking. Darlene Piña and Vern Bengtson who are anthropologists and professors at the University of Southern California, extensively researched marriage dynamics and household labor in the late twentieth century. They concluded that “all wives benefit equally by their husbands’ greater involvement in household labor.”

The division of labor within the home promotes a healthy relationship between man and wife. Concluding, that likelihood of increased happiness within marriage is vastly improved when homemaking is shared with the husband. West and Zimmerman, concluded an analysis of over 487 couples and found that “women were rewarded for performing feminine behaviors, such as housework, whereas men receive positive reinforcement for engaging in masculine tasks, such breadwinning.”

In contrast, a study performed by Hochschild in 1989, concluded that even when wives contributed more than 50% of the household income they often still performed more household labor than their husbands. Hochschild’s study directly debunked the previous theory that women performed housework because they contributed significantly less to household income.

Instead, the results of the study indicated that even in marriage dynamics where women contributed more than half of the household income, they still completed the vast majority of homemaking tasks.

Married women who are economically and emotionally dependent on their husbands are less likely to report the division of household labor as unfair. This significant group of married women felt that household labor reinforced their female gender identity and connection to femininity.

21st century:

Sex and gender continue to shape the division of household responsibilities in the United States in the twenty-first century. According to the 2018 American Time Use Survey, 84 percent of women and 69 percent of men reported that they spent some time performing household duties, which included "housework, cooking, lawn care, or household management."

Women reported spending an average of 2.6 hours a day on household activities, and men 2.0 hours. On a surveyed day, 49% percent of women and 20% of men reported doing housework.

Men and women's perception of household responsibilities differ. Pew Research Center's 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that fathers were more likely than mothers to say that chores were evenly split between both partners (56% vs. 46%). When asked, 50% of mothers reported they handled more responsibilities around the house than their partners; only 12% of fathers reported they did more household tasks.

Despite this difference in perception, a majority of married U.S. adults (56%) said that sharing household chores as "very important" to a successful marriage.

In a 2008 article, social scientists Susan L. Brown and Sayaka Kawamura reported that the unequal distribution in housework was attributed mainly to time availability. They concluded: “wives typically work fewer hours than their husbands, [so] they have more time available to perform household tasks.”

Housekeeping:

Housekeeping by the homemaker is the care and control of property, ensuring its maintenance and proper use and appearance.

A home is a place of residence. In a private home a maid or housekeeper might be employed to do some of the housekeeping. Housework is work done by the act of housekeeping. Some housekeeping is housecleaning and some housekeeping is home chores.

Home chores are housework that needs to be done at regular intervals, Housekeeping includes the budget and control of expenditures, preparing meals and buying food, paying the heat bill, and cleaning the house.

Cooking:
Main article: Cooking
See also:  ​
Most modern-day houses contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food.

A kitchen is a room or part of a room used by the Homemaker for cooking, food preparation and food preservation.

In the West, a modern kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, an oven, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. Many homemakers use a microwave oven, a dishwasher and other electric appliances like blender and convection cooker and automatic appliances like rotimatic and automatic cookers.

The main function of a kitchen is cooking or preparing food but it may also be used for dining and entertaining.

Cooking is the process of preparing food with or without heat, making and selecting, measuring and combining ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing safe and edible food. The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor, appearance, texture, or digestibility of food. Factors affecting the final outcome include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual doing the actual cooking.

The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural, social and religious diversity throughout the nations, races, creeds and tribes across the globe. Applying heat to a food usually, though not always, chemically transforms it, thus changing its flavor, texture, consistency, appearance, and nutritional properties. Methods of cooking that involve the boiling of liquid in a receptacle have been practiced at least since the 10th millennium BC, with the introduction of pottery.

Cleaning:

Housecleaning by the homemaker is the systematic process of making a home neat and clean. This may be applied more broadly that just an individual home, or as a metaphor for a similar "clean up" process applied elsewhere such as a procedural reform.

In the process of housecleaning general cleaning activities are completed, such as disposing of rubbish, storing of belongings in regular places, cleaning dirty surfaces, dusting and vacuuming.

The details of this are various and complicated enough that many books have been published on the subject. How-to sites on the internet have many articles on housecleaning. Tools include the vacuum cleaner, broom and mop. Supplies such as cleaning solutions and sponges are sold in grocery stores and elsewhere.

Professional cleaners can be hired for less frequent or specialist tasks such as cleaning blinds, rugs, and sofas. Professional services are also offered for the basic tasks. Safety is a consideration because some cleaning products are toxic and some cleaning tasks are physically demanding. Green cleaning refers to cleaning without causing pollution. The history of housecleaning has links to the advancement of technology.

Outdoor housecleaning chores include removing leaves from rain gutters, washing windows, sweeping doormats, cleaning the pool, putting away lawn furniture, and taking out the trash.

Laundry:
See also: Ironing
​
​Laundry refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered. Various chemicals may be used to increase the solvent power of water, such as the compounds in soaproot or yucca-root used by Native American tribes. 

Soap, a compound made from lye (from wood-ash) and fat, is an ancient and very common laundry aid. Modern washing machines typically use powdered or liquid laundry detergent in place of more traditional soap. Once clean, the clothes have been wrung out — twisted to remove most of the water. Then they were hung up on poles or clotheslines to air dry, or sometimes just spread out on clean grass.

Washing machines and dryers are now fixtures in homes around the world. In some parts of the world, including the USA, Canada, and Switzerland, apartment buildings and dormitories often have laundry rooms, where residents share washing machines and dryers. Usually the machines are set to run only when money is put in a coin slot.

In other parts of the world, apartment buildings with laundry rooms are uncommon, and each apartment may have its own washing machine. Those without a machine at home or the use of a laundry room must either wash their clothes by hand or visit a commercial laundromat.

A clothes dryer is a household appliance that is used to remove moisture from a load of clothing and other textiles, generally shortly after they are cleaned in a washing machine.

Most dryers consist of a rotating drum called a tumbler through which heated air is circulated to evaporate the moisture from the load. The tumbler is rotated relatively slowly in order to maintain space between the articles in the load. In most cases, the tumbler is belt-driven by an induction motor.

Using these machines may cause clothes to shrink, become less soft (due to loss of short soft fibers/ lint) and fade. For these reasons, as well as environmental concerns, many people use open air methods such as a clothes line and clotheshorse.

Laundry starch is used in the laundering of clothes. Starch was widely used in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries to stiffen the wide collars and ruffs of fine linen which surrounded the necks of the well-to-do.

During the 19th century and early 20th century, it was stylish to stiffen the collars and sleeves of men's shirts and the ruffles of girls' petticoats by applying starch to them as the clean clothes were being ironed. Aside from the smooth, crisp edges it gave to clothing, it served practical purposes as well. 

​Dirt and sweat from a person's neck and wrists would stick to the starch rather than to the fibers of the clothing, and would easily wash away along with the starch. After each laundering, the starch would be reapplied. Today the product is sold in aerosol cans for home use. Kitchen starch used thickening agent for food can also be applied to laundered fabrics (requires boiling).

​Maintenance:
Main article: Maintenance, repair and operations

Homemakers that follow predictive maintenance techniques determine the condition of in-service equipment in order to predict when maintenance should be performed. This approach offers cost savings over routine or time-based maintenance, because tasks are performed only when warranted.

Homemakers that follow preventive maintenance methods ensure that household equipment and the house are in satisfactory operating condition by providing for inspection, detection, and correction of incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major defects.

Home maintenance:
Main articles: 
Home maintenance involves the diagnosis and resolution of problems in a home, and is related to home maintenance to avoid such problems. Many types of maintenance are "Do it yourself" (DIY) projects. Maintenance is not necessarily the same as home improvement, although many improvements can result from repairs or maintenance.

Often the costs of larger repairs will justify the alternative of investment in full-scale improvements. It may make just as much sense to upgrade a home system (with an improved one) as to repair it or incur ever-more-frequent and expensive maintenance for an inefficient, obsolete or dying system. For a DIY project, also useful is the established limits on time and money investments before a repair (or list of repairs) become overwhelming and discouraging, and less likely to ever be completed.

Lawn maintenance:
Main articles: Lawn care and Gardening

Homemakers that have a lawn responsibility adhere to seasonal lawn care practices, which vary to some extent depending on the climate zone and type of grass that is grown (whether cool season or warm season varieties). Various recognized method used by homemakers in lawn care are observed in any area. In spring or early summer, homemakers seed, sod, or sprig a yard when the ground is warmer.

In Summer lawn mowers are used at high cutting for cool season grass, and lower cutting for warm season lawns. In autumn, lawns are mown by homemakers at a lower height and thatch build-up that occurs in warm season grasses are removed.

Homemakers do add sandy loam and apply fertilizer, containing some type of wetting agent. Cool season lawns are planted in the autumn with adequate rainfall. Lawn care in the winter is minimal, requiring only light feedings of organic material, such as green-waste compost, and minerals to encourage earthworms and beneficial microbes.

Management:

Household management by the homemaker is the act of overseeing the organizational, financial, and day-to-day operations of a house or estate. It differs from housekeeping, which consists of the physical maintenance and cleaning of a house.

Also common in the U.S are homemaking parties which involve a group of people doing household work instead of hanging out with their friends.

House organization:

House organization or home organization includes interior design to make the home aesthetically pleasing by arranging furniture, plants, blinds, and so forth. De-cluttering means removing unnecessary things from the house.

De-cluttering:

Household de-cluttering involves putting things in their proper place after they have been used. "Cleaning up your mess" might involve removing glasses or eating utensils from the living room if you have eaten a meal there in front of the television. If several people have done that over a few days and not removed their glasses, dishes and utensils from the living room, the living room is considered to be "cluttered" with dishes.

The dishes are out of place because they belong in the kitchen, washed and put away in the cupboards. That is the most common example of clutter in a modern American household.

There is another definition of clutter, which refers to having simply too many things and not enough room for all of it. Sometimes as happens in Asian households, the items are necessary, but the home is simply too small, and ingenious methods are needed to organize everything to minimize unsightly clutter.

Removing unneeded or no longer necessary objects from a household or home is also an aspect of de-cluttering. Objects can be given away to friends or charitable organizations, sold as second-hand, recycled or thrown away.

Extreme forms of an inability to de-clutter is a behavioral aspect of compulsive hoarding. On the other end, a society that relies overly much on generating and then disposing of waste is referred to as throw-away society.

Household purchasing:
Main articles: Purchasing, Household budget, and Shopping

Household purchasing refers to homemaker's attempt to acquire goods or services to accomplish the goals of the household. Though there are several households that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between households.

Typically the word “purchasing” is not used interchangeably with the word “procurement”, since procurement typically includes other concepts. Home makers decide the market goods that the household will buy, such as the groceries which have been bought at a grocer's.

Another important purchase handled by homemakers is the power source used for appliances. Home or other building heating may include boilers, furnaces, and water heaters. Compressed natural gas is used in rural homes without connections to piped-in public utility services, or with portable grills.

However, due to being less economical than LPG, LPG (Propane) is the dominant source of rural gas for natural gas-powered ranges and/or ovens, natural gas-heated clothes dryers, heating/cooling and central heating. The amount of usages is determined by factors such as natural gas prices.

Servants:
Main articles: Maid, Butler, and Domestic worker

Homemakers may manage household workers or "domestic workers".

Work strategies:
Main articles: Household and Employment

In sociology, household work strategy is the division of labor between members of a household, whether implicit or the result of explicit decision–making, with the alternatives weighed up in a simplified type of cost-benefit analysis.

It is a plan for the relative deployment of household members' time between the three domains of employment:
  1. in the market economy, including home-based self-employment second jobs, in order to obtain money to buy goods and services in the market;
  2. domestic production work, such as cultivating a vegetable patch or raising chickens, purely to supply food to the household; and
  3. domestic consumption work to provide goods and services directly within the household, such as cooking meals, child–care, household repairs, or the manufacture of clothes and gifts.

Household work strategies may vary over the life-cycle, as household members age, or with the economic environment; they may be imposed by one person or be decided collectively.

Household production:

"Household production" is an economic category for activities including homemaking. It is defined as "the production of the goods and services by the members of a household, for their own consumption, using their own capital and their own unpaid labor.

Goods and services produced by households for their own use include accommodation, meals, clean clothes, and child care. The process of household production involves the transformation of purchased intermediate commodities into final consumption commodities. Households use their own capital and their own labor."

There are efforts to construct estimates of the value of household production in a way analogous to GDP, though the category is not usually included in GDP. Goods and services created by households are generally consumed within the same country, and hence contribute in a "Domestic Consumption" category in national accounts.

​Wages for housework:

The International Wages for Housework Campaign was a global, social movement co-founded in 1972 in Padua, Italy, by author and activist Selma James. The Campaign was formed to raise awareness of how housework and childcare are the base of all industrial work and to stake the claim that these unavoidable tasks should be compensated as paid, wage labor.

The demands for the Wages for Housework formally called for economic compensation for domestic work but also used these demands to more generally call attention to the affective labors of women, the reliance of capitalist economies on exploitative labor practices against women, and leisure inequality.

Effects of technology and advertising:

Many home appliances have been invented that make housework faster or more effective compared to before the industrial revolution.

These include:
Utilities can potentially eliminate work like gathering and chopping firewood, shovelling coal, fetching water from outdoors, and heating cold tap water.

Historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan estimated that homemakers in the 1800s performed about 50–60 hours of work per week, and that this is the same as the 1990s. She says that, rather than reducing the amount of time devoted to housework, labor-saving devices have been used to make the same amount of time do more work, such as by vacuuming a rug instead of sweeping it, or washing fabrics more frequently. Modern parents also more frequently transport their children to after-school activities, and doctors no longer make house calls.

See also






​
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993Pictured below: Know Your Rights at Work: Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a United States labor law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons.

The FMLA was a major part of President Bill Clinton's first-term domestic agenda, and he signed it into law on February 5, 1993. The FMLA is administered by the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor.

The FMLA allows eligible employees to take up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period to care for a new child, care for a seriously ill family member, or recover from a serious illness.

The FMLA covers both public- and private-sector employees, but certain categories of employees, including elected officials and highly compensated employees, are excluded from the law or face certain limitations.

In order to be eligible for FMLA leave, an employee must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months, have worked at least 1,250 hours over the past 12 months, and work for an employer with at least fifty employees. Several states have passed laws providing additional family and medical leave protections for workers.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993: ​







Spectator SportsPictured below: The Most Popular Spectator Sports Worldwide
A spectator sport is a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its competitions. Spectator sports may be professional sports or amateur sports. They often are distinguished from participant sports, which are more recreational.

Most popular sports are both spectator and participant, for example: 
Less popular sports are mainly participant sports, for example hunting.

The increasing broadcasting of sports events, along with media reporting can affect the number of people attending sports due to the ability to experience the sport without the need to physically attend and sometimes an increasingly enhanced experience including highlights, replays, commentary, statistics and analysis. Some sports are particularly known as "armchair sports" or "lounge room sports" due to the quality of the broadcasting experience in comparison to the live experience.

Spectator sports have built their own set of culture and traditions including, in the United States, cheerleading and pre-game and half time entertainment such as fireworks, particularly for big games such as competition decider events and international tests. The passion of some sports fans also means that there are occasionally spectator incidents.

The North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) devotes much of their annual conference to research addressing the psychology behind a desire to view spectator sports, and how it might be leveraged to increase demand. Much of the research focuses on exploiting a need for vicarious achievement, and a desire within the spectator to project a public image through a declaration of team allegiance.

​Separation of the active and the passive, the line between sport and spectator, gives rise to the paradox of the spectator—described by French philosopher Jacques Rancière; which is to seek an opportunity to passively contemplate engaging in an activity, and in doing so, forfeit that life moment one might have used to actually engage in the activity.

See also:







Vacation Rentals vs. Timeshare:  Which is better for You?Pictured below: Vacation Rental Travelers Relax More, Finds Wyndham Vacation Rentals® Study
Vacation rental

A vacation rental is the renting out of a furnished apartment, house, or professionally managed resort-condominium complex on a temporary basis to tourists as an alternative to a hotel.

The term vacation rental is mainly used in the US. In Europe the term villa rental or villa holiday is preferred for rentals of detached houses in warm climates. Other terms used are self-catering rentals, holiday homes, holiday lets (in the United Kingdom), cottage holidays (for rentals of smaller accommodation in rural locations) and gites (in rural locations in France).

Vacation rentals have long been a popular travel option in Europe (especially in the UK) as well as in Canada and are becoming increasingly popular across the world.

​Types of accommodation:

Vacation rentals usually occur in privately owned vacation properties (holiday homes), so the variety of accommodation is broad and inconsistent. The property is a fully furnished property, such as a holiday villa, apartment, cottage, condominium, townhome or single-family-style home. 

Farm stay can encompass participation on a working farm, or a more conventional rental that happens to be co-located on a farm. The client/traveler arranges to rent the vacation rental property for a designated period of time. Some rent on nightly basis similar to hotel rooms, although the more prevalent vacation rental industry practice is typically weekly rentals.

Vacation rentals can range from budget studio apartments to lavish, expensive private villas in the world's most desirable locations, some with pricetags of many thousands per night and all the amenities you would find in any luxury accommodation (fully staffed, private beaches, boats, chefs, cooking lessons, etc.) to cater to the guests.

Some vacation rentals, particularly condominiums or apartments, offer many of the same services hotels offer to their guests, e.g., front desk check-in, 24-hour maintenance, in-house housekeeping, and concierge service. Many "hospitality, timeshare and premier independent resorts...that until now, access to these resort-condominium complexes was available exclusively through purchase options such as whole, fractional, or timeshare ownership," are now offering daily vacation rentals.

At the other end of the spectrum are campervan and motorhome rentals.

Locations:

Villa holidays are very popular in Europe, and main destinations include United States Virgin Islands, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, and Turkey. In France, they are known as gîtes.

Vacation rentals are available in most states of the US and is prevalent in major tourist areas such as Florida, Hawaii and California, as well as in other coastal areas with beaches, where they may be referred to as beach houses, many of which are rentals. The vacation rental market is much larger in Europe than it is in the United States, and Florida is a popular destination for villa holidays for Europeans.

Comparison with other accommodations:

Consumers unfamiliar with the concept of a vacation rental may confuse it with the seemingly similar, but distinctly different, timeshare (see next topic below).

Many timeshare resorts offer quarter ownership, which provides 13 weeks of use or rental.

A timeshare can still be made available as a vacation rental should an owner decide to put his owned week(s) on a vacation rental program. Also, a large segment of the 21% of unsold and therefore still resort-controlled inventory is made available as vacation rentals. In 2014, this was a $1.9 billion business.

A timeshare is a piece of real estate—often a fully furnished condominium—that is jointly shared by multiple owners. While different types of timeshare ownerships exist, in general, each owner bears a portion of the responsibility, along with the right to a segment of time in which he or she is granted sole use of the property.

