‘Economic Growth doesn’t Guarantee Societal Health’

Interview: Meghna Raghoobar, Sociologist

‘We must track trust, safety, and human well-being alongside GDP to build a better future’

* ‘We cannot demand social responsibility from political leaders’
while behaving irresponsibly ourselves. Trust has to operate in both directions

* ‘Do we ask questions about how success was achieved?’
Do we celebrate integrity as much as financial achievement? These are uncomfortable questions, but they matter’

* ‘We have become quite good at asking whether the economy is growing. We should also ask: Are people feeling safe? Do they trust one another?’

 Behind the headlines of economic growth, modern societies are increasingly grappling with deep structural anxieties—from rising road fatalities and drug abuse to systemic corruption, institutional cynicism, and the silent exodus of educated youth. In this insightful interview, sociologist Meghna Raghoobar dissects the disconnect between traditional economic indicators and true collective health. She argues that GDP tracks financial transactions, not human trust, safety, or sense of belonging. To build a resilient future, Mauritius must move beyond reactive policies and redefine its social contract around a broader, systemic vision of societal well-being.

Mauritius Times: Mauritius is experiencing a troubling combination of road deaths, drug-related problems, corruption and money-laundering cases, as well as growing concerns about social inequality and young people wanting to leave the country. Do you see these as separate problems, or as signs of something deeper happening in Mauritian society?

Meghna Raghoobar: What concerns me is not simply that we have road accidents, drug use, corruption or brain drain. Societies have always faced social problems. What matters is what these problems reveal about our social structures, our values, our institutions and our relationship with one another.

I would describe what we are experiencing as a period of social transition. Mauritius has transformed enormously economically, technologically and culturally. Our aspirations have changed. Our relationship with work has changed. Family structures are changing. Social media has changed how we communicate and how we measure ourselves against others. Young people have access to a world of opportunities that previous generations simply did not have. But our social institutions and our collective ways of thinking do not always evolve at the same speed. This creates tensions.

We increasingly encourage individual achievement, financial success and personal mobility, while still expecting people to maintain strong communal responsibility. We tell people to pursue their dreams but sometimes provide limited structural opportunities to realise them. We promote education as the pathway to a better life, but the economy does not always offer the kind of meaningful opportunities that educated young people expect.

I don’t believe Mauritian society is simply ‘getting worse.’ That diagnosis is too easy. The real question is far more fundamental: What kind of society are we becoming, and is our social contract keeping pace? To me, that is fundamentally a question of well-being.

Well-being cannot be reduced to whether an individual eats well, exercises, or manages stress. It is shaped by whether they feel safe, trust institutions, can afford housing, have meaningful work, feel a sense of belonging, and believe they have a future. That is why we must start evaluating Mauritian well-being not just at the individual level, but at the societal level.

* Road deaths remain a particularly disturbing issue. Despite campaigns, laws and public warnings, dangerous behaviour continues. What does our behaviour on the roads tell us about responsibility and our relationship with rules?

Road behaviour is one of the clearest places where we can observe the relationship between the individual and society.

We often assume that if we introduce a law, people will follow it. But legislation is only one layer of social regulation. There is also something much deeper: social norms. People behave not only according to what is legally permitted, but according to what they perceive as socially acceptable.

When speeding, dangerous overtaking, aggressive driving or driving under the influence become relatively normalised, we have a problem that cannot be solved by awareness campaigns alone.

At some point, the issue becomes cultural.

What does it say when someone values arriving five minutes earlier over another person’s safety? It tells us that the immediate individual interest has, at least in that moment, overtaken collective responsibility.

I don’t want to simply label people as irresponsible. I want to understand the environment in which irresponsible behaviour becomes normal.

Are roads designed safely? Is public transport sufficiently accessible? Is enforcement consistent? Are penalties actually changing behaviour? What do people observe others doing every day? What behaviour is socially admired? How do we talk about masculinity, speed, status and driving?

All of these things matter.

We also need to understand that road safety is a collective issue. When someone drives recklessly, they are not making a private choice. They are making a choice in a shared environment where another person’s life can be affected.

