social protection

4 June 2018

Posted on June 4, 2018 Leave a Comment

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on 25 May. It matters because, even if it aims at protecting the data privacy and rights of European citizens, it sets an international precedent and gets adopted by big tech companies in the US. This ugly but useful BBC video gives a good overview of what GDPR means for you. Four years in the make, the 88-page long regulation [I did not read it] is receiving its share of criticism from libertarians accusing Europe to bring down America, to analysts arguing that it will kill innovation by crushing small tech players. I, for one, think it is a big step in the right direction.

In a development context where cash transfers keep gaining traction and Universal Basic Income experiments keep growing, The Economist’s “How psychotherapy improves poor mothers’ finances” caught my attention. It shows how depression rates fell spectacularly for hundreds of pregnant Pakistani women suffering from depression when they were offered cognitive behavioral therapy during their third semester. It also shows that 7 years after the treatment, these women were more likely to control their families’ finances than those who had not benefited. Such treatment may be better than cash transfers “since it does not disrupt local social norms. It may not give a mother new options, but helps her choose better from those she does have.”

My graph this week comes from Sharpin and Harris’s “Securing safe roads” [H/T Erica Mattellone] showing that the first cause of death among young people is traffic accidents. This graph focuses on 15-29 year olds but, I checked, and the same is true for 10-19 year olds. 90% of road fatalities happen in low- and middle-income countries where they cost 5% of GDP per year. I did not know that. As road safety is not a political priority, we should all make more noise about it.

My quote this week is from Jobbatical CEO Karoli Hindriks developing a “digital nomad visa” for Estonia: “Borders are not the reflection of policy and politicians. There are the reflection of the borders in our heads. They are the borders that keep us from pursuing our dreams…You, me, us – we are the border guards of our lives.”

3 November 2017

Posted on November 3, 2017 Leave a Comment

It is always good to have a quick read through the OECD DAC high level meeting communique. Two specific points caught my attention this year. One, the club of 30 richest countries agreed on the accounting rules for in-donor refugee spending. Certain costs can now be reported as official development assistance (ODA) during the first year of refugees in host countries with no cap on expenditure levels (Annex II). Provision of food, shelter, healthcare and education, rescue at sea, and voluntary resettlement costs are eligible. Spending associated with detention, border control, return and resettlement following asylum rejection is not eligible. Two, DAC members decided to explore the possible “reverse graduation” of rich countries affected by natural disasters or humanitarian crises (paragraph 41). This decision was triggered by the U.K. seeking ODA eligibility when supporting their Overseas Territories in the Caribbean following hurricane Irma. This is important as there has been, up to now, no rule for high income countries experiencing crises-induced GDP drops to be re-instated as aid recipients. As these two developments have implications for the redirection of ODA away from the poorest countries, these conversations are worth monitoring and, I would argue, engaging with. For the second-time in 40 years of its existence, the DAC high level meeting allowed civil society participation and NGOs issued common statements – a possible entry point.

In “It is time to end the opacity and secrecy of social media” Ghonim and Rashbass suggest to develop standardized public interest APIs (application programming interfaces) to improve the transparency of social media. The idea is to create “public good” algorithms to scan and surface problematic content and sponsors on digital platforms. I found this interesting because it does not only look at the symptoms of the on-going social media crisis. As we have argued before, the root causes of the problem have to do with the ethics of digital platforms design and what drives their expansion (money, not societal progress). But, of course, there are also limits in using tech to fight tech.

My graph this week is from Heidrick and Struggles in “To understand whether your company is inclusive, map how your employees interact”. It shows the results of a network analysis done with employees of a large professional services firm to understand whom they trust and turn to to ask for help with decisions. In that particular example, we see that women (red dots) have less connections than men (blue dots); that there are more same-gender ties than cross-gender ones; and that women are less central than men in the innovation network. This type of evidence is key to understanding diversity and inclusion at a deeper level than counting the number of staff from different groupings.

My quote of the week is from Pekka Kuusi’s “Social policy for the 60s: A plan for Finland” (H/T Ronald Wiman) referring to the universal child grant system introduced when Finland had a GDP per capita equivalent to that of 2015 Namibia: “A heavenly gift to a country where there was scarcity of everything – except of number of children”.

11 March 2016

Posted on March 11, 2016 Leave a Comment

ILO’s “Women at work: Trends 2016” looks at patterns of inequalities between men and women in global labor markets from 1995 to 2015 using data from up to 178 countries. It shows little progress. Over the past 20 years, the gender gap decreased by only 1% in workforce participation; remained constant in employment-to-population ratio; and stagnated in employment rates. The gender wage gap dropped by 2% but remains at a high 23%. If nothing changes, the ILO tells us that it will not close before 2086! Mothers suffer an extra wage penalty. In the US for instance, each extra child brings a decrease in earnings for women but a proportionally higher increase for men. And because women take the larger share of informal and unpaid work around the globe, these gender gaps at work are accompanied by gaps in access to social protection such as pensions, maternity benefits and unemployment benefits. Yes, this is rather depressing. On a constructive note the report argues that getting the “care economy” right could help turn things around. Everywhere in the world, women take on most of the care work, from early childhood, to disability, to elderly care. And everywhere in the world, this work is invisible and undervalued. Those who can afford it outsource care support in ways that often exacerbate the global care crisis, e.g., international migration of informal care workers. Overall, demand for care work is on the rise because of a confluence of trends such as ageing, urbanization, migration, and changing family structures. So the future of the global care economy is something to further investigate as we look to what matters for child wellbeing.

This is a nice segue to Slaughter’s “Unfinished business: Women men work family”, a widely acclaimed book building on a very popular 2012 article. If Sandberg’s “Lean In: Women, work and the will to lead” left you slightly uncomfortable because of the central focus on what women can/should do to fix work inequalities, Slaughter’s thesis might resonate better. Both books have had great resonance: they took gender equality in the workplace outside of the closet and have pushed many organizations take a serious look at their internal imbalances. Both books also share similar biases: they are written by high-power affluent women, using personal anecdotes that will only speak to the few, and focusing largely on the US. What is special about Slaughter’s perspective is to use a systemic analytical lens: gender inequalities at work are not a women problem, they are societal issues that have to do with how we value caregiving, how we assign gender roles, how we shape workplace rules, and how we design public policies. A must read.

All essays on work and gender inequalities call for more women in leadership roles. So my table of the week is from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)’s “Women in national parliaments” [Can someone please second a data viz. expert to the IPU?]. The data is from February 2016 and give a world average of 22.6% of women in national parliaments. On top of the list is Rwanda. At the bottom is Yemen. Nordic countries are on average above 40% while Pacific countries are below 15%.

My quote this week is the 2-minute message from a father to his daughter in the Ariel India gone-viral video: “Why is laundry only a mother’s job?”. Just watch.