Timeshare resorts allow financially qualified guests to rent and tour their unowned properties and then make those properties available to the guest for purchase. Timeshare owners can also choose to bank their week with an exchange company such as RCI or Interval International, or rent the unit.

Traditional hotels generally do not include vacation properties. However, some contemporary resort developments include shared ownership components such as villas and condominiums that can be either rented through the hotel or rented out by their owners either directly or through agencies.

Vacation rental market size:

Evercore estimates the global addressable vacation rental market to be $100 billion, with two-thirds of the market "for rent by owner". 

Online, listing services, agencies and management companies:

Vacation rentals and villa rentals are arranged either direct with the owner or through an agency, usually via the internet.

Many owners have their own websites, but most also use listing services, which display property information and photos provided by the homeowner. Because each property owner has his or her own deposit and payment requirements, cancellation policies, key-pick-up procedures, etc., a guest contacts the property owner directly in order to book.

There are different kinds of listing sites, with different specialisms (for example, destination-specific, luxury, rural, etc.) and features (such as instant booking or loyalty programs).

In November 2015, Expedia bought HomeAway (which also owns VRBO and many other vacation rental brands) to compete with Airbnb. 

There are also other online vacation rental sites that specialize in metasearch or resort residences. 

In contrast vacation rental agencies handle reservations and billing on the homeowner's behalf, and there is no direct contact between the guest and the owner. Because the fee or commission charged to an owner by an agency is higher than that charged by a listing service, the rent tends to be higher.

In the United Kingdom villa holidays are also sold by tour operators as packages including flights and car hire. This is convenient for guests who prefer not to make their own arrangements, but may not be cheaper and does not usually allow the guest to choose a specific property.

Most property owners contract a vacation rental management company to manage their vacation rentals. These companies handle housekeeping and property maintenance. Some management companies also act as agencies, marketing the vacation rental property, and handling reservations and billing. Most vacation rental management companies work on a commission basis, meaning they do not make a guarantee to the homeowner in terms of weeks that will be rented or revenue earned. Rather, they collect a commission ranging from 20% to 50% of any revenues generated.

An alternative arrangement is where vacation rental managers provide homeowners with a guaranteed rental. Under these arrangements vacation rental managers buy all of the weeks the homeowner wishes to rent in a single transaction. This provides the homeowner with guaranteed income, and puts the risk and management burden on the rental manager.

Travelers' concerns:

Some travelers avoid vacation rentals for fear of what industry insiders call SNAD: "Significantly Not As Described". This refers to a property that looks like paradise in the photos, only to reveal leaky roofs and blocked views upon the traveler's arrival. To reduce this risk, many vacation rental companies offer user reviews.

Another significant concern is that people may create false accounts, and advertise vacation homes which they do not in fact own. This can lead to unsuspecting customers' booking and paying for a vacation, only to find on arrival that the rental does not exist. Given that the accommodation has been booked and paid for many months in advance, the culprit may disappear without trace, leaving the customer out of pocket. 

Restrictions:

In many counties, towns and cities local authorities attempt to regulate or ban vacation rentals after complaints from local residents or competing lodging businesses. In the U.S. New York City, Chicago and other cities have introduced restrictions on short term rentals, though regulation is not always strictly enforced. The City of Portland, for example, does not allow rentals of less than 30 days in residential zones but according to local vacation property managers such as Vacasa, the average guest stays 3-10 nights.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Timeshare Properties:​
Pictured below: The Pros and Cons of Timeshare
A timeshare (sometimes called vacation ownership) is a property with a divided form of ownership or use rights.

These properties are typically resort condominium units, in which multiple parties hold rights to use the property, and each owner of the same accommodation is allotted their period of time.

Units may be sold as a partial ownership, lease, or "right to use", in which case the latter holds no claim to ownership of the property. The ownership of timeshare programs is varied, and has been changing over the decades.

History:

The term "timeshare" was coined in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s, expanding on a vacation system that became popular after World War II. 

Vacation home sharing, also known as holiday home sharing, involved four European families that would purchase a vacation cottage jointly, each having exclusive use of the property for one of the four seasons. They rotated seasons each year, so each family enjoyed the prime seasons equally.

This concept was mostly used by related families because joint ownership requires trust and no property manager was involved. However, few families vacation for an entire season at a time; so the vacation home sharing properties were often vacant for long periods.

Enterprising minds in England decided to go one step further and divide a resort room into 1/50th ownership, have two weeks each year for repairs and upgrades, and charge a maintenance fee to each owner. It took almost a decade for timeshares in Europe to evolve into a smoothly run, successful, business venture.

The first timeshare in the United States was started in 1974 by Caribbean International Corporation (CIC), based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It offered what it called a 25-year vacation license rather than ownership. The company owned two other resorts the vacation license holder could alternate their vacation weeks with: one in  St Croix and one in St. Thomas; both in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands properties began their timeshare sales in 1973.

The contract was simple and straightforward: The company, CIC, promised to maintain and provide the specified accommodation type (a studio, one bedroom, or two bedroom unit) for use by the "license owner" for a period of 25 years (from 1974 to 1999, for example) in the specified season and number of weeks agreed upon, with only two extra charges: a $15.00 per diem (per night) rate, frozen at that cost for the life of the contract. The contract had a $25.00 switching fee, should the licensee decide to use their time at one of the other resorts.

The contract was based on the fact that the cost of the license, and the small per diem, compared with the projected increase in the cost of hotel rates over 25 years to over $100.00 per night, would save the license owner many vacation dollars over the span of the license agreement.

Between 1974 and 1999, in the United States, inflation boosted the current cost of the per diem to $52.00, validating the cost savings assumption. The license owner was allowed to rent, or give their week away as a gift in any particular year. The only stipulation was that the $15.00 per diem must be paid every year whether the unit was occupied or not. This "must be paid yearly fee" would become the roots of what is known today as "maintenance fees", once the Florida Department of Real Estate became involved in regulating timeshares.

The timeshare concept in the United States caught the eye of many entrepreneurs due to the enormous profits to be made by selling the same room 52 times to 52 different owners at an average price in 1974–1976 of $3,500.00 per week.

Shortly thereafter, the Florida Real Estate Commission stepped in, enacting legislation to regulate Florida timeshares, and make them fee simple ownership transactions. This meant that in addition to the price of the owner's vacation week, a maintenance fee and a homeowners association had to be initiated. This fee simple ownership also spawned timeshare location exchange companies, such as Interval International and RCI, so owners in any given area could exchange their week with owners in other areas.

Cancellations, or rescission, of the timeshare contract, remain the industry's biggest problems to date; the difficulty has been the subject of comedy in popular entertainment.

Legislation:

The industry is regulated in all countries where resorts are located. In Europe, it is regulated by European and by national legislation. In 1994, the European Communities adopted "The European Directive 94/47/EC of the European Parliament and Council on the protection of purchasers in respect of certain aspects of contracts relating to the purchase of the right to use immovable properties on a timeshare basis", which was subject to recent review, and resulted in the adoption on the 14th of January 2009 on European Directive 2008/122/EC.

Established regulations in Mexico:

On May 17, 2010, Mexico’s Ministry of Economy through the General Directorate of Standards established new regulations and requirements for developers of timeshare services.

The new regulations are outlined in the Official Mexican Norm (NOM), which consists of a series of official standards and regulations applicable to diverse activities in Mexico. The following institutions were involved during the new standardization:
NOM is officially called: “NOM-029-SCFI-2010, Commercial Practices and Information Requirements for the Rendering of Timeshare Service". It established the following standards:
  • Marketing companies are not allowed to offer gifts and solicit for prospective timeshare owners without clearly specifying the real purpose of the offer.
  • The requirements to cancel a timeshare contract must be more practical and less burdensome.
  • NOM recognizes the privacy rights of timeshare consumers. It is strictly prohibited for the timeshare provider to dispose of the consumer's personal information without written consent.
  • Verbal promises must be written and established in the original timeshare contract.
  • The timeshare provider must comply with all obligations written in the timeshare contract, as well as the internal rules of the timeshare resort.
  • The charges that are intended to be made to the consumer must be plainly and clearing defined on the timeshare application forms, including the membership cost, and all extra fees (maintenance fees/exchange club fees).

To make the new regulations applicable to any person or entity that provides timeshares, the definition of a timeshare service provider was substantially extended and clarified. If the timeshare provider does not follow the rules decreed in NOM, the consequences may be substantial, and may include financial penalties that can range from $50.00 to $200,000.00

Methods of use:

Owners can:
  • Use their usage time
  • Rent out their owned usage
  • Give it as a gift
  • Donate it to a charity (should the charity choose to accept the burden of the associated maintenance payments)
  • Exchange internally within the same resort or resort group
  • Exchange externally into thousands of other resorts
  • Sell it either through traditional or online advertising, or by using a licensed broker. Timeshare contracts allow transfer through sale, but it is rarely accomplished.

Recently, with most point systems, owners may elect to:
  • Assign their usage time to the point system to be exchanged for airline tickets, hotels, travel packages, cruises, amusement park tickets
  • Instead of renting all their actual usage time, rent part of their points without actually getting any usage time and use the rest of the points
  • Rent more points from either the internal exchange entity or another owner to get a larger unit, more vacation time, or to a better location
  • Save or move points from one year to another

Some developers, however, may limit which of these options are available at their respective properties.

Owners can elect to stay at their resort during the prescribed period, which varies depending on the nature of their ownership. In many resorts, they can rent out their week or give it as a gift to friends and family.

Exchanging timeshares:

Used as the basis for attracting mass appeal to purchasing a timeshare, is the idea of owners exchanging their week, either independently or through exchange agencies. The two largest—often mentioned in media—are RCI and Interval International (II), which combined, have over 7,000 resorts. They have resort affiliate programs, and members can only exchange with affiliated resorts.

It is most common for a resort to be affiliated with only one of the larger exchange agencies, although resorts with dual affiliations are not uncommon. The timeshare resort one purchases determines which of the exchange companies can be used to make exchanges. RCI and II charge a yearly membership fee, and additional fees for when they find an exchange for a requesting member, and bar members from renting weeks for which they already have exchanged.

Owners can also exchange their weeks or points through independent exchange companies.

Owners can exchange without needing the resort to have a formal affiliation agreement with the companies, if the resort of ownership agrees to such arrangements in the original contract.

Due to the promise of exchange, timeshares often sell regardless of the location of their deeded resort. What is not often disclosed is the difference in trading power depending on the location, and season of the ownership.

If a resort is in a prime vacation region, it will exchange extremely well depending on the season and week that is assigned to the particular unit trying to make an exchange. However, timeshares in highly desirable locations and high season time slots are the most expensive in the world, subject to demand typical of any heavily trafficked vacation area.

An individual who owns a timeshare in the American desert community of Palm Springs, California in the middle of July or August will possess a much reduced ability to exchange time, because fewer come to a resort at a time when the temperatures are in excess of 110 °F (43 °C).

Varieties:

Deeded versus right-to-use contracts:

A major difference in types of vacation ownership is between deeded and right-to-use contracts.

With deeded contracts the use of the resort is usually divided into week-long increments and are sold as real property via fractional ownership. As with any other piece of real estate, the owner may do whatever is desired: use the week, rent it, give it away, leave it to heirs, or sell the week to another prospective buyer. The owner is also liable for an equal portion of the real estate taxes, which usually are collected with condominium maintenance fees. The owner can potentially deduct some property-related expenses, such as real estate taxes from taxable income.

Deeded ownership can be as complex as outright property ownership in that the structure of deeds vary according to local property laws. Leasehold deeds are common and offer ownership for a fixed period of time after which the ownership reverts to the freeholder.

Occasionally, leasehold deeds are offered in perpetuity, however many deeds do not convey ownership of the land, but merely the apartment or unit (housing) of the accommodation.

With right-to-use contracts, a purchaser has the right to use the property in accordance with the contract, but at some point the contract ends and all rights revert to the property owner.

Thus, a right-to-use contract grants the right to use the resort for a specific number of years.

In many countries there are severe limits on foreign property ownership; thus, this is a common method for developing resorts in countries such as Mexico.

Care should be taken with this form of ownership as the right to use often takes the form of a club membership or the right to use the reservation system, where the reservation system is owned by a company not in the control of the owners. 

The right to use may be lost with the demise of the controlling company, because a right to use purchaser's contract is usually only good with the current owner, and if that owner sells the property, the lease holder could be out of luck depending on the structure of the contract, and/or current laws in foreign venues.

Fixed-week ownership:

The most common unit of sale is a fixed week; the resort will have a calendar enumerating the weeks roughly starting with the first calendar week of the year. An owner may own a deed to use a unit for a single specified week; for example, week 51 typically includes Christmas. An individual who owns Week 26 at a resort can use only that week in each year.

Floating-week ownership:

Sometimes units are sold as floating weeks, in which a contract specifies the number of weeks held by each owner and from which weeks the owner may select for his stay. An example of this may be a floating summer week, in which the owner may choose any single week during the summer. In such a situation, there is likely to be greater competition during weeks featuring holidays, while lesser competition is likely when schools are still in session.

Some floating contracts exclude major holidays so they may be sold as fixed weeks.

Rotating or flex-week ownership:

Some are sold as rotating weeks, commonly referred to as flex weeks. In an attempt to give all owners a chance for the best weeks, the weeks are rotated forward or backward through the calendar, so in year 1 the owner may have use of week 25, then week 26 in year 2, and then week 27 in year 3. This method gives each owner a fair opportunity for prime weeks, but unlike its name, it is not flexible.

Points programs:

A variant form of real estate-based timeshare that combines features of deeded timeshare with right-to-use offerings was developed by Disney Vacation Club (DVC) in 1991.

Purchasers of DVC timeshare interests, whom DVC calls members receive a deed conveying an undivided real property interest in a timeshare unit. Each DVC member's property interest is accompanied by an annual allotment of vacation points in proportion to the size of the property interest.

DVC's vacation points system is marketed as highly flexible and may be used in different increments for vacation stays at DVC resorts in a variety of accommodations from studios to three-bedroom villas. DVC's vacation points can be exchanged for vacations worldwide in non-Disney resorts, or may be banked into or borrowed from future years.

DVC's deeded/vacation point structure, which has been used at all of its timeshare resorts, has been adopted by other large timeshare developers including:
Resort-based points programs are also sold as deeded and as right to use. Points programs annually give the owner a number of points equal to the level of ownership. The owner in a points program can then use these points to make travel arrangements within the resort group. Many points programs are affiliated with large resort groups offering a large selection of options for destination.

Many resort point programs provide flexibility from the traditional week stay. Resort point program members, such as WorldMark by Wyndham and Diamond Resorts International, may request from the entire available inventory of the resort group.

A points program member may often request fractional weeks as well as full or multiple week stays. The number of points required to stay at the resort in question will vary based on a points chart.

The points chart will allow for factors such as:
  • Popularity of the resort
  • Size of the accommodations
  • Number of nights
  • Desirability of the season

Types and sizes of accommodations:

Timeshare properties tend to be apartment style accommodations ranging in size from studio units (with room for two), to three and four bedroom units. These larger units can usually accommodate large families comfortably.

Units normally include fully equipped kitchens with a dining area, dishwasher, televisions, DVD players, etc. It is not uncommon to have washers and dryers in the unit or accessible on the resort property. The kitchen area and amenities will reflect the size of the particular unit in question.

Units are usually listed by how many the unit will sleep and how many the unit will sleep privately. Traditionally, but not exclusively:
  • Sleeps 2/2 would normally be a one bedroom or studio
  • Sleeps 6/4 would normally be a two bedroom with a sleeper sofa

(Timeshares are sold worldwide, and every venue has its own unique descriptions)

Sleep privately usually refers to the number of guests who will not have to walk through another guest's sleeping area to use a restroom. Timeshare resorts tend to be strict on the number of guests permitted per unit.

Unit size affects the cost and demand at any given resort. The same does not hold true comparing resorts in different locations. A one-bedroom unit in a desirable location may still be more expensive and in higher demand than a two-bedroom accommodation in a resort with less demand. An example of this may be a one-bedroom at a desirable beach resort compared to a two-bedroom unit at a resort located inland from the same beach.

Sales incentives:

The timeshare will often provide incentives for the prospective buyer to take a tour of the property:
  • A stay at a vacation resort at a discounted rate (The vacation resort is a timeshare, and a sale is the objective)
  • Gifts (that may range from luggage to a toaster to a tablet to partial reimbursement towards the cost of the stay)
  • Prepaid tickets (to a movie, play, or other forms of entertainment available in the general area of the resort)
  • Gambling chips (usually at a timeshare resort that has legalized gambling)
  • Various prepaid activities coupons, usually for use in or near the vacation venue
  • Giftcards or similar pre-paid cards to reimburse a portion of the cost of staying at the resort/location.

The vacationing timeshare prospects are presented these incentives in exchange for the promise to the marketing company that they agree to take a timeshare tour before the completion of their stay. If the vacationing prospects refuse to take the tour, they may find the price of their accommodations significantly increased, perhaps be directed to leave the property, and all incentives withdrawn or voided.

The tour:

The prospective buyers (hereby referred to as prospects) are seated in a hospitality room (a term designated by the land sales industry in the 1960s) with many tables and chairs to accommodate families. The prospects are assigned a tour guide. This individual is usually a licensed real estate agent, but not in all cases.

The actual cost of the timeshare can only be quoted by a licensed real estate agent in the United States, unless the purchase is a right to use as opposed to an actual real estate transaction via ownership.

Since timeshares are sold internationally, these laws vary from venue to venue. After a warm-up period and some coffee or snack, there will be a podium speaker welcoming the prospects to the resort, followed by a film designed to dazzle them with exotic places they could visit as timeshare owners.

The prospects will then be invited to take a tour of the property. Depending on the resort's available inventory, the tour will include an accommodation that the tour guide or agent feels will best fit the prospect's family's needs. After the tour and subsequent return to the hospitality room for the verbal sales presentation, the prospects are given a brief history of timeshare and how it relates to the vacation industry today.

During the presentation they will be handed the resort exchange book from RCI, Interval International, or whatever exchange company is associated with that particular resort property. The prospects will be asked to tell the tour guide the places they would like to visit if they were timeshare owners. The rest of the presentation will be designed around the responses the prospective buyers give to that question.

If the guide is licensed, the prospect will be quoted the retail price of the particular unit that best seemed to fit the prospective buyer's needs. If the tour guide is not a licensed agent, a licensed agent will now step in to present the price.

If the prospect replies with "no", or "I would like to think about it", the prospect will then be given a new incentive to buy. This incentive will usually be a discounted price that will only be good today (good today only is an untrue statement, and has been used as a sales closing device since day one of the timeshare industry's inception).

If again, the reply is "no", or "I would like to think about it", the sales agent will ask the prospect to please talk to one of the managers before the prospect leaves. It is at this moment that the prospect realizes that the tour has actually just begun.

