1. Demography and Social Structure Demography challenges us to think about sociological issues in quantitative terms. Peter Blau has done just this in his book, Inequality and Heterogeneity … as well as elsewhere.

4. A graduated parameter differentiates people in terms of a status rank-order.... Blau begins his theoretical argument by asserting that “social structure is delineated by its parameters” -- that is, by the characteristics which distinguish people from each other and thereby affect their social relationships.

5. A nominal parameter divides the population into subgroups with distinct boundaries. There is no inherent rank-order among these groups. … Sex, religion, race, and occupation are nominal parameters.

6. … Income, wealth, education and power are graduated parameters.

7. The resulting “differentiation” among people can, in turn, be classified according to whether it involves heterogeneity or inequality.

9. group size and social mobility.

10. Blau argues, that a whole set of social phenomena derive from the fact that for any two groups, other things being equal, “the rate of intergroup associations of the smaller group must exceed that of the larger.”

11. Lets pretend that there are two different ethnic groups, one large (X) and one small (A).

13. X A A A AA AA X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

14. Even if every member of the minority group (A) is married to a member of the majority group (X), only a small proportion of the majority group are directly related to the minority group through marriage.

16. Blau notes that from this one theorem, it is possible to produce a good probabilistic answer to such questions as: “Is racial intermarriage more prevalent among blacks or whites? “ or “Are Jews, or are Christians, more likely to engage in premarital sexual intercourse with members of the other religious group?”