Employment, Skills and Human Capital
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to business leaders on Monday to support developing countries “in their hour of need” with access to COVID-19 vaccines, help to combat the climate crisis and reform of the global financial system. Speaking virtually to the World Economic Forum, Guterres said: “Across all three of these areas, we need the support, the ideas, the financing and the voice of the global business community.” The year 2022 started with a note of uncertainty. The Omicron COVID-19 variant was spreading the globe, the risks of climate crisis loomed nearer, economic recovery and development seemed to stall, and the gap between the rich and the poor stretched even wider. What’s it like to be in space? And what do astronauts do as they whizz around the world every 90 minutes in the International Space Station? The last year of my life has been full of scary and challenging moments (I mean, who can’t relate?), but for me there’s one bizarre experience that stands above the rest. I came home from the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow so excited to hit the ground running when I landed in British Columbia. Instead, I stepped off the plane just as lakes were breaching farmland and mountainsides were spewing mud across highways. Nearly half of all global emissions come from how we make and use things. To tackle climate goals, we need to take a fresh look at how we approach our goods and services. The World Economic Forum is pleased to announce that it will hold its Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from Sunday 22 to Thursday 26 May. Under the theme, Working Together, Restoring Trust, the Annual Meeting 2022 will be the first global in-person leadership event since the start of the pandemic. Trust is a topic that has emerged in sessions across the virtual Davos Agenda this week, as world leaders, the business community and civil society convened to address the State of the World. With the surface of the earth coming in at over 510 million square kilometres, it is little wonder there is still more to discover. Researchers at the California Academy of Sciences last year recorded 70 new plant and animal species. Why is it that some vaccines you only need once, but for others you need to get boosters? A supercomputer is a machine that is built to handle billions, if not trillions of calculations at once. Each supercomputer is actually made up of many individual computers (known as nodes) that work together in parallel. Most people are familiar with the five senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste), but not everyone knows that we have an additional sense called interoception. This is the sense of our body’s internal state. It helps us feel and interpret internal signals that regulate vital functions in our body, like hunger, thirst, body temperature and heart rate. “Doomscrolling,” a term used to describe the concept of binging on negative news, is a new and unique behavior, and not just another trendy, clickbaity phrase, a new study finds. Limiting climate change will require an unprecedented global movement to make low-carbon technologies the norm. COP26 – the UN climate conference held last November in Glasgow – showed that unfortunately, the world is far from ready for such a movement. Many leaders still assume that reducing emissions and growing their countries’ economies aren’t compatible goals. Several chronic or life-threatening diseases have their origin in a common viral or bacterial infection. Approximately two-thirds of the world population is infected with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which significantly increases the risk of developing gastric cancer. Similarly, high-risk types of human papillomavirus cause nearly all of cervical cancers. A recent large-scale study has now shown for the first time that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) might be the main cause of multiple sclerosis. It is one of the most common human viruses: About 90% of people worldwide will be infected during their lifetime, generally causing few, if any, symptoms. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 342.7 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 5.57 million. More than 9.79 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data. In a busy hospital, a radiologist is using an artificial intelligence system to help her diagnose medical conditions based on patients’ X-ray images. Using the AI system can help her make faster diagnoses, but how does she know when to trust the AI’s predictions? For several weeks in 2015, the sound of chainsaws cutting down trees was incessant in the Angangueo municipality in the Mexican state of Michoacán. When a group of people tried to stop the deforestation, it was already too late: 10 hectares (25 acres) of forest had already been destroyed on hillsides in the central area of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Nowhere in the world is as critical for the clean energy transition as Asia, which accounts for almost half of global energy demand and is today the world’s highest emitting region, overtaking historical heavy emitters in North America and Europe. Despite economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries in the Asia-Pacific region continued to witness record-breaking growth in renewables since 2020. Prospective homebuyers and renters across the United States have seen prices surge and supply plummet during the coronavirus pandemic. Amid these circumstances, about half of Americans (49%) say the availability of affordable housing in their local community is a major problem, up 10 percentage points from early 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2021. Antimicrobial resistance is spreading rapidly worldwide, and has even been likened to the next pandemic – one that many people may not even be aware is happening. A recent paper, published in Lancet, has revealed that antimicrobial resistant infections caused 1.27 millions deaths and were associated with 4.95 million deaths in 2019. This is greater than the number of people who died from HIV/AIDS and malaria that year combined. “Water is the coal of the future.” That’s how French author Jules Verne summed it up nearly 150 years ago. “The elements hydrogen and oxygen, decomposed by electric current, will in the future supply the Earth’s energy,” he went on to say. The role of transport was front and center at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. Leaders from nations, cities, international organizations, NGOs – and notably the private sector – zeroed in on the role of transport as one of three critical sources of carbon emissions as well as the only sector still increasing in its greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. In 2020, the global transport industry was responsible for approximately 7.