A sales manager, assistant manager or project director will now be called to the table. This procedure is called: "T.O.", or getting the turn over man to find an incentive usually in the form of a smaller less expensive unit or a trade in unit from another owner. This tactic is commonly used as a sales ploy, because the resort is not interested in reselling already deeded property.

​Similar to the automobile sales industry, the manager and salesman know beforehand exactly what the lowest price is that will be offered to the prospect, well before the prospect has arrived for the tour. If one incentive doesn't move a prospect to purchase, another will follow shortly, until the prospect has either purchased, convinced the usually very polite sales crew that no means no, or has gotten up from the table and exited the building.

Cancellation of a timeshare contract:

Timeshare sales are often high-pressure and fast-moving affairs. Some people get caught up in the excitement of the sales presentation and sign a contract, only to realize later that they may have made a mistake.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission mandates a "cool off period" that allows people to cancel some types of purchases without penalty within three days. Additionally, almost all U.S. states have laws that specifically govern cancellation of timeshare contracts.

In Florida, a new timeshare owner can cancel the purchase within ten days. The law differs by jurisdiction as to whether out-of-state purchasers are subject to the rescission period of their state of residence, or the rescission period of the state where the timeshare purchase was made (e.g., in Florida, the 10-day rescission period applies to all buyers; thus, a Texas buyer who would only have five days in Texas, has the whole 10-day period allotted by Florida Statutes).

Another common practice is to have the prospective buyer sign a "cancellation waiver", using it as an excuse to lower the price of the timeshare in exchange for the buyer waiving cancellation rights (or paying a penalty, such as losing 10% of the purchase price, if the sale is cancelled).

However, such a waiver is not legally enforceable anywhere in Mexico or the United States. If a recent timeshare buyer wishes to rescind or cancel the timeshare contract, the intent to cancel must be made within the allotted time period in writing or in person; a telephone call will not suffice.

In recent years, a timeshare cancellation industry has formed by companies who provide one simple service: timeshare cancellations. However, some of these companies are suspected of being fraudulent.

Reasons for cancellation:

It is more than likely that a new timeshare owner could have purchased the same product from an existing owner on the timeshare resale market for drastically less than what the buyer paid from the resort developer, simply by doing a computer search.

In many cases, the exact or similar accommodation purchased, will be happily transferred by an unhappy timeshare owner. The new buyer usually pays only minimum real estate transfer fees and agrees to take over the maintenance fees, because the existing owner can't find a buyer for his/her timeshare without paying a resale company thousands of dollars to absorb it for resale.

The reason for this anomaly is that the lion's share of the cost of a new timeshare are sales commissions and marketing overhead, and cannot be retrieved by the timeshare owner.

Another reason a new owner might want to cancel is buyer's remorse following the subsidence of excitement produced by a sales presentation. He may have realized that he is uncertain what exactly has been purchased and how it works, or may have realized the unlimited duration of a commitment to pay ownership maintenance fees, or may have observed that he knows too little about the timeshare sales company, due to insufficient time during the sales process.

Criticism:

The United States Federal Trade Commission provides consumers with information regarding timeshare pricing and other related information. Also known as Universal Lease Programs (ULPs), timeshares are considered to be securities under the law.

Many timeshare owners complain about the annual maintenance fee (which includes property taxes) being too high.

Timeshare developers contend that pricing compared to staying at hotels in the long term is projected to be lower to the timeshare owner. However, a hotel guest does not have a monthly vacation mortgage payment, upfront cost, fixed schedule, maintenance fees, and preset vacation locations.

Many owners also complain that the increasing cost of timeshares and accompanying maintenance and exchange fees are rising faster than hotel rates in the same areas.

The industry's reputation has been severely injured by the comparison of the timeshare salesman to the used car salesman, because of the sales pressure put on the prospective buyer to "buy today". "The discounted price I quoted you is only good if you buy today", is the industry standard's pitch to close the sale on the first visit to the resort.

Many have left a timeshare tour complaining of being exhausted by the barrage of salespeople they had to deal with before they finally exited the tour. The term "TO", or "turn over" man, was coined in the land industry, and quickly evolved to the timeshare industry.

Once the original tour guide or salesman gives the prospective buyer the pitch and price, the "TO" is sent in to drop the price and secure the down payment.

However, the biggest complaint is that timeshare reselling by the private owner is almost impossible to do. In most cases, an owner looking to sell literally cannot give the timeshare away.

Timeshare resale companies have sprung up that actually charge the owner to assume his/her timeshare ownership—contending that the resale company must assume the maintenance fees along with marketing fees—until that burden can be transferred to a new buyer.

See also:







Lifestyles including a List of Lifestyles by Psychology WikiaPictured below: A COVID-19 Silver Lining: Unlocking the Power of Lifestyle Change for a Sustainable Society
Click here for a List of Lifestyles.

In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person (or a group) lives. This includes patterns of daily activities, health behavior, social relations, consumption, leisure time use, and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview.

Having a specific "lifestyle" implies a conscious or unconscious choice between one set of behaviours and some other sets of behaviors.

In business, lifestyles provide a means of targeting consumers as advertisers and marketers endeavor to match consumer aspirations with products.

The word "lifestyle" apparently first appeared in 1939. Alvin Toffler predicted an explosion of lifestyles ("subcults") as diversity increases in post-industrial societies. Pre-modern societies did not require a term approaching sub-culture or lifestyle, as different ways of living were expressed as entirely different cultures, religions, ethnicities or by an oppressed minority racial group.

As such the minority culture was always seen as alien or other. Lifestyles, by comparison, are accepted or partially accepted differences within the majority culture or group. This tolerance of differentiation within a majority culture seems to be associated with modernity and capitalism.

See also:







AdulthoodPicture below: 8.3 Cognitive Development in Early Adulthood - myText CNM
​An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. The biological definition of the word means an animal reaching sexual maturity and thus capable of reproduction.

In the human context, the term adult has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a non-adult or "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible. They may also be regarded as a "major". The typical age of attaining legal adulthood is 18, although definition may vary by legal rights, country, and psychological development.

Human adulthood encompasses psychological adult development. Definitions of adulthood are often inconsistent and contradictory; a person may be biologically an adult, and have adult behavior, but still be treated as a child if they are under the legal age of majority.

Conversely, one may legally be an adult but possess none of the maturity and responsibility that may define an adult character.

In different cultures there are events that relate passing from being a child to becoming an adult or coming of age. This often encompasses the passing a series of tests to demonstrate that a person is prepared for adulthood, or reaching a specified age, sometimes in conjunction with demonstrating preparation.

Most modern societies determine legal adulthood based on reaching a legally specified age without requiring a demonstration of physical maturity or preparation for adulthood.

Biological adulthood

​Historically and cross-culturally, adulthood has been determined primarily by the start of puberty (the appearance of secondary sex characteristics such as menstruation and the development of breasts in women, ejaculation, the development of facial hair, and a deeper voice in men, and pubic hair in both sexes). 

In the past, a person usually moved from the status of child directly to the status of adult, often with this shift being marked by some type of coming-of-age test or ceremony.

During the Industrial Revolution, children went to work as soon as they could in order to help provide for their family. There was not a huge emphasis on school or education in general. Many children could get a job and were not required to have experience as adults are nowadays.

After the social construct of adolescence was created, adulthood split into two forms: biological adulthood and social adulthood. Thus, there are now two primary forms of adults: biological adults (people who have attained reproductive ability, are fertile, or who evidence secondary sex characteristics) and social adults (people who are recognized by their culture or law as being adults).

Depending on the context, adult can indicate either definition. Another aspect of adulthood that is relatively new is psychological functioning. According to Jeffrey Arnett, adults can make financial decisions on their own, are financially independent, and are able to make difficult life decisions on their own.

Although few or no established dictionaries provide a definition for the two-word term biological adult, the first definition of adult in multiple dictionaries includes "the stage of the life cycle of an animal after reproductive capacity has been attained". Thus, the base definition of the word adult is the period beginning at physical sexual maturity, which occurs sometime after the onset of puberty.

Although this is the primary definition of the base word "adult", the term is also frequently used to refer to social adults. The two-word term biological adult stresses or clarifies that the original definition, based on physical maturity (i.e. having reached reproductive competency), is being used.

The time of puberty varies from child to child, but usually begins between 10 and 12 years old. Girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12. Girls generally complete puberty by 15–17, and boys by age 16 or 17.

Nutrition, genetics and environment also usually play a part in the onset of puberty. Girls will go through a growth spurt and gain weight in several areas of their body. Boys will go through similar spurts in growth, though it is usually not in a similar style or time frame. This is due to the natural processes of puberty, but genetics also plays a part in how much weight they gain or how much taller they get.

One recent area of debate within the science of brain development is the most likely chronological age for full mental maturity, or indeed, if such an age even exists. Common claims repeated in the media since 2005 (based upon interpretations of imaging data) have commonly suggested an "end-point" of 25, referring to the prefrontal cortex as one area that is not yet fully mature at the age of 18.

However, this is based on an interpretation of a brain imaging study by Jay Giedd, dating back to 2004 or 2005, where the only participants were aged up to 21 years, and Giedd assumed this maturing process would be done by the age of 25 years, whereas more recent studies show prefrontal cortex maturation continuing well past the age of 30 years, marking this interpretation as incorrect and outdated.

Legal adulthood:
Main article: Age of majority

Legally, adulthood typically means that one has reached the age of majority – when parents lose parental rights and responsibilities regarding the person concerned. Depending on one's jurisdiction, the age of majority may or may not be set independently of and should not be confused with the minimum ages applicable to other activities, such as:
Admission of a young person to a place may be restricted because of danger for that person, concern that the place may lead the person to immoral behavior, or because of the risk that the young person causes damage (for example, at an exhibition of fragile items).

One can distinguish the legality of acts of a young person, or of enabling a young person to carry out that act, by selling, renting out, showing, permitting entrance, allowing participation, etc. There may be distinction between commercially and socially enabling. Sometimes there is the requirement of supervision by a legal guardian, or just by an adult. Sometimes there is no requirement, but rather a recommendation.

Using the example of pornography, one can distinguish between:
  • being allowed inside an adult establishment
  • being allowed to purchase pornography
  • being allowed to possess pornography
  • another person being allowed to sell, rent out, or show the young person pornography, see disseminating pornography to a minor
  • being a pornographic actor: rules for the young person, and for other people, regarding production, possession, etc. (see child pornography)

With regard to films with violence, etc.:
  • another person being allowed to sell, rent out, or show the young person a film; a cinema being allowed to let a young person enter

The age of majority ranges internationally from ages 15 to 21, with 18 being the most common age. Nigeria, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon define adulthood at age 15, but marriage of girls at an earlier age is common.

In most of the world, the legal adult age is 18 for most purposes, with some notable exceptions:
  1. The legal age of adulthood in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, and Yukon in Canada is 19 (though there are some exceptions in which Canadians may be considered legal adults in certain situations like sexual consent, which is age 16, and criminal law, federal elections and the military, which is at 18);
  2. The legal age of adulthood in Nebraska and Alabama in the United States is 19.
  3. The legal age of adulthood in South Korea is 19.
  4. The legal age of adulthood in Mississippi and Puerto Rico in the U.S. is 21.

Prior to the 1970s, young people were not classed as adults until 21 in most western nations. For example, in the United States, young citizens could not vote in many elections until 21 until July 1971 when the 26th Amendment passed mandating that the right to vote cannot be abridged for anyone 18 or older.

The voting age was lowered in response to the fact that young men between the ages of 18 and 21 were drafted into the army to fight in the Vietnam War, hence the popular slogan "old enough to fight, old enough to vote" 

Young people under 21 in the US could also not purchase alcohol, purchase handguns, sign a binding contract, or marry without permission from parents. After the voting age was lowered, many states also moved to lower the drinking age (with most states having a minimum age of 18 or 19) and also to lower the age of legal majority (adulthood) to 18.

However, there are legal activities where 18 is not the default age of adulthood. There are still some exceptions where 21 (or even higher) is still the benchmark for certain rights or responsibilities.

For example, in the US the Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits those under 21 from purchasing a handgun from a federally licensed dealer (although federal law makes an exception for individuals between the ages of 18 and 20 to obtain one from a private dealer if state law permits.) 

As of July 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act mandated that all states raise their respective drinking ages to 21 to create a uniform standard for legally purchasing, drinking, or publicly possessing alcohol with exceptions made for consumption only in private residences under parental supervision and permission.

This was done in response to reduce the number of drunk driving fatalities prevalent among young drivers. States that choose not to comply can lose up to 10% of highway funding.

The Credit Card Act of 2009 imposed tougher safeguards for young adults between the ages of 18 and 20 obtaining a credit card. Young adults under the age of 21 must either have a co-signer 21 or older or show proof (usually a source of income) that they can repay their credit card balance. Unless that requirement is met, one must wait until 21 to be approved for a credit card on their own.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 expands the age that young adults can remain on their parent's health insurance plan up to age 26.

As of December 2019, the federal government raised the legal age to purchase tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21. In states where recreational marijuana is legalized, the default age is also 21, though those younger may be able to obtain medical marijuana prescriptions or cards upon seeing a physician.

Gambling also varies from 18 to 21 depending on the state and many rental car companies do not rent cars to those under 21 and have surcharges for drivers under 25 (although this is not codified, and is company policy).

In Quebec, Canada the Quebec legislature in 2020 raised the age one could purchase recreational marijuana from 18 to 21 stepping out of line with most of the country that set a minimum age of 19 (except Alberta, which is 18.) The Quebec government cited the risk that marijuana poses to the brain development of people under 21 as justification for the age raise.

In March 2021, the state of Washington in a 5–4 decision, justices in the Supreme Court of the State of Washington tossed the life without parole sentences of a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old convicted in separate cases of first-degree aggravated murder decades ago, saying, as with juveniles, the court must first consider the age of those under 21 before sentencing them to die behind bars.

This comes at a time where there are ongoing debates about whether those between 18 and 20 should be exempted from the death penalty.

In Germany, courts largely sentence defendants under the age of 21 according to juvenile law in a bid to help them reintegrate into society and mete out punishments that fit the crime as well as the offender.

In May 2021, the state of Texas raised the age that one can be an exotic dancer and work and patronize sexually oriented businesses from 18 to 21.

In the UK, there have been many proposals to raise the age that one can buy tobacco from 18 to 21 in an attempt to curb teen and young adult use to get to a "smoke-free" UK by 2030. All of these laws made over the years reflect the growing awareness that young adults, while not children, are still in a transitional stage between adolescence and full adulthood and that there should be policy adjustments or restrictions where necessary, especially where it pertains to activities that carry certain degrees of risk or harm to themselves or others.

At the same time, however, even though the generally accepted age of majority is 18 in most nations, there are rights or privileges afforded to adolescents who have not yet reached legal adulthood. In the United States, youth are able to get a part-time job at 14 provided they have a work permit.

At 16, one is able to obtain a driver's permit or license depending on state laws and is able to work most jobs (except ones requiring heavy machinery) and consent to sexual activity (depending on the state). At 17, one is able to enlist in the armed forces with parental consent although they cannot be deployed to be in combat roles until age 18.

The voting age for local elections in most American cities is 18. But in five localities nationwide — four of which are in Maryland — 16 and 17-year-olds are eligible to vote. The cities are Takoma Park, Riverdale, Greenbelt, and Hyattsville.

In 2020, students 16 or older in Oakland, California gained the right to vote in school board elections. There is a growing movement to lower the voting age in the US and many other countries from 18 to 16 in hopes of engaging the youth vote and encouraging greater electoral participation. Some countries already have a voting age of 16 which include Austria, Scotland, Argentina, Brazil, Wales, Cuba, and Ecuador.

In Germany, one can purchase beer and wine at the age of 16 although they cannot purchase spirits or hard liquor until 18. The age of consent in Germany is 14 if both partners are under 18 but at least 14. Sexual activity with a person under 18 is punishable if the adult is a person of authority over the minor in upbringing, education, care, or employment.

Social construction of adulthood:

In contrast to biological perspectives of aging and adulthood, social scientists conceptualize adulthood as socially constructed. While aging is an established biological process, the attainment of adulthood is social in its criteria. In contrast to other perspectives that conceptualize aging and the attainment of adulthood as a largely universal development, regardless of context, nation, generation, gender, race, or social class.

Social scientists regard these aspects as paramount in cultural definitions of adulthood.
Further evidence of adulthood as a social construction is illustrated by the changing criteria of adulthood over time. Historically, adulthood in the U.S. has rested on completing one's education, moving away from the family of origin, and beginning one's career.

Other key historical criteria include entering a marriage and becoming a parent. These criteria are social and subjective; they are organized by gender, race, ethnicity, social class, among other key identity markers. As a result, particular populations feel adult earlier in the life course than do others.

Contemporary experiences of and research on young adults today substitute more seemingly subjective criteria for adulthood which resonate more soundly with young adults' experiences of aging. The criteria are marked by a growing "importance of individualistic criteria and the irrelevance of the demographic markers of normative conceptions of adulthood."

In particular, younger cohorts' attainment of adulthood centers on three criteria: gaining a sense of responsibility, independent decision-making, and financial independence.

Jeffrey Arnett, a psychologist and professor at Clark University in Massachusetts, studied the development of adults and argues that there is a new and distinct period of development in between adolescence and adulthood. This stage, which he calls "emerging adulthood," occurs between the ages of 18 and 25. Arnett describes these individuals as able to take some responsibility for their lives, but still not completely feeling like an adult.

Arnett articulates five distinct features that are unique to this period of development: identity exploration, feeling in between, instability, self-focus, and having possibilities.

The first feature, identity exploration, describes emerging adults making decisions for themselves about their career, education, and love life. This is a time of life when a young person has yet to finalize these decisions but are pondering them, making them feel somewhere in between adolescent and adult.

This leads into a second feature of this phase of life—feeling in between. Emerging adults feel that they are taking on responsibilities but do not feel like a 'full' adult quite yet.

Next, the instability feature notes that emerging adults often move around after their high school years whether that is to college, friends' houses, or living with a romantic partner. This moving around often ends once the individual's family and career have been set.

Tagging along with the instability feature is having self-focus. Emerging adults, being away from their parental and societal routines, are now able to do what they want when they want and where they want before they are put back into a routine when they start a marriage, family, and career.

Arnett's last feature of emerging adulthood, an age of possibilities, characterizes this stage as one where "optimism reigns". These individuals believe they have a good chance of turning out better than their parents did.

Religion:

According to Jewish tradition, adulthood is reached at age 13 for Jewish boys and 12 for Jewish girls in accordance with the Bar or Bat Mitzvah; they are expected to demonstrate preparation for adulthood by learning the Torah and other Jewish practices.

The Christian Bible and Jewish scripture contain no age requirement for adulthood or marrying, which includes engaging in sexual activity.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law states, "A man before he has completed his sixteenth year of age, and likewise a woman before she has completed her fourteenth year of age, cannot enter a valid marriage". 

