The prevailing view in political science and economics has been that women’s power in the Global North is greater than that in the Global South, where progress is viewed as slower and less impactful. Yet, across analytic levels, the developing world provides striking models of the assertion of women’s power, specifically the latest insight that […]
In the United States, the long-time disparity in men’s and women’s average earnings extends across skill levels. To explain why the gender pay gap persists between men and women with similar educational backgrounds and skills, researchers have documented robust differences in risk preferences and overconfidence between men and women, with women exhibiting a greater degree […]
Estimates vary of the number of unintended pregnancies that occur worldwide each year, but recent data puts the number over 100 million, or nearly half of all annual pregnancies. The World Health Organization also notes unintended pregnancies can present numerous risks for both mother and child, from unsafe abortions, to higher vulnerability and risk of […]
By Emanne Khan Family planning and access to contraception protect the well-being of mothers and children by reducing the risks of unintended pregnancy, infertility, infant mortality and sexually transmitted diseases. Unmet need for family planning is a major issue in low- and middle-income countries, with the Guttmacher Institute estimating that a staggering 225 million women […]
Intervals of less than 24 months between pregnancies and births can adversely affect maternal and child health, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. While studies suggest that improving access to family planning services may also improve women’s contraceptive use and reduce fertility, high-quality evidence of the effect of family planning interventions on longer-term fertility and birth spacing […]
Since India passed the 1993 Constitutional Amendment mandating quotas for women in government, a critical mass of women have entered local politics. The law was rightly celebrated, but also gave rise to a belief that while women are de jure elected to local office, their husbands de facto run the state. This belief has had […]
By Emanne Khan Although women have made remarkable strides in the professional world, the gender pay gap stubbornly persists. On average, American women earned 84 cents for every dollar men earned in 2020, a disparity that has remained relatively consistent over the past 15 years, according to the Pew Research Center. Although a substantial body […]
By Rachel Brulé and Nikhar Gaikwad One striking casualty of the global pandemic has been the decline in women’s wealth. This helps to explain two striking features of the slower-than-anticipated COVID-19 “recovery” in the US: the “great resignation” where the labor force continues to shrink despite 7 million US workers losing unemployment benefits as of […]
By Patricia Cortés A decade ago, unemployment in Saudi Arabia reached unprecedented levels – 33 percent of young adults or women who wanted to work could not find a job. Threatened by the social and political consequences of this phenomenon, the government implemented a series of aggressive policies to reform the country’s labor market and, […]
While the United States struggles to address its most severe labor shortage on record, across the globe, Saudi Arabia faces a very different challenge. As of 2020, 72.4 percent of its population is of working age, defined by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as the percentage of the population aged 15 to 64. […]