Inequality and Depression (Essay Sample)

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Inequality and Depression
The argument that inequality and depression are two sides of the same coin is not new to our ears. Over the years, scholars have effortlessly come up with countless publications seeking to explain how inequality and depression are related, with a vision of educating the people on the vices of financial and social inequality and finding a lasting solution to this global economic constraint. Most, if not all, economies in the world have witnessed a growing divide between the fewer rich and the majority poor. A review done by Piketty observed that; no economic system could sustain an imbalance between financial inequalities of the rich and the poor and goes further to explain thatit would be a dangerous economic situationfor a counter if the society and economy exhibit high levels of financial imbalance in its citizens (61). He suggested that for an economy to perform at optimum levels, it was important to bridge the gap between the financial status of the rich and the poor. A small percentage of individuals enjoy economic benefits by accessing large sums of money in terms of income, with the greater percentage struggles to make ends meet with a much smaller income. This financial and social inequality restraint between the upper-class and middle class consequently hold back growth and development, because the middle class becomes too weak to support consumer spending, which is solely responsible for driving economic growth.
Financial income stands out as the key to economic growth and in the case of insufficient financial income, depression is inevitable. With a stable financial income, citizens of a country are able to invest in the economy, pay for education and other social amenities like healthcare and housing. Education particularly has become very important in climbing up the social and economic ladder. This is because of the enhancement in technology and the technical know-how required for more jobs nowadays. Because of this, there is an increased the need for investing more in education, and with the governments decline in investment in the education sector, a stable financial income is necessary for facilitating adequate payment for education. In the US and Saudi Arabia, a smaller percentage of its citizens take home the lion’s share of the economic growth income, saving most of it and investing millions of the remainder.On the other side, majority of its citizens,who are in the middle classand are actually the job creators, get lower income, and have to spend the income rather than save. The middle class often live on a hand to mouth basis, with no perceivable hope for a better, happier future, with less struggling in the future. Most of the jobs occupied by the citizens living in the middle class do not pay enough to cover for their basic living expenses. Even though most of them live by, and play by the rules, this still does not guarantee better income or even climbing up the economic ladder from the middle class. Low income, debt, inability to build significant assets and inability to invest in their future by educating their children and themselves highly contributes to depression in the citizens living in the middle class.
Sulivan explains that a study in Saudi Arabia revealed that a quarter of its population was living below the poverty line (28). In a country characterized by lavish royalty and vast oil fields, this inequality was shocking. The surging oil prices at the beginning of the 21st century revolutionized Saudi Arabia, as big-spending wealthy individuals, who owned oil fields became relevant in the country. This resulted in an increase in the price of commodities and fuel in the country. The poor were affected as their financial status limited their ability to purchase these essential commodities. Huge sums of money from the country’s economy ended up in the pockets of the rich and the royal families. Nepotism, a common practice in Saudi Arabia, ensures that close family maintains job positions in all sectors of the economy, and as such bundle wealth into one pool of related individuals. This means that if one is not related to any person with high economic or social status, accessing favorable income that would improve their living status is impossible. King Abdulla, the country’s leader, claims that his government has spent billions in assisting the growing numbers of the poor, but his opinions are highly criticized. Most citizens claimthat the efforts are inadequate and are not done with the will of helping the poor, but only in a bid to divert the view of Saudi Arabia’s image by other countries. Also, many of its citizens complained of lack of information on how the revenue collected from oil was spent. Most of the citizens actually lacked information n how much tax was collected.
Saudi Arabia’s financial and social inequalities are believed to be as a result of the increase in population over the years, and strict Islamic laws that limit some of its citizens from maximum economic participation. Women are especially affectedby these laws, since Islamic law dictates that men should take care of women financially.As such, women who are widowed or divorced find it very hard to cope with life. Also, the strict cultural and religious constraints limit women from accessing jobs. The issue of women and inaccessibility of work in Saudi Arabia result from strong beliefs that do not allow the girl child to get adequate education. In Saudi Arabia, the girl child is highly devaluated, witnessed by the attention, care and resources allocated to the boy child from birth to adulthood. Aguino explains that "women are not allowed to own, control or even access important resources and in social spheres, the opinion of women cannot be voiced and their participation prevented" (6). Such policies make it unbearable for women to be financially stable, resulting in depression as they are left helpless even with the reality of being given an opportunity, they would attain financial stability and lead more profitable and happier lives.
Webber (38) observes that in the US, the competitive man-eat-man society has always been difficult for women to handle, with the exception of a few. Most jobs require longer working hours and are very tasking. Women are the unfortunate victims of this competition as most of them have other social responsibilities like feeding their children and taking care of their families, which require equally as much time input into them as required. Unfortunately very few employers would give special consideration to women, by allocating them with separate routines and fewer working hours. They also prefer to employ the youth, especially men who will not require special treatment. Over the years there have been restrictions to women in decision making processes. This hinders legislation of proper working terms for women who would have otherwise stated their needs categorically if given the opportunity to speak. Finally, the fallacy mindset in the society that women are unable to doo certain jobs have been a major drawback and a contributing factor to depression of women in the US. However, as years have progressed, this mindset has been scrapped away.
In the US and Saudi Arabia, the rich have been fairly criticized as responsible for the social inequality and depression. There has been speculation that explains that according to a researched commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network, the global elite rich individuals have exploited gaps in cross border tax rules, to allow them to hide trillions of dollars in offshore accounts, equal to the GDP of the US and Japan combined. This money, if invested in or stored in their countries would have earned considerable revenue for the government allowing for economic development and payment of the government debts, which would in turn uplift of the social status of its citizens hence reduce depression. However, most of these wealthy individuals share an unfortunate trait of being misers, only thinking of themselves instead of being philanthropists. However, we cannot rule out the existence of wealthy individuals who work effortlessly to tackle the poverty crisis worldwide, such as Bill Gates, who started and continues funding programs aimed at poverty eradication. The banks said to be holding the off-shore accounts have been constantly recording an increase in savings, from 1.5 trillion US dollars in 2005 to almost 4 trillion US dollars in 2010. This indicated that the financial crunch did not affect the rich, and showed that the inequality allowed them to take advantage of economic loopholes to accumulate more wealth at the expense of the poor who were still complaining of tough economic times over the same period.