Browse by: "2020"

This paper discusses the challenges to transport justice in the context of zero-car-growth policies. It analyses the car-dependence created by sprawling cities that necessitate access to automobiles if citizens want to fully participate in the economy, maintain social connections and achieve a desirable quality of life. It specifically highlights the complications this presents for cities in their efforts towards environmental, equity and economic goals largely achieved through reduced car use.

This paper outlines the rationale, methodologies, key findings and policy implications of the national Value of Travel Time Savings (VTTS) study conducted in Britain during 2014-15. The study found VTTS varied with distance, trip purpose and mode of travel but not with worthwhile use of travel time. Using two case studies, the paper discusses the approach to implementation of the new VTTS estimates and lessons for other countries.

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the unprecedented measures taken by many countries to slow down the spread of the coronavirus caused large economic and psychological costs. This paper uses real time survey data from two waves run at the end of March and in mid-April to provide a snapshot of the actual labour market outcomes in twelve countries. Our study reveals large cross-country differences. At the end of March, when large disparity existed in the diffusion of the pandemic and in the lockdown measures, a large share of employed individuals had stopped working in France (38%) and Italy (47%), but much less in Australia (13%) and the US (10%). Large differences remained in mid-April. Yet, some common patterns emerge. Labour market outcomes varied according to workers’ educational attainments and occupation types. College graduates and white collars worked more from home and less from the regular workplace. Instead, low educated workers and blue collars were more likely to remain in the regular work place or to stop working. Similar patterns emerge with respect to the workers’ (family) income. This evidence suggests that initial labour market effects of COVID-19 (and of the lockdown measures) may have contributed to increase pre-existing inequalities.

The COVID-19 pandemic is harming health, social and economic well-being worldwide, with women at the centre. First and foremost, women are leading the health response: women make up almost 70% of the health care workforce, exposing them to a greater risk of infection. At the same time, women are also shouldering much of the burden at home, given school and child care facility closures and longstanding gender inequalities in unpaid work. Women also face high risks of job and income loss, and face increased risks of violence, exploitation, abuse or harassment during times of crisis and quarantine.

Policy responses must be immediate, and they must account for women’s concerns. Governments should consider adopting emergency measures to help parents manage work and caring responsibilities, reinforcing and extending income support measures, expanding support for small businesses and the self-employed, and improving measure to help women victims of violence. Fundamentally, all policy responses to the crisis must embed a gender lens and account for women’s unique needs, responsibilities and perspectives.

This paper provides a structured overview of the existing parenting literature with the aim of developing an evidence-based and culture-sensitive framework of parenting and its influence on child development. The paper outlines how changes in the 21st century have altered family life and summarises evidence from 29 meta-studies and 81 quantitative studies for the developmental impact of different parenting styles and dimensions. Overall, results suggest that warm parenting that provides children with age-appropriate autonomy and structure is key for a healthy and prosperous development of children and adolescents across various domains. The parenting approach adopted by parents but also its effect varies and the paper points to various contextual (e.g. culture, socio-economic factors, support within the community and family) and individual (e.g. gender, personality and health condition of children and parents) factors explaining these variations. The paper discusses how a systematic consideration of such factors not only sharpens the scientific understanding of parenting and its impact but also helps improving family policies and support.

In global emergencies like the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, open science policies can remove obstacles to the free flow of research data and ideas, and thus accelerate the pace of research critical to combating the disease.

While global sharing and collaboration of research data has reached unprecedented levels, challenges remain. Trust in at least some of the data is relatively low, and outstanding issues include the lack of specific standards, co-ordination and interoperability, as well as data quality and interpretation.

To strengthen the contribution of open science to the COVID-19 response, policy makers need to ensure adequate data governance models, interoperable standards, sustainable data sharing agreements involving public sector, private sector and civil society, incentives for researchers, sustainable infrastructures, human and institutional capabilities and mechanisms for access to data across borders.

Inclusion in terms of both process (how decisions are made and who is included in that process and how and why) and outcomes (how wealth and prosperity are distributed and shared across a population and why) is a leading priority in international development, with the Sustainable Development Goals as perhaps the most ambitious articulation of this. As the evidence overwhelmingly shows, over the long term, more open and inclusive states and societies tend to be more prosperous, effective and resilient. And yet, it is far less clear how countries that can be considered more inclusive in terms of both process and outcome got to where they are. This paper explores the relationship between inclusive governance and inclusive development, which is complex and non-linear. Analysing existing research on the politics of development, it finds that there is no automatic causal relationship between inclusion as process and inclusion as outcome in either direction. The paper then highlights several factors that have been important in fostering inclusive development through inclusive governance. By way of conclusion, the paper draws out a few key implications for how international development actors can support inclusion more effectively through more politically aware ways of thinking and working.

