Nursing
3.0 Fair Employment
While employment discrimination on Mexicans in terms of equal employment opportunities beyond their borders is regarded as a human rights issue, the same dilemma is being dealt with by Mexicans in their own soil as the use of protection contracts imposes limitation on workers when it comes to exercising their freedom of association and collective bargaining power (CIMP, 2012). Age cap, mandatory retirement, and rigid gap due to cultural factors initiates a job market component that puts a barrier for the unemployed to obtain employment opportunities (Dowling, 2013). Similar problem is imminent among the disabled population in Mexico where employment becomes less available for the said population due to prevailing system of selective employment practices (Dowling, 2013). In the recent statistical findings, Mexico currently poses an average of 4.5% overall unemployment rate where 4.5% of the male and 4.4% of female citizens are unemployed (Bls.gov, 2012)
3.1 Economic structure of the country; GDP
Mexico’s economic system was regarded as the 50th largest economy based on moderately free economic classification with an annual estimated increase of 1.7% from 2012 to 2013 (heritage.org, 2012). As of 2010, Mexico posted an estimated total of US$1.567 trillion of GDP (economywatch.com, 2010) and it was regarded as among the most successful year for the country considering that Mexico have gone through several crisis particularly in 1994 when the Mexican Peso reached its all time low and another wave of similar crisis back in 2008. Numerous free trade treaties with at least 40 countries back the country’s economic stability and the most important is NAFTA, which was signed in the U.S. in 1994 (economywatch.com, 2010; oecd.org, 2013). With the country’s population of 108.627 million, its labor force includes a growing informal sector estimated at 28.8% of the total labor force (economywatch.com, 2010). Major industries also contribute to 33.3% of the country’s total GDP, while the electronics sector, which is the second highest GDP contributor, and the services sector contributes 62.5% of the country’s total GDP (economywatch.com, 2010). In addition, Mexico’s banking system was among the most financially stable due to the well-capitalized financial sector.
3.2 Employment statistics by age and gender
With Mexico’s current population, the third quarter of 2010 indicates a significant improvement in the country’s employment statistics given that the total 60.3% of the population contributed to the labor force with 79.1% men and 43.4% women (data.worldbank.org, 2010; epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu, 2010). On the other hand the unemployment rate is composed of 5.9% women and 5.6% men making 5.7% of total unemployed population during the same period (epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu, 2012). In terms of age factor, 73% of Mexico’s labor force is composed of people aged 24 to 54 (skills.oecd.org, 2011). However, it is apparent that the number of prime-aged women is only at 53.9% of the total female labor force. The other percentage of the employment market is comprised of teenagers with non-formal employment aged between 15 to 23 years old.
3.3 Security of work
Given the disparities in labor force between men and women in Mexico, it is apparent that labor security in the country is unstable particularly due to the fact male participation is higher over females and the aforementioned problem on protection contracts that hinders the basic rights of employees to organize and negotiate. However, the government of Mexico reassures the public of its labor stability in terms of engaging to foreign and local investment boost on contracts that are expected to provide greater opportunity for its labor market and security to its current labor force (Aguila, 2013).
4.0 Social Protection
The Mexican government has established social protection programs that will adhere to the demands of global crisis as observed in 1994 and 2008. The adverse effect of global scale crises impact the below poverty Mexican population, as a response the Oportunidades Program was created to secure social protection of vulnerable population in the country (Davies and McGregor, 2009). The program became central to the alleviation of poverty in the country, which resulted to 8% reduction as of 2009, but food security and employment opportunity is still a work in progress following the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
4.1 Health insurance
In terms of healthcare security, Mexico’s health insurance system is made up of both private and public organizations with the Social Security system providing the universal health coverage for the employed population (Knaul et al., 2012). In addition to the existing universal health care, programs such as Seguro Popular provides alternative healthcare insurance to more than 50 million uninsured Mexican that are either outside of Social Security or within the poverty range (Aterido, Hallward-Driemeier and Pagés, 2011).
4.2 Social insurance (retirement, elderly care, unemployment support)
The social insurance in Mexico was also designed to provide support to elderly care and those that are unemployed. Extended employment insurance is provided to retirees and assistance for struggling families (Hallward-Driemeier and Pagés, 2011). The system was primarily modeled from the U.S. social security system where immediate relief are being provided to families below the poverty line including tax cuts of up to 95%. In addition, the treasury was also instructed to delay required withdrawals for elderly to ensure that pension benefit funds are helping to utilize health care for the elderly.
4.3 War, civil disruption, refugee issues
The previous economic and social struggles experienced by the country during the past depressions were attributed to histories of civil disruption and refugee issues. It can be recalled that the State Parties to the 1951 Convention according to refugee status of affected countries of war including Mexico enables international protection and the provision of the said convention was embedded into Mexico’s own constitution (Jasram and Achiron, 2011). As of the current times, Mexico’s social stability is continuous prevalence after its independence from previous occupations. The remaining issue at the moment in the country is the increasing number of Mexicans crossing the border to the United States, which imposes critical social conundrums and immigration issues.
4.4 Cohesion of civil society
Given the Mexico’s history of European occupation, its society was developed marked mainly by political and social dynamics in which unwritten rules of party and institutions have governed the country for more than 70 years until 1968 Student Movement (proman.lu, 2011). In addition, the country experienced a greater realization of values and practices that enabled stable growth of the civil society. The Mexican society in general engages in the roots of social concerns reinforced by CSO practices and strengthened government codes.
4.5 Amount and source of global aid
Mexico’s current stability was achieved trough the help of external assistance from both global aid and financial loans. As of 2011, the country is among the top five recipients of United States Economic Assistance in Latin America with average awarded obligations of US$621 million and third among the upper-middle income countries. The EU and the U.S. provided portions of economic and military assistance from USAID (gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov, 2011).
References
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