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC), launched at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda 2021, is a leading global initiative to accelerate progress on the discovery, testing and delivery of precision interventions for Alzheimer’s disease. Chile shocked the world with images of its Atacama desert this past November. This landscape, one of the most remote spots in the world, is historically known for majestic volcanoes and salt flats. In these new images, however, those landscapes were transformed by 59,000 tons of clothes (worn and unworn) that had formed mountains atop the desert plateaus. When more than 90 countries issued stay-at-home orders during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, over 1 billion people across the globe sheltered in slums and informal settlements. Yet, these necessary public health measures offer scant defence against this potentially deadly virus if housing conditions are unsafe. The urgency of the pandemic response spotlighted an inescapable truth: chronic lack of safe and affordable housing in both advanced economies and developing nations is one of the biggest drivers of health and wealth disparities in our world.Show Agenda posts
View more Employment posts
Paradigm shifts and pristine coral reefs: Everything to know about the environment this week
Friday 21st of January 2022
Davos Agenda: What can we expect of 2022? Highlights and key takeaways
Friday 21st of January 2022
How does Earth look from space? ‘Like one big spaceship’ – astronaut Matthias Maurer on Radio Davos
Friday 21st of January 2022
3 areas of progress on climate change can help combat anxiety
Friday 21st of January 2022
Here’s what’s needed to build a circular economy
Friday 21st of January 2022
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 rescheduled to 22-26 May
Friday 21st of January 2022
‘Businesses are more trusted than governments’. Here’s how the private sector is stepping up
Friday 21st of January 2022
7 new species discovered in 2021
Friday 21st of January 2022
Some vaccines last a lifetime – so why do we need COVID-19 boosters?
Friday 21st of January 2022
Which are the world’s top 5 supercomputers?
Friday 21st of January 2022
Men and women perceive internal body signals differently. Here’s what it means for their mental health
Friday 21st of January 2022
Doomscrolling: How can we manage the growing addiction to negative news?
Friday 21st of January 2022
How can leaders succeed in the clean energy transition?
Friday 21st of January 2022
We now know a major cause of multiple sclerosis. Can we eradicate it?
Friday 21st of January 2022
COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 21 January
Friday 21st of January 2022
Can you trust your AI assistant? A worker’s guide to predictions, decisions and collaboration
Friday 21st of January 2022
Monarch butterflies: can ‘assisted migration’ save this important species?
Friday 21st of January 2022
How can Asia achieve a clean energy transition? Examples from 5 countries
Friday 21st of January 2022
A growing share of Americans say affordable housing is a major problem where they live
Friday 21st of January 2022
Antimicrobial resistance now causes more deaths than HIV/AIDS and malaria worldwide – new study
Friday 21st of January 2022
What hydrogen and the global energy transition mean for industry in 2022
Friday 21st of January 2022
How to accelerate the net-zero transition in transport
Friday 21st of January 2022
Driving a global effort against Alzheimer’s
Friday 21st of January 2022
5 ways the circular economy will transform your fashion habits
Friday 21st of January 2022
3 ways to reinvent affordable housing in a post-pandemic world
Thursday 20th of January 2022
Gender Parity
The COVID-19 recession resulted in a steep but transitory contraction in employment, with greater job losses among women than men. The recovery began in April 2020 and is not complete. As of the third quarter of 2021, the labor force ages 25 and older remains nearly 2 million below its level in the same quarter of 2019. While not specifically addressed by studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, its impact on women in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workforce is likely to manifest in a greater gender gap than was documented pre-pandemic. An analysis of 1 million doctoral dissertations finds widespread bias against research that just seems feminine, even if it’s not explicitly about women or gender. Inequalities have been deepened in the midst of the pandemic, as a result of violent economic policies contributing to thousands of deaths a day, according to a new report by Oxfam International. The singular issue that emerged on Gender Day during during last year’s COP26 was the need for disadvantaged women, who are the majority producers and users of biomass energy, to be included within the climate effort. In a world where several countries have had equal pay laws in place for decades, you might think the gender pay gap would be non-existent by now. The age of stakeholder capitalism has arrived. The question is, how do businesses shift from an exclusive focus on financial performance for shareholders toward generating shared value for shareholders and other stakeholders? How do we make stakeholder capitalism more fully lived and felt. There were seven women and three children among the 27 people who tragically lost their lives in the English Channel recently. Women and children are frequently among those seeking a new life in Europe: as of November 21, this year 27.1% of migrants arriving by sea in the Mediterranean are women or children. The channel presents a final dangerous crossing after what is normally a long, treacherous and often violent journey. According to Unesco data, globally, women are progressing toward parity in higher education (they represent 45 to 55 percent of bachelor and master levels of study and 44 percent of PhD’s). However, when looking at those disciplines driving advances in the digital economy and the fourth industrial revolution — key drivers of the post-pandemic recovery — such as ICT, computer sciences, physics, mathematics or engineering women remain a minority. Governments, companies