Introduction:
Every country has its own cultures, traditions, ways of living, spending, earning so on and so forth but when it comes to the countries near each other or which share their borders there definitely lies sharing of many aspects of life to an extent. This essay is particularly about the similarities and differences between two big nations of the world, United States and Mexico. Both the countries belong to North America, same continent, but there surely are many cultural and professional differences. Despite the remarkable differences, the countries under observation have many things in common too, which will be described in detail below.
Life conditions in US and Mexico can best be compared by considering the ranking compiled by a website named OED Better Life Index, which includes 36 countries in its list on the scale of life satisfaction, Website ranks every country on a scale from 1 to 10 giving 10 as the highest satisfaction level.Mexico is ranked at number 7 with the score of 7.4 on the basis of surveys conducted on the people of the country, survey includes questions about housing, jobs,income, community, health, education, civic engagement, environment, safety, life satisfaction and work-life balance.On the other hand, United States possesses much lower place in this ranking and comes at number 18 with an average score of seven.
Work conditions also have their due to show the difference in both the countries. Mexican constitution has a full fledge documentation of work conditions in the country. It is documented in the article 123 of the Mexican constitution, work hours in the daytime are eight for the day shift workers and around 7 hours for the night shift along with that a maximum of 9 hours of overtime in a week.
After every six working days, Mexicans get one day off work; moreover, each business is supposed to share its profit with workers according to specified guidelines and in amounts specified by a national commission. A national commission wages are also decided according to the economic conditions of the employer decides minimum wages, which vary from profession to profession. To insure the safety of the workplace is employer’s due. Companies must pay for health and wage loss when the job causes an injury or death. United States has its own law and regulations for the work, and work conditions applied for both employer and employee, workers can work either full time or part time. Full time job in US takes 40 hours a week while part-time can be up to 30 hours, along with that work days are usually Monday to Friday, which makes American jobs five days a week jobs, work hours are longer normally from 9am to 6pm with two small breaks.Most new recruits receive just one or two weeks paid holiday per year. As you continue working, your holidays increase by one or two days every year, with this effect it takes a person duration of years for reaching the point when he gets a full month of vacations in an year. A UN study states that an American works about 250 hours more than a worker of England and if compared to a German, the working hours of American increases to 500 extra. American get many benefits along with the actual salary from the job though; salary remains the most important part of a job. Salaries and costs of living are both very much higher in the US as compared to the nation of most of the countries of the world.Usually salaries vary from job to job, but aa normal worker gets 8 to 12$ per hour in the entry level of his job, none is paid less than 7$ per hour for any job in the US. A safe workplace is also your right if you are working in the US and you get monetary compensation in case of any loss happened to you at the workplace. Lifelong benefits can also be availed if an enduring damage to any of your body parts has been done, and that restricts you to work onwards in the life.
Family environments totally differ in these countries. For Mexicans, their family is the first priority, and they prefer living with the family whole their lives. Mexicans raise their children as long as they themselves do not show willingness to work, Mexican wives look after house, children, and elder members of the family manners and etiquettes are given importance and are considered the measure of breeding. On the contrary, to this, the first priority for the people of US is their work and family comes afterwards, moreover children are minimally parented and they are expected to start working as soon as possible in their lives. Families do not live together rather they meet on special occasions only. Husband and wife both have to work outside of the house. Formality and softness are often sacrificed for efficiency, and let-us-get-straight-to-the-point approach is mostly appreciated and used.
Conclusion:
After considering each point of the essay, we can clearly come at a result regarding similarities and differences between the life in Mexico and life in United States.Life conditions are very different in both the countries, which place Mexico at a better place than USA. Work and workplace conditions are not much dissimilar in both of the countries whether it is about the workplace security, wages or work hours. Family environment is the point, which marks the biggest difference in the two countries; family traditions are diametrically opposite to each other. In the end, we can say that United States has more of the professional environment while Mexicans give more significance to human values than worldly ways of life.