So perhaps the deeper lesson from our roads is this:  A functioning society requires people to understand that freedom comes with responsibility.

I can have the freedom to drive, but I do not have the freedom to put another human life at unnecessary risk.

That distinction between individual freedom and collective responsibility is becoming increasingly important in modern Mauritius.

* Are we becoming a more individualistic society, where personal convenience, consumption and success take precedence over solidarity and the common good?

I think we are becoming more individualistic, but I would not necessarily frame individualism as a problem.

Individualism has positive dimensions. It allows people to develop autonomy, challenge traditions, pursue different lifestyles and make choices for themselves. For a younger generation especially, that freedom can be empowering.

The issue is when individualism becomes disconnected from interdependence.

Human beings are not actually independent creatures. We are deeply social and interconnected. Our health, safety, economic opportunities and emotional well-being depend on systems and relationships around us.

Yet modern society can create the illusion that everything is an individual achievement. If you are successful, it is because you worked hard. If you are struggling, it is because you did something wrong.

Individual choices matter, but choices are made within social conditions.

Someone’s health is influenced by their environment. Their career is influenced by the labour market. Their ability to buy a home is influenced by housing policy and economic conditions. A young person’s decision to leave Mauritius is influenced not only by personal ambition but by their perception of opportunities here.

This is why I am very interested in moving the conversation about having well-being indexes beyond the individual.

We cannot tell people to “be resilient” while ignoring the environments that continuously create insecurity. Resilience matters, but resilience should not become an excuse for dysfunctional systems.

A healthy society needs ambitious individuals, but it also needs solidarity. We should be able to say, “I want to succeed,” while also asking, “What does my success contribute to the society around me?”

That is the balance I think Mauritius needs to rediscover.

* We are also seeing a succession of corruption, fraud, and money-laundering investigations. Does the persistence of these cases suggest that corruption has become embedded in our culture, or does the rise in investigations simply mean that wrongdoing is becoming more visible?

I would be careful about saying that corruption is part of “Mauritian culture”. That is a very broad statement and risks turning a complex institutional problem into a cultural stereotype.

There are at least three different things we need to distinguish. First, there may be wrongdoing. Second, there may be improved detection and investigation. Third, there may be greater public visibility because of journalism, social media and digital information. So, an increase in investigations does not necessarily mean an equivalent increase in corruption.

However, what concerns me sociologically is the normalisation of cynicism.

When people start believing that corruption is inevitable, that connections matter more than competence, or that everyone is trying to benefit themselves anyway, something deeper happens.

People begin to disengage from the social contract. They ask themselves: Why should I follow the rules if others do not?

That is extremely dangerous because trust is cumulative. It takes a long time to build and very little time to erode. We therefore need strong institutions, transparency, accountability and enforcement. But we also need to think about the social values surrounding success.

What do we admire? Do we admire wealth simply because it is wealth? Do we ask questions about how success was achieved? Do we celebrate integrity as much as financial achievement?

These are uncomfortable questions, but they matter.

I would like us to move towards a society where success is not measured only by what someone has accumulated, but also by how they created it and what they contribute. That is a very different definition of prosperity.

* Mauritius has traditionally placed enormous emphasis on education and upward social mobility. Are there contradictions between the values we teach children and the examples they observe in society?

Yes, and I think this is one of the most important contradictions we need to examine.

We tell children to work hard, be honest, respect others, follow rules and earn their achievements. But children do not learn values only through formal education. They learn through observation.

If we teach honesty in school but children observe dishonesty being rewarded elsewhere, they receive two competing messages.

And this is why I am uncomfortable with the tendency to place the responsibility for every social problem on schools. Schools have an enormous role, but they cannot compensate for everything happening outside the classroom.

A child is shaped by family, peers, community, media, social platforms, political discourse and the wider economic environment. We therefore need a whole-of-society approach to values.

I would also question whether our definition of educational success has become too narrow.

Mauritius has rightly invested heavily in education. Education has been one of the great engines of social mobility in our country. But education should not only produce employable people. It should produce citizens who can think critically, understand complexity, cooperate with others, manage disagreement and recognise their responsibilities towards society.

