social issue, a state of affairs that negatively affects the personal or social lives of individuals or the well-being of communities or larger groups within a society and about which there is usually public disagreement as to its nature, causes, or solution. The term social issue is frequently used synonymously with social problem.
Early uses of the term social problem are found in the writings of 19th-century intellectuals, including John Stuart Mill, the British philosopher who coined the phrase. For decades, “the” social problem—defined generally as that of resolving social conflict and creating a better society—was a common subject of debate, scholarship, and journalism in European and American literary culture. The idea of multiple social problems arose toward the end of the 19th century, as sociologists, social workers, and social reformers tended to frame their work in terms of the narrative of studying and solving society’s problems.
Since the late 20th century, the increased colloquial use of issue as a synonym for problem has led social issue to become a common synonym for social problem. While in some contexts issue has connotations that distinguish it from problem, within sociology and related fields the two terms are effectively synonymous. In everyday speech, social issue is occasionally used distinctly from social problem to identify a general topic of public discussion or debate.
While the basic definition of social issue as a problem facing a society is agreed upon, there is no uniform methodology to differentiate social issues from other problems that may less directly impact the well-being of individuals and communities, such as economic, environmental, ethical, legal, or political problems. Labeling these conditions “social issues” has more to do with the subjective perspective of the speaker—as well as the speaker’s purpose in addressing a certain audience, such as students, activists, or other professionals—than with the contours of the issue itself. For example, both an economist and a sociologist may write about the problem of unemployment; the economist might be primarily concerned with the technical factors that increase unemployment, while the sociologist might be concerned with the consequences of high unemployment in some communities or with the question of why the unemployment rate is greater in some communities than it is in others.
Subjectivity also comes into play in people’s judgments that a particular state of affairs constitutes a social issue. For example, some people consider the increasingly common situation of romantic partners cohabiting before marriage to be a serious social issue that needs to be addressed and solved, while others do not consider such arrangements to be a matter of concern beyond the individuals involved.
The causes of social issues are multifaceted, and many issues lack a source agreed upon by a consensus of experts. Some social issues may be framed as “bottom-up” or “top-down” problems. Drug addiction and alcoholism are exemplars of “bottom-up” social issues: individual people all over the world become addicted to various substances, and this personal problem influences their own lives as well as the lives of their loved ones. When the personal circumstance of addiction is multiplied to include large groups within a society, addiction becomes a social issue. In contrast, a “top-down” social issue is climate change. The causes of climate change cannot be traced back to the personal actions of a single individual, and they stem from a large number of individual agents and factors, but climate change has negatively affected communities throughout the world, including by increasing the likelihood of catastrophic flooding and drought.
Social issues can rarely be cleanly divided into discrete categories and often have intersectional causes and effects. For example, child marriage—the marriage of legal minors—is considered by many to be a serious global social issue. Some frame it as an issue of women’s rights (see feminism), as the younger partner in such marriages is generally female and the marriage is often forced on her by her family. Others may argue that it is a problem of children’s rights in general, as often both partners in such marriages are underage, and child marriage can plausibly be linked to cultural attitudes fueling issues such as child labour. Child marriage also exacerbates problems like illiteracy and undereducation, since the girls in such marriages are often expected to leave school. Pregnancy and birth can be dangerous for underage females and their children, leading to health problems. Child marriage can also be linked to problems of unemployment and low economic opportunity, since many families choose to marry off their daughters to avoid the costs of caring for them. Finally, there are those who argue that child marriage should in fact be legal for cultural or religious reasons—from such a perspective, the many laws criminalizing child marriage are themselves a social issue.
A partial list of common, generally agreed-upon social issues might include, in addition to those mentioned above, the following problems: child abuse, civil rights, crime, criminal justice, disability rights, domestic violence, gambling, hate crime, health care (see medicine), homelessness, immigration, mental illness, obesity, police brutality and corruption, pollution, and poverty.