Social Issues

Social Issues

The twenty first century is a period of distinct rethinking. Accelerating scientific progress makes people beset with enormous number of issues concerning not only environmental, but social aspects too. Nowadays we are going back to highly appreciate traditional norms such as welfare, life expectancy, heredity and, of course, family. People are seeking for freedom from parents, liabilities or even ancestry, realizing too late that only with the help of them you understand what it means to be an identity.

One of the most vulnerable issues of today’s world is homelessness. There has not yet been a single agreed definition of homelessness. In literal terms, homeless refers to a situation of having no home. Other scholars have argued that there is more to homeless than mere rooflessness. Homeless has been defined as the lack of a satisfactory and secure home. The definition is inclusive of the hidden homeless people who stay with friend or move from place to place for small time periods. The widely known definition for homeless people are those who live on the street or emergency shelters, and the society shuns them. They have little or no possession and have no dependants who would be notified in case they were extremely sick or died.

The United Nations publishes annual reports and frequent statistics about global homelessness, revealing great variances between nations. The population, unemployment rate and per capita income of individual nations directly correlate to their homeless rate. Not surprisingly, countries with high unemployment and low incomes report the highest homeless rates.

There have been many major changes in the society due to homelessness. First of all, the issue has led to social injustice in the society. Homeless in itself is a form of social exclusion which indicates social injustice. People are excluded from the society because several factors deter them or make them incapable of participating in mainstream society.

One of the main reasons for becoming homeless is poverty. The word is often associated with hungry and homeless people, or people who live in rundown neighborhoods in developing countries, or people without jobs. Poverty is described as the lack of any two of the following eight criteria: water, alimentation, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education, information, services. It leads to many social problems, such as death, violence, drug abuse. Poverty can result from personal struggle – physical, mental, or emotional – and many people experiencing poverty are faced with a lack of emotional, psychological or financial support. In order to solve them we and governments should improve all the figures of these issues, carry out special social aid programmes. 

The center in contemporary ethical discussions is the issue of surrogate motherhood. Surrogate motherhood is an arrangement in which a woman- the surrogate or substitute mother- agrees to bear a child for another woman who cannot conceive, with the understanding that the surrogate will relinquish the baby at birth. Surrogate motherhood is often a last resort for infertile couples who have failed to conceive by other means. Having another woman bear a child for a couple to raise, usually with the male half of the couple as the genetic father, is referred to in antiquity. Babylonian law and custom allowed this practice and infertile woman could use the practice to avoid the divorce which would otherwise be inevitable.

Sometimes a couple chooses adoption instead of surrogate motherhood. Children fall into three groups according to the reason for their adoption : relinquished infants, those whose parents had requested  adoption  in complex circumstances, and those children required by social services and the courts to be adopted. Other reasons are that birth parents are not in the position to raise a child, doing so would interfere with their future plans and goals, gender preference, societal stigma towards single parenthood, or conception by rape or incest.

People choose to adopt for many reasons, and the process can take many directions once it begins. However, with education, hard work, and desire, adoptive families and children go through all difficulties and become the family that they dreamed of being for so long.

While in some countries people are adopting a child, in others they are thinking about overpopulation.  Overpopulation is often defined as the condition of having more people than can live on Earth in comfort, happiness, and health and still leave the planet a fit place for future generations. Public discourse on population today tends to flow in one of two directions. One emphasizes the continued growth in the less developed regions, and the economic, social, environmental, and political strains associated with adding a few billion more people in the next 50 years. The other focus centers around the unprecedented low fertility in many countries. By the way, demographic changes often take years to be evident, making it difficult to predict how today's actions will affect the future size and distribution of populations.

Why do people speak so much about aging? To answer this question, we have to analyze  the main problems. Several general changes take place in the human body as it ages . These include hearing and vision decline, memory loss, muscle strength lessens, soft tissues such as skin and blood vessels become less flexible, and there is an overall decline in body tone. Many older people experience problems with memory, and up to 10 percent of the elderly have memory problems significant enough to interfere with their ability to function independently. The social isolation that often exists among older people can dramatically influence mental attitudes and behavior. Another problem deals with the elderly person's income and economic welfare. No longer being in the workforce, these individuals will need to rely on their pensions and Social Security. However, because the cost of living rises, some elderly live under or near the poverty level.

And, of course, we can’t but have to take into consideration the problem of peoples with disabilities. These are people who not only suffer physical disability but also disabilities that enforce activity limitations, participation limitations and other forms of disabilities. Some of these disabilities might be from birth, however, you will surely come across various disability scenarios where the person affected by the disability had either met with a recent accident or has undergone some serious illness that has rendered the person with the disability. It is essential to help them not only because they are part of our community but also because they are part of the humanity.

One of the ways of solving social issues is charity. Charities have a variety of roles in the world today covering almost every aspect of human life. It’s aim not only to help and support people but also animals, the environment, etc. They provide food, medicine, bandages, prosthetic limbs, vaccination programmes, neo-natal care, water, irrigation systems, school-teachers, shelters, blankets, shoes, clothing and much, much more. They work hard to raise public awareness of the problems faced by many people in the world today and to raise money to meet the basic requirements of those in need. Many charities also respond promptly in disaster situations, sending emergency supplies to the worst-hit areas with impressive speed.

To my mind, charity teaches people how to become more than just a good person, how to live in harmony not only with yourself, but with environment too. To possess altruistic  features means to be compassionate, sympathetic and responsible person, whose kind deeds will always return by the same ones.

Nowadays our world is more often and often raising the questions, mentioned above. And with the help of different organizations, such as the World Health Organization, the Charities Aid Foundation, International Monetary Fund and others, they achieve great results, but nonetheless can’t help everybody, that’s why we should target our abilities and opportunities at improving people’s welfare.

Social issues will always hesitate the community. Despite the desire to be independent, people never neglect the communication with each other. No one wants to be lonely and cope with problems by yourself, that’s why great effort is put to cement the society as the whole unit to overcome all difficulties in this soft-severe world.