Structural constraints and opportunities are defined as the factors that affect the well-being of individuals negatively while structural opportunities are the factors that are of benefits to humankind, these factors are economic, political or social based. With referenced to the political structure defined as institutional or group interaction and their pattern of interaction that are depicted in the political system in adherence to the political laws in such way of creating a political landscape. Sometimes the term is used together by social structure, social structure is the pattern arrangement of the members of the society that is dependent on the action of individuals and can be classified based on the role of an individual or a group is ordained or assigned to perform in the society (Neff 56). The social structure may be composed of different groups of individuals based on family, religion, law, class, education and economy. However, the economic structure defined as asset of relations in the production sector that ensures production and provision of goods to the consumers. Basically, the core of economy structure is defined by the agricultural and industrial sectors of the respective economy.
Political Structure
Political structure as defined previously is composed of different interactions between distinct group of individuals with specified interaction in adherence to the law and described political pattern. There are different components of the political structure that define the well-being of humans. The components portray either positive or negative effects to humans thus political structure might affect an individual either positively or negatively depending on the prevailing conditions and the rightful demands of the law. Some of the components of political structure component positively affect individual well-being include, style of leadership, laws and human rights, political parties.
There are varieties of leadership employed by different countries, states and kingdoms worldwide such as democratic, autocratic, couch like leadership and transactional leadership style however, its evidenced that some citizens that apply some of the style have suffered the consequences and the simultaneously watched the down fall of their society and leaders. On the other hand, some have flourished due to the application of accommodative style of leadership (Mattioli 66). Democratic leadership that is accommodative and adheres to the demands of human rights has depicted fruitful outcomes to most of the society as it allows collective application of ideas and suggestions as opposed to the autocratic which was duty oriented and never considered the respective citizens or members of the society.
The laws and human rights are made and amended on a political basis with appointed or elected members of the society with same goal or interest. In united states of America (USA), at the age of 18 a citizen has the rights to vote for his or her own choice of leader thus all are allowed to make their choice on the right person that will create the favorable conditions as per their desires as citizens. Therefor through the law based on the rights to vote individuals enjoy their well-being and are passionate about it.
Regional political parties; most of regions in some states and countries use to face challenges of not being involved in the major political parties. Through amendments they were allowed to form regional parties which overtime could attract the attention of major parties thus decentralizing the focus of the national parties. The regional parties are now involved in the pillorying of the national parties thus in turn enhance development in the regions that were initially despised.
However, some of the political structure components portray adverse or negative effects to the individual’s well-being especially the autocratic mode of leadership that is not considerate to the members of the society and is duty oriented. Other components include, dynastic leadership that is not efficient as it deals with lineage leadership despite or poor leadership traits within the society, besides, bad political structure is associate with corruption, pricing of votes which involves buying of voters to elect leaders that are not of interest of the majority. Other traits of such political structure are cynicism that is termed by political threats and limitation to rights to information.
Economic Structure
Economic structure is basically classified ass macro and micro economic factors affecting both the society and individual psychological well-being. The economic factors depicted in an economical structure that influences human well-being either positively or negatively are fluctuations on taxes, incentives, subsidies and general price of goods. The positive factors therefor include lowered taxations, tax reliefs and tax holidays that motivates workers and citizens to increase their work morel so as to earn more. Another factors that enhance well-being of individuals is offering incentives to the agricultural sectors of each state to enhance production of raw materials, besides offering subsidies to newly started large-scale businesses thus reducing the capital. And lastly setting price standards and quality standards to ensure that people get to buy quality goods at an affordable and appropriate price. The combination of all this factor enhance the well-being of citizens of a state.
On the contrary some of the factors within the economic structure are of negative influence to the well-being of humans such factors include drastic increase on prices of goods and hording of goods. Fuel crisis has been considered as the main obstacle to the economic growth of many developing and developed countries of which has led to the increase in prices and taxation in most countries (Bailey 670). This has posed both psychological and financial torcher to most of humans thus undermining the well-being of every individual. Besides based on the law of demand and supply in the market hording of goods by some business agents causes much stress to most of citizens as it promotes hiking of prices resulting into exploitation of consumers. this pushes consumers to make extra expenses beyond their expectations and finally resulting into psychological torcher of consumers due to insufficient money.