and investors must do more to reverse the blow dealt to gender equality by the COVID-19 pandemic and try to cement some silver linings of the crisis for women, experts told a panel at the Reuters Next conference on Thursday. Ahead of the now postponed 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), member countries are considering how to advance the still incomplete agenda on gender and trade. The evidence is increasingly clear that while the international trade architecture itself is embedded with the principle of non-discrimination, the benefits of trade are not equally distributed across gender lines. WTO negotiators should take concrete steps to ensure trade policies positively impact women – as consumers, entrepreneurs, producers, suppliers and workers. Britain’s pop music honours, the BRITs, will get rid of its female and male categories from next year, introducing gender-neutral awards for local and international artists, organisers said. A while back, I was talking about a new opportunity at my current job with a friend over dinner. On one hand, I felt confident I would be great at it if given the chance. On the other hand, if they rejected me, I was ready and willing to interpret that as ironclad proof that I was terrible. Will you be better off than your parents? We are engineers and scientists. We happen to be women, but first and foremost we are citizens of this planet who believe that immediate action is imperative to address the climate emergency. Actor Emma Watson – best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films – has been hiding books on climate activism around Glasgow during COP26. Women are more likely to take risks and engage in competitive activities if they’re allowed to share their potential winnings with peers, according to new research I co-authored. Since one explanation of the gender pay gap is that women tend to be less competitive than men in workplace settings, this finding could lead to ways to narrow it. Young Lives’ unique longitudinal research reveals in stark terms how childhood exposure to climate shocks such as droughts and floods has an unequal impact on children’s development, affecting their nutrition and access to education. This impedes their learning progress, with poorest children most affected. The growing gender gap in higher education – both in enrollment and graduation rates – has been a topic of conversation and debate in recent months. Young women are more likely to be enrolled in college today than young men, and among those ages 25 and older, women are more likely than men to have a four-year college degree. The gap in college completion is even wider among younger adults ages 25 to 34. The Glasgow Climate Pact is not perfect, but still strengthens the Paris agreement in several ways. Acknowledging that there is no safe limit for global warming, the Pact resolves to limit global warming to 1.5°C, instead of the Paris text of “well below 2°C”. Crucially it also delivers a strong framework for tracking commitments against real-world progress. As an artist and women’s rights activist, Maliha Abidi is adept at using digital technologies, so when she came across non-fungible tokens she quickly figured they could be a way to reach more people, and for women artists to gain a bigger following. There should be more women at the top of multilateral organisations to help alleviate the financial impact of climate change, Amanda Blanc, chief executive of British insurer Aviva and chair of a climate action group, said. Women are working harder – and getting more burned out – but their efforts are being overlooked, according to a new study. A year and a half since the start of the pandemic and women continue to be disproportionately impacted due to an inadequate gender responsive recovery from the health and socioeconomic crises. Economic growth can only be considered truly sustainable if human and natural capital are part of the equation, as gross domestic product and other traditional measures fall short, a new report from the World Bank showed.Show Agenda posts
View more Gender posts
How has COVID-19 impacted the US gender gap?
Thursday 20th of January 2022
How female inventors can fix STEM’s gender gap
Wednesday 19th of January 2022
Academics face bias for doing ‘feminine’ research
Tuesday 18th of January 2022
Oxfam: This is what inequality looks like in 2022 – and 6 ways to solve it
Monday 17th of January 2022
Gender Day gives rise to the forgotten energy providers in the climate conversation
Thursday 13th of January 2022
As per a gender pay gap study, women doctors are paid $2m less than their male counterparts
Wednesday 12th of January 2022
Why the road to stakeholder capitalism begins with diverse boards
Thursday 6th of January 2022
Study reveals the violence faced by migrant women across the globe
Wednesday 22nd of December 2021
STEM has a gender problem. We must address it in the COVID-19 recovery
Thursday 9th of December 2021
‘One step forward, 3 steps back’: Gender equality and COVID-19
Thursday 9th of December 2021
5 ways trade can support a gender-equal recovery
Monday 6th of December 2021
BRIT awards: Next year’s ceremony will have gender-neutral categories
Friday 3rd of December 2021
Negative feedback: how do men and women respond differently?
Friday 3rd of December 2021
Children in wealthy countries are less optimistic about their future than those in developing nations – here’s why
Wednesday 1st of December 2021
Why women’s participation is essential to achieve global climate targets
Wednesday 17th of November 2021
Here are 6 books Emma Watson wants you to read on climate change
Tuesday 16th of November 2021
Women are more team-oriented, according to research that may help close the gender pay gap
Tuesday 16th of November 2021
Climate change: How is it affecting girls’ education?
Tuesday 16th of November 2021
More women in the US complete college than men. These charts explain why
Monday 15th of November 2021
COP26: Experts give their verdict on the summit and the Glasgow Climate Pact
Monday 15th of November 2021
How women are staking out a space in the blockchain world
Friday 12th of November 2021
COP26: Why we need more women at the top tackling climate change
Tuesday 9th of November 2021
Women are burning out doing invisible ‘office housework’
Monday 8th of November 2021
Why rethinking care work is crucial for a gender inclusive recovery
Monday 1st of November 2021
This is why human and nature capital must redefine wealth for a sustainable future
Thursday 28th of October 2021
