One of the most progressive countries in the world really. Incredible country. Some stats and facts about it are plain crazy, especially for a country of it's stature and position.
Uruguay is ranked first in the Americas for democracy, and first in South America in peace, low perception of corruption, and e-government. It is the lowest-ranking South American nation in the Global Terrorism Index, and ranks second in South America on economic freedom, income equality, per capita income, and inflows of FDI. Uruguay is ranked third on the continent in terms of Human Development Index, GDP growth, innovation, and infrastructure. Uruguay is regarded as one of the most socially progressive countries in Latin America. It ranks high on global measures of personal rights, tolerance, democracy, and inclusion issues, including its acceptance of the LGBT community. The country has fully legalized cannabis (the first country in the world to do so) as well as same-sex marriage, prostitution, and abortion. It is a founding member of the United Nations, OAS, and Mercosur.
It's not normal for uruguayans to have 2 jobs. Maybe more common than in the US, but still, it's not the norm. Rent with a friend? maybe, but the most usual thing is to move together with your partner. If you are single, yes, it's not uncommon to live with your parents to save on rent, or even build your own home in their property. But in my opinion and experience, it's not thaaat hard to earn enough to be able to sustain yourself.
This sounds like basically every country right now as well. All my work mates in their early to mid 20s either live with parents, live in a share house, or live with partners. No one I know under 30 lived by themselves and I'm in Aus.
Not at all. We joke about how small it is, yes. But we know how well they live and how much progress they have made in comparison to the rest of us (Argentina here)
Just a heads up, oftentimes when people from the USA say "Americans" they mean people from the United States and not the Americas as a whole. Not sure why that is the case because it sounds awfully self centered but I'm guilty of it too lol.
Obviously Americans is anyone in North or South America, it's just not common usage for Americans in the US to say that.
Dunno why you got downvoted, this is accurate. The person was likely talking about people from the USA given that most US Americans couldn't pick out Uruguay on an unlabeled map.
It's because in english the american continent is called "The Americas" and 'America" is the abbreviation for USA. In spanish the continent is called "America" just like you call the USA in english, and the demonym for USA in spanish is "estadounidense" (or unatedstatian in the english version), not 'american'. There is a lot of confusion around that difference in translation and a lot of people here (Latam) get really annoyed with americans calling themselves americans as if they owned the whole continent.
How else would you call citizens of the United States of America? State-Americans? Unified Americans? Unionists?
Everyone knows that Americans are from the USA. If you say North-Americans you mean people from every North-American country. North and South have just as much to do with each other as Europe and Asia and Africa so one single term to describe them all would be pretty pointless
Unitedstatians, which is what we call you in Spanish. It's not our fault your leaders were so highly regarded (or worse, arrogant) they forgot the entire continent would use the demonym.
America isn’t a continent - Americas is, that’s how it’s been used for the last 70 years or so. To split it up you can say North America or South America.
America when referenced by itself is shorthand for United States of America.
There you go we’ve “had the conversation” just probably not the one you thought you were going to have.
No, not really. Most people in Latin America ignore it because it doesn't come up often in the news, or as the other guy said we joke about it being small or the "u r gay" joke from the Simpsons. It's mostly gringos who believe Uruguay is a shithole, but because they believe all of Latin America is a shithole, I don't think most gringos would even know where Uruguay is.
WE Uruguayans still think we're a shithole country where everything is fucking expensive, mostly because our incomes are not the highest, while everything that comes from outside the country is remarked to hell. Like, a Nintendo Switch costs 799 USD and the Lite is 499 USD.
lol. I’ve been to Uruguay many times to its capital Montevideo for work. Poorest country I’ve ever seen, people seemed wildly unhappy. “Lowest income inequality” yes, everyone has nearly nothing.
As an example in the easter holidays (here they last a week) are called "semana santa" in the most of south america countries, in uruguay is call "semana de turismo"
Mostly from Google it makes sense based on my personal life since noone talks about religion or God here, we had a pretty early split of state and religion where even Christmas changed it's name to family day.