In the economic structure there are production sector that might also face increased cost of production, depletion of raw material, and power shortage thus increasing extra cost of production and expenses in the storage of highly perishable goods, in turn this leads to increased cost of the final product resulting into increased prices of goods to the consumers posting psychological effects to the well-being of an individual.
Social Structure
Social structure can be defined as the organization of individual based on similarities of their personal interests and goals the social structure can therefore, be classified based on macro level where scientist study the structure by basing their studies on the institutions and organizations and the meso level where its termed as institutionalized social network. Human being are social creatures that need to interact with one another to create good connection in sharing of information and ideas to enhance the well-being and development of the society.
Through the development of a good social structure humans are able to develop trust and foster reciprocity, this enables them to able to freely share personal ideas and problems thus enhancing well-being. Humans are also able to facilitate the flow of altruism and generosity, addition to that there is better health promotion and finally to reduce corruption and support political prosperity. There are two main examples of social structures which are the vertical social structure and horizontal social structure. The vertical structure is defined as hierarchical grouping of people and members of the society (Ebata 183). For example, industries around the world one position is determined by factors such as, gender and ethnic classes. In the vertical structure the most privileged and the rich dynasties are highly ranked, followed by the middle class and then at the bottom is the low-class individuals.
The horizontal structure on the other side is define as the characteristics of a given group of individuals within a social class. All of this enhance the well-being of individuals in appositive manner and provide some advantages. the main advantage of stratification of the social class is that it provides order and stability in the society. Other advantages of stratification include provision of efficiency and certainty as everyone knows their role in the society thus enhancing human well-being. A proper and well-defined social structure ensures that the law is in place and everything runs smoothly in favor of human rights.
Social stratification also helps individuals to match their abilities with higher positions, encourages hard work, motivation to acquire higher position, helps in recognition of merits, and abilities, helps in sourcing incentives, encourages ethical competition in the society thus enhance progress, ensures circulation among elites. Additionally, social stratification enhances sourcing of integration of all social classes in the society and less rigid stratification also ensures integration and differentiation in the society.
However, people also experience disturbance of their well-being from the social structure. Through social stratification, people loose family ties as they move to a given classified level, humans also find it a hard task in adopting new life style as a result of differentiation and integration of social classes, people also get to get new but casual friends who are available only for a short period before they move to the next class, it is also difficult adapting to new friends, there is also loss of self-confidence previously build between friends in case one changes place of residence. In addition, there is social isolation for the time of changing the residential area thus causing loneliness and stress, and also diversion of emotions and depression. Lastly social stratification causes social and cultural maladjustments as one is forced to learn and adopt different cultures and practices.
In conclusion, an individual’s well-being is determined by a variety of factors such as the political structure, social structure and the economic structure. These factors can either be of constraints or of good opportunities to the humans, therefor impacting the psychological faculty of humans positively or negatively. Basically, the main components of political structure that affect an individual are the method of leadership that should be democratic and not autocratic, another factor is the law and human right while for the economic structure, it’s a requirement that for the well-being of an individual, all the human components should be in favor of the society. The social structure on the other hand needs to provide conditions to the betterment of humans to ensure the well-being of an individual.
Works Cited
Neff, Joshua, et al. “Structural Competency: Curriculum for Medical Students, Residents, And Interprofessional Teams on The Structural Factors That Produce Health Disparities.” MedEdPORTAL, vol. 16, 2020, 10888.
Mattioli, Giulio, et al. “The Political Economy of Car Dependence: A Systems of Provision Approach.” Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 66, 2020, 101486.
Bailey, Zinzi D., Justin M. Feldman, and Mary T. Bassett. “How Structural Racism Works—Racist Policies as A Root Cause of US Racial Health Inequities.” New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 384, no. 8, 2021, 768-773.
Ebata, Ayako, et al. “Why Behaviors Do Not Change: Structural Constraints That Influence Household Decisions to Control Pig Diseases in Myanmar.” Preventive Veterinary Medicine, vol. 183, 2020, 105138.