Charles Kenny: N. Inequality

The Ultimate Resource is Peaking

A CGD Working Paper. Julian Simon argued that more people were associated with more prosperity: human talents were the “ultimate resource” and the force behind rising living standards. The last 30 years have been consistent with that view. But, globally, we are making fewer workers—and, more importantly, fewer potential innovators. In rich countries, human capital is growing considerably more slowly than in the past. Meanwhile innovation per researcher appears to be dropping as the population of researchers ages, while it takes longer to get to the knowledge frontier and more collaboration to expand it. Combined with the fact we are increasingly intolerant of risk and increasingly desirous of innovations in sectors where it is particularly hard to increase productivity, it is little surprise that productivity growth is indeed declining. To extend our two-century era of comparatively rapid progress, we need radically reduced discrimination in the global opportunity to innovate.

Two Notes on the Gendered Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Both CGD notes with George Yang. "New Estimates of the Impact of COVID-19 on Women’s Jobs and Enterprises" estimates majority women owned and equally owned firms were 1.4 times as likely to close during 2020 than majority men-owned firms. "The Global Childcare Workload from School and Preschool Closures During the COVID-19 Pandemic" estimates school and preschool closures created the need for 672 billion hours of additional unpaid childcare in 2020 through October. If the global care split was similar to that prior to COVID-19, it would suggest 173 additional unpaid childcare in 2020 per working age (15-64) woman, and 59 additional hours for men.

Unpacking Gender Gaps and Data Gaps in Public Sector Employment and Pay

A CGD Policy Paper with Ugonma Nwankwo and Megan O'Donnell. We look at available sources to ask (i) Where is data available on employment and wages allowing for comparisons between women and men, and the public and private sectors? (ii) How do women’s employment, compensation, and seniority compare with men’s in the public and private sectors? (iii) How do gender gaps vary by countries’ income level, education levels, and other factors? What are the policy implications of the data we analyze? (iv) Which countries’ efforts can be modeled by others, and how else can global gender gaps in employment and compensation be narrowed? We suggest the Open Government Partnership as a promising platform through which governments can commit to increased transparency around disaggregated employment and wage data, in turn improving policy decision-making aimed at closing gender gaps (or those rooted in other forms of inequality and discrimination). We suggest the Open Government Partnership as a promising platform through which governments can commit to increased transparency around disaggregated employment and wage data, in turn improving policy decision-making aimed at closing gender gaps (or those rooted in other forms of inequality and discrimination).

Your World, Better

Your World, Better: Global Progress and What You Can Do About It is a book written for the smart and engaged middle school student. It looks at how America and the World has changed since the reader's parents and grandparents were young: what has happened to health and wealth, homes, school and work, rights and democracy, war and the environment, happiness and depression. It talks about the things that have gotten better, the sometimes-intensifying challenges that remain, and what readers can do about them.

Your World Better is optimistic, but it doesn’t shy away from the considerable problems we face: from inequality through discrimination and depression to climate change and infectious threats. It is meant to encourage kids to help make the world better themselves: tip them from a sense of powerlessness toward action, not into complacency.

The pdf of Your World Better is available to download here for free. Or you can buy a kindle version for 99 cents or a hard copy for $8.10 on Amazon (or six pounds on UK Amazon here). Any author royalties from those sales will be donated to UNICEF (so far, a bit more than $800 has been donated, thanks!). I talk about the book to Marian Tupy for the Human Progress podcast and to two (fantastic) middle schoolers for NPR. Then I did a Slack chat with five middle schoolers for Slate. A CGD discussion about the book and talking to children about progress is here. And here's a fifteen minute video about the book (or try it on Youtube). I am happy for the *text* (not pictures) to be copied or redistributed in any medium, and/or remixed or transformed for any purpose, with attribution.

"Everyone, no matter how old, or how young, should read this. I’m sending to grandkids and their parents." --Nancy Birdsall

"Great read for middle school kids who want to understand how the world is getting better -- and can become even more so!" --Parag Khanna

"How can you pass up a free book?! And one that is so relevant for today? If you know a middle school student or teacher, pass this along! Incredibly fresh and honest." --Karen Schulte

"Kids are taught that everything's getting worse and we're all doomed--factually incorrect, and a message that leads to cynicism & fatalism, not constructive action. An antidote: Charles Kenny's new Your World, Better..." --Steven Pinker

How helping families relocate could increase economic mobility

In the Economist: moving really helps poor kids and support for parents can make that happen.

Can gentrification be a force for positive social change?

For the Economist. A new paper suggests it displaces few people and often improves life for those who stay.

How many Americans live on $2 a day?

Probably not very many, but the safety net is still a mess. Me for The Economist.

How welfare reform has had a negative effect on the children of single mothers

The 1996 welfare reform effort in the US shrank welfare rolls, moved people into work, increased the number of very poor and led to more antisocial behavior among children. For the Economist.

Why Are Apple and Google Hosting an App That Subjugates Saudi Women?

