Social Inequalities and Government Programs

Module 4: Addressing Social Inequalities

• The module explores government programs and suggestions for addressing social inequalities.
• After completing the module, the student should be able to: explain relevant government programs and initiatives; discuss social inequality and its impacts; suggest solutions to social inequalities.

Equality

• Equality ensures everyone has an equal opportunity to live fulfilling lives.
• It asserts that life chances should not be limited by birth circumstances, origin, beliefs, or disabilities.

Social Inequality

• According to President Obama (2013), inequality is “the defining challenge of out time” that continues to grow.
• Social inequality is a state in which there are differences in opportunity, status, and treatment among members of a society.
• It’s described as the uneven distribution of wealth, where a few have more and many have less; it is structured by dividing people into upper, middle, and lower classes.
• Minority groups often experience a greater degree of inequality, shown through lack of income, fewer educational opportunities, and reduced access to healthcare.
• Very poor people experience greater social disadvantages.

Factors Contributing to Social Inequality

• Educational attainment and inequality can be contributing factors.
• Unequal distribution of academic resources requires policies that encourage attainment based on merit, not gender.
• Wealth and poverty, brought about by unequal distribution of wealth, particularly evident during events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In the context of social inequality, power is economic, cultural, and social positions, linked to reputation and societal status.
• Gender inequality acknowledges the unequal experiences of men and women, with females facing disadvantages in pay and promotion opportunities.

Consequences of High Social Inequality

• High rates of social inequality can lead to social exclusion and political disempowerment.
• Civil unrest and criminal activities may result from these feelings of exclusion.

Addressing Social Inequality

• Lee and Rawls (2010) state it's more than a case of geographic difference, and disparities in college attendance have grown since the 1980s.
• Government formulates projects to support research, policies, and practices that reduce inequality.
• Other people and organizations take initiative to push for the advancement of their common interest by means of collective actions.
• Civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations are considered non-state, nonprofit, and voluntary organizations, and play an important role in addressing problems of inequality.
• The government has the main duty to wind down if they cannot make it even all these forms of social inequalities.
• The scope of power involves the exercise of authority in the production, distribution, and use of resources.

Government Programs Addressing Social Inequalities

• The Philippines' Conditional Cash Transfer Program: Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a human development measure that provides conditional cash grants to the poorest families to improve health, nutrition, and education for children aged 0-18, implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
• Education For All (EFA) articulates national goals, objectives, policies, and strategies, and regional programs for implementation of the EFA movement.
• The EFA thrusts include Early Childhood Development, Universalization of Quality Primary Education, and Alternative Learning Systems, and is run by the Department of Education.
• Service Delivery Network (SDN) designates every family in a local health system to a health service provider or health facility within the network to ensure sustained access to quality healthcare across political, geographical, and administrative boundaries; this is run by the Department of Health.
• Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) provides for the disposal of public alienable and disposable lands to open up frontier lands, redistributes property or rights on private agricultural lands, and promotes the abolition of agricultural tenancy; it is run by the Department of Agrarian Reform.

New Challenges in Contemporary Societies: Human Adaptation and Social Change

• Social change is required for a progressive society.
• Social change is the modification of mechanisms, means, methods, or systems within the social structure, characterized by alterations in social relationships, social order, social symbols, social organizations, value system, or rules of behavior.
• Examples of social change include the Industrial Revolution, abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement and the women’s suffrage movement.
• Cultural Change is seen in the practices, institutions, technology, societal laws, ethos or moral norms, manners, value systems, customers, traditions, habits, beliefs, arts, music, and literatures.
• Political Change involves alterations in the governmental aspect of a society: changes in the administrative, executive, legislative, judicial, and constitutional processes, systems, and structures.
• Examples are constitutional amendments and shifts from presidential to parliamentary forms of government.

Global Warming and Climate Change

• Global warming is described as a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans.
• It is mainly caused by heat being trapped in the earth, known as the greenhouse effect.
• This change is irreversible, and would permanently change the earth’s climate.
• As such, climate change becomes a global concern to every nation, especially to those highly industrialized countries.

Greenhouse Gases and Greenhouse Effect

• Radiation from the earth's atmosphere warms its surface to a temperature above what it would be in the absence of its atmosphere.
• Caused by greenhouse gases.

Effects of Climate Change

• Changes in rainfall patterns
• Increase in surface temperature
• Coastline Changes
• Water level increases
• Food productivity decreases
• Depletion of forest cover
• Desertification of lands

Ways to Address Global Warming

• Use adaptation strategies and Humans must strategize in order to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
• Minimizing carbon emission and adopting more environmental friendly methods of living such as electric-based transportation.
• Reduce vulnerability of populations by engaging on sustainable development activities, such as reforestation, recycling and the use of renewable resources to help human societies reduce their vulnerability to climate change.
• Mitigation and adaptation include mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gases emission to help to avoid, reduce, or delay impacts of climate change to ensure that the adaptation capacity of people is maximize in its full efficiency.

International Agreements

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty adopted on 9 May 1992 and opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992.
• The UNFCCC objective is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
• Parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change.
• In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008–2012.
• In 2015 the Paris Agreement was adopted, governing emission reductions from 2020 on through commitments of countries in Nationally Determined Contributions, lowering the target to 1.5 °C.

Transnational Migration: Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs)

• Globalization has changed the concept of migration.
• Improvements in transportation, communication, and financial systems have made it easier for people to migrate to work in another country but still provide for their families in their home countries by sending their earning home.
• Transnational Migration is a global phenomenon that is mounting scope, complexity and impact.

Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs)

• Filipinos often have the mindset that when they work abroad, they would be able to support and sustain the needs of the families away from poverty.
• An OFW is a term often used to refer to Filipino migrant workers, people with Filipino citizenship who reside in another country for a limited period of employment.
• OFW Immigrants go to other countries because of poverty and migrate for economic purposes to earn much larger amount of salary to support their families in their home country.
• The sacrifices of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) make just to provide a better life for their families earned them the title of the nation’s bagong bayani (new heroes).
• Improvement of the economy attributed to their remittances further cemented their mark in the Philippines

Empowering OFWs

• OFWs face a lot of challenges as they seek a better opportunity abroad because, due to differences in social and cultural structures abroad, are prone to violence manifested through labor exploitation, abuse of employers, leading to some legal issues.
• Despite the difficulties faced by the OFWs, they are persistently pursuing to work abroad to lift their families from poverty.
• Other OFWs have chosen to work abroad for better salary, which the local employers could not provide them.
• Some are forced to work abroad due to underemployment caused by job mismatch in work opportunity and workers' skills in the country.