According to The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman, the Christian Church of the Middle Ages considered the age of accountability, when a person could be tried and even executed as an adult, to be age 7.

While certain religions have their guidelines on what it means to be an adult, generally speaking, there are trends that occur regarding religiosity as individuals transition from adolescence to adulthood. The role of religion in one's life can impact development during adolescence. 

The National Library of Medicine (NCBI) highlights some studies that show rates of religiosity declining as people move out of the house and live on their own. Oftentimes when people live on their own, they change their life goals and religion tends to be less important as they discover who they are.

Other studies from the NCBI show that as adults get married and have children they settle down, and as they do, there tends to be an increase in religiosity. Everyone's level of religiosity builds at a different pace, meaning that religion relative to adult development varies across cultures and time.

See also:







Online Marketplace,  including a List of Online Marketplaces Pictured below: Top Online Stores Ranking by Country - SEOLeverage™️
Click here for an Alphabetical List of Top Online Marketplaces

​An online marketplace (or online e-commerce marketplace) is a type of e-commerce website where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties.

Online marketplaces are the primary type of multichannel ecommerce and can be a way to streamline the production process.

In an online marketplace, consumer transactions are processed by the marketplace operator and then delivered and fulfilled by the participating retailers or wholesalers. These type of websites allow users to register and sell single items to many items for a "post-selling" fee.

Because marketplaces aggregate products from a wide array of providers, the selection is wider, and availability is higher than in vendor-specific online retail stores. Some online marketplaces have a wide variety of general interest products that cater to almost all the needs of the consumers, others are consumer specific and cater to a particular segment.

Online marketplaces became abundant in 2014.


B2B online marketplaces:

Business-to-business (B2B) online marketplaces are platforms that allow companies to buy and sell products or services to other businesses. These marketplaces typically focus on a specific product or service category and are used by businesses to find suppliers, negotiate prices, and manage logistics.

Some examples of B2B online marketplaces include VerticalNet, Commerce One, and Covisint, which were some of the earliest B2B marketplaces to emerge in the early days of e-commerce.

More contemporary B2B marketplaces include EC21, Elance, and eBay Business, which focus on specific product or service categories and facilitate complex transactions such as requests for quotations (RFQs), requests for information (RFIs), and requests for proposals (RFPs).


Online retailing:

​Online marketplaces are information technology companies that act as intermediaries by connecting buyers and sellers. Examples of prevalent online marketplaces for retailing consumer goods and services are Amazon, Taobao and eBay.

On the website of the online marketplace sellers can publish their product offering with a price and information about the product's features and qualities. Marketplace sellers often utilize a marketplace integrator or channel integration software to efficiently list and sell products across multiple online marketplaces.

Potential customers can search and browse goods, compare price and quality, and then purchase the goods directly from the seller. The inventory is held by the sellers, not the company running the online marketplace. Online marketplaces are characterized by a low setup cost for sellers, because they do not have to run a retail store. 

While in the past Amazon Marketplace has served as a role model for online marketplaces, the expansion of the Alibaba Group into related business such as logistics, e-commerce payment systems and mobile commerce is now trailed by other marketplace operators such as Flipkart.

For consumers, online marketplaces reduce the search cost, but insufficient information on the quality of goods and an overloaded goods offering can make it more difficult for consumers to make purchasing decisions. Consumers' ability to make a purchasing decision is also hampered by the fact that an online marketplace only allows them to examine the quality of a product based on its description, a picture and customer reviews. 

Another characteristic of online marketplaces is that the same product can be offered by several merchants. In this case, consumers can often make the selection of a merchant with the support of reviews of that merchant, for example. Despite many conceivable factors influencing merchant selection, such as convenience, seller ratings, delivery options and a wider selection of goods, customers choose primarily on the basis of the lowest price for a particular product.


For services and outsourcing:

There are marketplaces for the online outsourcing of professional services like:
According to Amazon, its Mechanical Turk marketplace focuses on "human intelligence tasks" that are difficult to automate computationally. This includes content labelling and content moderation.

Microlabor online marketplaces allow workers globally, without a formal employment status, to perform digital piece work, such as classifying an image according to content moderation guidelines. Gig workers are paid for each task performed, for example US$ 0.01 for each moderated image. Gig workers accumulate payment on the microlabor platform.


The sharing economy:

​In 2004 Yochai Benkler noted that online platforms, alongside free software and wireless networks, allowed households to share idle or underused resources. As the sharing economy inspires itself largely from the open source philosophy, open source projects dedicated to launching a peer to peer marketplace include Cocorico and Sharetribe. 

In 2010 CouchSurfing was constituted as for-profit corporation and by 2014 online marketplaces that consider themselves part of the sharing economy, such as Uber and Airbnb, organized in the trade association Peers.org. In 2015 Alex Stephany, the founder of online marketplace JustPark, defined the sharing economy as the economic value arising from making underutilized assets available online.


Criticism:

A 2014 study of oDesk, an early global online marketplace for freelance contractors, found that the service outsourcing of microwork increased opportunities for freelancers regardless of their geographic location, but the financial gains for most contractors were limited as experience and skills did not translate into higher payment.

A general criticism is that the laws and regulations surrounding online marketplaces are quite underdeveloped. As of consequence, there is a discrepancy between the responsibility, accountability and liability of the marketplace and third parties. In recent years online marketplaces and platforms have faced much criticism for their lack of consumer protections.


Market economy:

In 1997 Yannis Bakos studied online marketplaces and came to regard them as a special type of electronic marketplaces. He argued that they reduce economic inefficiencies, by lowering the cost of acquiring information about the sellers' products.

The operators of online marketplaces are able to adapt their business model because of the data they hold on the platform users. Online marketplace operators have a unique ability to obtain and use in their economic decision making personal data and transaction data, but also social data and location data. Therefore academics have described online marketplaces as new economic actor, or even as a new type of market economy.

In 2010 Christian Fuchs argued that online marketplaces operated informational capitalism. The inherent feedback loop allows the operators of online marketplaces to grow their effectiveness as economic intermediaries. In 2016 Nick Srnicek argued that online marketplaces give rise to platform capitalism.

In 2016 and 2018 respectively, Frank Pasquale and Shoshana Zuboff cautioned, that the data collection of online marketplace operators result in surveillance capitalism.


See also:







Fashion and Fashion Design, including a List of Fashion Designers Pictured below: Two Photos of Fashion Models walking the Runways
Click here for a List of Fashion Designers by Country

Fashion:

Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into outfits that depict distinctive ways of dressing (styles and trends) as signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term, fashion describes an industry, styles, aesthetics, and trends.

The term 'fashion' originates from the Latin word 'Facere,' which means 'to make,' and describes the manufacturing, mixing, and wearing of outfits adorned with specific cultural:
  • aesthetics,
  • patterns,
  • motifs,
  • shapes,
  • and cuts,
allowing people to showcase their group belonging, values, meanings, beliefs, and ways of life.

Given the rise in mass production of commodities and clothing at lower prices and global reach, reducing fashion's environmental impact and improving sustainability has become an urgent issue among politicians, brands, and consumers.


Definitions:

The French word mode, meaning "fashion", dates as far back as 1482, while the English word denoting something "in style" dates only to the 16th century. Other words exist related to concepts of style and appeal that precede mode.

In the 12th and 13th century Old French the concept of elegance begins to appear in the context of aristocratic preferences to enhance beauty and display refinement, and cointerie, the idea of making oneself more attractive to others by style or artifice in grooming and dress, appears in a 13th-century poem by Guillaume de Lorris advising men that "handsome clothes and handsome accessories improve a man a great deal".

Fashion scholar Susan B. Kaiser states that everyone is "forced to appear", unmediated before others. Everyone is evaluated by their attire, and evaluation includes the consideration of colors, materials, silhouette, and how garments appear on the body. Garments identical in style and material also appear different depending on the wearer's body shape, or whether the garment has been washed, folded, mended, or is new.

​​Fashion is defined in a number of different ways, and its application can be sometimes unclear. Though the term fashion connotes difference, as in "the new fashions of the season", it can also connote sameness, for example in reference to "the fashions of the 1960s", implying a general uniformity.

Fashion can signify the latest trends, but may often reference fashions of a previous era, leading to the reappearance of fashions from a different time period. While what is fashionable can be defined by a relatively insular, esteemed and often rich aesthetic elite who make a look exclusive, such as fashion houses and haute couturiers, this 'look' is often designed by pulling references from subcultures and social groups who are not considered elite, and are thus excluded from making the distinction of what is fashion themselves.

Whereas a trend often connotes a peculiar aesthetic expression, often lasting shorter than a season and being identifiable by visual extremes, fashion is a distinctive and industry-supported expression traditionally tied to the fashion season and collections. Style is an expression that lasts over many seasons and is often connected to cultural movements and social markers, symbols, class, and culture (such as Baroque and Rococo). According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, fashion connotes "the latest difference."

Even though the terms fashion, clothing and costume are often used together, fashion differs from both. Clothing describes the material and the technical garment, devoid of any social meaning or connections; costume has come to mean fancy dress or masquerade wear.

Fashion, by contrast, describes the social and temporal system that influences and "activates" dress as a social signifier in a certain time and context. Philosopher Giorgio Agamben connects fashion to the qualitative Ancient Greek concept of kairos, meaning "the right, critical, or opportune moment", and clothing to the quantitative concept of chronos, the personification of chronological or sequential time.

While some exclusive brands may claim the label haute couture, the term is technically limited to members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris. Haute couture is more aspirational; inspired by art and culture, and in most cases, reserved for the economic elite.

Fashion is also a source of art, allowing people to display their unique tastes and styling. Different fashion designers are influenced by outside stimuli and reflect this inspiration in their work. For example, Gucci's 'stained green' jeans may look like a grass stain, but to others, they display purity, freshness, and summer.

Fashion is unique, self-fulfilling and may be a key part of someone's identity. Similarly to art, the aims of a person's choices in fashion are not necessarily to be liked by everyone, but instead to be an expression of personal taste. A person's personal style functions as a "societal formation always combining two opposite principles. It is a socially acceptable and secure way to distinguish oneself from others and, at the same time, it satisfies the individual's need for social adaptation and imitation." 

While philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that fashion "has nothing to do with genuine judgements of taste", and was instead "a case of unreflected and 'blind' imitation", sociologist Georg Simmel thought of fashion as something that "helped overcome the distance between an individual and his society".


History of fashion:
See also: History of fashion design

Changes in clothing often took place at times of economic or social change, as occurred in ancient Rome and the medieval Caliphate, followed by a long period without significant changes.

In eighth-century Moorish Spain, the musician Ziryab introduced to Córdoba sophisticated clothing styles based on seasonal and daily fashions from his native Baghdad, modified by his inspiration.

Similar changes in fashion occurred in the 11th century in the Middle East following the arrival of the Turks, who introduced clothing styles from Central Asia and the Far East.

Alleged Western distinctiveness:

​Early Western travellers who visited India, Persia, Turkey, or China, would frequently remark on the absence of change in fashion in those countries. In 1609, the secretary of the Japanese shōgun bragged inaccurately to a Spanish visitor that Japanese clothing had not changed in over a thousand years.  

However, these conceptions of non-Western clothing undergoing little, if any, evolution are generally held to be untrue; for instance, there is considerable evidence in Ming China of rapidly changing fashions in Chinese clothing. 

In imperial China, clothing were not only an embodiment of freedom and comfort or used to cover the body or protect against the cold or used for decorative purposes; it was also regulated by strong sumptuary laws which was based on strict social hierarchy system and the ritual system of the Chinese society.

It was expected for people to be dressed accordingly to their gender, social status and occupation; the Chinese clothing system had cleared evolution and varied in appearance in each period of history.

However, ancient Chinese fashion, like in other cultures, was an indicator of the socioeconomic conditions of its population; for Confucian scholars, however, changing fashion was often associated with social disorder which was brought by rapid commercialization.

Clothing which experienced fast changing fashion in ancient China was recorded in ancient Chinese texts, where it was sometimes referred as shiyang, "contemporary-styles", and was associated with the concept of fuyao, "outrageous dress", which typically holds a negative connotation.

Similar changes in clothing can be seen in Japanese clothing between the Genroku period and the later centuries of the Edo period (1603–1867), during which a time clothing trends switched from flashy and expensive displays of wealth to subdued and subverted ones.

The myth on the lack of fashion in what was considered the Orient was related to Western Imperialism also often accompanied Orientalism, and European imperialism was especially at its highest in the 19th century.

In the 19th century time, Europeans described China in binary opposition to Europe, describing China as "lacking in fashion" among many other things, while Europeans deliberately placed themselves in a superior position when they would compare themselves to the Chinese as well as to other countries in Asia.

Latent orientalism is an unconscious, untouchable certainty about what the Orient is, static and unanimous, separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive. It has a tendency towards despotism and away from progress. [...] Its progress and value are judged in comparison to the West, so it is the Other. Many rigorous scholars [...] saw the Orient as a locale requiring Western attention, reconstruction, even redemption.
— Laura Fantone quoted Said (1979), Local Invisibility, Postcolonial Feminisms Asian American Contemporary Artists in California, page 166

Similar ideas were also applied to other countries in the East Asia, in India, and Middle East, where the perceived lack of fashion were associated with offensive remarks on the Asian social and political systems:

I confess that the unchanging fashions of the Turks and other Eastern peoples do not attract me. It seems that their fashions tend to preserve their stupid despotism.
— Jean Baptiste Say (1829)

Fashion in Africa:

Additionally, there is a long history of fashion in West Africa. Cloth was used as a form of currency in trade with the Portuguese and Dutch as early as the 16th century, and locally produced cloth and cheaper European imports were assembled into new styles to accommodate the growing elite class of West Africans and resident gold and slave traders. There was an exceptionally strong tradition of weaving in the Oyo Empire, and the areas inhabited by the Igbo people.

Fashion in the Western world:
See also:  ​
The beginning in Europe of continual and accelerating change in clothing styles can be fairly reliably dated to late medieval times. Historians, including James Laver and Fernand Braudel, date the start of Western fashion in clothing to the middle of the 14th century, though they tend to rely heavily on contemporary imagery, as illuminated manuscripts were not common before the 14th century. 

The most dramatic early change in fashion was a sudden drastic shortening and tightening of the male over-garment from calf-length to barely covering the buttocks, sometimes accompanied with stuffing in the chest to make it look bigger. This created the distinctive Western outline of a tailored top worn over leggings or trousers.

The pace of change accelerated considerably in the following century, and women's and men's fashion, especially in the dressing and adorning of the hair, became equally complex. Art historians are, therefore, able to use fashion with confidence and precision to date images, often to within five years, particularly in the case of images from the 15th century.

Initially, changes in fashion led to a fragmentation across the upper classes of Europe of what had previously been a very similar style of dressing and the subsequent development of distinctive national styles. These national styles remained very different until a counter-movement in the 17th to 18th centuries imposed similar styles once again, mostly originating from Ancien Régime France.  

​Though the rich usually led fashion, the increasing affluence of early modern Europe led to the bourgeoisie and even peasants following trends at a distance, but still uncomfortably close for the elites – a factor that Fernand Braudel regards as one of the main motors of changing fashion.

In the 16th century, national differences were at their most pronounced. Ten 16th century portraits of German or Italian gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats. Albrecht Dürer illustrated the differences in his actual (or composite) contrast of Nuremberg and Venetian fashions at the close of the 15th century (illustration, right). The "Spanish style" of the late 16th century began the move back to synchronicity among upper-class Europeans, and after a struggle in the mid-17th century, French styles decisively took over leadership, a process completed in the 18th century.

Though different textile colors and patterns changed from year to year, the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the pattern to which a lady's dress was cut, changed more slowly.

Men's fashions were primarily derived from military models, and changes in a European male silhouette were galvanized in theaters of European war where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of different styles such as the "Steinkirk" cravat or necktie. Both parties wore shirts under their clothing, the cut and style of which had little cause to change over a number of centuries.

Though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France since the 16th century and Abraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion in the 1620s, the pace of change picked up in the 1780s with increased publication of French engravings illustrating the latest Paris styles.

By 1800, all Western Europeans were dressing alike (or thought they were); local variation became first a sign of provincial culture and later a badge of the conservative peasant.

Although tailors and dressmakers were no doubt responsible for many innovations, and the textile industry indeed led many trends, the history of fashion design is generally understood to date from 1858 when the English-born Charles Frederick Worth opened the first authentic haute couture house in Paris.

The Haute house was the name established by the government for the fashion houses that met the standards of the industry. These fashion houses continue to adhere to standards such as keeping at least twenty employees engaged in making the clothes, showing two collections per year at fashion shows, and presenting a certain number of patterns to costumers.

Since then, the idea of the fashion designer as a celebrity in their own right has become increasingly dominant.

Although fashion can be feminine or masculine, additional trends are androgynous. The idea of unisex dressing originated in the 1960s, when designers such as Pierre Cardin and Rudi Gernreich created garments, such as stretch jersey tunics or leggings, meant to be worn by both males and females. The impact of unisex wearability expanded more broadly to encompass various themes in fashion, including androgyny, mass-market retail, and conceptual clothing. 

The fashion trends of the 1970s, such as sheepskin jackets, flight jackets, duffel coats, and unstructured clothing, influenced men to attend social gatherings without a dinner jacket and to accessorize in new ways. Some men's styles blended the sensuality and expressiveness, and the growing gay-rights movement and an emphasis on youth allowed for a new freedom to experiment with style and with fabrics such as wool crepe, which had previously been associated with women's attire.

​The four major current fashion capitals are acknowledged to be:  which are all headquarters to the most significant fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion. 

Fashion weeks are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences. A study demonstrated that general proximity to New York's Garment District was important to participate in the American fashion ecosystem. Haute couture has now largely been subsidized by the sale of ready-to-wear collections and perfume using the same branding.

Modern Westerners have a vast number of choices in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect their personality or interests. When people who have high cultural status start to wear new or different styles, they may inspire a new fashion trend.

People who like or respect these people are influenced by their style and begin wearing similarly styled clothes.

Fashions may vary considerably within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation, and geography, and may also vary over time. The terms fashionista and fashion victim refer to someone who slavishly follows current fashions.

Fashion influence from the Eastern worldIn the early 2000s, Asian fashion influences became increasingly significant in local and global markets. Countries such as China, Japan, India, and Pakistan have traditionally had large textile industries with a number of rich traditions; though these were often drawn upon by Western designers, Asian clothing styles gained considerable influence in the early- to mid-2000s.


Fashion industry:
See also: 
​In its most common use, the term fashion refers to the current expressions on sale through the fashion industry. The global fashion industry is a product of the modern age. In the Western world, tailoring has since medieval times been controlled by guilds, but with the emergence of industrialism, the power of the guilds was undermined.

Before the mid-19th century, most clothing was custom-made. It was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors.

By the beginning of the 20th century, with the rise of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the rise of global trade, the development of the factory system of production, and the proliferation of retail outlets such as department stores, clothing became increasingly mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices.

Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe and America, as of 2017, it is an international and highly globalized industry, with clothing often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold worldwide. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China and have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally.

The fashion industry has for a long time been one of the largest employers in the United States, and it remains so in the 21st century. However, U.S. employment in fashion began to decline considerably as production increasingly moved overseas, especially to China.

Because data regarding the fashion industry typically are reported for national economies and expressed in terms of the industry's many separate sectors, aggregate figures for the world production of textiles and clothing are difficult to obtain.

However, by any measure, the clothing industry accounts for a significant share of world economic output. The fashion industry consists of four levels:
  1. The production of raw materials, principally fiber, and textiles but also leather and fur.
  2. The production of fashion goods by designers, manufacturers, contractors, and others.
  3. Retail sales.
  4. Various forms of advertising and promotion.

The levels of focus in the fashion industry consist of many separate but interdependent sectors. These sectors include: 
Each sector is devoted to the goal of satisfying consumer demand for apparel under conditions that enable participants in the industry to operate at a profit.


Fashion trends:
Main article: Fashion trend
See: Category:Fashion by decade

A fashion trend signifies a specific look or expression that is spread across a population at a specific time and place. A trend is considered a more ephemeral look, not defined by the seasons when collections are released by the fashion industry. A trend can thus emerge from street style, across cultures, and from influencers and other celebrities.

Fashion trends are influenced by several factors, including:
  • cinema,
  • celebrities,
  • climate,
  • creative explorations,
  • innovations,
  • designs,
  • political,
  • economic,
  • social,
  • and technological.

Examining these factors is referred to as a PEST analysis. Fashion forecasters can use this information to help determine the growth or decline of a particular trend.

People's minds as well as their perceptions and consciousness are constantly changing. Fads are inherently social, are constantly evolving in a contradiction between the old and the new, and are in a sense easily influenced by those around them, and therefore also begin to imitate constantly.

Continuing on from the maximalist and 1980s influences of the early 2020s, vibrant coloured clothing had made a comeback for women in America, France, China, Korea, and the Ukraine by the spring of 2023. This style, sometimes referred to as "dopamine dressing", featured:
Big, oversized garments were often made from translucent materials and featured cutouts intended to expose the wearer's bare shoulder, thigh, or midriff, such as low-cut waists on the pants or tops with strappy necklines meant to be worn braless. 

Most-desirable colors included:
In 2023, the predominant colors in Britain, France and America were red, white and blue. As in the mid to late 1970s, Western shirts with pearl snaps in denim or bright madras plaid made a comeback, and sometimes featured contrasting yokes and cuffs with intricate embroidery.  Also popular on both sides of the Atlantic were:
Social influences:

Fashion is inherently a social phenomenon. A person cannot have a fashion by oneself, but for something to be defined as fashion, there needs to be dissemination and followers. This dissemination can take several forms; from the top-down ("trickle-down") to bottom-up ("bubble up/trickle-up"), or transversally across cultures and through viral memes and media ("trickle-across").

Fashion relates to the social and cultural context of an environment. According to Matika, "Elements of popular culture become fused when a person's trend is associated with a preference for a genre of music […] like music, news, or literature, fashion has been fused into everyday lives." Fashion is not only seen as purely aesthetic; fashion is also a medium for people to create an overall effect and express their opinions and overall art.

This mirrors what performers frequently accomplish through music videos. In the music video 'Formation' by Beyoncé, according to Carlos, The annual or seasonal runway show is a reflection of fashion trends and a designer's inspirations. For designers like Vivienne Westwood, runway shows are a platform for her voice on politics and current events.

For her AW15 menswear show, according to Water, "where models with severely bruised faces channeled eco-warriors on a mission to save the planet." Another recent example is a staged feminist protest march for Chanel's SS15 show, rioting models chanting words of empowerment using signs like "Feminist but feminine" and "Ladies first."

According to Water, "The show tapped into Chanel's long history of championing female independence: founder Coco Chanel was a trailblazer for liberating the female body in the post-WWI era, introducing silhouettes that countered the restrictive corsets then in favour."

The annual Met Gala ceremony in Manhattan is the premier venue where fashion designers and their creations are celebrated. Social media is also a place where fashion is presented most often. Some influencers are paid huge amounts of money to promote a product or clothing item, where the business hopes many viewers will buy the product off the back of the advertisement.

Instagram is the most popular platform for advertising, but Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and other platforms are also used. 

In New York, the LGBT fashion design community contributes very significantly to promulgating fashion trends, and drag celebrities have developed a profound influence upon New York Fashion Week.


Economic influences:

Circular economy:

With increasing environmental awareness, the economic imperative to "Spend now, think later" is increasingly scrutinized. Today's consumer tends to be more mindful about consumption, looking for just enough and better, more durable options.

People have also become more conscious of the impact their everyday consumption exerts upon the environment and on society, and these initiatives are often described as a move towards sustainable fashion, yet some argue that a circular economy based on growth is an oxymoron, or an increasing spiral of consumption, rather than a utopian cradle-to-cradle circular solution.

In today's linear economic system, manufacturers extract resources from the earth to make products that will soon be discarded in landfills, on the other hand, under the circular model, the production of goods operates like systems in nature, where the waste and demise of a substance becomes the food and source of growth for something new.


Marketing:

Market research:
​
​Consumers of different groups have varying needs and demands. Factors taken into consideration when analyzing consumers' needs include key demographics. To understand consumers' needs and predict fashion trends, fashion companies have to do market research There are two research methods: primary and secondary.

Secondary methods are taking other information that has already been collected, for example using a book or an article for research. Primary research is collecting data through surveys, interviews, observation, and/or focus groups. Primary research often focuses on large sample sizes to determine customer's motivations to shop.

The benefits of primary research are specific information about a fashion brand's consumer is explored. Surveys are helpful tools; questions can be open-ended or closed-ended. Negative factor surveys and interviews present is that the answers can be biased, due to wording in the survey or on face-to-face interactions.

Focus groups, about 8 to 12 people, can be beneficial because several points can be addressed in depth. However, there are drawbacks to this tactic, too. With such a small sample size, it is hard to know if the greater public would react the same way as the focus group. 

Observation can really help a company gain insight on what a consumer truly wants. There is less of a bias because consumers are just performing their daily tasks, not necessarily realizing they are being observed. For example, observing the public by taking street style photos of people, the consumer did not get dressed in the morning knowing that would have their photo taken necessarily. They just wear what they would normally wear. Through observation patterns can be seen, helping trend forecasters know what their target market needs and wants.

Knowing the needs of consumers will increase fashion companies' sales and profits. Through research and studying the consumers' lives the needs of the customer can be obtained and help fashion brands know what trends the consumers are ready for.

Symbolic consumption:

Consumption is driven not only by need, the symbolic meaning for consumers is also a factor. Consumers engaging in symbolic consumption may develop a sense of self over an extended period of time as various objects are collected as part of the process of establishing their identity and, when the symbolic meaning is shared in a social group, to communicate their identity to others.

For teenagers, consumption plays a role in distinguishing the child self from the adult.

Researchers have found that the fashion choices of teenagers are used for self-expression and also to recognize other teens who wear similar clothes. The symbolic association of clothing items can link individuals' personality and interests, with music as a prominent factor influencing fashion decisions.

Political influences​:

​Political figures have played a central role in the development of fashion, at least since the time of French king Louis XIV. For example, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was a fashion icon of the early 1960s. Wearing Chanel suits, structural Givenchy shift dresses, and soft color Cassini coats with large buttons, she inspired trends of both elegant formal dressing and classic feminine style.

Cultural upheavals have also had an impact on fashion trends. For example, during the 1960s, the U.S. economy was robust, the divorce rate was increasing, and the government approved the birth control pill. These factors inspired the younger generation to rebel against entrenched social norms.

The civil rights movement, a struggle for social justice and equal opportunity for Blacks, and the women's liberation movement, seeking equal rights and opportunities and greater personal freedom for women, were in full bloom. In 1964, the leg-baring mini-skirt was introduced and became a white-hot trend.

Fashion designers then began to experiment with the shapes of garments: loose sleeveless dresses, micro-minis, flared skirts, and trumpet sleeves. Fluorescent colors, print patterns, bell-bottom jeans, fringed vests, and skirts became de rigueur outfits of the 1960s.

Concern and protest over U.S involvement in the failing Vietnam War also influenced fashion. Camouflage patterns in military clothing, developed to help military personnel be less visible to enemy forces, seeped into streetwear designs in the 1960s. Camouflage trends have disappeared and resurfaced several times since then, appearing in high fashion iterations in the 1990s. 

Designers such as Valentino, Dior, and Dolce & Gabbana combined camouflage into their runway and ready-to-wear collections. Today, variations of camouflage, including pastel shades, in every article of clothing or accessory, continue to enjoy popularity.

Technology influences:

Today, technology plays a sizable role in society, and technological influences are correspondingly increasing within the realm of fashion. Wearable technology has become incorporated; for example, clothing constructed with solar panels that charge devices and smart fabrics that enhance wearer comfort by changing color or texture based on environmental changes. 

3D printing technology has influenced designers such as Iris van Herpen and Kimberly Ovitz. As the technology evolves, 3D printers will become more accessible to designers and eventually, consumers — these could potentially reshape design and production in the fashion industry entirely.

Internet technology, enabling the far reaches of online retailers and social media platforms, has created previously unimaginable ways for trends to be identified, marketed, and sold immediately. Trend-setting styles are easily displayed and communicated online to attract customers.

Posts on Instagram or Facebook can quickly increase awareness about new trends in fashion, which subsequently may create high demand for specific items or brands, new "buy now button" technology can link these styles with direct sales.

Machine vision technology has been developed to track how fashions spread through society. The industry can now see the direct correlation on how fashion shows influence street-chic outfits. Effects such as these can now be quantified and provide valuable feedback to fashion houses, designers, and consumers regarding trends.


Environmental impact:
This section is an excerpt from Environmental impact of fashion.

​The fashion industry, particularly manufacture and use of apparel and footwear, is a significant driver of greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution. The rapid growth of fast fashion has led to around 80 billion items of clothing being consumed annually, with a large number going to landfill.

Less than one percent of clothing is recycled to make new clothes. The industry produces an estimated 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The production and distribution of the crops, fibers, and garments used in fashion all contribute to differing forms of environmental pollution, including water, air, and soil degradation.

The textile industry is the second greatest polluter of local freshwater in the world, and is culpable for roughly one-fifth of all industrial water pollution. 

Some of the main factors that contribute to this industrial caused pollution are the vast overproduction of fashion items, the use of synthetic fibers, the agriculture pollution of fashion crops, and the proliferation of microfibers across global water sources.

Efforts have been made by some retailers and consumers to promote sustainable fashion practices, such as reducing waste, and improving energy and water efficiency.


Media
​
The media plays a significant role when it comes to fashion. For instance, an important part of fashion is fashion journalism. Editorial critique, guidelines, and commentary can be found on television and in magazines, newspapers, fashion websites, social networks, and fashion blogs.

In recent years, fashion blogging and YouTube videos have become a major outlet for spreading trends and fashion tips, creating an online culture of sharing one's style on a website or social media accounts (i.e. Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter). Through these media outlets, readers and viewers all over the world can learn about fashion, making it very accessible. 

In addition to fashion journalism, another media platform that is important in fashion industry is advertisement. Advertisements provide information to audiences and promote the sales of products and services. The fashion industry uses advertisements to attract consumers and promote its products to generate sales.

A few decades ago when technology was still underdeveloped, advertisements heavily relied on radio, magazines, billboards, and newspapers. These days, there are more various ways in advertisements such as television ads, online-based ads using internet websites, and posts, videos, and live streaming in social media platforms.

Fashion in printed media​:
​​
There are two subsets of print styling: editorial and lifestyle. Editorial styling is the high-fashion styling seen in fashion magazines, and this tends to be more artistic and fashion-forward. Lifestyle styling focuses on a more overtly commercial goal, like a department store advertisement, a website, or an advertisement where fashion is not what's being sold but the models hired to promote the product in the photo.

The dressing practices of the powerful have traditionally been mediated through art and the practices of the courts. The looks of the French court were disseminated through prints from the 16th century on, but gained cohesive design with the development of a centralized court under King Louis XIV, which produced an identifiable style that took his name. At the beginning of the 20th century, fashion magazines began to include photographs of various fashion designs and became even more influential than in the past. 

​In cities throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought after and had a profound effect on public taste in clothing. Talented illustrators drew exquisite fashion plates for the publications which covered the most recent developments in fashion and beauty. Perhaps the most famous of these magazines was La Gazette du Bon Ton, which was founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel and regularly published until 1925 (with the exception of the war years).

​Vogue, founded in Manhattan in 1892, has been the longest-lasting and most successful of the hundreds of fashion magazines that have come and gone. Increasing affluence after World War II and, most importantly, the advent of cheap color printing in the 1960s, led to a huge boost in its sales and heavy coverage of fashion in mainstream women's magazines, followed by men's magazines in the 1990s.

One such example of Vogue's popularity is the younger version, Teen Vogue, which covers clothing and trends that are targeted more toward the "fashionista on a budget". Haute couture designers followed the trend by starting ready-to-wear and perfume lines which are heavily advertised in the magazines and now dwarf their original couture businesses.

A recent development within fashion print media is the rise of text-based and critical magazines which aim to prove that fashion is not superficial, by creating a dialogue between fashion academia and the industry. Examples of this development are: 
  • Fashion Theory (1997), 
  • Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry (2008),
  • and Vestoj (2009).


Fashion in television:

Television coverage began in the 1950s with small fashion features. In the 1960s and 1970s, fashion segments on various entertainment shows became more frequent, and by the 1980s, dedicated fashion shows such as Fashion Television started to appear. 

FashionTV was the pioneer in this undertaking and has since grown to become the leader in both Fashion Television and new media channels. The Fashion Industry is beginning to promote their styles through Bloggers on social media's. Vogue specified Chiara Ferragni as "blogger of the moment" due to the rises of followers through her Fashion Blog, that became popular.

A few days after the 2010 Fall Fashion Week in New York City came to a close, The New Islander's Fashion Editor, Genevieve Tax, criticized the fashion industry for running on a seasonal schedule of its own, largely at the expense of real-world consumers. "Because designers release their fall collections in the spring and their spring collections in the fall, fashion magazines such as Vogue always and only look forward to the upcoming season, promoting parkas come September while issuing reviews on shorts in January", she writes.

"Savvy shoppers, consequently, have been conditioned to be extremely, perhaps impractically, farsighted with their buying."

The fashion industry has been the subject of numerous films and television shows, including the reality show Project Runway and the drama series Ugly Betty. Specific fashion brands have been featured in film, not only as product placement opportunities, but as bespoke items that have subsequently led to trends in fashion.

Videos in general have been very useful in promoting the fashion industry. This is evident not only from television shows directly spotlighting the fashion industry, but also movies, events and music videos which showcase fashion statements as well as promote specific brands through product placements.


Controversial advertisements in fashion industry:

Racism in fashion advertisements

Some fashion advertisements have been accused of racism and led to boycotts from customers. Globally known Swedish fashion brand H&M faced this issue with one of its children's wear advertisements in 2018. A Black child wearing a hoodie with the slogan "coolest monkey in the jungle" was featured in the ad. This immediately led to controversy, as "monkey" is commonly used as slur against Black people, and caused many customers to boycott the brand.

Many people, including celebrities, posted on social media about their resentments towards H&M and refusal to work with and buy its products. H&M issued a statement saying "we apologise to anyone this may have offended", though this too received some criticism for appearing insincere.

Another fashion advertisement seen as racist was from GAP, an American worldwide clothing brand. GAP collaborated with Ellen DeGeneres in 2016 for the advertisement. It features four playful young girls, with a tall White girl leaning with her arm on a shorter Black girl's head.

Upon release, some viewers harshly criticized it, claiming it shows an underlying passive racism. A representative from The Root commented that the ad portrays the message that Black people are undervalued and seen as props for White people to look better. 

Others saw little issue with the ad, and that the controversy was the result of people being oversensitive. GAP replaced the image in the ad and apologized to critics.

Sexism in fashion advertisements:

Many fashion brands have published ads that were provocative and sexy to attract customers' attention. British high fashion brand, Jimmy Choo, was blamed for having sexism in its ad which featured a female British model wearing the brand's boots. In this two-minute ad, men whistle at a model, walking on the street with red, sleeveless mini dress.

This ad gained much backlash and criticism by the viewers, as it was seen as promoting sexual harassment and other misconduct. Many people showed their dismay through social media posts, leading Jimmy Choo to pull down the ad from social media platforms.

French luxury fashion brand Yves Saint Laurent also faced this issue with its print ad shown in Paris in 2017. The ad depicted a female model wearing fishnet tights with roller-skate stilettos reclining with her legs opened in front of the camera. This advertisement brought harsh comments from both viewers and French advertising organization directors for going against the advertising codes related to "respect for decency, dignity and those prohibiting submission, violence or dependence, as well as the use of stereotypes." and additionally said that this ad was causing "mental harm to adolescents."

Due to the negative public reaction, the poster was removed from the city.


Public relations and social media:

​Fashion public relations involves being in touch with a company's audiences and creating strong relationships with them, reaching out to media, and initiating messages that project positive images of the company. Social media plays an important role in modern-day fashion public relations; enabling practitioners to reach a wide range of consumers through various platforms.

Building brand awareness and credibility is a key implication of good public relations. In some cases, the hype is built about new designers' collections before they are released into the market, due to the immense exposure generated by practitioners. 

Social media, such as blogs, microblogs, podcasts, photo and video sharing sites have all become increasingly important to fashion public relations. The interactive nature of these platforms allows practitioners to engage and communicate with the public in real-time, and tailor their clients' brand or campaign messages to the target audience.

With blogging platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr, WordPress, Squarespace, and other sharing sites, bloggers have emerged as expert fashion commentators, shaping brands and having a great impact on what is 'on trend'. 

Women in the fashion public relations industry such as Sweaty Betty PR founder Roxy Jacenko and Oscar de la Renta's PR girl Erika Bearman, have acquired copious followers on their social media sites, by providing a brand identity and a behind the scenes look into the companies they work for.

Social media is changing the way practitioners deliver messages, as they are concerned with the media, and also customer relationship building. PR practitioners must provide effective communication among all platforms, in order to engage the fashion public in an industry socially connected via online shopping. 

Consumers have the ability to share their purchases on their personal social media pages (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), and if practitioners deliver the brand message effectively and meet the needs of its public, word-of-mouth publicity will be generated and potentially provide a wide reach for the designer and their products.


Fashion and political activism:
Further information: Fashion activism

As fashion concerns people, and signifies social hierarchies, fashion intersects with politics and the social organization of societies. Whereas haute couture and business suits are associated by people in power, also groups aiming to challenge the political order also use clothes to signal their position.

The explicit use of fashion as a form of activism, is usually referred to as "fashion activism."