Me in Slate: Absher is used for a number of government services in Saudi Arabia, but it also allows Saudi men to specify when and where adult women under their “guardianship,” including unmarried daughters and wives, are allowed to travel. It is hosted by both Google and Apple. This is bad.

Women and the Future of Work: Fix the Present

A note for CGD. There is a lot we don’t know about what automation will mean for jobs in the future, including its impact (if any) on gender inequality. This note reviews evidence and forecasts on that question and makes four main points: (i) Past automation has been (broadly) positive for women’s average quality of life, economic empowerment, and equality. (ii) Forecasts of the gendered impact of automation and AI going forward based on the current distribution of employment suggest considerable uncertainty and a gender inequality of impact that is marginal compared to the potential impact overall. (iii) The bigger risk—and/or opportunity—is likely to be in the combined impact of automation, policy, and social norms in changing the type of work that is seen as male or female. (iv) Minimizing any potential aggravating impact of automation and AI on inequalities in economic power in the future can best be achieved by maximizing economic equality today.

How equal rights can boost economic growth

For the Economist --gay marriage and more minorities in the workforce are good for the economy. Patriotic heterosexual white men should support equality.

Americans want equality at work; less so at home

You can't have equality in the workplace if you don't have it in parenting and childcare. Me in The Economist.

The gap between poor and rich neighbourhoods is growing

On stagnating regional convergence in the US. In the Economist.

The Bogus Backlash to Globalization

Resentful Nativists Oppose Free Trade and Immigration—Don’t Appease Them. Me in Foreign Affairs.

The American dream doesn’t exist in many neighbourhoods

Where and to whom you are born in the United States are both hugely important to life chances. For the Economist.

Why is bankruptcy rising among older Americans?

In part because baby boomers have always been profligate. For the Economist.

The perverse side effects of America’s harsh immigration policies

For The Economist. Secure Communities lowers employment and access to the safety net among US citizens.

Immigrants and the wage gap

For the Economist. Slowing wage convergence between migrants and natives isn't driven by lower skills as much as by native discrimination.

America's Cultural Divide Isn't Growing

For the Economist: there are sometimes big divisions in attitudes and consumer behavior, but they aren't growing between races, genders, income groups, religions, regions or urban and rural areas.

Why people vote against their economic interests

Bemoaning the victory of culture war over class war in US politics. In The Economist.

How welfare reform has hurt America’s poorest children

For The Economist: welfare reform was bad and Trump is doubling down.

A Radical Proposal To Fight Poverty In The Developing World: Tax The Rich More Than The Poor

A piece for Vox on the barely progressive arguably regressive tax and spending systems of poorer developing countries.

Black boys are the least likely of any group to escape poverty

On the grim economic prospects for black males in the US, for The Economist.

How Republicans embraced identity politics

The party of white people can't accuse Democrats of being all about identity politics. For the Economist.

The gender equality toolbox: The areas of society that still need work, and how to do it

A piece on what Canada could do to further global gender equality for OpenCanada.org.

Poverty in America: welfare programmes are not the problem

Welfare works. Me in The Economist.

Black Americans are over-represented in media portrayals of poverty

...and that makes welfare unpopular. Me in The Economist.

Why is America more tolerant of inequality than many rich countries?

For the Economist.

The Rumors [of the Death of Liberalism] Have Been Exaggerated

A review of The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce and The Fate of the West: The Battle to Save the World’s Most Successful Political Idea by Bill Emmott, for Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

The cost of the American dream

Inequality of opportunity is a big deal in America. For the Economist.

Expanding and Measuring Opportunities

Expanding and Measuring Opportunities is a working paper for the Center for Development and Enterprise. The idea that circumstances and free choice can be neatly divided is open to considerable debate. The [equality of] opportunity framework begs the question, ‘what is in the control of the individual?’ Regardless, equality of opportunity is about ‘birth luck egalitarianism’-minimizing the variance of birth luck-- while maximizing or expanding opportunity is about efficiently raising the average birth luck. One advantage of ‘opportunity expansion’ over ‘opportunity equalization’ is that an accounting between free will and determinism is unnecessary–there is no concern with estimating the impact of genetic or in utero factors on outcomes, for example. However, if we are worried about maximizing or expanding opportunities rather than equality of opportunities, the approach that is appropriate when defining equal opportunity (the state when measured exogenous factors have no bearings on relative outcomes within a country) does not work. This is because we cannot take the stock (or flow) of outcomes as a given or an irrelevance. Empirically, allowing the stock of outcomes to vary suggests a goal of expanding or maximizing opportunity may involve a markedly different set of policies than equalizing opportunities. This is because variance in opportunities within countries is far smaller than variance across countries. That implies a focus on raising national average opportunity may have a far bigger payoff than redistributing opportunities or trying to raise the minimum opportunity to the mean within a country --although greater equality of opportunity is likely to be a method to increase absolute levels of opportunity.