social problems

Society

2022

We explain what social problems are, what their causes are and various examples. Also, social problems in Mexico.

Poverty is both an economic and a social problem.

What are social problems?

Social problems are those that afflict large sectors of the population and they have to do with the objective and subjective conditions of life in society. Its causes can be found in economic, political, etc. In addition, social problems often have consequences in other dimensions of a person's life. nation.

Social problems have existed since the very rise of the humanity, although in certain times and situations they have been worse than in others, as is normal. In contemporary times they have become a recurring concern of governments popular and NGO international organizations, or multilateral organizations such as the UN wave Unicef.

One of the great disadvantages of social problems is that they are difficult to solve: it is difficult to reach a consensus on which ones are more urgent or which is the methodology to answer them.

Causes of social problems

Social problems can come from different causes, depending on the nature of the trouble. For example, economic and opportunity inequality is often a consequence of the historical construction of a society of very rich rich and very poor poor.

On the other hand, economic inequalities can also be the result of political dynamics that have catastrophic effects on the economy, to which only the wealthiest population can survive.

Besides, the poverty and lack of resources often results in attitudes violent, in social resentment, in criminality and the proliferation of other criminal activities. Sometimes despair leads to breaking the laws of a society perceived as unfair. Therefore, it is not easy to find the causes of the social problems that the world suffers.

Examples of social problems

When crimes are not isolated cases, they become a social problem.

Some common examples of social problems are:

  • Hungry. Large sectors of the world's population live in situations of marginality and abandonment so desperate that they literally have nothing to eat.
  • Unsafety. Populations with large margins of criminal activity are usually the same that are subjected to poverty and a life without future prospects, easy prey for illegal activities: robbery, drug trafficking, prostitution, etc.
  • Discrimination. Whether by race, sex, religion, nationality or sexual orientation, is based on the segregation of an unwanted population, that is, on not giving everyone the same opportunities, for reasons of prejudice.
  • Poverty. The greatest of economic and social and economic problems, and the one that generates the most social problems in turn. It does not have to do simply with the lack of money, but with the total exclusion of the productive system. It is estimated that almost half of the world's population lives at some level of poverty, and that 400 million children live in extreme poverty.
  • Inequality. The coexistence in a society of social classes vastly separated, that is, of very poor poor and very rich rich, with few opportunities for class mobility. These types of societies are breeding grounds for social resentment.

Social problems in Mexico

Like many other nations of the so-called Third World, Mexico's society is afflicted by social ills, some extremely critical judging by their incidence statistics. The main of them are:

  • Poverty. A large sector of the Mexican population (around 50%), especially the rural population, lives under the international poverty line. Of these, around 100,000 live in extreme poverty, and also food insecure.
  • Discrimination. Since its colonial past, Mexican society has suffered from great inequalities around the racial difference of its population, always disadvantaging its indigenous populations or descendants of indigenous people. This phenomenon is even greater as it is combined with poverty, thus associating racial status with socioeconomic status. On the other hand, the homosexual population also often expresses its feeling of oppression and discrimination, in a society with Catholic roots and commonly conservative.
  • Femicides. The gender violence and towards women it is a factor of enormous concern in Mexican society, afflicted by very high rates of femicide, and cases as sadly famous as the disappeared in Ciudad Juárez.
  • Corruption. An evil common to most Third World nations, corruption in Mexico is one of the most deeply rooted socio-political problems, according to the Corruption Perception Index, according to which Mexico is one of the 70 most corrupt countries in the world. world, and the most corrupt of all those that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
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