In The News

Baby Bust!

Kerry Howley June 18, 2008
Wealthy countries tend to have lower birth rates – but now that trend has also emerged in rural areas with low literacy rates and few economic opportunities for women, such as Africa and South Asia. Other countries that once discouraged large families as an effort to eliminate poverty have since reversed course. “After 200 years of exponential population growth, and just four decades after...

Europe’s Old Boys Need to Make Way for Women

Margot Wallström June 9, 2008
Europe has been a progressive leader on many political issues, but women are still underrepresented in continental politics, argues Margot Wallström, vice president of the European Commission in an essay for the Financial Times. In selecting candidates for ministerial positions, top leaders often strive for diversity but overlook glaring gender imbalances, she notes. People naturally tend to...

The Global Abortion Bind

Joseph Chamie May 29, 2008
Induced abortion has been practiced throughout recorded history in all societies. While legal restrictions do not affect incidence, governments continue to debate appropriate reasons, technology, limits and ethics. The result is dilemmas. Even the strongest supporters of a woman’s right to choose may find themselves opposed to procedures conducted for trivial reasons, including sex selection,...

Globalization Pushes More Women Into Informal Economy

Ama Achiaa Amankwah April 28, 2008
Gender inequalities have long left African women outside the formal economy, forced to fend for themselves in informal trade while their brothers and husbands secured employment in the civil sector and state-owned enterprises. Yet the liberalization of African state economies and the elimination of many government-supplied jobs have pushed men out of the formal economy to compete with women....

A Small Stove With Big Ambitions

Margot Cohen April 7, 2008
The invention of a tiny stove in India demonstrates the link between reduced carbon emissions and improved health – and how technology can contribute to slowing climate change. Global energy giant BP is producing and marketing Oorja, which means energy in Hindi, a small pellet stove that produces substantially fewer emissions than the traditional wood-burning stoves so common throughout India. In...

A Life or Death Decision

Robert Verkaik March 7, 2008
The punishment for practicing homosexuality in Iran is a slow and excruciating public hanging. An Iranian student in London, named by a former partner before an execution in Iran, failed to receive asylum in the UK, and has since fled to the Netherlands. A Dutch appeals court will rule on granting the young man Dutch asylum or returning him to the UK. Gay-rights activists throughout Europe...

Iran: Does Government Fear Educated Women?

Iraj Gorgin February 12, 2008
Iran’s parliamentary research arm has reported on new trends of rising numbers of Iranian women enrolling in higher-education programs. Women in the Islamic society must contend with limited rights in the law and the workplace, and thus many pursue education to become competitive for the limited opportunities available to females, suggests one activist. Increased female enrollment could lead to...