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The increase in the number of never‐married and not‐cohabiting singles, or "effective singles," was first observed in Japan and Southern Europe. In Northern and Western Europe and North America, increased singlehood was due largely to increased cohabitation. Existing sociological theories of singlehood, however, are formulated based on the observations of the latter, and fall short in explaining why more individuals remain unpartnered. The wealth of data from singlehood research in Japan suggest that many singles desire marriage yet drift into singlehood, facing structural, cultural barriers in a rapidly changing social context. The impact of gender inequality is salient, but existing theories focus on women's advancement and egalitarianism. This paper proposes an alternative theoretical framework for explaining causes of singlehood, incorporating sociological and feminist perspectives and Emile Durkheim's theory of anomie, and calls for shifting the center to observations from non‐Western societies for better theorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Religious exit–also known as disaffiliation, deconversion, or apostasy–from religion is a growing phenomenon in the United States with significant individual and social consequences. In this review, I consult existing literature to clarify the relationship between the process of religious exit and the mental health of exiters. I organize this literature using Ebaugh's (1988) role‐exit model to frame exiting religion as a multi‐stage process of role‐identity disruption, exit, anomie, and reestablishment, each of which are characterized by changes in mental health. The literature suggests that, beginning with tension between a religious system and the individual, exiters undergo a psychologically and emotionally fraught process of role‐identity transformation typified by a sequence of pre‐exit strains, a turning point at which exit occurs, immediate psychological and social aftermath, and a subsequent lifetime process of reconstruction. Using evidence from exiters' narratives, I argue that the conflict inherent in the process of religious exit catalyzes psychological distress, but that exit provides a mechanism for role‐identity reset that relieves many of the negative mental health effects associated with religious strain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of my Sutherland Address is to explore the potential utility of elaborating and adapting the analytic framework of Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT) to account for the macro‐social dynamics of crime in contemporary China. To do so, I situate the institutional dynamics of crime in China in comparative historical context and put forth a newly adapted formulation of IAT. I then illustrate the ways in which this adapted formulation of IAT can enhance the coherence of a rich body of research on crime in China by incorporating some of the empirical findings and insightful interpretations within an overarching theoretical framework. In addition, interrogating the applicability of IAT to the Chinese context draws attention to important gaps in the theory, thereby facilitating its further elaboration as well as promoting the development of general macro‐social theory in criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes Xincun Village (to protect the privacy of the village, the name we are using is not the real name of the village) in the Golden Triangle of China's coal industry to conduct research focused on the frequent occurrence of anomic social actions by villagers after sudden wealth. Based on 160 days of structured and semistructured interviews, the results show that the anomic actions of suddenly wealthy groups mainly include self, other and socially oriented actions. The implication is that appropriate governance measures can weaken or prevent the occurrence of anomie and its devastating consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]