If education becomes purely about qualifications, income and status, we risk producing highly educated individuals without necessarily strengthening social cohesion.

The purpose of education should therefore be both personal development and social development.

* Young Mauritians increasingly speak about the cost of living, housing, employment opportunities,  and the desire to emigrate. Is this simply the normal aspiration of a younger, more globally connected generation, or does it indicate a weakening of their confidence in Mauritius and its future?

Young people today have a much wider horizon. They can study in another country, work internationally, travel extensively and build careers that are not geographically confined.

Wanting to leave does not necessarily mean they dislike Mauritius. Sometimes migration is a sign of confidence and ambition. But there is an important distinction between leaving because you want to explore the world and leaving because you feel you cannot build the life you want in your own country. We need to listen to that distinction.

Housing is particularly important. When young adults work, study, qualify and still cannot see a realistic path towards independent living, frustration can develop. Employment is another part of it. Young people want more than a job. They increasingly want meaningful work, career progression, autonomy and alignment between their values and what they do.

And there is a third dimension that I think we underestimate: hope. People need to believe that their efforts can lead somewhere.

If young people consistently perceive that opportunities depend on connections, that housing is inaccessible, that wages do not match living costs, or that their professional aspirations cannot be realised locally, then immigration becomes more than an adventure. It becomes an exit strategy.

We should therefore not shame young people for leaving. Instead, we should ask: What would make them want to build their future here?

Our goal should not be to prevent mobility. It should be to create a Mauritius worth returning to.

* What happens to a society when trust in institutions and in fellow citizens declines?

Trust is one of the most important forms of social capital. We rarely see it, but it holds societies together.

When I trust that institutions will treat me fairly, I am more willing to cooperate with them. When I trust other citizens, I do not need to constantly protect myself from everyone around me.

When trust disappears, society becomes more transactional. People start relying primarily on personal networks rather than institutions. “Who do you know?” becomes more important than “What is the process?”

That has consequences far beyond politics. Low trust affects business, community life, public services, social participation and even people’s sense of security.

And there is a feedback loop. When people distrust institutions, they are less likely to cooperate. When cooperation declines, institutions become harder to operate effectively. That creates more frustration, which creates more distrust. Breaking that cycle requires institutions to earn trust through fairness, competence, consistency and transparency.

But citizens also have responsibilities.

We cannot demand integrity from institutions while tolerating dishonesty in our personal lives. We cannot demand social responsibility from political leaders while behaving irresponsibly ourselves. Trust has to operate in both directions.

Ultimately, a society is not simply a collection of individuals living within geographical borders. It is a network of relationships. And when those relationships become dominated by suspicion, competition and self-protection, well-being suffers.

* Governments often respond to social problems with tougher laws, policing or awareness campaigns. Are we addressing symptoms rather than causes?

Quite often, yes.

But I would not argue against laws or enforcement. We need them. The problem is when they become our default response to complex social problems.

Take drugs. Enforcement is necessary, but drug use also intersects with family relationships, social exclusion, peer networks, education, employment, trauma, accessibility of support and the sense of belonging within a community. If we address only the illegal substance, we may not address the social conditions that make someone vulnerable to problematic use.

The same applies to road safety. We can increase penalties, but we also need to understand social norms, infrastructure, transport systems and attitudes towards risk. This is why prevention is so important.

By the time a social problem becomes highly visible, the underlying processes may have been developing for years.

Mauritius needs to adopt a more proactive, evidence-based framework when designing social policy. We need better data, stronger research and more collaboration between government, academia, communities and practitioners.

And we need to measure whether interventions actually improve people’s lives. That is one reason I am interested in national well-being measurement. If we only measure economic indicators, we can miss important changes in people’s lived experience.

GDP can tell us something about economic activity. It cannot tell us whether people trust one another, feel safe, have meaningful relationships, feel that they belong, or believe that their children have a future. If we want healthier societies, we need to measure what makes societies healthy.

* What role should families, schools, religious and community organisations, the media and political leaders play in rebuilding a culture of responsibility and social cohesion? And are we asking too much of schools to compensate for failures elsewhere in society?