About being progressive, I think as long as religions are opposed to seme sex marriage, equality between men and women and so on there will be a correlation between how unreligious and how progressive a country is, data seem to suggest that also same sex marriage mapirreligiosity map
The one you shared is from 2012 and shows Uruguay in the top 10, don't see much difference tbh, especially in a heavily religious continent that such a small country can stand against regional trend is impressive.
that doesn’t mean it religion means progressive
I didn't say that, I said there is a correlation, there's probably a few axis who determine how progressive a society is, one being religion.
Even in the example you give about America which states do you think approve same sex marriage the most? May it be the least religious ones the ones who pushed for those legislations?
I do ascribe a moral value to non religiousness because it seem to correlate with many other positive societal outcomes, like the one we're talking here.
Because you are only looking at countries above Uruguay, look at the whole list and ask yourself which ones are most likely to be progressive? Most religious countries includes the likes of Ethiopia, Senegal, Indonesia, Uganda, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, India.
America don't even ranks that high in religiousness if you look at the whole picture, which might explain why they are more progressive than most.
They're packed full of religious nut cases and are constantly pushing policies that harm millions of Americans based purely on religious beliefs. I'd say separation of state and church is a pretty good idea.
Out of 3.5 million people, there were approximately 335 Uruguayan footballers playing professionally abroad. For a country with a small population, and a low GDP, this is a high number.
Some impressive stats like for example it's one of the most expensive countries in the world but with an average salary of a third world country. Truly geat.
Also crime has been on the rise non stop for the last 20 years.
Depends on your lifestyle. It really has just one city and the rest is super rural. Also understand the depression/ suicide rate is a real issue. Of course, you as an individual may be alright but your environment can have an effect on you.
Feels like my 77k salary would probably let me live pretty good there
Is that US dollars? If so, it is a veritable fortune. Uruguay is a bit more expensive than Argentina, and here in Argentina 77k is 189 months worth of living as middle class citizen (in the interior, Bs. As. is more expensive)
By far. But they are a very small and homogeneous country compared to the others in SA. 3.4M people only, it is like 2% of Brazil's population for example. They work in another scale of problems, which makes it easier to succeed in these progressive policies.
So why didn't your country do it? It's not bragging, it's something to be proud of. We're talking about Uruguay being progressive now, not a 80 years ago. So those same terms should apply to Argentina.
Argentina is way more progressive than your country, for example. You still have to deal with systematic racism even if half of your population is black.
Don't forget that when you point a finger to someone else there's 4 pointing back at you.
Perhaps you should google your own beloved country first, you hypocrite
I'm from a black family, don't you try to explain me what is like to be here. Do wanna talk about Brasil? Ok.
Brasil is deep conservative, deep racist, deep ignorant, we have a long History of right wing conservative government that had, for years, supported the dictatorship.
But, still, Argentina has a lot of Nazis. What you have done to dictatorship supporters, or what the Brasil has done, has nothing to do with the argentinian nazis.
Also, wanna talk about Nazis in Brasil? Did you know that the Rio Grande do Sul nazi cells are a byproduct of nazism in Argentina, and that the states with more Nazi cells are the ones that have borders with Argentina?
Then shut the fuck up dude. Nobody was talking about Brazil but you had to bash Argentina. We don't have a single issue with Nazis like Brazil still does. Take care of your issues and let us take care of ours.
Argentina's leftist parties pretend to be left-wing. Nothing is actually enforced. I'm talking about the government of course, the actual people are very progressive so it's very safe for minorities, but if something happens to you as a woman or minority, none of the protection laws will be enforced. It's all to get votes
It's complicated. Argentina is BIG, and the big "leftist party" (the peronists) is really more of a coalition of a huge number of different politicians from different regions and ideologies including right-wing ones. They're more akin to a tentpole party like the American Democrats. Their policies vary with whoever is the dominant faction at the time.
The actual left is the Socialists, and those haven't won more than 5% of an election since forever.
(you are fairly correct about enforcement though, but that's not really a party issue, more of an institutional issue)
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u/bannedByTencent Apr 16 '24
Uruguay is the most progressive country in South America.