Social Structural Changes In A Punjabi Village A Sociological Revisit After Over Five Decades (original) (raw)

This study is a sociological revisit of a Punjabi village in Pakistan after over 50 years. The village was previously studied by Eglar (1960). Since then no viable research is conducted to throw light on changes in social structural aspects of the village. Keeping this in view, we designed a retrospective longitudinal study on changes in various social institutions from 1960s through 2008. To understand changes in the social structure in a holistic way, institutions covered in this study are caste system, marriage and family, gender roles, decision making, traditions, belief system and leisure. For objectivity and representativeness of the results, quantitative data was collected through a probability sample survey. An extensive, complex and comprehensive interview schedule was developed to interview persons, age 55 + years. These persons are assumed to have observed changes during the study period. Of all the households in the village (350), every second household was systematically selected resulting in 109 respondents. Our findings are based on descriptive, trend and regression analyses of the data. Our results show that social structure of the village has changed substantially since 1960. The transition in traditional stratification structure started in 1970s leading to significant changes in 1990s and onwards. This shift from traditional to nontraditional occupations occurred mainly due to infrastructure, international migration and education, in about that order. Influence of caste on various social aspects (except marriage) declined significantly in 1990s and onwards. During the same time period, class system has partially replaced the rigid caste system in the village. Overall, caste system has weakened primarily due to economic factors. Our data shows that most of the marriages were taking place between close relatives from 1960s through 1980s. Substantial decline in these marriages was replaced