There is a complex relationship between fashion and feminism. Some feminists have argued that by participating in feminine fashions women are contributing to maintaining the gender differences which are part of women's oppression. Susan Brownmiller felt that women should reject traditionally feminine dress, focusing on comfort and practicality rather than fashion. 

Others believe that it is the fashion system itself that is repressive in requiring women to seasonally change their clothes to keep up with trends. Germaine Greer has advocated this argument that seasonal changes in dress should be ignored; she argues that women can be liberated by replacing the compulsiveness of fashion with enjoyment of rejecting the norm to create their own personal styling. 

This rejection of seasonal fashion led to many protests in the 1960s alongside rejection of fashion on socialist, racial and environmental grounds. However, Mosmann has pointed out that the relationship between protesting fashion and creating fashion is dynamic because the language and style used in these protests has then become part of fashion itself.

Fashion designers and brands have traditionally kept themselves out of political conflicts, there has been a movement in the industry towards taking more explicit positions across the political spectrum. From maintaining a rather apolitical stance, designers and brands today engage more explicitly in current debates.

For example, considering the U.S.'s political climate in the surrounding months of the 2016 presidential election, during 2017 fashion weeks in London, Milan, New York, Paris and São Paulo amongst others, many designers took the opportunity to take political stances leveraging their platforms and influence to reach their customers. 

This has also led to some controversy over democratic values, as fashion is not always the most inclusive platform for political debate, but a one-way broadcast of top-down messages.

When taking an explicit political stance, designers generally favor issues that can be identified in clear language with virtuous undertones. For example, aiming to "amplify a greater message of unity, inclusion, diversity, and feminism in a fashion space", designer Mara Hoffman invited the founders of the Women's March on Washington to open her show which featured modern silhouettes of utilitarian wear, described by critics as "Made for a modern warrior" and "Clothing for those who still have work to do". 

Prabal Gurung debuted his collection of T-shirts featuring slogans such as "The Future is Female", "We Will Not Be Silenced", and "Nevertheless She Persisted", with proceeds going to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and Gurung's own charity, "Shikshya Foundation Nepal". 

Similarly, The Business of Fashion launched the #TiedTogether movement on Social Media, encouraging member of the industry from editors to models, to wear a white bandana advocating for "unity, solidarity, and inclusiveness during fashion week".

Fashion may be used to promote a cause, such as to promote healthy behavior, to raise money for a cancer cure, or to raise money for local charities such as the Juvenile Protective Association or a children's hospice.

One fashion cause is trashion, which is using trash to make clothes, jewelry, and other fashion items in order to promote awareness of pollution. There are a number of modern trashion artists such as Marina DeBris, Ann Wizer, and Nancy Judd. Other designers have used DIY fashions, in the tradition of the punk movement, to address elitism in the industry to promote more inclusion and diversity.


Anthropological perspective:

Through an academic lens, the sporting of various fashions has been seen as a form of fashion language, a mode of communication that produced various fashion statements, using a grammar of fashion. This is a perspective promoted in the work of influential French philosopher and semiotician Roland Barthes.

Anthropology, the study of culture and of human societies, examines fashion by asking why certain styles are deemed socially appropriate and others are not. From the theory of interactionism, a certain practice or expression is chosen by those in power in a community, and that becomes "the fashion" as defined at a certain time by the people under influence of those in power. If a particular style has a meaning in an already occurring set of beliefs, then that style may have a greater chance of become fashion.

According to cultural theorists Ted Polhemus and Lynn Procter, one can describe fashion as adornment, of which there are two types: fashion and anti-fashion. Through the capitalization and commoditization of clothing, accessories, and shoes, etc., what once constituted anti-fashion becomes part of fashion as the lines between fashion and anti-fashion are blurred, as expressions that were once outside the changes of fashion are swept along with trends to signify new meanings. 

Examples range from how elements from ethnic dress becomes part of a trend and appear on catwalks or street cultures, for example how tattoos travel from sailors, laborers and criminals to popular culture.

To cultural theorist Malcolm Bernard, fashion and anti-fashion differ as polar opposites. Anti-fashion is fixed and changes little over time, varying depending on the cultural or social group one is associated with or where one lives, but within that group or locality the style changes little.

Fashion, in contrast, can change (evolve) very quickly and is not affiliated with one group or area of the world but spreads throughout the world wherever people can communicate easily with each other. An example of anti-fashion would be ceremonial or otherwise traditional clothing where specific garments and their designs are both reproduced faithfully and with the intent of maintaining a status quo of tradition.

This can be seen in the clothing of some kabuki plays, where some character outfits are kept intact from designs of several centuries ago, in some cases retaining the crests of the actors considered to have 'perfected' that role.

Anti-fashion is concerned with maintaining the status quo, while fashion is concerned with social mobility. Time is expressed in terms of continuity in anti-fashion, and in terms of change in fashion; fashion has changing modes of adornment, while anti-fashion has fixed modes of adornment.

From this theoretical lens, change in fashion is part of the larger industrial system and is structured by the powerful actors in this system to be a deliberate change in style, promoted through the channels influenced by the industry (such as paid advertisements).


Intellectual property:

​In the fashion industry, intellectual property is not enforced as it is within the film industry and music industry. Robert Glariston, an intellectual property expert, mentioned in a fashion seminar held in LA that "Copyright law regarding clothing is a current hot-button issue in the industry.

We often have to draw the line between designers being inspired by a design and those outright stealing it in different places." To take inspiration from others' designs contributes to the fashion industry's ability to establish clothing trends.

For the past few years, WGSN has been a dominant source of fashion news and forecasts in encouraging fashion brands worldwide to be inspired by one another. Enticing consumers to buy clothing by establishing new trends is, some have argued, a key component of the industry's success.

Intellectual property rules that interfere with this process of trend-making would, in this view, be counter-productive. On the other hand, it is often argued that the blatant theft of new ideas, unique designs, and design details by larger companies is what often contributes to the failure of many smaller or independent design companies.

Since fakes are distinguishable by their poorer quality, there is still a demand for luxury goods, and as only a trademark or logo can be copyrighted, many fashion brands make this one of the most visible aspects of the garment or accessory. In handbags, especially, the designer's brand may be woven into the fabric (or the lining fabric) from which the bag is made, making the brand an intrinsic element of the bag.

In 2005, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a conference calling for stricter intellectual property enforcement within the fashion industry to better protect small and medium businesses and promote competitiveness within the textile and clothing industries.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Fashion design

​Fashion design is the art of applying design, aesthetics, clothing construction and natural beauty to clothing and its accessories. It is influenced by culture and different trends, and has varied over time and place. "A fashion designer creates clothing, including dresses, suits, pants, and skirts, and accessories like shoes and handbags, for consumers. He or she can specialize in clothing, accessory, or jewelry design, or may work in more than one of these areas."


Fashion designers:

Fashion designers work in a variety of different ways when designing their pieces and accessories such as rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings. Due to the time required to put a garment out in market, designers must anticipate changes to consumer desires. Fashion designers are responsible for creating looks for individual garments, involving shape, color, fabric, trimming, and more.

Fashion designers attempt to design clothes that are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. They consider who is likely to wear a garment and the situations in which it will be worn, and they work within a wide range of materials, colors, patterns, and styles.

Though most clothing worn for everyday wear falls within a narrow range of conventional styles, unusual garments are usually sought for special occasions such as evening wear or party dresses.

Some clothes are made specifically for an individual, as in the case of haute couture or bespoke tailoring. Today, most clothing is designed for the mass market, especially casual and everyday wear, which are commonly known as ready to wear or fast fashion.

Structure:

There are different lines of work for designers in the fashion industry, which consist of those who work full-time for a singular fashion house or those who are freelance designers.

Fashion designers that work full-time for one fashion house, as 'in-house designers', own the designs and may either work alone or as a part of a design team. Freelance designers who work for themselves, sell their designs to fashion houses, directly to shops, or to clothing manufacturers.

There are quite a few fashion designers who choose to set up their own labels, which offers them full control over their designs. While others are self-employed and design for individual clients. Other high-end fashion designers cater to specialty stores or high-end fashion department stores. These designers create original garments, as well as those that follow established fashion trends.

Most fashion designers, however, work for apparel manufacturers, creating designs of men's, women's, and children's fashions for the mass market. Large designer brands which have a 'name' as their brand such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Justice, or Juicy are likely to be designed by a team of individual designers under the direction of a design director.

Designing a garment:

Fashion designers work in various ways, some start with a vision in their head later on move into drawing it on paper or computer , while others go directly into draping fabric onto a dress form, also known as a mannequin. The design process is unique to the designer and it is rather intriguing to see the various steps that go into the process.

A designer may choose to work with certain apps that are able to help connect all their ideas together and expand their thoughts to create a cohesive design. When a designer is completely satisfied with the fit of the toile (or muslin), they will consult a professional pattern maker who then makes the finished, working version of the pattern out of card or via a computer program.

Finally, a sample garment is made up and tested on a model to make sure it is an operational outfit. Fashion design is expressive, the designers create art that may be functional or non-functional.


History:
​Main article: History of fashion design

Modern Western fashion design is often considered to have started in the 19th century with Charles Frederick Worth who was the first designer to have his label sewn into the garments that he created. Before the former draper set up his maison couture (fashion house) in Paris, clothing design and creation of the garments were handled largely by anonymous seamstresses.

At the time high fashion descended from what was popularly worn at royal courts. Worth's success was such that he was able to dictate to his customers what they should wear, instead of following their lead as earlier dressmakers had done. The term couturier was in fact first created in order to describe him. While all articles of clothing from any time period are studied by academics as costume design, only clothing created after 1858 is considered fashion design.

It was during this period that many design houses began to hire artists to sketch or paint designs for garments. Rather than going straight into manufacturing, the images were shown to clients to gain approval, which saved time and money for the designer. If the client liked their design, the patrons commissioned the garment from the designer, and it was produced for the client in the fashion house.

This designer-patron construct launched designers sketching their work rather than putting the completed designs on models.


Types of fashion:

Garments produced by clothing manufacturers fall into three main categories, although these may be split up into additional, different types.

Haute couture:
Main article: Haute couture

Until the 1950s, fashion clothing was predominately designed and manufactured on a made-to-measure or haute couture basis (French for high-sewing), with each garment being created for a specific client. A couture garment is made to order for an individual customer, and is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric, sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish, often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques.

Look and fit take priority over the cost of materials and the time it takes to make. Due to the high cost of each garment, haute couture makes little direct profit for the fashion houses, but is important for prestige and publicity.

Ready-to-wear (prêt-à-porter):
Main article: Ready-to-wear

Ready-to-wear, or prêt-à-porter, clothes are a cross between haute couture and mass market. They are not made for individual customers, but great care is taken in the choice and cut of the fabric.

Clothes are made in small quantities to guarantee exclusivity, so they are rather expensive. Ready-to-wear collections are usually presented by fashion houses each season during a period known as Fashion Week. This takes place on a citywide basis and occurs twice a year.

The main seasons of Fashion Week include spring/summer, fall/winter, resort, swim, and bridal.

Half-way garments are an alternative to ready-to-wear, "off-the-peg", or prêt-à-porter fashion. Half-way garments are intentionally unfinished pieces of clothing that encourage co-design between the "primary designer" of the garment, and what would usually be considered, the passive "consumer". This differs from ready-to-wear fashion, as the consumer is able to participate in the process of making and co-designing their clothing.

During the Make{able} workshop, Hirscher and Niinimaki found that personal involvement in the garment-making process created a meaningful "narrative" for the user, which established a person-product attachment and increased the sentimental value of the final product.

Otto von Busch also explores half-way garments and fashion co-design in his thesis, "Fashion-able, Hacktivism and engaged Fashion Design".

Mass market:
Main article: Mass market

Currently, the fashion industry relies more on mass-market sales. The mass market caters for a wide range of customers, producing ready-to-wear garments using trends set by the famous names in fashion. They often wait around a season to make sure a style is going to catch on before producing their versions of the original look.

To save money and time, they use cheaper fabrics and simpler production techniques which can easily be done by machines. The end product can, therefore, be sold much more inexpensively.

There is a type of design called "kutch" originated from the German word kitschig, meaning "trashy" or "not aesthetically pleasing". Kitsch can also refer to "wearing or displaying something that is therefore no longer in fashion".


Income:

The median annual wages for salaried fashion designers was $74,410 in February of 2023. The middle 50 percent earned an average of 76,700. The lowest 10 percent earned 32,320 and the highest 10 percent earned 130,900. 

Median annual earnings in May 2008 were $52,860 (£40,730.47) in apparel, piece goods, and notions - the industry employing the largest numbers of fashion designers. In 2016, 23,800 people were counted as fashion designers in the United States.


Fashion industry:
​
Fashion today is a global industry, and most major countries have a fashion industry. Seven countries have established an international reputation in fashion:
The "big four" fashion capitals of the fashion industry are: 
United States:
Main article: Fashion in the United States

​The United States is home to the largest, wealthiest, and most multi-faceted fashion industry. Most fashion houses in the United States are based in New York City, with a high concentration centered in the Garment District neighborhood.

On the US west coast, there is also to a lesser extent a significant number of fashion houses in Los Angeles, where a substantial percentage of high fashion clothing manufactured in the United States is actually made. 

Miami has also emerged as a new fashion hub, especially in regards to swimwear and other beach-oriented fashion.

A semi-annual event held every February and September, New York Fashion Week is the oldest of the four major fashion weeks held throughout the world. Parsons The New School for Design, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City, is considered one of the top fashion schools in the world.

There are numerous fashion magazines published in the United States and distributed to a global readership. Examples include: 
American fashion design is highly diverse, reflecting the enormous ethnic diversity of the population, but is largely dominated by a clean-cut, urban, hip aesthetic, and often favors a more casual style, reflecting the athletic, health-conscious lifestyles of the suburban and urban middle classes.

The annual Met Gala ceremony in Manhattan is widely regarded as the world's most prestigious haute couture fashion event and is a venue where fashion designers and their creations are celebrated. Social media is also a place where fashion is presented most often.

Some influencers are paid huge amounts of money to promote a product or clothing item, where the business hopes many viewers will buy the product off the back of the advertisement. Instagram is the most popular platform for advertising, but Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and other platforms are also used. 

In New York, the LGBT fashion design community contributes very significantly to promulgating fashion trends, and drag celebrities have developed a profound influence upon New York Fashion Week.

Prominent American brands and designers include:  ​
For Other Countries, click on the following blue hyperlinks:
​Fashion design terms:
  • A fashion designer conceives garment combinations of line, proportion, color, and texture. While sewing and pattern-making skills are beneficial, they are not a pre-requisite of successful fashion design. Most fashion designers are formally trained or apprenticed.
  • A technical designer works with the design team and the factories overseas to ensure correct garment construction, appropriate fabric choices and a good fit. The technical designer fits the garment samples on a fit model, and decides which fit and construction changes to make before mass-producing the garment.
  • A pattern maker (also referred as pattern master or pattern cutter) drafts the shapes and sizes of a garment's pieces. This may be done manually with paper and measuring tools or by using a CAD computer software program. Another method is to drape fabric directly onto a dress form. The resulting pattern pieces can be constructed to produce the intended design of the garment and required size. Formal training is usually required for working as a pattern marker.
  • A tailor makes custom designed garments made to the client's measure; especially suits (coat and trousers, jacket and skirt, et cetera). Tailors usually undergo an apprenticeship or other formal training.
  • A textile designer designs fabric weaves and prints for clothes and furnishings. Most textile designers are formally trained as apprentices and in school.
  • A stylist co-ordinates the clothes, jewelry, and accessories used in fashion photography and catwalk presentations. A stylist may also work with an individual client to design a coordinated wardrobe of garments. Many stylists are trained in fashion design, the history of fashion, and historical costume, and have a high level of expertise in the current fashion market and future market trends. However, some simply have a strong aesthetic sense for pulling great looks together.
  • A fashion buyer selects and buys the mix of clothing available in retail shops, department stores, and chain stores. Most fashion buyers are trained in business and/or fashion studies.
  • A seamstress sews ready-to-wear or mass-produced clothing by hand or with a sewing machine, either in a garment shop or as a sewing machine operator in a factory. She (or he) may not have the skills to make (design and cut) the garments, or to fit them on a model.
  • A dressmaker specializes in custom-made women's clothes: day, cocktail, and evening dresses, business clothes and suits, trousseaus, sports clothes, and lingerie.
  • A fashion forecaster predicts what colours, styles and shapes will be popular ("on-trend") before the garments are on sale in stores.
  • A model wears and displays clothes at fashion shows and in photographs.
  • A fit model aids the fashion designer by wearing and commenting on the fit of clothes during their design and pre-manufacture. Fit models need to be a particular size for this purpose.
  • A fashion journalist writes fashion articles describing the garments presented or fashion trends, for magazines or newspapers.
  • A fashion photographer produces photographs about garments and other fashion items along with models and stylists for magazines or advertising agencies.
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Below a Gallery of Fashion Icons and their work:

​Chanel: Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2011–2012 Fashion Show by Karl Lagerfeld 
(Credited By Haute Couture News - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15892390 
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Below: Naomi Campbell takes over NYFW with iconic '90s fashion designs
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Below: Paris Fall Fashion Week 2012: A Finale at Yves Saint Laurent
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Below: At DKNY, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, Coming Full Circle
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Below: Vera Wang’s sexiest age-defying looks, from sports bras to swimsuits
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Below: ​
Louis Vuitton, spring 2024 Credit...Vianney Le Caer/Invision, via Associated Press
Fashion Models





Pictured below: ​Dress Fashion show Runway Fashion design, dkny, fashion, summer, fashion Model 








Models including both Their Modeling Agencies and Talent Agents Pictured below: Former Models (L-R):
TOP ROW: Suzy Parker, Twiggy,
​BOTTOM ROW: Renauld White, Ted Danson, Tom Selleck, ​
​Model (person)

​A model is a person with a role either to display commercial products (notably fashion clothing in fashion shows) or to serve as an artist's model or to pose for photography.
​
Modelling ("modeling" in American English) is considered to be different from other types of public performance, such as acting or dancing; thus, appearing in a film or a play is not generally considered to be "modelling". Personal opinions are normally not expressed, and a model's reputation and image are considered critical.

Types of modelling include:
Models are featured in various media formats, including books, magazines, films, newspapers, the Internet, and television. Fashion modelling is sometimes featured in reality TV shows (America's Next Top Model).

Celebrities, including actors, singers, sports personalities and reality TV stars, frequently participate in modelling contests, assignments, and contracts in addition to their regular work. Modelling often is a part-time activity.


Artist's models:
Main article: Model (art)

Artist's models pose for any visual artist as part of the creative process. Artist's models are often paid professionals who provide a reference or inspiration for a work of art that includes the human figure. The most common types of art created using models are figure drawing, figure painting, sculpture and photography, but almost any medium may be used.

