Open AccessVisualizing Ryderian Comparative Cohort Careers: Trends in Tolerance for Homosexuality, 1886 to 2001
Author(s) -
Ethan Fosse
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
socius
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2378-0231
DOI - 10.1177/23780231221091765
Subject(s) - homosexuality , cohort , demography , male homosexuality , cohort study , population , cohort effect , sociology , psychology , geography , gender studies , medicine , men who have sex with men , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , syphilis , family medicine , pathology
Sociologists and demographers have long been interested in using population-level data to understand the nature and extent of life-cycle and social change. Examining tolerance for homosexuality using data on more than 116 cohorts born across three centuries in the United States, the author presents a novel visualization of Ryderian comparative cohort careers that parsimoniously summarizes intra- and intercohort trends, or life-cycle and social change. Results indicate dramatically rising levels of tolerance within and across cohorts, with the greatest amount of progress occurring among successive cohorts born before the middle of the twentieth century.