MYTH OR REALITY

SOCIOECONOMIC DISPARITY – A MYTH OR REALITY?

 

We are surely living in a world of disparities, we can see disparities at every level and in every walk of life although interestingly all the religions and social systems that all of us follow strictly forbade such inequalities and disparities and teaches us that all human are alike and must have same opportunities to live a happy and contended life irrespective of their colour, cast, creed, nationality and religion. But ALAS this is something that we just find in books and in golden words of famous personalities & leaders.

According to a simple definition, Socio-economic disparity is multi-faceted, but disparity essentially regresses to disparity among individuals. Disparity has many aspects. Disparity in income through the degree of skills and years of schooling, and disparity in job opportunities, in access to information and health all relate to individuals.

Socioeconomic disparity it one form or the other has become a serious challenges for all the countries of the world and no one can deny that inequality in incomes and assets between the rich and the poor is turning into a critical issue. The fact that it has been made increasingly worse owing to social and economic exclusion caused by new technologies, poor governance and relentless market forces. Poverty should be more comprehensively measured through an index that uses multiple indicators. These may be broadly categorized as socioeconomic indicators related to income and wealth, housing, transport and communication, education, health and gender equality. A person's social class is difficult to determine. It depends on many factors, including occupation, sources of income, marketable abilities, access to consumer goods and services, and membership in status groups and political parties which eventually results in widening disparity gap amongst individuals.

Beside a number of reasons that creates a socioeconomic imbalance following are the major factors that are the foundation laying factors leading to this disparity among masses.

Ø  Social Status.

Ø  Social Expectations.

Ø  Social Responsibility.

Ø  Economic Security.

Ø  Job Security.

These may includes such factors as educational attainment, occupation, income, wealth, and deprivation, health facility imbalance. Beside them education, employment, community safety, and social supports can significantly affect how well and how long we live. These factors affect our ability to make healthy choices, afford medical care and housing, manage stress, and more.

We are familiar with the fact that every society has a set of values, beliefs, traditions, and habits known as their sociocultural values. These values shape how we approach risk, how we view careers, our perceptions of money, and our ideas of an ideal lifestyle.  In addition sociocultural values influence how we, as people in society, interact with the world; they also influence how we approach the process of economic development. Some sociocultural values that can impact economic development include:

Ø  The tendency to place greater value on physical needs or belongings than quality of life and spirituality and is known as materialism while Post-materialism places greater value on spiritual well-being, quality of life, and relationships.

Ø  Collectivism is a value that leads people to act for the greater good of the entire population. On the contrary Individualism suggests that people should make decisions for their own benefit, even if it has a negative impact on others.

Ø  If we considers as how interested a culture is in progress then such a culture is regarded as a culture following Innovation.

Ø  The values taught within religion influence how individuals approach everyday activities.

Ø  Another factor is obedience which simply refers to how much citizens conform to the social norms and expectations.

Ø  The terms Frugality or thrift refers to how much the culture saves money.

Ø  Last but not the least Risk Propensity is the level of risk an individual is naturally inclined to accept.

We all know that Social factors play a major role in affecting health outcomes, such as illness, difficulties with activities of daily living, and premature death. This is why optimal health care must address the social and environmental factors that contribute to inequality and impact the health of under resourced populations. Furthermore socio-economic importance can be highlighted : as a source of employment, income, revenue, and other goods and environmental services; the status of its populations.

Like many other countries of the world Pakistan too is facing an intense pressure of this socioeconomic disparity thus hindering the achievement of optimal level of development and growth. Pakistan is a country where up to 40% of its over 210 million population lives below poverty line- on less than $1 a day or less. Despite tall claims of the officials about putting the economy on growth track.  As a result of this inequality, economic growth is affected, crimes increase, talent is wasted, and social mobility is hindered. No one can deny the fact that, economic divide in the country would widen in the coming days as dependence on foreign loans would hurt economy, ultimately pushing more and more people below the poverty line.

The root cause behind the rising gap between the rich and the poor is the state capture by the elites. The powerful groups are the feudal lords, the military establishment, urban property owners and real estate developers, large domestic traders, shareholders of large corporations etc. As Pakistan is undergoing a youth bulge, however because of this disparity the economy is unable to create enough jobs for the large number of youth entering the labor force annually. Large disparities at the regional level in Pakistan resulting in a sense of deprivation and alienation among the people of Balochistan, leading to insurgent and separatist tendencies from the Federation of Pakistan.

Highlighting the reasons as why people are below poverty line in Pakistan we decipher following factors.

Ø  Unemployment.

Ø  Technical vocational education and training system lacks meaningful participation of stakeholders,

Ø  Existing training institutions are not capable of imparting and developing skills required for competitiveness, productivity and employment.

Ø  Lack of Investment in human capital formation means investment in education and health sectors.

Ø  Below standard healthcare facilities

Ø  Rise in Income disparity

Ø  Widening Regional disparities

Ø  Regional Inconsistencies in Poverty Reduction

Ø  Disparities in access to Education

Ø  Uneven access to health facilities

Ø  Discriminations in access to Infrastructure

Ø  Regional Differences in Human Development

Ø  Gender Gaps

Ø  Unequal Access to financial services

An ongoing regular inequality in resource ownership and income lead to inequality of opportunity and individuals, instead of working hard, divert their energies toward getting undue favours &fortifications that lead to misallocation of resources, corruption, partiality, and other undesirable outcomes. Inequality in health and education opportunities adds to miseries of poor and deprived with parents having little or no access to available opportunities will not be able to raise children to their full potential. Children born to rich, well-placed and educated parents have a higher probability of better education and good earnings. Poor parents cannot afford to send their children to high-quality schools which results in continuation of disparities in earning and access to opportunities.

In the end I would like to say that the government must take steps for supporting the poor in reducing their vulnerability. The government should also create conditions for the development of insurance markets, encourage the use of other risk-spreading financial instruments and design economic and regulatory incentives for risk reduction behavior. In Pakistan income and non-income inequalities have increased over time posing serious threat to the sustainability of growth process. This inequality is creating a rift in the society too. These disparities are numerous, deep-rooted and multi-dimensional. A very unequal distribution of growth dividend has put a question mark on the quality and sustainability of economic growth. It is therefore highly obligatory for policy makers to pursue inclusive and broad-based economic growth through participation and empowerment of poor and deprived. They should chalk out policies that can remove or minimize this disparity and help masses in general to have equal opportunities in every walk of life with no discrimination.

By: ovais asad khan