One of the principal challenges of the present-day countries is the provision of essential benefits to their citizens and respect for their rights. These considerations frequently conflict with the policies conducted by the governments. Subsequently, a threat to the people’s wellbeing appears, and additional actions are required for its elimination. The limitations of basic human rights resulting from their non-correspondence to the political courses evoke concerns of the affected persons and lead to their inability to attain wealth and happiness. One of such examples is China, with its one-child policy created to limit the population excessively, and its outcomes are complemented by other countries’ experiences. Although China’s decisions led to a substantial amount of unprecedented actions, it is not a single occasion of this nature since the political events in Brazil and Mexico demonstrate similar results.
The situation in China with regard to the mentioned initiative is critical for its people’s satisfaction in life. This stance is explained by the fact that its achievement is significantly dependant on the suitability of the government’s decisions to the actual needs of different population groups. In this case, the principal barrier to their happiness was the preference of boys over girls in families because of cultural, social, and economic factors deriving from a traditional family model (Myers, 2005). This tendency adversely affected several categories of citizens in the country concerning their overall well-being. The ones who suffered from this policy were the girls who ended up in orphanages as the families wanted to have sons rather than daughters and the men who could not find women to marry (Myers, 2005). Moreover, the latter started to demonstrate criminal tendencies, especially regarding foreign women, which reflects their desperate position and the inability to lead a successful life as a member of a family (Myers, 2005). In this way, the decisions, which were supposed to improve China’s economy, led to the worsening of their problems.
The similarity of issues described above with the obstacles of other countries to prosperity is confirmed by the serious challenges, which stemmed from the political course of Brazil’s government. In their case, the main initiative aimed at improving the lives of all people incorporated insufficient measures for combatting poverty developed by it. Moreover, they were primarily designed for those groups, which did not need support while proposing no efficient solutions for less privileged people (Parks, 2008). The respective negative outcomes, which correlate with the inappropriate practices adopted by the authorities, can be seen from the story “Flavio’s Home,” written by Gordon Parks and reflecting the barriers to wealth and happiness. In this piece, the author narrates about the conditions of living neglected by Brazil’s political leaders, the struggles of citizens, and the uneven distribution of benefits among the people of Rio de Janeiro (Parks, 2008). This literary source adds to the description of the problems deriving from the preferences of economic development expressed by the government while ignoring the vital needs of common citizens.
Another country, which can be considered under the scope of the identified problematic area, is Mexico, and the well-being of its people was difficult to achieve because of the emphasis on the economy over societal issues. Its challenges also included poverty and the lack of resources essential for people’s happiness in the past, but the course of actions was readjusted in accordance with the existing gaps in people’s lives (Casas, 2018). Consequently, the situation started to change only after the country’s transition in the opposite direction, which happened due to the failure of the used practices to ensure the citizens’ satisfaction in life in all regards (Casas, 2018). In other words, the focus on market growth was replaced by the measures intended for improving social welfare, and this outcome contributes to the dependence of people’s prosperity on the latter (Casas, 2018). Taking into account the fact that the overall efficiency of the programs for decreasing poverty in contrast to the industrialization model as the basis for the economy was higher, they should be developed by others (Casas, 2018). Thus, they present a reliable way of overcoming the crises.
To summarize, the consideration of the conducted economic policies of China, Brazil, and Mexico allows to conclude on the interrelation between the preferences of the governments concerning critical measures and the emergence of societal issues. From this point of view, they are deemed to be responsible for the health, wealth, and happiness of the citizens in the context of ensuring their basic rights. However, the comparison of these countries revealed a more significant success of Mexico, which made the required changes in a timely manner, to the lack of initiatives in this respect in China and Brazil. In order to ensure the correspondence of their actions to these elements, the latter should make sure the equal attention to both fields mentioned above. In this way, they will manage to successfully improve the quality of people’s lives without exercising direct control as a traditional method to manage the degree of satisfaction of communities.
References
Casas, J. R. (2018). 24 years of wellbeing in Mexico: Economic policy effects over social policy, Sociology International Journal 2(5), 387-392.
Myers, A. (2005). China’s lost girls [Film]. National Geographic.
Parks, G. (2008). Flavio’s home. Vanderbilt University.