Although commercial motives dominate over aesthetics in illustration, its artwork commonly employs models. Models are most frequently employed for art classes or by informal groups of experienced artists who gather to share the expense of a model.


History of fashion modelling:

Early years

In 14th-century Europe, fashion had been displayed in miniature form to (often royal) clients by fashion dolls, before the clothes were made in human size.

Modelling as a profession was first established in 1853 by Charles Frederick Worth, the "father of haute couture", when he asked his wife, Marie Vernet Worth, to model the potential clients for the clothes he designed. 

The term "house model" was coined to describe this type of work. Eventually, this became common practice for Parisian fashion houses. There were no standard physical measurement requirements for a model, and most designers would use women of varying sizes to demonstrate variety in their designs.

The modelling profession expanded to photo modelling with the development of fashion photography. Models remained fairly anonymous, and relatively poorly paid, until the late 1940s, when the world's first three supermodels, Barbara Goalen, Bettina Graziani and Lisa Fonssagrives began commanding very large sums.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Graziani was the most photographed woman in France and the undisputed queen of couture, while Fonssagrives appeared on over 200 Vogue covers; her name recognition led to the importance of Vogue in shaping the careers of fashion models.

One of the most popular models during the 1940s was Jinx Falkenburg, who was paid $25 per hour, a large sum at the time. 

Through the 1950s, the following also dominated fashion:
Dorothea Church was among the first black models in the industry to gain recognition in Paris. However, these models were unknown outside the fashion community. Wilhelmina Cooper's measurements were 38"-24"-36" whereas Chanel Iman's measurements are 32"-23"-33". 

In 1946, Ford Models was established by Eileen and Gerard Ford in New York, making it one of the oldest model agencies in the world.

The 1960s and the beginning of the industry

In the 1960s, the modelling world established modelling agencies. Throughout Europe, secretarial services acted as models' agents charging them weekly rates for their messages and bookings. For the most part, models were responsible for their own billing.

In Germany, agents were not allowed to work for a percentage of a person's earnings, so they referred to themselves as secretaries. Except for a few models travelling to Paris or New York, travelling was relatively unheard of for a model.

Most models only worked in one market due to different labour laws governing modelling in various countries. In the 1960s, Italy had many fashion houses and fashion magazines but desperately needed models.

Italian agencies often coerced models to return to Italy without work visas by withholding their pay. They would also pay their models in cash, which models would have to hide from customs agents.

It was not uncommon for models staying in hotels such as La Louisiana in Paris or the Arena in Milan to have their hotel rooms raided by the police looking for their work visas. It was rumoured that competing agencies were behind the raids. This led many agencies to form worldwide chains; for example, the Marilyn Agency has branches in Paris and New York.

By the late 1960s, London was considered the best market in Europe due to its more organised and innovative approach to modelling. It was during this period that models began to become household names.

Models such as Jean Shrimpton, Tania Mallet, Celia Hammond, Twiggy, and Penelope Tree dominated the London fashion scene and were well paid, unlike their predecessors. 

Twiggy became The Face of '66 at the age of 16. At this time, model agencies were not as restrictive about the models they represented, although it was uncommon for them to sign shorter models. Twiggy, who stood at 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) with a 32" bust and had a boy's haircut, is credited with changing model ideals. At that time, she earned £80 (equivalent to £1,639.1 or US$2,037.32 in 2023) an hour, while the average wage was £15 (equivalent to £307.33 or US$382 in 2023) a week.

​In 1967, seven of the top model agents in London formed the Association of London Model Agents. The formation of this association helped legitimise modelling and changed the fashion industry. Even with a more professional attitude towards modelling, models were still expected to have their hair and makeup done before they arrived at a shoot.

Meanwhile, agencies took responsibility for a model's promotional materials and branding. That same year, former top fashion model Wilhelmina Cooper opened up her own fashion agency with her husband called Wilhelmina Models. By 1968, FM Agency and Models 1 were established and represented models in a similar way that agencies do today. 

By the late 1960s, models were treated better and were making better wages.

One of the innovators, Ford Models, was the first agency to advance models money they were owed and would often allow teen models, who did not live locally, to reside in their house, a precursor to model housing.

The 1970s and 1980s:

The innovations of the 1960s flowed into the 1970s fashion scene. As a result of model industry associations and standards, model agencies became more business minded, and more thought went into a model's promotional materials. By this time, agencies were starting to pay for a model's publicity. 

In the early 1970s, Scandinavia had many tall, leggy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed models and not enough clients. It was during this time that Ford Models pioneered scouting. They would spend time working with agencies holding modeling contests. This was the precursor to the Ford Models Supermodel of the World competition, established in 1980.

Ford also focused its attention on Brazil, which had a wide array of seemingly "exotic" models, which eventually led to the establishment of Ford Models Brazil. During this time, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue debuted. The magazine set the trend by photographing "bigger and healthier" California models, and printing their names by their photos, thus turning many of them into household names and establishing the issue as a hallmark of supermodel status.

​The 1970s marked numerous milestones in fashion:

 Beverly Johnson was the first black woman to appear on the cover of U.S. Vogue in 1974. 

Models were some of the top black fashion models who paved the way for black women in fashion, including: 
In 1975, Margaux Hemingway landed a then-unprecedented million-dollar contract as the face of Fabergé's Babe perfume and the same year appeared on the cover of Time magazine, labeled one of the "New Beauties", giving further name recognition to fashion models.

Many of the world's most prominent modeling agencies were established in the 1970s and early 1980s. These agencies created the standard by which agencies now run.

In 1974, Nevs Models was established in London with only a men's board, the first of its kind.

Elite Models was founded in Paris in 1975, as well as Friday's Models in Japan. 

The next year Cal-Carries was established in Singapore, the first of a chain of agencies in Asia.

​In 1977, Select Model Management and Why Not Models in Milan opened its doors. By the 1980s, agencies such as Premier Model Management, Storm Models, Mikas, Marilyn, and Metropolitan Models had been established.
In October 1981, Life cited: by proclaiming the above the "million dollar faces" of the beauty industry. These models negotiated previously unheard-of lucrative and exclusive deals with giant cosmetics companies, were instantly recognizable, and their names became well known to the public.

By the 1980s, most models could make modeling a full-time career. Patti Hansen, one of the top earning models in 1980, earned $200 an hour for print and $2,000 for television plus residuals; it was estimated that she earned about $300,000 a year in 1980 (equivalent to $931,463 in 2023). 

It was common for models to travel abroad and work throughout Europe. As modeling became global, numerous agencies began to think globally. In 1980, Ford Models, the innovator of scouting, introduced the Ford Models Supermodel of the World contest.

That same year, John Casablancas opened Elite Models in New York. In 1981, cosmetics companies began contracting top models to lucrative endorsement deals. By 1983, Elite had developed its own contest, the Elite Model Look competition. In New York, during the 1980s there were so-called "model wars" in which the Ford and Elite agencies fought over models and campaigns.

Models were jumping back and forth between agencies like Elite, Wilhelmina, and Ford. In New York, the late 1980s trend was the boyish look in which models had short cropped hair and looked androgynous. In Europe, the trend was the exact opposite. During this time, many American models who were considered more feminine-looking moved abroad. By the mid-1980s, big hair was made popular by some musical groups, and the boyish look was out. The hourglass figure, a fashionable trend from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, has made a comeback.

1990s

​The high fashion models of the late 1980s dominated the early 1990s. In 1990, Linda Evangelista famously said to Vogue, "we don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day".

Evangelista and her contemporaries, including: became arguably the most recognisable models in the world, earning the moniker of "supermodel", and were boosted to global recognition and new heights of wealth for the industry. 

In 1991, Turlington signed a contract with Maybelline that paid her $800,000 for twelve days' work each year.

By the mid‑1990s, the new "heroin chic" trend became popular amongst New York and London editorial clients. Kate Moss became its poster child through her ads for Calvin Klein.
With the popularity of lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret, and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, there was a need for healthier-looking supermodels such as Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum to meet commercial modelling demand. The mid‑1990s also saw many Asian countries establishing modelling agencies.

By the late 1990s, the heroin chic era had run its course. Teen-inspired clothing infiltrated mainstream fashion, teen pop music was on the rise, and such artists as follows popularised leather and bare midriffs:
As fashion changed to a more youthful demographic, the models who rose to fame had to be sexier for the digital age. Following Gisele Bündchen's breakthrough, a wave of Brazilian models including Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio rose to fame on runways and became popular in commercial modelling throughout the 2000s.

Some have tied this increase in Brazilian models to the trend of magazines featuring celebrities instead of models on their covers.

2000s and since

In the late 2000s, the Brazilians fell out of favour on the runways. Editorial clients were favouring models with a china-doll or alien look to them, such as Gemma Ward and Lily Cole. During the 2000s, Ford Models and NEXT Model Management were engaged in a legal battle, with each agency alleging that the other was stealing its models.
​​See also: Size zero

​However, the most significant controversy of the 2000s was the health of high-fashion models participating in fashion week. While the health of models had been a concern since the 1970s, there were several high-profile news stories surrounding the deaths of young fashion models due to eating disorders and drug abuse.

The British Fashion Council subsequently asked designers to sign a contract stating they would not use models under the age of sixteen. On March 3, 2012, Vogue banned models under the age of sixteen as well as models who appeared to have an eating disorder.

Similarly, other countries placed bans on unhealthy, and underage models, including Spain, Italy, Israel and France, which all enacted a minimum body mass index (BMI) requirement. The French law also requires digitally altered pictures of models to be identified as such.

In 2013, New York toughened its child labour law protections for models under the age of eighteen by passing New York Senate Bill No. 5486, which gives underage models the same labour protections afforded to child actors.

Key new protections included the following:
  • underage models are not to work before 5:00 pm or after 10:00 pm on school nights, nor were they to work later than 12:30 am on non-school nights;
  • the models may not return to work less than twelve hours after they leave;
  • a pediatric nurse must be on-site;
  • an adult chaperone must accompany models under sixteen;
  • parents or guardians of underage models must create a trust fund account into which employers will transfer a minimum of 15% of the child model's gross earnings; and employers must set aside time and a dedicated space for educational instruction.

Runway modelling:
Main articles: 
Catwalk or runway models display clothes from fashion designers, fashion media, and consumers. They are also called "live models" and are self-employed. Their height is generally over 6 ft 0 in (183 cm) for men and over 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) for women.

Runway models work in different locations, constantly travelling between those cities where fashion is well known:
Second-tier international fashion centre cities include: 
The criteria for runway models include certain height and weight requirements. During runway shows, models have to constantly change clothes and makeup. Models walk, turn, and stand to demonstrate a garment's key features.

​Models also go to interviews (called "go and sees") to present their portfolios. The more experience a model has, the more likely she/he is to be hired for a fashion show. A runway model can also work in other areas, such as department store fashion shows, and the most successful models sometimes create their own product lines or go into acting.

​The British Association of Model Agents (AMA) says that female models should be around 34"-24"-34" and between 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) and 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) tall. The average model is very slender. Those not meeting the size requirement may try to become a plus-size model. 

According to the New York Better Business Career Services website, the preferred dimensions for a male model are a height of 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) to 6 ft 2 in (188 cm), a waist of 26–32 in (66–81 cm) and a chest measurement of 39–40 in (99–102 cm). Male runway models are notably skinny and well toned.

Male and female models must also possess clear skin, healthy hair, and attractive facial features. Stringent weight and body proportion guidelines form the selection criteria by which established, and would‑be, models are judged for their placement suitability, on an ongoing basis.

There can be some variation regionally, and by market tier, subject to current prevailing trends at any point, in any era, by agents, agencies and end-clients.

Formerly, the required measurements for models were 35"-23.5"-35" in (90-60-90 cm), the alleged measurements of Marilyn Monroe. 

Today's fashion models tend to have measurements closer to the AMA-recommended shape, but some – such as Afghan model Zohre Esmaeli – still have 35"-23.5"-35" measurements. Although in some fashion centres, a size 00 is more desirable than a size 0.

The often thin shape of many fashion models has been criticised for warping girls' body image and encouraging eating disorders. Organisers of a fashion show in Madrid in September 2006 turned away models who were judged to be underweight by medical personnel who were on hand. 

In February 2007 a Uruguayan model, Luisel Ramos, died from heart problems secondary to malnutrition. Her sister Eliana Ramos also was a model and had died immediately after a runway show several months prior. They were amongst the three fashion models to die of malnutrition in a six-month span. The other victim was Ana Carolina Reston. 

Luisel Ramos died of heart failure caused by anorexia nervosa just after stepping off the catwalk. In 2015, France passed a law requiring models to be declared healthy by a doctor to participate in fashion shows. The law also requires re-touched images to be marked as such in magazines.

Magazine modelling:

Fashion modelling also includes modelling clothing in fashion magazines. In Japan, there are different types of fashion magazine models. Exclusive models (専属モデル, senzoku moderu) are models who regularly appear in a fashion magazine and model exclusively for it. 

On the other hand, street models, or "reader models" (読者モデル, dokusha moderu, abbreviated as "dokumo" for short), are amateur models who model part-time for fashion magazines in conjunction to school work and their main jobs. 

Unlike professional models, street models are meant to represent the average person in appearance and do not appear on runways. Street models are not exclusively contracted to fashion magazines. 

If a street model is popular enough, some become exclusive models. Many fashion icons and musicians in Japan began their careers as street models, including Kaela Kimura and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

Plus-size:
Main article: Plus-size model
​
​Plus-size models are models who generally have larger measurements than editorial fashion models, and are not necessarily overweight. The primary use of plus-size models is to appear in advertising and runway shows for plus-size labels.

Plus-size models are also engaged in work not strictly related to selling large-sized clothing, e.g., stock photography and advertising photography for cosmetics, household and pharmaceutical products and sunglasses, footwear and watches.

Therefore, plus-size models do not exclusively wear garments marketed as plus-size clothing. This is especially true when participating in fashion editorials for mainstream fashion magazines.

Some plus-size models have appeared in runway shows and campaigns for mainstream retailers and designers such as Gucci, Guess, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Levi's and Versace Jeans.

Normal-size

Also known as the "in-between" and "middle models", they are neither considered catalogue size (0–2) nor plus-size (10 up). There is criticism that these models have been left out of the conversation because fashion companies and brands opt to employ the extremes of the spectrum.

Model Camille Kostek who was on a solo cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2019 has stated that she was told by a well-known international modelling agency "...that it was too bad that I wasn't a size 10. That plus size is a big market right now and it's too bad I wasn't measuring bigger. My size (4/6) is considered an "in-between size", meaning I'm not a straight model nor plus model, I'm right in the middle." 

Actress Mindy Kaling has described this body type in her 2011 book Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? writing, "Since I am not model-skinny, but also not super-fat... I fall into that nebulous, 'Normal American Woman Size' that legions of fashion stylists detest... Many stylists hate that size because, I think, to them, I lack the self-discipline to be an aesthetic, or the sassy confidence to be a total fatty hedonist. They're like, 'Pick a lane.'"

Black models:

The arrival of black women modelling as a profession began in early postwar America. It started most notably from the need of advertisers and a rise of black photography magazines.

The women who advanced in such careers were those in a middle-class system emphasising the conservative value of marriage, motherhood, and domesticity. Originally titled the "Brownskin" model, black women refined the social, sexual, and racial realities confined in the gender expectations of the modelling world.

There was a profound need for black women to partake in the advertising process for the new "Negro Market". With the help of Branford Models, the first black agency, 1946 was the beginning of the black modelling era. Branford Models' was able to "overturn the barriers facing African Americans in the early postwar period," especially by lifting at least one economic freedom.

In this postwar America, the demand for such presence in magazines advanced "as a stage for models to display consumer goods" while assisting "in constructing a new visual discourse of urban middle-class African America". In March 1966, Donyale Luna became the African-American model to appear on the cover of the British edition of Vogue.

While they represented diversity, a major gap in the fashion industry, it was only until the 1970s that black models had a substantial presence in the modelling world. Known as the "Black is Beautiful" movement, the 1970s became the era of the black model. With growing disenfranchisement and racial inequality, the United States recognised the urgency of opening the "doors of social access and visibility to black Americans". 

The world of fashion was the gateway for social change. "The world of fashion was similarly looked to as a place where the culture could find signs of racial progress. Expressions of beauty and glamour mattered. Good race relations required taking note of who was selling women lipsticks and mini skirts, which meant that advertisers began looking for black models" Black models were looked to as the vehicle of social change.

They were given the opportunity to balance out the lack of presence of black individuals in the mainstream culture. Agencies were beginning to scout black models and focus on the social change they were contributing to. Life magazine in October 1969, covered their issue with Naomi Sims, one of the most influential black models in the industry. Her rise to fame led to her being hired by international magazines and working on individual projects with designers across the globe.

In the Life Magazine issue, Black Beauty, a new agency that represented black models, had a spread in the magazine that showcased 39 black models. Each one of the models had unique features, allowing black expression to progress through this historic magazine spread.

With the movement's presence both in magazines and on the runway, designers began to realise the need to include black models on their runways and advertisements. The Battle of Versailles was one of the most notable moments in fashion history that put black models on the map. Eleanor Lambert, creator of Fashion Week and a major "[controller] of the narrative of American fashion", set up a dinner and a fundraiser to both increase American fashion visibility and restore the palace of Versailles. 

Five French designers and five American designers battled it out on the runway, showing off the fashion, and for the Americans, black models as well. Oscar de la Renta stated "it was the black models that had made the difference." The following were among the many black models that helped Team America win and stun the French competition: 
This competition made the black model a worldwide phenomenon. The French were beginning to welcome diversity on the runway and in their advertising. With the recognition Versailles had given, black presence in the modelling world carried out into the 1980s and the 1990s. The models were now known by name and the publicity that came with the designers they were modelling for. With the rise of the supermodel, models like Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks paved the way for black success. 

Naomi Campbell, born in London, was the first black model to cover American Vogue, TIME magazine, Russian Vogue, and the first British black model to cover British vogue. Brands like Chanel, Louis Vitton, Balmain, Prada, and more have all featured Campbell in their campaigns. She used her remarkable success to achieve more than fashion excellence.
​By the mid-1990s, black presence in the modelling world had dramatically decreased. Designers began to favour a consistent aesthetic and elected for skinnier white models. This reality was paved by models such as Kate Moss and Stella Tennant, who provided a more consistent look for the runway.

At this time, "the number of working black models in high-profile runway presentation... became so dire that stories began appearing in the mainstream media about the whitewashing of the runway". In response, models like Campbell, Iman, and Bethann Hardison, joined forces throughout the"Diversity Coalition" in an attempt to "call out and accuse prominent fashion houses for snubbing Black and Asian models on the catwalk, editorial spreads, and campaigns". 

The lack of representation was, in part, due to the belief that "black girls don't push products", which "encouraged people who work directly and indirectly in the industry to speak out on the injustices that go on within it". In the 1990s, it was quite clear that the top designers simply preferred a new aesthetic that excluded models of colour, which resulted in only 6% of runway models to be women of colour. 

