SOCIAL POLICY: SECTORS, TYPES, OBJECTIVES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Social policy is the area of ​​a government that seeks to improve the living conditions of the population through a series of actions that guarantee access to essential benefits. The most important of these are health, education and social and labor protection.

This type of policy is linked to the so-called welfare states, although development is not the same in each country. Thus, there are many differences between the benefits offered in, for example, the Nordic European countries, and those that citizens enjoy in more economically liberal nations, such as the United States.

Beggars in Coyocan. By AnikaReker, from Wikimedia Commons

Most of the protective actions of social policy are considered to have originated in Chancellor Bismarck's Germany. There, as in other areas, these policies appeared as a way to correct some of the consequences of the emergence of liberalism, which triggered social inequalities.

Precisely reducing these inequalities is one of the objectives of social policy; likewise, it aims to facilitate the inclusion of the most disadvantaged social sectors. In the specific case of Mexico, its social policy is characterized by the multitude of existing plans.

In that country historically the agrarian issue has had a lot of weight, with various laws trying to distribute the land. However, inequality, child poverty, extreme poverty and housing problems remain great unsolved challenges.

Sectors

One of the definitions of social policy indicates that it is the intervention of public powers to try to mitigate some effects caused by the free market economic system.

The way in which the States have tried to alleviate some consequences is through the implementation of policies to support the population; These range from Social Security systems to the creation of an adequate public education structure.

In this way, all social sectors have the possibility of accessing these essential services that, thus, are not at the expense of who can pay or not. In a broad sense, social policy is the intervention of public powers

In the first place, the struggle for social improvements focused on the pursuit of political rights, such as voting or organizing. After this, we went to economic rights and, finally, to purely social rights.

It is the State in charge of developing these social policies. The most common way to pay for it is through what is collected with taxes; sometimes, there may be some collaboration with private entities.

Public health

Along with education, the mainstay of social policies is the creation of a health system that reaches the entire population. It is a measure developed in much of the world, although some countries - such as the United States - continue to prefer private healthcare almost exclusively.

Public health is not only responsible for providing treatment to the population. It is also in charge of fundamental prevention actions, such as the vaccination schedule for children or health promotion in education.

Education

As noted, this is one of the most important aspects of social policies. Public education, promoted by the State, is the national educational system of each country. It is financed by taxes.

Its main objective is that all children can access it, regardless of their economic status and place of residence.

Governments are in charge of building the necessary infrastructure, such as colleges or universities. Likewise, they prepare the teaching plan, with the minimum contents that each student must learn. It is considered to be the best way to reduce inequalities and promote equal opportunities for all inhabitants.

In some countries public education coexists with its private equivalent. Similarly, university studies are not usually free, but the government can help students with a scholarship policy that allows the less affluent classes to study.

Socio-labor protection

Several different types of measures fall within the sector of social policies aimed at socio-labor protection, ranging from active employment policies to subsistence wages.

One of these policies are benefit rights, whose beneficiaries are defined by the corresponding laws. Thus, for example, unemployment benefits are collected by those who have contributed to Social Security for a certain time, while only those who are in situations of extreme poverty are entitled to other subsidies.

The basis of these policies is solidarity within society. The taxes collected are used to defray the costs of helping people at risk of poverty.

On the one hand, these are universal rights, since anyone in this situation can request the aid; on the other, they are individual, since they do not apply to a group.

living place

It has been a sector that has traditionally received less attention than others related to social policy. In addition, there is a wide variety of solutions depending on where in the world.

Normally, these are actions that try to provide solutions to the population layers with difficulties in accessing a home. To do this, some governments have promoted the construction of so-called social housing.

Whether for rent or for purchase, official protection houses have much lower prices. They can only be accessed by people who do not have sufficient resources to buy on the free market.

Types

Substantive and procedural policies

When talking about substantive policies, the experts refer to everything that the government has to do. From the construction of highways, to the payment of unemployment benefits, these policies have a direct reflection on the benefits for citizens.

As for the procedural ones, they are those that have to do with the way of developing the actions. They are in charge of organizing the administrative bodies in charge of putting social policies into practice. Likewise, they also indicate who will be responsible for applying the laws that are approved.

Distributive, regulatory, self-regulatory and redistributive policies

Another way to classify social policies are depending on the effect they have on society. In this sense, the distributive are those that provide resources or services to certain groups of the population.

For their part, the regulatory ones are those that regulate behavior, both that of individuals and groups. Self-regulatory policies are very similar to the previous ones, although the difference is that this regulation is produced from within the affected group itself.

Finally, redistributive policies are those carried out by the administration to try to ensure that wealth reaches all sectors of society. These are what characterize the welfare state. Among the most common are social security systems.