I think we need to move away from asking which institution is responsible and instead recognise that responsibility is distributed across society.

Families establish many of our earliest ideas about boundaries, care and responsibility. Schools can develop critical thinking, civic consciousness and the capacity to cooperate. Community and religious organisations can create belonging and social support.

The media has enormous power to shape public conversation and determine what becomes normalised. Political leaders have perhaps the greatest symbolic responsibility because leadership communicates what is considered acceptable. But none of these institutions can do it alone.

And I would add something else: citizens themselves.

There is a tendency to speak about social problems as if they are always caused by “other people”, “the government”, “young people” or “institutions”.

We need to take responsibility and look at our own participation in the system. What do I tolerate? What do I reward? What do I share online? How do I treat someone who has less power than me? Do I follow rules only when someone is watching?

These everyday behaviours collectively create culture.

And I think we need to stop treating young people merely as recipients of social problems. They are also potential contributors to the solution. Give them meaningful opportunities to participate in communities, environmental projects, entrepreneurship, civic initiatives and policymaking. People develop responsibility partly by being trusted with responsibility.

Social cohesion does not mean that everyone thinks alike. It means people with different identities, ambitions and beliefs still feel that they belong to the same society and have a stake in its future.

* If you could identify three fundamental changes Mauritius should make over the next five years, what would they be?

My first would be to rebuild institutional trust through transparency, accountability and fairness. People need to feel that institutions work for the public interest and that rules are applied consistently. Trust cannot be created through slogans. It has to be experienced.

My second would be to shift from reactive social policy towards prevention and well-being-based policy. We need to intervene earlier, particularly with young people. That means looking at education, employment, housing, mental and social well-being, community belonging, substance-use prevention and opportunities for meaningful participation.

And I would broaden our understanding of well-being itself. A healthy society is not simply one with people who have been taught to manage their stress individually. It is one where the environments in which people live make healthy and meaningful lives more possible.

My third would be to create a stronger culture of civic responsibility and collective participation. We need to rebuild the idea that citizenship is more than voting every few years.
It is how we drive. How we treat public spaces. How we treat people who are different from us. How we respond when we see wrongdoing.How we participate in our communities. How we use social media. How we think about the environment. How we contribute to the well-being of people we may never meet.

I don’t think Mauritius needs to become the society it was 30 or 40 years ago. That is neither possible nor necessarily desirable. We need to become a better version of the society we are becoming.

We are more connected to the world. We are more diverse in our aspirations. Technology is transforming how we work and communicate. Climate change, artificial intelligence and global economic uncertainty will create challenges that previous generations did not face in the same way. We therefore need a social contract adapted to the twenty-first century.

And for me, the central question is ultimately one of collective well-being.

We have become quite good at asking whether the economy is growing. We should also ask:

Are people feeling safe? Do they trust one another? Can young people imagine a future here? Can families afford a decent life? Do people feel that they belong? Are our institutions worthy of trust? Do people feel that their voices matter? Are we creating environments that support human well-being rather than simply expecting individuals to cope with environments that undermine it?

Those questions change the conversation.

Because the objective of development should not simply be to produce wealth. It should be to create the conditions in which people can live meaningful, healthy and dignified lives, while knowing that their well-being is connected to the well-being of others. That is where I think Mauritius needs to go next.

We have already demonstrated that we can transform our economy. The next transformation should be about the quality of our society.

And perhaps the most important shift is from asking, “What can Mauritius give me?” to also asking, “What kind of Mauritius are we collectively creating?”

That is where the social contract begins again.

---

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 4 September 2026

Tags:Accountability, Civic Responsibility, Collective responsibility, Common good, Corruption, Education, Employment, Fraud, Housing, Individualism, Institutional Trust, Interview, Mauritian Society, Mauritius Times, Meghna Raghoobar, Money Laundering, prévention, Social cohesion, Social Contract, Social Mobility, Social Norms, Social Policy, Social Structures, Social Transition, Sociologist, Solidarity, Transparency, Well-Being, Young people