Employment, Skills and Human Capital
This article is part of the World Economic Forum’s Geostrategy platform Commodities are the basic products that underpin both our material progress and our everyday lives. – from the cereals at your table, the cotton of your shirt or the copper and lithium in your smartphone, to the oil and gas that propels your vehicle. A complex, intelligent animal — which millions eat daily. Mexico City is going to war on plastic waste. A decade after its authorities started charging shoppers for carrier bags, it has passed a ban on a number of single-use plastic items. Around the world, the potential for corruption is often exploited where there is a conflict of interest in decision making, leading to the misallocation of public funds. Stark, rugged and sparsely populated, it’s not difficult to see why the Faroe Islands have become a draw for tourists in search of solitude, outdoor pursuits and nature. It’s good for you and great for the environment. So, as millions of cyclists around the world mark Bike to Work Day, here’s why life on two wheels makes sense. Azerbaijan, Turkey and Armenia have the most restrictive LGBT+ equality laws and policies in Europe, campaign group ILGA-Europe said on Monday. People with dementia can flourish and show creativity in ways they, their caregivers and loved ones never thought possible. Under the guidance of a trained therapist, creative arts therapies use painting, drama, dance and music to help improve quality of life for people with dementia. Luckin Coffee, a Chinese start-up that is looking to challenge Starbucks in one of its key markets, is going public Friday in one of the bigger U.S. IPOs by a Chinese firm this year so far. In fact, the IPO by the coffee chain has been hotly awaited and also debated. The company said it expects to raise US$500 million.While many observers are skeptical of the company that is running a massive deficit in a seemingly ludicrous attempt to catch up to Starbucks overnight, others are touting the operation’s innovative approach to delivery, pre-order and digitalization that is cutting costs. Since Luckin is barely 18 months old but already opened 2,000 stores, it’s certainly hard to know what executives have brewing for the future as well as how – and when – they are planning to turn a profit.While 2019 has seen a couple of Chinese IPOs on Wall Street already, 2018 was a record year for companies from China and Hong Kong to go public on the NYSE. With US$8.9 billion raised, 2018 brought the highest Wall Street IPO proceeds for Chinese companies so far, except for the year 2014, when e-commerce giant Alibaba went public in the U.S. and raised 90 percent (US$21.8 billion) of yearly proceeds all by itself. Only the year 2010 saw more Chinese companies’ IPOs on Wall Street, but back then, only a meager US$3.9 billion were raised, according to Renaissance Capital. Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage on Friday, as thousands of demonstrators outside parliament cheered and waved rainbow flags, despite deep divisions over marriage equality. For many, the Renaissance was the revival or “rebirth” of Western classical antiquity, associated with great artists painting the Sistine Chapel and the invention of the printing press in Europe. These local, European phenomena seem rather parochial compared to today’s world, where a hashtag on Instagram connects pictures across the world in an instant and aeroplanes take off every second from airports around the globe. Globalisation means that we can purchase a Starbucks coffee almost anywhere in the world and an enormous amount of goods available in Europe are made in China. Experience and knowledge are rapidly losing their relevance to success in the workplace. Harvard economist David Deming studied workplace tasks from 1980 to the present day and found that those that emphasize social skills grew by a whopping 24%, while tasks requiring technical know-how and intelligence experienced little growth. Deming also found that salaries increased the most for jobs that place extra emphasis on social skills. On May 1, Penny Mordaunt became the UK’s first female defense secretary, managing a department with a yearly budget of about $47 billion. Her appointment means that, right now, the six biggest military budgets in Europe are overseen by women. Physical attacks on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in France hit a record in 2018 in a “dark year” for the community, the support group SOS Homophobie said on Tuesday. Usually when Canada is at the top of an international ranking, it’s cause for celebration. Not this time. The world’s oceans are running out of breath. In the past 50 years, we have lost nearly half our coral reefs and mangrove forests and the size of marine populations has halved. A third of global fish stocks are already depleted. It’s contaminating our oceans. It’s clogging our drains and causing flooding. It’s transmitting diseases, causing respiratory infections, and harming animals. Welcome to the global trash heap. If everyone consumed at the same rate as the average European, we would need a planet three times the size of Earth. The human race has broken another record on its race to ecological collapse. Congratulations humanity! Nearly 300 of the world’s leading strategy executives and futurists are meeting at the World Economic Forum’s Industry Strategy Meeting. This is part of our mission to drive multistakeholder collaboration to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. We caught up with two strategists attending the meeting to ask: what keeps them up at night? Teenagers