Main characteristics of social change:

1. Social change is universal: Every society experiences change in one way or the other. We find that patterns of life, social institutions and culture keep changing according to necessities and external conditions. Social change usually follows a pattern and is universal and inevitable. It is not a modern phenomenon, some degrees of change are universal in human existence. However, in contemporary society change occurs rapidly and frequently.

2. Social change is not Uniform: Although social change occurs in all societies, its rate varies from place to place and time to time. Social change is relative in terms of time, space and context. Social change, in fact, depends upon the nature of society itself and upon the readiness of the people to adapt to new innovations and emerging social institutions and structure social change is deliberate.

3. Social change is Deliberate: Many dimensions of social change are deliberately encouraged. People began as fruit-gatherers in the primitive, sometimes moving slowly towards shifting cultivation and finally graduated to irrigated and multi cropping agriculture. As seen in the case of development of industrial societies, scientists continually seek more effective forms of energy and innovations in medical technology, use of biogas not only for cooking purposes but also for electrification in villages. Medical doctors are now performing operations on almost all organs successfully. New technology expands the range of human possibilities like successful landing on the moon. Also, it is seen that co-education in urban environments is leading to many inter-caste marriages. But couples so involved in the rural areas are boycotted and sometimes punished.

4. Duration of Change Varies: It implies change can be rapid or gradual, continuous or abrupt, long or short. Thus, by definition it occurs over a period of time. Some changes occur within a short time, while others take centuries to be noticed. Green revolution popularized multiple cropping and high-yielding variety of seeds within a decade. Whereas, spread of female education and change in the information technology has brought rapid changes.

5. Social Change is value neutral: Social change is value neutral phenomenon, as it is not understood in terms of good or bad, desirable or undesirable. Good and bad are subjective notions and are based on different criteria used by different individuals, groups and societies. For example, there has been some change in the Indian Society after independence. Some people say that with industrial development their way of living has improved, whereas others say that this has spelt a doom for human kind as they not only lost their jobs but pollution also increased. Since social change is considered to be value neutral, such subjective preferences of different people are not given importance in the study of social change.