The U.S. population has become increasingly concentrated in large metropolitan areas. However, there are striking differences in between the performances of big cities: some of them have been very successful and have been able to pull away from the rest, while others have stagnated or even declined. The main objective of this paper is to characterize U.S. metropolitan areas according to their labor-market performance: which metropolitan areas are struggling and falling behind? Which ones are flourishing? Which ones are staying resilient by adapting to shocks? We rely on an unsupervised machine learning technique called Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering (HAC) to conduct this empirical investigation. The data comes from a number of sources including the new Job-to-Job (J2J) flows dataset from the Census Bureau, which reports the near universe of job movements in and out of employment at the metropolitan level. We characterize the fate of metropolitan areas by tracking their job mobility rate, unemployment rate, income growth, population increase, net change in job-to-job mobility and GDP growth. Our results indicate that the 372 metropolitan areas under examination can be categorized into four statistically distinct groups: booming areas (67), prosperous mega metropolitan areas (99), resilient areas (149) and distressed metropolitan areas (57). The results show that areas that are doing well are predominantly located in the south and the west. The main features of their success have revolved around embracing digital technologies, adopting local regulations friendly to job mobility and business creation, avoiding strict rules on land-use and housing market, and improving the wellbeing of the city’s population. These results highlight that cities adopting well-targeted policies can accelerate the return to growth after a shock.

COVID-19 lockdowns have radically changed the working arrangements for millions of workers. But who are the workers best positioned to work from home? Drawing on data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), we show that workers possessing higher levels of skills are significantly more likely to telework in OECD countries. We show that while 30% of workers could telework across the OECD, the likelihood decreases for workers without tertiary education and with lower levels of numeracy and literacy skills. The findings raise important questions with respect to the extent to which the pandemic could exacerbate existing labour market inequalities, and the extent to which these inequalities could further worsen amidst intensified technology adoption in the pandemic’s aftermath.

Evolving technologies have changed the ways people read and exchange information, whether at home, at school or in the workplace. When PISA assessed 15-year-olds’ reading literacy for the first time, in 2000, only in two countries – Canada and Norway – did more than 50% of the population use the Internet. In 2009, about 15% of students in OECD countries, on average, reported that they did not have access to the Internet at home. By 2018, that proportion had shrunk to less than 5%. The growth in access to online services is likely to be even larger than suggested by these percentages, which hide the exponential growth in the quality of Internet services and the explosion of mobile Internet services over the past decade.

In many respects, the challenges that readers encounter today, in a highly digitalised environment, are greater than those encountered in the world of printed books, manuals and newspapers. To navigate successfully the information provided in electronic text formats, people need to use complex strategies to analyse, synthesise, integrate and interpret relevant information from multiple sources when they read. But are students – and education systems – rising to the challenge of mastering reading skills for the digital age?

This brief, prepared by the Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat, provides important contextual information on a region that was already grappling with conflict and a food and nutrition crisis prior to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. 17 million people are expected to be in food crisis situation or worse between now and the upcoming lean season if appropriate measures are not taken and armed violence is causing an unprecedented humanitarian emergency in the Sahel. With the spotlight now on Covid-19, pre-existing crises run the risk of being neglected.

In this context, this brief takes stock of some of the potential impacts of the pandemic and outlines a number of policy implications to help support government action. It highlights the importance of putting the informal economy and local actors and initiatives front and centre of response strategies, increasing synergy and co-ordination in the face of multiple crises, accelerating continental integration, as well as reaffirming the centrality of food systems.

While the economic benefits of education have been demonstrated in a number of areas, greater educational attainment is also positively associated with a variety of social outcomes that are important during the COVID-19 outbreak. Data collected before the outbreak show that people with a tertiary degree are less likely to report suffering from depression and they are more likely to be in contact with their friends and family physically and through the Internet. During the confinement period, the positive social outcomes of education are more important than ever in equipping individuals to face the crisis. Good mental health, a strong social network and a healthy lifestyle are all associated with the choices individuals made prior to COVID-19, and their choice of whether to continue with their education or not will have been amongst the most important.