in the U.S. coastal state of North Carolina who were schooled in the basics of man-made climate change saw their parents grow more concerned about the issue, scientists said on Monday in the first study of its kind. The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in Congo has risen above 1,000, with attacks on treatment centers continuing to hamper efforts to control the “intense transmission” of the second-worst epidemic of the virus on record. The University of Auckland has topped a pioneering new ranking that assesses the social and economic impact of universities based on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Any unsuspecting carnivores who showed up to last month’s “Meat Fest” food festival in downtown Shanghai were in for a surprise. Despite the name, all the meat at the Vegans of Shanghai-organized Meat Fest was plant-based, from the burgers to the cuts of abalone.Show Agenda posts
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Taiwan has legalised same-sex marriage
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Are you an apologizer or a dementor? Nine of the worst behavioural traits in the workplace
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Assaults on the LGBT+ community hit a record high in France last year
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Canada has the worst fuel economy in the world. Here’s why
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We need to deep clean the oceans. Here’s how to pay for it
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CO2 levels in the atmosphere just reached the highest level in human history
Thursday 16th of May 2019
What keeps me up at night? Two strategists reply
Thursday 16th of May 2019
Children could influence their parents views on climate change
Thursday 16th of May 2019
The death toll from the Congo’s nine-month Ebola outbreak has surpassed 1,000
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China is leading the meatless revolution with its vegetarian ‘mock meat’
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Gender Parity
Azerbaijan, Turkey and Armenia have the most restrictive LGBT+ equality laws and policies in Europe, campaign group ILGA-Europe said on Monday. Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage on Friday, as thousands of demonstrators outside parliament cheered and waved rainbow flags, despite deep divisions over marriage equality. On May 1, Penny Mordaunt became the UK’s first female defense secretary, managing a department with a yearly budget of about $47 billion. Her appointment means that, right now, the six biggest military budgets in Europe are overseen by women. Physical attacks on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in France hit a record in 2018 in a “dark year” for the community, the support group SOS Homophobie said on Tuesday. The hollowing out of the middle class, rising social and political tension, lack of education, globalization, and rapid technological change are just a few of the many drivers of growing income inequality. Hundreds of women have spoken out about sexual harassment and abuse in Namibia, sparking what activists on Friday said was one of Africa’s first major #MeToo movements. As a green-skinned alien in the blockbuster movie “Avengers: Endgame”, actress Zoe Saldana hopes she can promote a clear message – that time’s up on old-fashioned female stereotypes. Alabama’s state Senate passed a bill on Tuesday to outlaw nearly all abortions, creating exceptions only to protect the mother’s health, as part of a multistate effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. The gender pay gap in South Korea is the highest in the OECD (OECD 2017); it is more than twice as wide as the gender pay gap in the US and the average gender pay gap across the OECD. Moreover, South Korean women remain under-represented in public life, in spite of the fact that they have above-average scores in PISA and in PIAAC, and younger women have higher levels of educational attainment than their male peers (OECD 2017). As moms across the United States celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, five of the six women vying for the Democratic presidential nomination are themselves mothers. The second half of the 20th century saw dramatic improvements in educational attainment and labour market outcomes for women in the Western world. However, progress in gender equality slowed around the turn of the century (Goldin 2012, Blau and Kahn 2018) and significant inequalities remain in all countries. Lower labour earnings for women arise from lower labour force participation, lower hourly wage rates, and lower hours worked. Along all these margins, the average woman fares worse than the average man in any country. In March 2007, Spain introduced a national policy granting most new fathers two weeks of fully paid paternity leave. The policy proved exceptionally popular, with 55% of men eligible in the first year opting to take the paid time. The amount of leave covered by the program was doubled in 2017 and expanded to five weeks in 2018, with additional increases expected between now and 2021. Farm labourer Dharmendra Meena’s first year of marriage with his wife Vaijanti in northwest India was “beautiful and carefree”. “On average, female leaders come into office with less support than male leaders and their support erodes more quickly,” says lead author Ryan E. Carlin, an associate professor of political science at Georgia State University. “Furthermore, the public strongly withdraws support from female leaders in the wake of policy failures in physical security