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Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local or regional economy, or the global economy.
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"Socioeconomics" is sometimes used as an umbrella term for various areas of inquiry. The term "social economics" may refer broadly to the "use of economics in the study of society". [1] More narrowly, contemporary practice considers behavioral interactions of individuals and groups through social capital and social "markets" (not excluding, for example, sorting by marriage) and the formation of social norms. [2] In the relation of economics to social values. [3]
A distinct supplemental usage describes social economics as "a discipline studying the reciprocal relationship between economic science on the one hand and social philosophy, ethics, and human dignity on the other" toward social reconstruction and improvement [4] or as also emphasizing multidisciplinary methods from such fields as sociology, history, and political science. [5] In criticizing mainstream economics for its alleged faulty philosophical premises (for example the pursuit of self-interest) and neglect of dysfunctional economic relationships, such advocates tend to classify social economics as heterodox. [6]
The socioeconomic system at the regional level refers to the way social and economic factors influence one another in local communities and households. These systems have a significant impact on the environment through deforestation, pollution, natural disasters, and energy production and use. Through telecoupled systems, these interactions can lead to global impact. Local economies, food insecurity, and environmental hazards are all negative effects that are a direct outcome of socioeconomic systems.
Deforestation is a major cause of environmental change. Deforestation can be attributed to population growth, change in household dynamics, and resource management. Forests are traditionally owned by the state and control resource management which means their government is responsible for the development of forested land. Between 1970 and 2011, tree coverage decreased by 20.6%. [7] The decrease can be attributed to community development and increased use of resources. The issue of deforestation is contributing to climate change because the wood is frequently burned and used as timber fuel which emits CO2 into the atmosphere. Deforestation is also happening due to population growth and the expansion of farmland which creates feedback loops. When forests are cut down to begin agriculture practices, soil degradation often takes place and leads to further issues like declining crop yields, which can contribute to food insecurity and contraction in the economy.
Due to deforestation, animals often lose their habitats and vegetation is significantly decreased. Habitat loss is common when deforestation happens because not only are the trees being cut down, but the land trees previously inhabited suffer extreme soil erosion due to lack of protection from the tree coverage. [8] Animals' struggle to survive is further hindered due to high temperatures in places where tree coverage is lost. [9] Local community economies are affected by this because they depend on these resources to drive their local markets and feed their families. Modern medicine is also affected by deforestation because several medicines are derived from plants found in these areas. Loss of these resources means a loss of income to local communities who depend on these natural resources for profit. This can have a global effect by creating shortages of some medicines worldwide.
Ocean pollution has massively affected small fishing communities around the world. When the ocean water gets polluted, it has a range of effects on ocean life. Fish absorb mercury from coal mining and fossil fuel burning which makes them toxic to eat. Food insecurity is a socioeconomic impact of toxic marine life because small coastal communities depend on fishing to drive their local markets. [10] Big companies produce this pollution as a spillover system, which affects the fish, which then affects the surrounding communities.
Natural disasters are becoming more severe as the environment is shifting. In the Western hemisphere, landslides are becoming more prevalent and severe [ citation needed ]. As communities continue to expand and develop, landscapes are disrupted by human interactions and unstable hillside areas begin to crumple under these pressures. [11] These effects can be responsible for habitat loss for animals, home loss for humans, and complete destruction of industrial establishments. This can affect local economies just as any other natural disaster because it disrupts the entire flow of communities. They can be divided into private and public, for example, a highway being demolished by a landslide would be considered a public cost. A local farm that lost all of its crops due to a landslide would be considered a private cost. Urbanization and deforestation are primarily responsible for the increasing number of landslides in small communities. [12]
Another socioeconomic factor is the change in the household family. The nuclear family is traditionally two parents and their children living under the same roof. In the past, households frequently inhibited extended family members such as grandparents. With the shift in the number of people under one roof, there has been an increase in direct energy consumption. [13] Fewer people per household means more households. People are shifting towards single-person households as our societal norms evolve. More households mean more energy being used to do things like heat the house, power more TVs, and use more lights. It also means more geographical land space being taken up by people which can lead to further urbanization of rural communities. This has been a shift in communities across the globe.
Deforestation, natural disasters, pollution, and energy consumption explicitly exhibit how human and natural systems are integrated systems. They are influenced by government policies and contextual factors which often have a more negative impact on the environment. [14] Human interactions with the environment create a domino effect. These socioeconomic systems are all interconnected and produce effects from the local level, all the way up to the global level.
Political economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems and their governance by political systems. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour markets and financial markets, as well as phenomena such as growth, distribution, inequality, and trade, and how these are shaped by institutions, laws, and government policy. Originating in the 16th century, it is the precursor to the modern discipline of economics. Political economy in its modern form is considered an interdisciplinary field, drawing on theory from both political science and modern economics.
In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either consumer or producer market transactions. Air pollution from motor vehicles is one example. The cost of air pollution to society is not paid by either the producers or users of motorized transport to the rest of society. Water pollution from mills and factories is another example. All consumers are made worse off by pollution but are not compensated by the market for this damage. A positive externality is when an individual's consumption in a market increases the well-being of others, but the individual does not charge the third party for the benefit. The third party is essentially getting a free product. An example of this might be the apartment above a bakery receiving the benefit of enjoyment from smelling fresh pastries every morning. The people who live in the apartment do not compensate the bakery for this benefit.
Ecotourism is a form of tourism marketed as "responsible" travel to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. The stated purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds for ecological conservation, to directly benefit the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, or to foster respect for different cultures and human rights.
Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics, or ecol-econ is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems, both intertemporally and spatially. By treating the economy as a subsystem of Earth's larger ecosystem, and by emphasizing the preservation of natural capital, the field of ecological economics is differentiated from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment. One survey of German economists found that ecological and environmental economics are different schools of economic thought, with ecological economists emphasizing strong sustainability and rejecting the proposition that physical (human-made) capital can substitute for natural capital.
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are described as rural. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.
Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public have participated in, studied, and critiqued flows of economic and natural resources, human and non-human bodies, patterns of development and infrastructure, political and institutional activities, governance, decay and renewal, and notions of socio-spatial inclusions, exclusions, and everyday life. Urban geography includes different other fields in geography such as the physical, social, and economic aspects of urban geography. The physical geography of urban environments is essential to understand why a town is placed in a specific area, and how the conditions in the environment play an important role with regards to whether or not the city successfully develops. Social geography examines societal and cultural values, diversity, and other conditions that relate to people in the cities. Economic geography is important to examine the economic and job flow within the urban population. These various aspects involved in studying urban geography are necessary to better understand the layout and planning involved in the development of urban environments worldwide.
The exploitation or destruction of natural resources is the use of natural resources for economic growth, sometimes with a negative connotation of accompanying environmental degradation. Environmental degradation can result from depletion of natural resources, this would be accompanied by negative effects to the economic growth of the effected areas.
Economic sociology is the study of the social cause and effect of various economic phenomena. The field can be broadly divided into a classical period and a contemporary one, known as "new economic sociology".
Environmental issues in Haiti include a historical deforestation problem, overpopulation, a lack of sanitation, natural disasters, and food insecurity. The major reasons for these environmental issues are corruption, human exploitation, and the embezzlement of taxpayers' funds for personal gains. In addition, there is not sufficient protection or management of the country's natural resources. Other environmental issues, such as decreases in precipitation and more severe natural disasters, will likely arise in Haiti as a result of climate change. Experts agree that Haiti needs to adopt new policies to address both the issues that already exist and to prepare for the effects of climate change.
The European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) is a pluralist forum of social scientists that brings together institutional and evolutionary economists broadly defined. EAEPE members are scholars working on realistic approaches to economic theory and economic policy. With a membership of about 500, EAEPE is now the foremost European association for heterodox economists and the second-largest association for economists in Europe.
Spatial inequality refers to the unequal distribution of income and resources across geographical regions. Attributable to local differences in infrastructure, geographical features and economies of agglomeration, such inequality remains central to public policy discussions regarding economic inequality more broadly.
Cultural economics is the branch of economics that studies the relation of culture to economic outcomes. Here, 'culture' is defined by shared beliefs and preferences of respective groups. Programmatic issues include whether and how much culture matters as to economic outcomes and what its relation is to institutions. As a growing field in behavioral economics, the role of culture in economic behavior is increasingly being demonstrated to cause significant differentials in decision-making and the management and valuation of assets.
In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation, fracking of the ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and the introduction of exotic plant or animal species. Disturbances of sufficient magnitude or duration can profoundly affect an ecosystem and may force an ecosystem to reach a threshold beyond which a different regime of processes and structures predominates. When such thresholds are associated with a critical or bifurcation point, these regime shifts may also be referred to as critical transitions.
In economics, a spillover is an economic event in one context that occurs because of something else in a seemingly unrelated context. For example, externalities of economic activity are non-monetary spillover effects upon non-participants. Odors from a rendering plant are negative spillover effects upon its neighbors; the beauty of a homeowner's flower garden is a positive spillover effect upon neighbors. The concept of spillover in economics could be replaced by terminations of technology spillover, R&D spillover and/or knowledge spillover when the concept is specific to technology mamagement and innovation economics.
Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recover in the present situation, and catastrophic if the ecosystem is projected to certainly collapse.
Climate change and poverty are deeply intertwined because climate change disproportionally affects poor people in low-income communities and developing countries around the world. The impoverished have a higher chance of experiencing the ill-effects of climate change due to the increased exposure and vulnerability. Vulnerability represents the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change including climate variability and extremes.
Social metabolism or socioeconomic metabolism is the set of flows of materials and energy that occur between nature and society, between different societies, and within societies. These human-controlled material and energy flows are a basic feature of all societies but their magnitude and diversity largely depend on specific cultures, or sociometabolic regimes. Social or socioeconomic metabolism is also described as "the self-reproduction and evolution of the biophysical structures of human society. It comprises those biophysical transformation processes, distribution processes, and flows, which are controlled by humans for their purposes. The biophysical structures of society and socioeconomic metabolism together form the biophysical basis of society."
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to social science:
Climate resilience is defined as the "capacity of social, economic and ecosystems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance". This is done by "responding or reorganising in ways that maintain their essential function, identity and structure while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning and transformation". The key focus of increasing climate resilience is to reduce the climate vulnerability that communities, states, and countries currently have with regards to the many effects of climate change. Efforts to build climate resilience encompass social, economic, technological, and political strategies that are being implemented at all scales of society. From local community action to global treaties, addressing climate resilience is becoming a priority, although it could be argued that a significant amount of the theory has yet to be translated into practice.
Telecoupling is a strategy that comprehensively analyzes both the socioeconomic and environmental impacts over long distances. The concept of telecoupling is a logical extension of research on coupled human and natural systems, in which interactions occur within particular geographic locations. The telecoupling framework derives from the understanding that all land systems are connected through coupled human and natural systems, and these that social, ecological, and economic impacts are the result. The term telecoupling was first coined by Jianguo Liu as an evolution of the term teleconnection. While teleconnection makes reference to atmospheric sciences only, telecoupling references the integration of multiple scientific disciplines including social science, environmental science, natural science, and systems science. The integration of these dynamic fields of science is what allows the telecoupling framework to comprehensively analyze distal connections that have been previously understudied and unacknowledged.