Material and symbolic policies

The third way to classify policies is according to the benefits they bring to private citizens. In this sense, the materials are those that provide aid for certain matters, such as scholarships for university students.

On the other hand, in recent years the so-called symbolic policies have been greatly enhanced. These are the ones that try to change the general mentality towards traditionally disadvantaged groups.

An example of the above is the campaigns against xenophobia or homophobia. They usually start in the educational field, later covering the rest of the population.

goals

Since the 20s of the last century, social policies have been defined as those aimed at improving the quality of life of people in each country. Despite the fact that previously this type of legislation existed, that is when specific plans for it began to be made.

Some experts affirm that it is a state intervention, at the macro level, with the intention of achieving greater social justice. It is also a way of maintaining peace within each territory, since the existence of population groups in conditions of poverty often leads to tensions and riots.

Although multiple objectives can be named depending on the sector to which the policies are directed (universalize education, that no one is left without medical assistance, etc.), two general objectives of this type of policies are usually pointed out:

Inclusion

The first of the objectives of social policy is to achieve the inclusion of all citizens. It is intended that no one, be it individual individuals or entire population groups, is left out of the created social structure.

This starts from education; For this reason, all countries with social policies have tried to universalize children's access to education.

Even, as in Mexico, it has tried to take to the most remote corners of the territory and that disadvantaged sectors, such as indigenous people, can also be schooled.

Apart from that, active employment policies are also developed, trying to favor the creation of it. Grants for those hiring women or those over 50 are examples of these measures.

Reduction of inequalities

World statistics indicate that there has been a reduction in social inequality; however, this has not happened within countries. Internal inequality has continued to grow, causing great economic disparities. This is also reflected in the problems of accessing health or educational services.

Experts point out that economic growth and the market are not enough to reduce inequalities. Legislative action by governments is necessary to try to reduce them, with social policies directed towards the poorest.

Other sectors affected are ethnic minorities or the female population. Quotas that favor their hiring by companies has been one of the ways proposed by many governments.

Differences with public policies

As has already been pointed out, social policies are those used by the authorities to mitigate some negative effects on the economic system. They are measures aimed at structuring society in a more egalitarian way, without anyone suffering deficiencies in fundamental matters.

These policies are general, with the intention of being maintained over time and that they form part of the general legislation of the country; public education is the best example of a measure of this type. The same occurs with attempts to promote the existence of a public housing stock or social security systems.

On the other hand, public works are defined as the set of decisions and actions that governments develop to solve specific problems at specific times.

In contrast to social policies, public policies are usually limited in time, until the objectives for which they were promulgated are achieved. Once the problem to be solved is solved, political action stops making sense.

Characteristics of social policy in Mexico

The history of Mexico has led to the need for social policies with different features than those developed in Europe. On the one hand, there is the indigenous community, the object of this type of policy for decades, with more or less success.

On the other hand, the type of Mexican agrarian society caused that one of the social policies that were carried out earlier was the distribution of land. It was about trying to give the peasants ownership of the land they worked, and thus improve their living conditions.

The last aspect to consider is social inequality in Mexico. It is a problem considered historical and that affects all sectors. An official report published in 2016 affirmed that the number of poor in the country was the same as in 2010. This seems to indicate that social policies have not been as effective as expected.

Indigenous population

According to official organizations, the Mexican indigenous communities are those that suffer the greatest conditions of poverty. More than 8 million lived in 2012 below the minimum thresholds that mark this condition; of these, 3.5 million reached extreme poverty.

Therefore, it is not surprising that social policies in Mexico take this situation into account. The federal government has 14 different programs to serve these groups. We try to provide comprehensive solutions that cover all sectors.

In this way, there are educational, health, employment and housing measures proposed. The objective is to achieve integration but without the loss of one's own culture.

Poverty reduction

Other layers of the population also suffer the consequences of poverty. This presents worrying figures among children, especially in rural areas.

There is a Secretary of State in charge of the issue, although at the moment the figures do not seem to have been reduced.

Employment policies

One of the problems that afflict Mexican society is the unemployment rate. To this must be added the low quality of some works; It is estimated that more than 29 million Mexicans have informal jobs.

It should be noted that in Mexico an unemployment benefit and a universal pension were not approved until 2014. Before, the elderly and the unemployed could be left in a very delicate situation.

Health

The crisis of the 1980s meant that Mexico had to request financial aid from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Among the conditions imposed by both agencies was the reform of the health system; This had to allow private companies to enter the system.

Currently there are several institutions that distribute the health system. Inhabitants with fewer resources are covered by the so-called Popular Insurance, which tries to ensure that no one is left without medical care.

However, there are several black spots to resolve. The first, the low ratio of doctors per thousand inhabitants; the second comes from the aforementioned reform over the years, which made the care costly for part of the citizens.

References

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