and public corruption. Only a handful of the top companies in the U.S. are led by a woman. The role of women in the recent protests in Sudan has attracted a great deal of attention. This is because women who try to have a prominent public role in the country face criticism and can be accused of neglecting their family duties. This was particularly true after the introduction of Sharia law and Sudan’s public order laws in 1983. These laws shaped gender norms and defined the position of women in Sudanese society. There is an urgent need for social-protection policies and initiatives that enable women not just to survive, but to thrive. Women do not need only employment opportunities; they also need social support that accounts for the true extent of their responsibilities. A recent government report shows that despite their growing presence in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines, women are largely absent on patents. A “patent new deal” for female inventors could help turn the tide, writes Ami Patel Shah in this opinion piece. Shah is a partner in a global, patent-focused hedge fund and holds degrees in law, and electrical and computer engineering. She is a global speaker on patent issues, particularly at the intersection of patents and finance. Prior to her financial services career, Shah ran the global wireless patent portfolio of an international chip manufacturer, worked at various law firms and started her career as a United States Patent Examiner. A study released by Cigna on women in leadership found that 86 percent of female business leaders credit their current position and advanced skill sets to non-traditional career changes. That is, moving up the ladder or taking your ‘expected’ role may not be the way to reach your goal and advance in your career. Consider these five ways to open yourself up to new, less traditional opportunities to becoming a leader: In 2019, we are entering an exciting period of history when the world expects balance. We know that a more balanced, less biased world is a better one. The introduction of gender pay gap reporting has highlighted the continued gap in pay between men and women. While it is by no means a perfect metric, the very exercise of collecting this data has focused minds in the UK’s boardrooms like never before. Somali-American Halima Aden will appear in Sports Illustrated’s popular swimsuit issue as the first model in the magazine to wear a hijab and burkini, the magazine said on its website. As health workers approached a huge acacia tree that would provide shade for a makeshift clinic, more than 50 women and 30 children were already waiting for them. A proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights for women on Tuesday got its first hearing in nearly four decades in the U.S. Congress, where leaders said the measure could win approval amid “a groundswell” of activism among women. When thinking about water management, gender is probably the last thing on many people’s minds. But in fact, the whole process of water management – technology choices, decision making, implementation, benefits and risks are all gendered.Show Agenda posts
View more Gender posts
These are the best and worst countries in Europe for LGBT+ policies
Friday 17th of May 2019
Taiwan has legalised same-sex marriage
Friday 17th of May 2019
The six biggest military budgets in Europe are controlled by women
Friday 17th of May 2019
Assaults on the LGBT+ community hit a record high in France last year
Friday 17th of May 2019
Inequality is a global crisis. Here’s how we can tackle it.
Thursday 16th of May 2019
#MeToo has ignited a fire against sexual harassment in Namibia
Thursday 16th of May 2019
Guardian of the Galaxy Zoe Saldana is raising her children in a gender-equal home
Thursday 16th of May 2019
Alabama Senate bans nearly all abortions, including rape cases
Wednesday 15th of May 2019
What a Korean quiz show tells us about gender inequality
Wednesday 15th of May 2019
When should a woman have children if she’s thinking about running for office?
Tuesday 14th of May 2019
Having children costs women’s earnings, but the impact varies from country to country
Tuesday 14th of May 2019
After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids
Monday 13th of May 2019
Missing wombs: the health scandal enslaving families in rural India
Friday 10th of May 2019
Sexist attitudes mean female leaders have to outperform men, a study finds
Friday 10th of May 2019
Why female entrepreneurs flourish in managing diverse teams
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Social media is empowering Sudanese women to become entrepreneurs
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Why social support is a crucial strategy for empowering women
Thursday 9th of May 2019
Why female innovators need a new deal
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Female leaders are taking non-traditional career paths to succeed
Tuesday 7th of May 2019
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Monday 6th of May 2019
To solve the gender pay gap, we need to radically rethink what a job looks like
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Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to feature model in burkini
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Solar tracking bracelets protect nomadic Kenyan mothers and babies
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The US constitution doesn’t guarantee equal rights for women – this law could change that
Thursday 2nd of May 2019
Our relationship with water isn’t gender neutral. Here’s why that matters
Wednesday 1st of May 2019