Campbell's Diversity Coalition's primary mission was to "expedite inclusion on the runway by deliberately calling out designers who have executed acts of racism on the runway". According to Campbell, it was their choice to not include black models on the runway and desire a uniformed runway that resulted in a racist act.

Although such a dramatic effort to exclude black presence from the fashion world, models like Tyra Banks and Veronica Webb persisted. Banks not only dominated the runway as a teen, she took over countless pop culture platforms.

Being the first black model to cover Sports Illustrated, Banks was one of the most prominent models in the early 2000s. Covering the following, Banks was truly dominating the fashion world:  
In conversation with Trebay of Los the New York Times, Banks stated that her first cover on Sports Illustrated "changed [her] life overnight. You have to think back to remember what that did for an appreciation of black beauty to have a black girl, a girl next door type, on the cover of one of the most mass mainstream magazines of our lives. It was a societal statement, a political statement, and an economic one". 

Now, models like the following are continuing the fight for black presence in the modelling world and using their successors as inspiration:
Fitting models:
Main article: Fit model

​A fit model (sometimes fitting model) is a person who is used by a fashion designer or clothing manufacturer to check the fit, drape and visual appearance of a design on a representative human being, effectively acting as a live mannequin.

Parts models:

Some models are employed for their body parts. For example, hand models may be used to promote products held in the hand and nail-related products. (e.g. rings, other jewelry or nail polish). They are frequently part of television commercials. Many parts models have exceptionally attractive body parts, but there is also demand for unattractive or unusual looking body parts for particular campaigns.

Hands are the most in-demand body parts. Feet models are also in high demand, particularly those that fit sample-size shoes. Models are also successful modelling other specific parts including abs, arms, back, bust or chest, legs, and lips. 

Some petite models (females who are under 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) and do not qualify as fashion models) have found success in women's body part modelling.

Parts model divisions can be found at agencies worldwide. Several agencies solely represent parts models, including Hired Hands in London, Body Parts Models in Los Angeles, Carmen Hand Model Management in New York and Parts Models in New York. Parts Models is the largest parts agency, representing over 300 parts models.

Petite models:

Petite models are models that are under the typical height requirements that are expected of fashion models. Petite models typically work more often in commercial and print modelling (rather than runway modelling).

​The height of models is typically 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) and above for women, and 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) and above for men. Models who are shorter than these heights usually fall under the category of petite or commercial models.

​Podium models:

​Podium models differ from runway models in that they do not walk down a runway, but rather just stand on an elevated platform. They resemble live mannequins placed in various places throughout an event. Attendees can walk up to the models and inspect and even feel the clothing. Podium Modelling is a practical alternative way of presenting a fashion show when space is too limited to have a full runway fashion show.

Earnings and demographics:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median earnings for a model in the United States, as of 2021, is $34,000 annually. There are approximately 3,200 men and women who work as models full-time in the United States.


Glamour models:
Main article: Glamour photography
lamour modelling focuses on sexuality; thus, general requirements are often unclear, depending more on each case. Glamour models can be any size or shape. A study from 2014 that analysed glamour model profiles estimated that the mean values of female models were 1.68 m (height), 54 kg (weight) and 0.73 (waist-to-hip ratio).

There is no industry standard for glamour modelling and it varies greatly by country. For the most part, glamour models are limited to modelling in:
However, some extremely popular glamour models transition into commercial print modelling, appearing in swimwear, bikini and lingerie campaigns.
In the UK, glamour modelling became a prominent feature of the newspaper industry when The Sun established Page 3 in 1969, a section in their newspaper which featured sexually suggestive images of Penthouse and Playboy models. From 1970 models appeared topless.

In the 1980s, The Sun's competitors followed suit and produced their own Page 3 sections. It was during this time that glamour models first came to prominence with the likes of Samantha Fox. As a result, the United Kingdom has a very large glamour market and numerous glamour modelling agencies.

It was not until the 1990s that modern glamour modelling was established. During this time, the fashion industry was promoting models with waif bodies and androgynous-looking women, which left a void. Several fashion models, who were deemed too commercial, and too curvaceous, were frustrated with industry standards, and took a different approach.

Models such as Victoria Silvstedt left the fashion world and began modelling for men's magazines. In the previous decades, posing nude for Playboy resulted in models losing their agencies and endorsements. Playboy was a stepping stone which catapulted the careers of:
Pamela Anderson became so popular from her Playboy spreads that she was able to land roles on Home Improvement and Baywatch.

In the mid-1990s, a series of men's magazines were established such as Maxim, FHM, and Stuff. At the same time, magazines including Sweden's Slitz (formerly a music magazine) re-branded themselves as men's magazines.

Pre-internet, these magazines were popular among men in their late teens and early twenties because they were considered more tasteful than their predecessors. With the glamour market growing, fashion moved away from the waifs and onto Brazilian bombshells.

The glamour market, consisting mostly of commercial fashion and print models, became its own genre due to its popularity. Even in a large market like the United Kingdom, however, glamour models are not usually signed exclusively to one agency as they can not rely financially on one agency to provide them with enough work. It was, and still is, a common practice for glamour models to partake in kiss-and-tell interviews about their dalliances with famous men. 

The notoriety of their alleged bed-hopping often propels their popularity and they are often promoted by their current or former fling. With Page 3 models becoming fixtures in the British tabloids, glamour models such as Jordan, now known as Katie Price, became household names.

By 2004, Page 3 regulars earned anywhere from £30,000 to 40,000, where the average salary of a non-Page 3 model, as of 2011, was between £10,000 and 20,000. In the early 2000s, glamour models, and aspiring glamour models, appeared on reality television shows such as Big Brother to gain fame. 

Several Big Brother alumni parlayed their fifteen minutes of fame into successful glamour modelling careers. However, partly because of competition from the upcoming internet -giving audiences access to large amounts of, often free, online content- and its own glamour stars, such as Jordan Capri, the offline glamour market became saturated by the mid-2000s, and numerous men's magazines including Arena, Stuff and FHM in the United States went under. 

​During this time, there was a growing trend of glamour models, including Kellie Acreman and Lauren Pope, becoming DJs to supplement their income. In a 2012 interview, Keeley Hazell said that going topless is not the best way to achieve success and that "[she] was lucky to be in that 1% of people that get that, and become really successful."

​Gravure idols:
See also: UB

In Japan, a gravure idol (グラビアアイドル, gurabia aidoru), often abbreviated to gradol (グラドル, guradoru), is a female model who primarily models for magazines, especially men's magazines, photobooks or DVDs. It is considered part of the overall idol industry in Japan.

"Gurabia" (グラビア) is a wasei-eigo term derived from "rotogravure", which is a type of intaglio printing process that was once a staple of newspaper photo features. The rotogravure process is still used for commercial printing of magazines, postcards, and cardboard product packaging.

Gravure idols appear in a wide range of photographic styles and genres. Their photos are largely aimed at male audiences with poses or activities intended to be provocative or suggestive, generally accentuated by an air of playfulness and innocence rather than aggressive sexuality.

Although gravure idols may sometimes wear clothing that exposes most of their body, they seldom appear fully nude. Gravure idols may be as young as pre-teen age up to their early thirties. In addition to appearing in mainstream magazines, gravure idols often release their own professional photobooks and DVDs for their fans.

Many popular female idols in Japan started their careers as gravure idols.

Alternative models:

An alternative model is any model who does not fit into the conventional model types and may include punk, goth, fetish, and tattooed models or models with distinctive attributes. This type of modelling is usually a cross between glamour modelling and art modelling.

Publishers such as Goliath Books in Germany introduced alternative models and punk photography to larger audiences. Billi Gordon, then known as Wilbert Anthony Gordon, was the top greeting card model in the world and inspired a cottage industry, including greeting cards, T-shirts, fans, stationery, gift bags, etc.


Fitness models:
See also: Fitness and figure competition

Fitness modelling focuses on displaying a healthy, toned physique. Fitness models usually have defined muscle groups. The model's body weight is greater due to muscle being denser than fat; however, they have a lower body fat percentage and a higher degree of muscle definition.

Fitness models are often used in magazine advertising; they can also in some cases be certified personal fitness trainers. However, other fitness models are also athletes and compete as professionals in fitness and figure competitions.

There are several agencies in large markets such as New York, London, and Germany that have fitness modelling agencies. While there is a large market for these models, most of these agencies are secondary agencies promoting models who typically earn their primary income as commercial models.

There are also magazines that are geared towards specifically fitness modelling or getting fit and in shape.


Commercial models:

Promotional models:
Main article: Promotional model
​
​A promotional model is a model hired to drive consumer demand for a product, service, brand, or concept by interacting in person with potential consumers. The vast majority of promotional models tend to be attractive in physical appearance. They serve to provide information about the product or service and make it appealing to consumers.

While the interaction length may be short, the promotional model delivers a live experience that reflects on the product or service he or she represents. This form of marketing touches fewer consumers for the cost than traditional advertising media (such as print, radio, and television); however, the consumer's perception of a brand, product, service, or company is often more profoundly affected by a live person-to-person experience.

Marketing campaigns that make use of promotional models may take place in stores or shopping malls, at tradeshows, special promotional events, clubs, or even at outdoor public spaces.

Promotional models may also be used as TV hosts/anchors for interviewing celebrities at film awards, sports events, etc. They are often held at high-traffic locations to reach as many consumers as possible or at venues where a particular type of target consumer is expected to be present.

Spokesmodels
Main article: Spokesmodel

"Spokesmodel" is a term used for a model who is employed to be associated with a specific brand in advertisements. A spokesmodel may be a celebrity used only in advertisements (in contrast to a brand ambassador who is also expected to represent the company at various events), but more often the term refers to a model who is not a celebrity in their own right.

A classic example of the spokesmodel is the models hired to be the Marlboro Man between 1954 and 1999.

Trade show models:

Trade show models work a trade show floorspace or booth and represent a company to attendees. Trade show models are typically not regular employees of the company, but are freelancers hired by the company renting the booth space. They are hired for several reasons: trade show models can make a company's booth more visible from the hundreds of other booths competing for attendee attention.

They are articulate and quickly learn and explain or disseminate information on the company and its product(s) and service(s). And they can assist a company in handling a large number of attendees, which the company might otherwise not have enough employees to accommodate, possibly increasing the number of sales or leads resulting from participation in the show.

Atmosphere models:

Atmosphere models are hired by the producers of themed events to enhance the atmosphere or ambience of their event. They are usually dressed in costumes exemplifying the event's theme and are often placed strategically in various locations around the venue.

It is common for event guests to have their picture taken with atmosphere models. For example, if someone is throwing a "Brazilian Day" celebration, they would hire models dressed in samba costumes and headdresses to stand or walk around the party.
​
​Instagram models:

Instagram models are people who have accumulated a large number of followers on Instagram by posting engaging photos of themselves and their lifestyles, and are consequently hired by a company to advertise products as their influence and popularity can increase sales. 

They should not be confused with established models such as Cara Delevingne and Gigi Hadid, who use Instagram to promote their traditional modelling careers, although some models, such as Playboy model Lindsey Pelas, begin their careers conventionally and subsequently become Instagram models.

Some models use Instagram success to develop their careers, such as Rosie Roff, who worked as a fashion model before being discovered via Instagram and gaining work as a ring girl in American boxing. In some cases, Instagram gives unsigned models a platform to attract the attention of agencies and talent scouts. American model Matthew Noszka entered the profession as a result of being discovered on Instagram by Wilhelmina Models.

The Instagram model concept originated in the late 2000s, when the boyfriends of fashion bloggers such as Rumi Neely and Chiara Ferragni began photographing their girlfriends in various outfits. Instagram models often attempt to become social media influencers and engage in influencer marketing, promoting products such as fashion brands and detox teas. 

High-profile influencers can earn thousands of dollars for promoting commercial brands. When choosing whom to employ, brands have become less concerned with the number of followers an influencer has and more focused on their engagement marketing strategy.

Research indicates that 89% of influencers use Instagram to promote themselves, compared to 20% using Twitter and 16% using Facebook.

Some Instagram models have gained high-profile modelling jobs and become celebrities. Fitness model Jen Selter had become an Internet celebrity by 2014 and modelled for Vanity Fair magazine. Cosplayer and model Anna Faith acquired over 250,000 Instagram followers by 2014, gaining success from her ability to impersonate the Disney character Elsa. 

With Facebook's continuing decrease in post reach, Instagram has increasingly become cosplayers' favourite platform. American actress Caitlin O'Connor had almost 300,000 Instagram followers in 2016, earning most of her social media income from endorsing products on Instagram. 

Australian personal trainer Kayla Itsines acquired 5.5 million Instagram followers, allowing her to build a business in the fitness industry Brazilian model Claudia Alende gained a following of 2.8 million people on Instagram by 2015 and developed a career as a lingerie model. 

Plus-size models Iskra Lawrence and Tess Holliday have used Instagram to demonstrate their potential as models. Yashika Aannand, an Indian teenage actress, rose to prominence in the Tamil film industry after gaining popularity as an Instagram model with over 145,000 followers on her account by 2017.model, Noor Alsaffar, was killed in September 2023 as part of an increase in violence against LGBTQ+ people.

Instagram model techniques and aesthetics have also been used in unconventional or parody profiles. Instagram model Lil Miquela has blurred the line between reality and social media, amassing more than 200,000 followers without revealing whether she is real or computer-generated. 

Australian comedian Celeste Barber had acquired 1.8 million Instagram followers by 2017, parodying celebrity fashion photographs with real-life reenactments. In 2016, French organisation Addict Aide ran a campaign to raise awareness for alcohol abuse among young people in which a model posed as Louise Delage, a fictitious 25-year-old Parisian whose Instagram photos nearly always featured alcohol. The account amassed 65,000 followers in a month, after which a reveal video posted to it had over 160,000 views.

Some reports suggest that a number of Instagram models obtain extra income by covertly working as prostitutes. Websites accusing various models of this, often without reliable evidence, have increased in popularity recently, sometimes with the unintended effect of increasing their earnings. 

But false accusations on these sites can harm legitimate models' reputations, and some women in the industry consider them a way for men to exert power over women.

See also ___________________________________________________________________________

Modeling Agency
A modeling agency is a company that represents fashion models, to work for the fashion industry. These agencies earn their income via commission, usually from the deal they make with the model and/or the head agency.

The top agencies work with big-budget advertising agencies and fashion designers. They invest money into developing their talent so they can increase their status within the industry.

These top agencies will help train models, get test shoots, layout portfolios, and put together comp cards (composition photo cards) and other printed materials models need.

The agencies find work for models by presenting them to designers, photographers, and ad agencies. The agencies are also responsible for booking the jobs, billing for the jobs, and eventually paying the models for their time. By handling the details, an agency allows a model to focus on modeling and not on the business end.

Because modeling is a competitive, fast moving business that extends beyond the traditional 9 AM to 5 PM business hours, an agency generally conducts business 24 hours a day, to handle emergencies such as cancellations or rush jobs. Most agencies have a service or an operator to handle emergency issues after hours.


Industry information:

Booking agents versus managers and mother agents:
Further information: Mother agent

A popular and conventional way for models to build their contacts and get booked for gigs is through model management companies or agencies. An agency specializes in finding gigs for models that are signed with them, while managers are there to guide their models and help them start, develop, and establish successful careers, present models to booking agents, and arrange placements for their models. 

Mother agents/model managers play a key role in the modeling industry. They provide the constant supply of new faces to booking markets from scouting markets.

Most models are from countries like Russia, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, etc. while booking markets are New York, London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Shanghai, etc.

Contractual agreements:

Most agencies sign their top talent to exclusive contracts in each market, which vary in length based on the model's industry status and experience. However, because a good agency finds their models work and negotiates top price for their talent, they earn a management commission (between 10% and 20%) from every job they book on a model's behalf.

An agency usually bills a client an additional 20% service charge for booking the model, so a typical agency will make between 10 and 40% on each booking of which no more than 20% comes out of the model's pocket.

This varies outside the US due to each country's law and taxes. Other contracts offered by modeling agencies are the mother agency contract and a non-exclusive contract.

A mother agency tries to sign talent with larger agencies in each international market, while non-exclusive agencies allow models to sign with other agencies (usually outside a certain city radius). Contracts typically last from a year to three years. A mother agency agreement can range from five to ten years.

Poaching

Poaching is the act of signing a model or agent from another agency while they are still under contract, an act that can be seen as financially detrimental to the agency. Typically, the agency sues the other agency for breach of contract.

Mandatory height requirements:

High fashion modeling agencies contract with a diverse group of models. Nearly without exception (unless a model is young enough to still be growing), agencies require women to be between 5'9 (minimum) and 6'1" and men to be between 5'11" and 6'3" and in fit or reasonable physical condition for all heights.

Auditions and open calls:

Modelling agencies need new faces on a regular basis. The number of models in an agency depends on the demand brought in by its agents and changes throughout the year. To this end, modeling agencies advertise in local phone directories to remain visible.

Each new model-screening process is different from one agency to the next:
  • A casting call is where models show up by appointment to be considered for a specific job.
  • An open call is a time specified by an agency for any prospective models (or those interested in becoming models) to show up and be considered for future work.
  • A go-see is an appointment for a model to meet with a client for consideration for future work. Like an open call, it is not for a specific job, but unlike an open call, the model is being specifically requested or sent.
  • A dry call is where models mail unsolicited comp cards to an agency. While this may work with smaller agencies, larger agencies host open calls where men and women can come into the agency and get seen by agents who may or may not be interested.


Scams:

In this constantly changing industry where old agencies close or merge and new ones pop up in their place, scam artists have many opportunities to prey on new, unsuspecting models and aspiring models.

A legitimate modeling agency should have knowledge of the marketplace and honestly evaluate models for their market. It will have contacts with photographers, graphic designers, and printers to prepare a model's marketing materials. 

Texas, Florida, and California have online resources listing licensed agencies.

In the United States, the Better Business Bureau registers complaints against agencies that conduct dishonest business practices and scams.

Scam artists and untrustworthy agencies generally demand long-term contracts up front and use high-pressure tactics to persuade models into committing to high-commission percentages or signing over unnecessary rights.

An example of a modeling scam is when an agency claims to have work, but really what they are doing is trying to sell photoshoots and modeling courses to aspiring models. A legitimate agency should only make profit from agency commissions.

A scam was exposed in 2009, when a Louisville-based male modeling agency, called "Models-Today, LLC", owned by convicted felon Russell Claxon, was exposed as having never obtained any jobs for the models despite fees in the hundreds of dollars.

Due to the unusually large number of consumer complaints filed against the business, including solicitation for gay male prostitution, this story was disseminated across the Better Business Bureau national networks and provides information on how to avoid such scams.

Due to a lack of regulatory oversight in the United States, modelling agency scams can be easily carried out and sustained. Models-Today's owner began operating a similar company called Active Male Models, LLC in Kentucky.
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Talent agency
​A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds work for: