China Says It Will Allow Couples to Have 3 Children, Up From 2
The move is the Communist Party’s latest attempt to reverse declining birthrates and avert a population crisis, but experts say it is woefully inadequate.
China said on Monday that it would allow all married couples to have three children, ending a two-child policy that has failed to raise the country’s declining birthrates and avert a demographic crisis.
The announcement by the ruling Communist Party represents an acknowledgment that its limits on reproduction, the world’s toughest, have jeopardized the country’s future. The labor pool is shrinking and the population is graying, threatening the industrial strategy that China has used for decades to emerge from poverty to become an economic powerhouse.
But it is far from clear that relaxing the policy further will pay off. People in China have responded coolly to the party’s earlier move, in 2016, to allow couples to have two children. To them, such measures do little to assuage their anxiety over the rising cost of education and of supporting aging parents, made worse by the lack of day care and the pervasive culture of long work hours.
In a nod to those concerns, the party also indicated on Monday that it would improve maternity leave and workplace protections, pledging to make it easier for couples to have more children. But those protections are all but absent for single mothers in China, who despite the push for more children still lack access to benefits.
Births in China have fallen for four consecutive years, including in 2020, when the number of babies born dropped to the lowest since the Mao era. The country’s total fertility rate — an estimate of the number of children born over a woman’s lifetime — now stands at 1.3, well below the replacement rate of 2.1, raising the possibility of a shrinking population over time.
The announcement on Monday still splits the difference between individual reproductive rights and government limits over women’s bodies. Prominent voices within China have called on the party to scrap its restrictions on births altogether. But Beijing, under Xi Jinping, the party leader who has pushed for greater control in the daily lives of the country’s 1.4 billion people, has resisted.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/worl ... 778d3e6de3
SOCIAL TRENDS
Have Three Children? No Way, Many Chinese Say.
Intense workplace competition, inadequate child care and widespread job discrimination against pregnant women have made childbearing an unappealing prospect for many.
After China said it would allow couples to have three children, the state news media trumpeted the move as a major change that would help stimulate growth. But across much of the country, the announcement was met with indignation.
Women worried that the move would only exacerbate discrimination from employers reluctant to pay maternity leave. Young people fumed that they were already hard-pressed to find jobs and take care of themselves, let alone a child (or three). Working-class parents said the financial burden of more children would be unbearable.
“I definitely will not have another child,” said Hu Daifang, a former migrant worker in Sichuan Province. Mr. Hu, 35, said he was already struggling, especially after his mother fell ill and could no longer help care for his two children. “It feels like we are just surviving, not living.”
For many ordinary Chinese, the news about the policy change on Monday was only a reminder of a problem they’d long recognized: the drastic inadequacy of China’s social safety net and legal protections that would enable them to have more children.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Intense workplace competition, inadequate child care and widespread job discrimination against pregnant women have made childbearing an unappealing prospect for many.
After China said it would allow couples to have three children, the state news media trumpeted the move as a major change that would help stimulate growth. But across much of the country, the announcement was met with indignation.
Women worried that the move would only exacerbate discrimination from employers reluctant to pay maternity leave. Young people fumed that they were already hard-pressed to find jobs and take care of themselves, let alone a child (or three). Working-class parents said the financial burden of more children would be unbearable.
“I definitely will not have another child,” said Hu Daifang, a former migrant worker in Sichuan Province. Mr. Hu, 35, said he was already struggling, especially after his mother fell ill and could no longer help care for his two children. “It feels like we are just surviving, not living.”
For many ordinary Chinese, the news about the policy change on Monday was only a reminder of a problem they’d long recognized: the drastic inadequacy of China’s social safety net and legal protections that would enable them to have more children.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Why Is It OK to Be Mean to the Ugly?
A manager sits behind a table and decides he’s going to fire a woman because he doesn’t like her skin. If he fires her because her skin is brown, we call that racism and there is legal recourse. If he fires her because her skin is female, we call that sexism and there is legal recourse. If he fires her because her skin is pockmarked and he finds her unattractive, well, we don’t talk about that much and, in most places in America, there is no legal recourse.
This is puzzling. We live in a society that abhors discrimination on the basis of many traits. And yet one of the major forms of discrimination is lookism, prejudice against the unattractive. And this gets almost no attention and sparks little outrage. Why?
Lookism starts, like every form of bigotry, with prejudice and stereotypes.
Studies show that most people consider an “attractive” face to have clean, symmetrical features. We find it easier to recognize and categorize these prototypical faces than we do irregular and “unattractive” ones. So we find it easier — from a brain processing perspective — to look at attractive people.
Attractive people thus start off with a slight physical advantage. But then people project all sorts of widely unrelated stereotypes onto them. In survey after survey, beautiful people are described as trustworthy, competent, friendly, likable and intelligent, while ugly people get the opposite labels. This is a version of the halo effect.
Not all the time, but often, the attractive get the first-class treatment. Research suggests they are more likely to be offered job interviews, more likely to be hired when interviewed and more likely to be promoted than less attractive individuals. They are more likely to receive loans and more likely to receive lower interest rates on those loans.
The discriminatory effects of lookism are pervasive. Attractive economists are more likely to study at high-ranked graduate programs and their papers are cited more often than papers from their less attractive peers. One study found that when unattractive criminals committed a moderate misdemeanor, their fines were about four times as large as those of attractive criminals.
