When Deng Xiaoping launched China’s strategy of “reform and opening up” in 1978, economists in the West had their doubts. In their view, a vibrant market economy was fundamentally incompatible with China’s authoritarian political system. But many in the East – including Koreans like me, who witnessed the East Asian miracle while living under developmental dictatorship – were hopeful.
Faced with a worrying demographic crisis of its own making, China is encouraging couples to have more children.There's just one problem: women aren't too keen on the idea.For more than 35 years, the ruling Communist Party strictly enforced a one-child policy, as the country tried to address overpopulation and alleviate poverty.
“Is my lipstick protecting me against COVID-19?” ranks as one of the more intriguing email queries we have received from a member of the public since we began coordinating the world’s largest tracker of sex-disaggregated data on the pandemic. In fact, the question points to an important universal truth regarding public health.We established the tracker in March 2020 because we thought that COVID-19 was unlikely to be equally distributed in any population. That hunch has proved correct.
We are living through a decisive moment. The COVID-19 pandemic’s devasting impact is reaching every corner of the world. As we look back at this period, we will see history divided into a pre-COVID and a post-COVID world. And a defining feature of the post-COVID world will be the digital transformation that has permeated every aspect of our lives.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, has said countries have failed to unite to provide an adequate global response to prevent the “tragic” coronavirus outbreak from overwhelming India, and singled out wealthier nations for failing to provide equitable access to healthcare around the world.Fauci said the situation in India had highlighted global inequality.“The only way that you’re going to adequately respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response, and a glo
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticised developed countries for creating a "stockpile" of COVID-19 vaccines, and called on them to share with the rest of the world to help end the pandemic."I'm very concerned with this very unfair distribution of vaccines in the world," Guterres said in an interview broadcast Sunday by the Canadian channel CBC. "It's in the interest of everybody to make sure that as soon as possible and in
Currently, in a dining room of a house in a city, a nine-year-old child sits in front of his laptop engaging in a class through Zoom or Google Meet. Next to him is his little sister, slightly younger, on her new tablet with earphones on, attentively listening to her English teacher.
Social mobility entails the “upward” or “downward” movement of an individual in relation to those of their parents. A World Economic Forum (WEF) report titled, “Global Social Mobility Index 2020”, evaluates a child’s ability to experience a better life than their parents, while relative social mobility examines how an individual’s socio-economic circumstance inherited at birth has affected their outcome in life.
8 March every year marks the much-celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD). Its aims are to highlight women’s achievements and increasing visibility, while calling out inequality.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated a wide range of inequalities. If leaders are serious about “building back better,” policies to overcome the systemic forces that underlie them must form the heart of their agendas.One such divide is the gender gap.
Vaccinating the world against COVID-19 is one of mankind’s most critical non-wartime efforts ever. Many countries have developed ambitious, politically sensitive, and carefully sequenced vaccination plans, but executing them successfully will be a challenge. To succeed, policymakers should build three realistic assumptions into their vaccination planning for 2021 and beyond. First, delays are inevitable.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, the world was already unequal. Hence activists and organisations fighting and marching for gender equality, equality of opportunity and education, among others. However, COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated global economic inequality – geographically and socially. The health crisis has had a devastating impact on poverty levels and inequality.
