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The child penalty atlas
No full textThis paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on microdata from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop—incomes rise and the labour market transitions from subsistence agriculture to salaried work in industry and services—child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. The relationship between child penalties and development is validated using historical data from current high-income countries, back to the 1700s for some countries. Finally, because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on the level of development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero
Inequality bands: seventy-five years of measuring income inequality in Latin America
No full textDrawing on a comprehensive compilation of quantile shares and inequality measures for 34 countries, including over 5600 estimated Gini coefficients, we review the measurement of income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean over the last seven decades. We find that there is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding inequality levels for the same country/year combinations. Differences in inequality levels estimated from household surveys alone are present, but they derive from differences in the construction of the welfare indicator, the unit of analysis or the treatment of the data. With harmonized household surveys, the discrepancies are quite small. The range, however, expands significantly when—to correct for undercoverage and underreporting, especially at the top of the distribution—inequality estimates come from some combination of surveys and administrative tax data. The range increases even further when survey-based income aggregates are scaled to achieve consistency not only with tax registries but with national accounts. Since no single method to correct for underreporting at the top is fully convincing at present, we are left with (often wide) ranges, or bands, of inequality as our best summaries of inequality levels. Reassuringly, however, the dynamic patterns are generally robust across the bands. Although the evidence roughly until the 1970s is too fragmentary and difficult to compare, clearer patterns emerge for the last 50 years. The main feature is a broad inverted U curve, with inequality rising in most countries prior to and often during the 1990s, and falling during the early 21st century, at least until around 2015, when trends appear to diverge across countries. This pattern is broadly robust but features considerable variation in timing and magnitude depending on the country
The use and impact of well-being metrics on policymaking: developers' and users' perspectives in Scotland and Italy
No full textGross domestic product (GDP) is frequently used as a proxy for well-being. Such use of GDP is problematic for many reasons, for GDP excludes activities that contribute to well-being and includes others that have a negative impact instead. As a result, a vast array of metrics has been developed to complement or replace it and put well-being at the heart of policymaking. Nonetheless, previous research has shown that their use and impact on policymaking has been limited. This article examines the use and impact of well-being metrics according to their own developers and intended users in the crucial cases of Scotland and Italy, focusing specifically on the two countries' official well-being frameworks. Despite being at the forefront of the well-being debate, both countries have never been studied in this regard before. This article fills this gap, collating views from more than 100 stakeholders, including statisticians, members of interest groups, policymakers and journalists. Findings show that the vast majority of informants could not cite any examples of cases in which either framework impacted on policymaking, or in which they themselves had used these. In some cases, this was due to them not being aware of what such frameworks were in the first place. Those who could identify some examples were those who were or used to be part of the government. Examples would, however, tend to be vague, in some instances remarkable yet merely anecdotal, and still in others the result of an ‘ex-post rationalisation’
Music and the politics of famine: everyday discourses and shame for suffering
No full textUnderstanding the politics of famine is crucial to understanding why famines still occur. A key part of this is how famine is remembered, understood, and discussed. This paper focuses on songs popular among communities that have recently experienced deadly famine. Contemporary famines almost always manifest in armed conflict contexts, where there is limited political freedom. Here, songs and music can be an important way to debate sensitive political issues. This paper focuses on the way that songs and music shape ‘regimes of truth’ around famine, and who is shamed and held accountable for associated suffering. It is based on long-term ethnographic research, the recordings of famine-related songs, and collaborative analysis in Jonglei and Warrap States (South Sudan) in 2021–24. The paper shows how songs can mock soldiers for their seizing of assets during times of hunger and how they can create familial shame for famine suffering, shifting responsibility away from the real causes to family members
The new spirit of Islamism: interactions between the AKP, Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood
No full textThe New Spirit of Islamism: Interactions between the AKP, Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood by Ezgi Başaran, London, I.B. Tauris, 2024, 245 pp., £15.39 (paperback), £45.50 (hardback), £13.85 (eBook), ISBN 9780755652952 (paperback), ISBN 9780755652945 (hardback), ISBN 9780755652969 (eBook
Queer patchwork assemblages: three poetic vignettes
No full textBetween 2011 and 2023 I was traveling between New Delhi and Kolkata to research queer male intimacy and community making in India especially in the context of burgeoning digital queer spaces and queer organising around section 377. The poems here which come out of ethnographic vignettes during this work transcend traditional frameworks and delve deeper into the lived experiences and conditions that shape the possibilities for queer lives. They strive to understand the everyday realities and spatial dynamics that influence the quality and conditions of queer lives offering a more nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding queer existence within the geographical context of India. Taken together these three poems work as patchwork assemblages. It points to the multiplicity and often dispersed and messy networks of affective encounters and queer belonging
The empirical study of urban transport governance
No full textA better comprehension of existing governance arrangements, potential reforms, and modernisation pathways is often presented as a fundamental part of statecraft, which, in turn, is a necessary condition for the provision of public goods (such as policies, services, amenities). This chapter translates learnings from the broader field of urban governance to a more focused academic inquiry of urban transport. It presents three distinct approaches to empirically analyse urban transport governance and discusses how this research may inform policy-orientated insights. The first approach introduces more descriptive mapping methods, which position the transport domain within urban governance. The second approach focuses on integrated governance and joined-up policy-making, while the third engages with the socio-structural futures of transport governance networks in cities. Based on these approaches and the insights they produce, the chapter concludes by reflecting on how they may inform policy-orientated research
Law made for man: Trevor Hartley and the making of a "modern approach" in European and private international law
No full textThis article offers an overview and an interpretation of Trevor Hartley’s scholarship in the fields of private international law and EU law. It argues that Hartley’s work, beginning in the mid-1960s and spanning almost six decades, shows striking affinities with two broader outlooks and genres of legal discourse that have roots in this same period. These can be found, firstly, in the approach of senior English judges committed to “internationalising” the conflict of laws in the post-war era; and, secondly, in the so-called “legal process” current of scholarship that was especially influential in American law schools from the late 1950s onwards. Reading Hartley’s writings against these backgrounds can help illuminate, and perhaps to some small extent complicate, two labels he himself has given to his own work: of a “modern approach”, in which “law is made for man, not man for the law”
Barriers to humanitarian migration, victimization and integration outcomes: evidence from Germany
No full textAsylum seekers who migrate from developing countries to Europe frequently experience victimization events during their journey. The consequences of these events for their economic integration into destination countries are not yet well explored. In this paper, we analyze how victimization during asylum seekers’ journeys affects their labor market integration in Germany by using survey data collected in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis. Our data allow us to account for the exact timing and geography of migration, such that samples of physically victimized and nonvictimized refugees are balanced along a wide range of characteristics. We find that, compared to nonvictimized refugees, refugees who were physically victimized during their journey to Germany favor joining the labor force and taking up low-income employment rather than investing in host country human capital. To explain these findings, we explore a range of potential mechanisms and find suggestive evidence that experiencing physical victimization in vulnerable situations is not only associated with a decline in mental health but also with a “loss of future orientation” among physically victimized refugees, leading them to discount future payoffs more heavily
The origins and control of forest fires in the Tropics
No full textEnvironmental externalities – uncompensated damages imposed on others – lie at the root of climate change, pollution, deforestation and biodiversity loss. Empirical evidence is limited, however, as to how externalities drive private decision making. We study one such behavior, illegal tropical forest fires, using 15 years of daily satellite data covering over 107,000 fires across Indonesia. Weather-induced variation in fire spread risk and variation in who owns surrounding land allow us to identify how far externalities influence the decision to use fire. Relative to when all spread risks are internalized, we find that firms overuse fire when surrounded by unleased government lands where property rights are weak. In contrast, and consistent with the Coase Theorem, firms treat risks to nearby private concessions similarly to risks to their own land. Government sanctions, concentrated on fires spreading to populated areas, also deter fires, consistent with Pigouvian deterrence