Daniel Hamermesh, a leading scholar in this field, observed that an American worker who is among the bottom one-seventh in looks earns about 10 to 15 percent less a year than one in the top third. An unattractive person misses out on nearly a quarter-million dollars in earnings over a lifetime.
The overall effect of these biases is vast. One 2004 study found that more people report being discriminated against because of their looks than because of their ethnicity.
In a study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Sociology, Ellis P. Monk Jr., Michael H. Esposito and Hedwig Lee report that the earnings gap between people perceived as attractive and unattractive rivals or exceeds the earnings gap between white and Black adults. They find the attractiveness curve is especially punishing for Black women. Those who meet the socially dominant criteria for beauty see an earnings boost; those who don’t earn on average just 63 cents to the dollar of those who do.
Why are we so blasé about this kind of discrimination? Maybe people think lookism is baked into human nature and there’s not much they can do about it. Maybe it’s because there’s no National Association of Ugly People lobbying for change. The economist Tyler Cowen notices that it’s often the educated coastal class that most strictly enforces norms about thinness and dress. Maybe we don’t like policing the bigotry we’re most guilty of?
My general answer is that it’s very hard to buck the core values of your culture, even when you know it’s the right thing to do.
Over the past few decades, social media, the meritocracy and celebrity culture have fused to form a modern culture that is almost pagan in its values. That is, it places tremendous emphasis on competitive display, personal achievement and the idea that physical beauty is an external sign of moral beauty and overall worth.
Pagan culture holds up a certain ideal hero — those who are genetically endowed in the realms of athleticism, intelligence and beauty. This culture looks at obesity as a moral weakness and a sign that you’re in a lower social class.
Our pagan culture places great emphasis on the sports arena, the university and the social media screen, where beauty, strength and I.Q. can be most impressively displayed.
This ethos underlies many athletic shoe and gym ads, which hold up heroes in whom physical endowments and moral goodness are one. It’s the paganism of the C.E.O. who likes to be flanked by a team of hot staffers. (“I must be a winner because I’m surrounded by the beautiful.”) It’s the fashion magazine in which articles about social justice are interspersed with photo spreads of the impossibly beautiful. (“We believe in social equality, as long as you’re gorgeous.”) It’s the lookist one-upmanship of TikTok.
A society that celebrates beauty this obsessively is going to be a social context in which the less beautiful will be slighted. The only solution is to shift the norms and practices. One positive example comes, oddly, from Victoria’s Secret, which replaced its “Angels” with seven women of more diverse body types. When Victoria’s Secret is on the cutting edge of the fight against lookism, the rest of us have some catching up to do.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/opin ... 778d3e6de3
A manager sits behind a table and decides he’s going to fire a woman because he doesn’t like her skin. If he fires her because her skin is brown, we call that racism and there is legal recourse. If he fires her because her skin is female, we call that sexism and there is legal recourse. If he fires her because her skin is pockmarked and he finds her unattractive, well, we don’t talk about that much and, in most places in America, there is no legal recourse.
This is puzzling. We live in a society that abhors discrimination on the basis of many traits. And yet one of the major forms of discrimination is lookism, prejudice against the unattractive. And this gets almost no attention and sparks little outrage. Why?
Lookism starts, like every form of bigotry, with prejudice and stereotypes.
Studies show that most people consider an “attractive” face to have clean, symmetrical features. We find it easier to recognize and categorize these prototypical faces than we do irregular and “unattractive” ones. So we find it easier — from a brain processing perspective — to look at attractive people.
Attractive people thus start off with a slight physical advantage. But then people project all sorts of widely unrelated stereotypes onto them. In survey after survey, beautiful people are described as trustworthy, competent, friendly, likable and intelligent, while ugly people get the opposite labels. This is a version of the halo effect.
Not all the time, but often, the attractive get the first-class treatment. Research suggests they are more likely to be offered job interviews, more likely to be hired when interviewed and more likely to be promoted than less attractive individuals. They are more likely to receive loans and more likely to receive lower interest rates on those loans.
The discriminatory effects of lookism are pervasive. Attractive economists are more likely to study at high-ranked graduate programs and their papers are cited more often than papers from their less attractive peers. One study found that when unattractive criminals committed a moderate misdemeanor, their fines were about four times as large as those of attractive criminals.
Daniel Hamermesh, a leading scholar in this field, observed that an American worker who is among the bottom one-seventh in looks earns about 10 to 15 percent less a year than one in the top third. An unattractive person misses out on nearly a quarter-million dollars in earnings over a lifetime.
The overall effect of these biases is vast. One 2004 study found that more people report being discriminated against because of their looks than because of their ethnicity.
In a study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Sociology, Ellis P. Monk Jr., Michael H. Esposito and Hedwig Lee report that the earnings gap between people perceived as attractive and unattractive rivals or exceeds the earnings gap between white and Black adults. They find the attractiveness curve is especially punishing for Black women. Those who meet the socially dominant criteria for beauty see an earnings boost; those who don’t earn on average just 63 cents to the dollar of those who do.
Why are we so blasé about this kind of discrimination? Maybe people think lookism is baked into human nature and there’s not much they can do about it. Maybe it’s because there’s no National Association of Ugly People lobbying for change. The economist Tyler Cowen notices that it’s often the educated coastal class that most strictly enforces norms about thinness and dress. Maybe we don’t like policing the bigotry we’re most guilty of?
My general answer is that it’s very hard to buck the core values of your culture, even when you know it’s the right thing to do.
Over the past few decades, social media, the meritocracy and celebrity culture have fused to form a modern culture that is almost pagan in its values. That is, it places tremendous emphasis on competitive display, personal achievement and the idea that physical beauty is an external sign of moral beauty and overall worth.
Pagan culture holds up a certain ideal hero — those who are genetically endowed in the realms of athleticism, intelligence and beauty. This culture looks at obesity as a moral weakness and a sign that you’re in a lower social class.
Our pagan culture places great emphasis on the sports arena, the university and the social media screen, where beauty, strength and I.Q. can be most impressively displayed.
This ethos underlies many athletic shoe and gym ads, which hold up heroes in whom physical endowments and moral goodness are one. It’s the paganism of the C.E.O. who likes to be flanked by a team of hot staffers. (“I must be a winner because I’m surrounded by the beautiful.”) It’s the fashion magazine in which articles about social justice are interspersed with photo spreads of the impossibly beautiful. (“We believe in social equality, as long as you’re gorgeous.”) It’s the lookist one-upmanship of TikTok.
A society that celebrates beauty this obsessively is going to be a social context in which the less beautiful will be slighted. The only solution is to shift the norms and practices. One positive example comes, oddly, from Victoria’s Secret, which replaced its “Angels” with seven women of more diverse body types. When Victoria’s Secret is on the cutting edge of the fight against lookism, the rest of us have some catching up to do.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/opin ... 778d3e6de3
These Chinese Millennials Are ‘Chilling,’ and Beijing Isn’t Happy
Young people in China have set off a nascent counterculture movement that involves lying down and doing as little as possible.
Five years ago, Luo Huazhong discovered that he enjoyed doing nothing. He quit his job as a factory worker in China, biked 1,300 miles from Sichuan Province to Tibet and decided he could get by on odd jobs and $60 a month from his savings. He called his new lifestyle “lying flat.”
“I have been chilling,” Mr. Luo, 31, wrote in a blog post in April, describing his way of life. “I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong.”
He titled his post “Lying Flat Is Justice,” attaching a photo of himself lying on his bed in a dark room with the curtains drawn. Before long, the post was being celebrated by Chinese millennials as an anti-consumerist manifesto. “Lying flat” went viral and has since become a broader statement about Chinese society.
A generation ago, the route to success in China was to work hard, get married and have children. The country’s authoritarianism was seen as a fair trade-off as millions were lifted out of poverty. But with employees working longer hours and housing prices rising faster than incomes, many young Chinese fear they will be the first generation not to do better than their parents.
They are now defying the country’s long-held prosperity narrative by refusing to participate in it.
Mr. Luo’s blog post was removed by censors, who saw it as an affront to Beijing’s economic ambitions. Mentions of “lying flat” — tangping, as it’s known in Mandarin — are heavily restricted on the Chinese internet. An official counternarrative has also emerged, encouraging young people to work hard for the sake of the country’s future.
“After working for so long, I just felt numb, like a machine,” Mr. Luo said in an interview. “And so I resigned.”
To lie flat means to forgo marriage, not have children, stay unemployed and eschew material wants such as a house or a car. It is the opposite of what China’s leaders have asked of their people. But that didn’t bother Leon Ding.
Mr. Ding, 22, has been lying flat for almost three months and thinks of the act as “silent resistance.” He dropped out of a university in his final year in March because he didn’t like the computer science major his parents had chosen for him.
After leaving school, Mr. Ding used his savings to rent a room in Shenzhen. He tried to find a regular office job but realized that most positions required him to work long hours. “I want a stable job that allows me to have my own time to relax, but where can I find it?” he said.
Mr. Ding thinks young people should work hard for what they love, but not “996” — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — as many employers in China expect. Frustrated with the job search, he decided that “lying flat” was the way to go.
“To be honest, it feels really comfortable,” he said. “I don’t want to be too hard on myself.”
To make ends meet, Mr. Ding gets paid to play video games and has minimized his spending by doing things like cutting out his favorite bubble tea. Asked about his long-term plans, he said: “Come back and ask me in six months. I only plan for six months.”
While plenty of Chinese millennials continue to adhere to the country’s traditional work ethic, “lying flat” reflects both a nascent counterculture movement and a backlash against China’s hypercompetitive work environment.
Xiang Biao, a professor of social anthropology at Oxford University who focuses on Chinese society, called tangping culture a turning point for China. “Young people feel a kind of pressure that they cannot explain and they feel that promises were broken,” he said. “People realize that material betterment is no longer the single most important source of meaning in life.”
The ruling Communist Party, wary of any form of social instability, has targeted the “lying flat” idea as a threat to stability in China. Censors have deleted a tangping group with more than 9,000 members on Douban, a popular internet forum. The authorities also barred posts on another tangping forum with more than 200,000 members.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Young people in China have set off a nascent counterculture movement that involves lying down and doing as little as possible.
Five years ago, Luo Huazhong discovered that he enjoyed doing nothing. He quit his job as a factory worker in China, biked 1,300 miles from Sichuan Province to Tibet and decided he could get by on odd jobs and $60 a month from his savings. He called his new lifestyle “lying flat.”
“I have been chilling,” Mr. Luo, 31, wrote in a blog post in April, describing his way of life. “I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong.”
He titled his post “Lying Flat Is Justice,” attaching a photo of himself lying on his bed in a dark room with the curtains drawn. Before long, the post was being celebrated by Chinese millennials as an anti-consumerist manifesto. “Lying flat” went viral and has since become a broader statement about Chinese society.
A generation ago, the route to success in China was to work hard, get married and have children. The country’s authoritarianism was seen as a fair trade-off as millions were lifted out of poverty. But with employees working longer hours and housing prices rising faster than incomes, many young Chinese fear they will be the first generation not to do better than their parents.
They are now defying the country’s long-held prosperity narrative by refusing to participate in it.
Mr. Luo’s blog post was removed by censors, who saw it as an affront to Beijing’s economic ambitions. Mentions of “lying flat” — tangping, as it’s known in Mandarin — are heavily restricted on the Chinese internet. An official counternarrative has also emerged, encouraging young people to work hard for the sake of the country’s future.
“After working for so long, I just felt numb, like a machine,” Mr. Luo said in an interview. “And so I resigned.”
To lie flat means to forgo marriage, not have children, stay unemployed and eschew material wants such as a house or a car. It is the opposite of what China’s leaders have asked of their people. But that didn’t bother Leon Ding.
Mr. Ding, 22, has been lying flat for almost three months and thinks of the act as “silent resistance.” He dropped out of a university in his final year in March because he didn’t like the computer science major his parents had chosen for him.
After leaving school, Mr. Ding used his savings to rent a room in Shenzhen. He tried to find a regular office job but realized that most positions required him to work long hours. “I want a stable job that allows me to have my own time to relax, but where can I find it?” he said.
Mr. Ding thinks young people should work hard for what they love, but not “996” — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — as many employers in China expect. Frustrated with the job search, he decided that “lying flat” was the way to go.
“To be honest, it feels really comfortable,” he said. “I don’t want to be too hard on myself.”
To make ends meet, Mr. Ding gets paid to play video games and has minimized his spending by doing things like cutting out his favorite bubble tea. Asked about his long-term plans, he said: “Come back and ask me in six months. I only plan for six months.”
While plenty of Chinese millennials continue to adhere to the country’s traditional work ethic, “lying flat” reflects both a nascent counterculture movement and a backlash against China’s hypercompetitive work environment.
Xiang Biao, a professor of social anthropology at Oxford University who focuses on Chinese society, called tangping culture a turning point for China. “Young people feel a kind of pressure that they cannot explain and they feel that promises were broken,” he said. “People realize that material betterment is no longer the single most important source of meaning in life.”
The ruling Communist Party, wary of any form of social instability, has targeted the “lying flat” idea as a threat to stability in China. Censors have deleted a tangping group with more than 9,000 members on Douban, a popular internet forum. The authorities also barred posts on another tangping forum with more than 200,000 members.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/worl ... 778d3e6de3
She’s One of China’s Biggest Stars. She’s Also Transgender.
Jin Xing, the first person in China to openly undergo transition surgery, is a household name. But she says she’s no standard-bearer for the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
Jin Xing, a 53-year-old television host often called China’s Oprah Winfrey, holds strong views about what it means to be a woman. She has hounded female guests to hurry up and get married, and she has pressed others to give birth. When it comes to men, she has recommended that women act helpless to get their way.
That might not be so unusual in China, where traditional gender norms are still deeply embedded, especially among older people. Except Ms. Jin is no typical Chinese star.
As China’s first — and even today, only — major transgender celebrity, Ms. Jin is in many ways regarded as a progressive icon. She underwent transition surgery in 1995, the first person in the country to do so openly. She went on to host one of China’s most popular talk shows, even as stigmas against L.G.B.T.Q. people remained — and still remain — widespread.
China’s best-known personalities appeared on her program, “The Jin Xing Show.” Brad Pitt once bumbled through some Mandarin with her to promote a film.
“All my close friends teased me: ‘China would never let you host a talk show,’” Ms. Jin said, recalling when she first shared that goal with them. “‘How could they let you, with your transgender identity, be on television?’”
But even as Ms. Jin’s remarkable biography has elevated her to an almost mythic level, it has also, for some, made her one of the most perplexing figures in Chinese pop culture.
Though often lauded as a trailblazer for the L.G.B.T.Q. community, she rejects the role of standard-bearer and criticizes activists whom she perceives as seeking special treatment. “Respect is earned by yourself, not something you ask society to give you,” she said.
She also has attracted fierce criticism for her views on womanhood. In a 2013 memoir, Ms. Jin wrote that a “smart woman” should make her partner feel that she was a “little girl who needs him.” On “The Jin Xing Show,” she told the actress Michelle Ye that only after giving birth would she feel complete.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Jin Xing, the first person in China to openly undergo transition surgery, is a household name. But she says she’s no standard-bearer for the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
Jin Xing, a 53-year-old television host often called China’s Oprah Winfrey, holds strong views about what it means to be a woman. She has hounded female guests to hurry up and get married, and she has pressed others to give birth. When it comes to men, she has recommended that women act helpless to get their way.
That might not be so unusual in China, where traditional gender norms are still deeply embedded, especially among older people. Except Ms. Jin is no typical Chinese star.
As China’s first — and even today, only — major transgender celebrity, Ms. Jin is in many ways regarded as a progressive icon. She underwent transition surgery in 1995, the first person in the country to do so openly. She went on to host one of China’s most popular talk shows, even as stigmas against L.G.B.T.Q. people remained — and still remain — widespread.
China’s best-known personalities appeared on her program, “The Jin Xing Show.” Brad Pitt once bumbled through some Mandarin with her to promote a film.
“All my close friends teased me: ‘China would never let you host a talk show,’” Ms. Jin said, recalling when she first shared that goal with them. “‘How could they let you, with your transgender identity, be on television?’”
But even as Ms. Jin’s remarkable biography has elevated her to an almost mythic level, it has also, for some, made her one of the most perplexing figures in Chinese pop culture.
Though often lauded as a trailblazer for the L.G.B.T.Q. community, she rejects the role of standard-bearer and criticizes activists whom she perceives as seeking special treatment. “Respect is earned by yourself, not something you ask society to give you,” she said.
She also has attracted fierce criticism for her views on womanhood. In a 2013 memoir, Ms. Jin wrote that a “smart woman” should make her partner feel that she was a “little girl who needs him.” On “The Jin Xing Show,” she told the actress Michelle Ye that only after giving birth would she feel complete.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/worl ... 778d3e6de3
What’s Ripping American Families Apart?
At least 27 percent of Americans are estranged from a member of their own family, and research suggests about 40 percent of Americans have experienced estrangement at some point.
The most common form of estrangement is between adult children and one or both parents — a cut usually initiated by the child. A study published in 2010 found that parents in the U.S. are about twice as likely to be in a contentious relationship with their adult children as parents in Israel, Germany, England and Spain.
The Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer, author of “Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them,” writes that the children in these cases often cite harsh parenting, parental favoritism, divorce and poor and increasingly hostile communication often culminating in a volcanic event. As one woman told Salon: “I have someone out to get me, and it’s my mother. My part of being a good mom has been getting my son away from mine.”
The parents in these cases are often completely bewildered by the accusations. They often remember a totally different childhood home and accuse their children of rewriting what happened. As one cutoff couple told the psychologist Joshua Coleman: “Emotional abuse? We gave our child everything. We read every parenting book under the sun, took her on wonderful vacations, went to all of her sporting events.”
Part of the misunderstanding derives from the truth that we all construct our own realities, but part of the problem, as Nick Haslam of the University of Melbourne has suggested, is there seems to be a generational shift in what constitutes abuse. Practices that seemed like normal parenting to one generation are conceptualized as abusive, overbearing and traumatizing to another.
There’s a lot of real emotional abuse out there, but as Coleman put it in an essay in The Atlantic, “My recent research — and my clinical work over the past four decades — has shown me that you can be a conscientious parent and your kid may still want nothing to do with you when they’re older.”
Either way, there’s a lot of agony for all concerned. The children feel they have to live with the legacy of an abusive childhood. The parents feel rejected by the person they love most in the world, their own child, and they are powerless to do anything about it. There’s anger, grief and depression on all sides — painful holidays and birthdays — plus, the next generation often grows up without knowing their grandparents.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/opin ... 778d3e6de3
At least 27 percent of Americans are estranged from a member of their own family, and research suggests about 40 percent of Americans have experienced estrangement at some point.
The most common form of estrangement is between adult children and one or both parents — a cut usually initiated by the child. A study published in 2010 found that parents in the U.S. are about twice as likely to be in a contentious relationship with their adult children as parents in Israel, Germany, England and Spain.
The Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer, author of “Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them,” writes that the children in these cases often cite harsh parenting, parental favoritism, divorce and poor and increasingly hostile communication often culminating in a volcanic event. As one woman told Salon: “I have someone out to get me, and it’s my mother. My part of being a good mom has been getting my son away from mine.”
The parents in these cases are often completely bewildered by the accusations. They often remember a totally different childhood home and accuse their children of rewriting what happened. As one cutoff couple told the psychologist Joshua Coleman: “Emotional abuse? We gave our child everything. We read every parenting book under the sun, took her on wonderful vacations, went to all of her sporting events.”
Part of the misunderstanding derives from the truth that we all construct our own realities, but part of the problem, as Nick Haslam of the University of Melbourne has suggested, is there seems to be a generational shift in what constitutes abuse. Practices that seemed like normal parenting to one generation are conceptualized as abusive, overbearing and traumatizing to another.
There’s a lot of real emotional abuse out there, but as Coleman put it in an essay in The Atlantic, “My recent research — and my clinical work over the past four decades — has shown me that you can be a conscientious parent and your kid may still want nothing to do with you when they’re older.”
Either way, there’s a lot of agony for all concerned. The children feel they have to live with the legacy of an abusive childhood. The parents feel rejected by the person they love most in the world, their own child, and they are powerless to do anything about it. There’s anger, grief and depression on all sides — painful holidays and birthdays — plus, the next generation often grows up without knowing their grandparents.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/opin ... 778d3e6de3
The Married Will Soon Be the Minority
When I was young, everything in society seemed to aim one toward marriage. It was the expectation. It was the inevitability. You would — and should — meet someone, get married and start a family. It was the way it had always been, and always would be.
But even then, the share of people who were married was already falling. The year I was born, 1970, the percentage of Americans between the ages of 25 and 50 who had never married was just 9 percent. By the time I became an adult, that number was approaching 20 percent.
Some people were delaying marriage. But others were forgoing it altogether.
This trend has only continued, and we are now nearing a milestone. This month, the Pew Research Center published an analysis of census data showing that in 2019 the share of American adults who were neither married nor living with a partner had risen to 38 percent, and while that group “includes some adults who were previously married (those who are separated, divorced or widowed), all of the growth in the unpartnered population since 1990 has come from a rise in the number who have never been married.”
This came on the heels of data released by the National Center for Health Statistics last year, which showed that marriage rates in 2018 had reached a record low.
We are nearing a time when there will be more unmarried adults in the United States than married ones, a development with enormous consequences for how we define family and adulthood in general, as well as how we structure taxation and benefits.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/opin ... 778d3e6de3
When I was young, everything in society seemed to aim one toward marriage. It was the expectation. It was the inevitability. You would — and should — meet someone, get married and start a family. It was the way it had always been, and always would be.
But even then, the share of people who were married was already falling. The year I was born, 1970, the percentage of Americans between the ages of 25 and 50 who had never married was just 9 percent. By the time I became an adult, that number was approaching 20 percent.
Some people were delaying marriage. But others were forgoing it altogether.
This trend has only continued, and we are now nearing a milestone. This month, the Pew Research Center published an analysis of census data showing that in 2019 the share of American adults who were neither married nor living with a partner had risen to 38 percent, and while that group “includes some adults who were previously married (those who are separated, divorced or widowed), all of the growth in the unpartnered population since 1990 has come from a rise in the number who have never been married.”
This came on the heels of data released by the National Center for Health Statistics last year, which showed that marriage rates in 2018 had reached a record low.
We are nearing a time when there will be more unmarried adults in the United States than married ones, a development with enormous consequences for how we define family and adulthood in general, as well as how we structure taxation and benefits.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/opin ... 778d3e6de3
International Men’s Day
International Men’s Day: What is it and why does it matter?
There have been calls for an International Men’s Day since the 1960’s and in this era of empowering gender equality, you may have even thought to yourself “Why do women have an international celebration and not men?” or “Men’s contributions and concerns deserve a day of recognition in their own right” and not merely creating an equivalent of International Women’s Day.
Following a series of small events in individual countries in the US, Europe and Australia, International Men’s Day (IMD) was initiated on 1991 and revived on 19th November 1999 in Trinidad and Tobago by history lecturer Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh. The Caribbean initiative is now an annual international event celebrated in over 70 countries with rapidly increasing interest.
International Men’s Day encourages men to teach the boys in their lives the values, character and responsibilities of being a man. It is only when we all, both men and women, lead by example that we will create a fair and safe society which allows everyone the opportunity to prosper.
There are six specific objectives of International Men’s Day:
1. To promote positive male role models; who are living decent and honest lives, not just movie stars and sports men but everyday men
2. To celebrate men's positive contributions to society, community, family, marriage, child care, and to the environment
3. To focus on men's health and wellbeing; social, emotional, physical and spiritual
4. To highlight discrimination against men; in areas of social services, social attitudes and expectations, and law
5. To improve gender relations and promote gender equality
6. To create a safer, better world; where people can be safe and grow to reach their full potential
"The concept and themes of IMD are designed to give hope to the depressed, faith to the lonely, comfort to the broken-hearted, transcend barriers, eliminate stereotypes and create a more caring humanity.” - Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh
There are many inspiring men leading by example in our community and we are fortunate to have a diverse set of role models for the Ismaili youth to emulate. Yet some of the national statistics around Gender Equality are distressing. They prove that the perceptions and attitudes in the wider societies in which we live still have a long way to go to overturn negative gender stereotypes.
At the recent Preparing for Parenthood workshop run by WAP, we discussed that only around 1% of eligible fathers in the UK took Shared Parental Leave and that it can still be perceived as strange for men to be involved with childcare. Anecdotes arose about adults at kids events or appointments casually questioning "Where's Mum?" or the hesitation husbands may feel taking time away from work when a man’s role is expected to be the “sole breadwinner” of the household.
Equally concerning is that studies show men are less likely to acknowledge illness or to seek help when sick. Men aged 20-40 are half as likely to go to their GP as women of the same age and are even less likely to be honest about their symptoms when they do go. The figures are even lower for the likelihood of men to seek help for concerns related to their mental health. A message sometimes heard by young boys is “real men sort out their own problems” which holds them back from accepting the emotional or physical support they need and often from aspiring to be role models themselves.
Communities need to build awareness and create safe environments for every individual to feel empowered to make their own choices in prioritising their family, work, health and wellbeing, rather than simply allowing gender stereotypes to take control.
Our leading example, Mowlana Hazar Imam said in a discussion with Harvard University Professor Diana L. Eck on November 12, 2015:
“Leadership qualities is not gender driven so actually, if you don’t respect the fact that both genders have competencies, outstanding capabilities, you are damaging your community by not appointing those people.”
As we reflect on the themes of International Men’s Day, let us think about how we can enable our community to continue to grow and reach its full potential. Let us respect, support and celebrate all men, women and children as we redefine social stereotypes for the benefit of ourselves and our future generations.
References and further information:
www.internationalmensday.com
www.menshealthforum.org.uk
www.sharedparentalleave.campaign.gov.uk
https://the.ismaili/uk/institutions/wom ... l-mens-day
Contending With the Pandemic, Wealthy Nations Wage Global Battle for Migrants
Covid kept many people in place. Now several developed countries, facing aging labor forces and worker shortages, are racing to recruit, train and integrate foreigners.
As the global economy heats up and tries to put the pandemic aside, a battle for the young and able has begun. With fast-track visas and promises of permanent residency, many of the wealthy nations driving the recovery are sending a message to skilled immigrants all over the world: Help wanted. Now.
In Germany, where officials recently warned that the country needs 400,000 new immigrants a year to fill jobs in fields ranging from academia to air-conditioning, a new Immigration Act offers accelerated work visas and six months to visit and find a job.
Canada plans to give residency to 1.2 million new immigrants by 2023. Israel recently finalized a deal to bring health care workers from Nepal. And in Australia, where mines, hospitals and pubs are all short-handed after nearly two years with a closed border, the government intends to roughly double the number of immigrants it allows into the country over the next year.
The global drive to attract foreigners with skills, especially those that fall somewhere between physical labor and a physics Ph.D., aims to smooth out a bumpy emergence from the pandemic.
Covid’s disruptions have pushed many people to retire, resign or just not return to work. But its effects run deeper. By keeping so many people in place, the pandemic has made humanity’s demographic imbalance more obvious — rapidly aging rich nations produce too few new workers, while countries with a surplus of young people often lack work for all.
New approaches to that mismatch could influence the worldwide debate over immigration. European governments remain divided on how to handle new waves of asylum seekers. In the United States, immigration policy remains mostly stuck in place, with a focus on the Mexican border, where migrant detentions have reached a record high. Still, many developed nations are building more generous, efficient and sophisticated programs to bring in foreigners and help them become a permanent part of their societies.
“Covid is an accelerator of change,” said Jean-Christophe Dumont, the head of international migration research for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D. “Countries have had to realize the importance of migration and immigrants.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/worl ... ews_dedupe
Covid kept many people in place. Now several developed countries, facing aging labor forces and worker shortages, are racing to recruit, train and integrate foreigners.
As the global economy heats up and tries to put the pandemic aside, a battle for the young and able has begun. With fast-track visas and promises of permanent residency, many of the wealthy nations driving the recovery are sending a message to skilled immigrants all over the world: Help wanted. Now.
In Germany, where officials recently warned that the country needs 400,000 new immigrants a year to fill jobs in fields ranging from academia to air-conditioning, a new Immigration Act offers accelerated work visas and six months to visit and find a job.
Canada plans to give residency to 1.2 million new immigrants by 2023. Israel recently finalized a deal to bring health care workers from Nepal. And in Australia, where mines, hospitals and pubs are all short-handed after nearly two years with a closed border, the government intends to roughly double the number of immigrants it allows into the country over the next year.
The global drive to attract foreigners with skills, especially those that fall somewhere between physical labor and a physics Ph.D., aims to smooth out a bumpy emergence from the pandemic.
Covid’s disruptions have pushed many people to retire, resign or just not return to work. But its effects run deeper. By keeping so many people in place, the pandemic has made humanity’s demographic imbalance more obvious — rapidly aging rich nations produce too few new workers, while countries with a surplus of young people often lack work for all.
New approaches to that mismatch could influence the worldwide debate over immigration. European governments remain divided on how to handle new waves of asylum seekers. In the United States, immigration policy remains mostly stuck in place, with a focus on the Mexican border, where migrant detentions have reached a record high. Still, many developed nations are building more generous, efficient and sophisticated programs to bring in foreigners and help them become a permanent part of their societies.
“Covid is an accelerator of change,” said Jean-Christophe Dumont, the head of international migration research for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D. “Countries have had to realize the importance of migration and immigrants.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/worl ... ews_dedupe
Violence against women insults God, pope says in New Year's message
Reuters Published January 1, 2022 -
Pope Francis celebrates Mass to mark the World Day of Peace in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, January 1. Reuters
Pope Francis used his New Year's message on Saturday to issue a clarion call for an end to violence against women, saying it was insulting to God.
Francis, 85, celebrated a Mass in St Peter's Basilica on the day the Roman Catholic Church marks both the solemnity of Holy Mary Mother of God as well as its annual World Day of Peace.
Francis appeared to be in good form on Saturday following an unexplained incident on New Year's Eve where he attended a service but at the last minute did not preside over it as he had been expected to.
At the start of the Mass on Saturday, he walked the entire length of the central aisle of basilica, as opposed to Friday night, when he emerged from a side entrance close to the altar and watched from the sidelines.
Francis suffers from a sciatica condition that causes pain in the legs, and sometimes a flare-up prevents him from standing for long periods.
Francis wove his New Year's homily around the themes of motherhood and women — saying it was they who kept the threads of life together — and used it to make one of his strongest calls yet for an end to violence against them.
"And since mothers bestow life, and women keep the world [together], let us all make greater efforts to promote mothers and to protect women," Francis said.
"How much violence is directed against women! Enough! To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity — not through an angel, not directly, but through a woman," he said, in a reference to Jesus's mother Mary.
During an Italian television programme last month, Francis told a woman who had been beaten by her ex-husband that men who commit violence against women engage in something that is "almost satanic".
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began nearly two years ago, Francis has several times spoken out against domestic violence, which has increased in many countries since lockdowns left many women trapped with their abusers.
Public participation at the Mass was lower than in some past years because of Covid restrictions. Italy, which surrounds Vatican City, reported a record 144,243 coronavirus related cases on Friday and has recently imposed new measures such as an obligation to wear masks outdoors.
In the text of his Message for the World Day of Peace, issued last month, Francis said nations should divert money spent on armaments to invest in education and decried growing military costs at the expense of social services.
The annual peace message is sent to heads of state and international organisations, and the pope gives a signed copy to leaders who make official visits to him at the Vatican during the upcoming year.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1667033/viole ... rs-message
Reuters Published January 1, 2022 -
Pope Francis celebrates Mass to mark the World Day of Peace in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, January 1. Reuters
Pope Francis used his New Year's message on Saturday to issue a clarion call for an end to violence against women, saying it was insulting to God.
Francis, 85, celebrated a Mass in St Peter's Basilica on the day the Roman Catholic Church marks both the solemnity of Holy Mary Mother of God as well as its annual World Day of Peace.
Francis appeared to be in good form on Saturday following an unexplained incident on New Year's Eve where he attended a service but at the last minute did not preside over it as he had been expected to.
At the start of the Mass on Saturday, he walked the entire length of the central aisle of basilica, as opposed to Friday night, when he emerged from a side entrance close to the altar and watched from the sidelines.
Francis suffers from a sciatica condition that causes pain in the legs, and sometimes a flare-up prevents him from standing for long periods.
Francis wove his New Year's homily around the themes of motherhood and women — saying it was they who kept the threads of life together — and used it to make one of his strongest calls yet for an end to violence against them.
"And since mothers bestow life, and women keep the world [together], let us all make greater efforts to promote mothers and to protect women," Francis said.
"How much violence is directed against women! Enough! To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity — not through an angel, not directly, but through a woman," he said, in a reference to Jesus's mother Mary.
During an Italian television programme last month, Francis told a woman who had been beaten by her ex-husband that men who commit violence against women engage in something that is "almost satanic".
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began nearly two years ago, Francis has several times spoken out against domestic violence, which has increased in many countries since lockdowns left many women trapped with their abusers.
Public participation at the Mass was lower than in some past years because of Covid restrictions. Italy, which surrounds Vatican City, reported a record 144,243 coronavirus related cases on Friday and has recently imposed new measures such as an obligation to wear masks outdoors.
In the text of his Message for the World Day of Peace, issued last month, Francis said nations should divert money spent on armaments to invest in education and decried growing military costs at the expense of social services.
The annual peace message is sent to heads of state and international organisations, and the pope gives a signed copy to leaders who make official visits to him at the Vatican during the upcoming year.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1667033/viole ... rs-message
The Taliban ordered shop mannequin beheadings, saying the dummies are 'idols' and are forbidden by Islam, reports say
The Taliban ordered shop mannequin beheadings, saying the dummies are 'idols' and are forbidden by Islam, reports say
Joshua Zitser
Sun, January 2, 2022, 5:40 AM
Female mannequins in a shop window in Kabul, Afghanistan
Female mannequins are seen in a shop window in Kabul, Afghanistan. One is headless, while the other two have their faces covered.Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
Mannequins in Herat, Afghanistan, must have their heads removed, the Taliban has ruled.
The mannequins were being worshipped as idols, claimed the Taliban.
Those who ignore the beheading order face severe punishments, according to The Times.
The Taliban ordered a series of mannequin beheadings, describing the heads of dummies as "idols" that are forbidden by Islam, according to reports.
Shopkeepers in the western Afghan province of Herat were told to remove the heads of female mannequins by The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice this week, The Times reported.
Those who ignore the order face severe punishments, warned the local department of the ministry, per the media outlet.
Ministers believed that people were worshipping the mannequins as idols, according to MailOnline, and the Quran considers idolatry to be an unforgivable sin.
According to the Aghan media outlet Raha Press, the director of the local ministry said that even looking at the face of a female mannequin is against Sharia law.
An initial order called for the removal of mannequins completely, but a compromise on just removing the heads was agreed, MailOnline said.
Raha Press reported that shopkeepers in Herat are dismayed by the beheading order, citing how expensive the mannequins are. One shopkeeper said mannequins cost up to $200 each, per the news outlet, and added that cutting their heads off is a "great loss" for him.
The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan was reinstated in September, after the fall of Kabul. The all-male ministry replaced the former Ministry of Women Affairs, stoking fears that the Taliban's moral police would decimate women's rights in the country.
This week, Sky News reported that the ministry told taxi drivers they should not take women on long journeys if they do not have a male chaperone.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ta ... 41443.html
The Taliban ordered shop mannequin beheadings, saying the dummies are 'idols' and are forbidden by Islam, reports say
Joshua Zitser
Sun, January 2, 2022, 5:40 AM
Female mannequins in a shop window in Kabul, Afghanistan
Female mannequins are seen in a shop window in Kabul, Afghanistan. One is headless, while the other two have their faces covered.Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
Mannequins in Herat, Afghanistan, must have their heads removed, the Taliban has ruled.
The mannequins were being worshipped as idols, claimed the Taliban.
Those who ignore the beheading order face severe punishments, according to The Times.
The Taliban ordered a series of mannequin beheadings, describing the heads of dummies as "idols" that are forbidden by Islam, according to reports.
Shopkeepers in the western Afghan province of Herat were told to remove the heads of female mannequins by The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice this week, The Times reported.
Those who ignore the order face severe punishments, warned the local department of the ministry, per the media outlet.
Ministers believed that people were worshipping the mannequins as idols, according to MailOnline, and the Quran considers idolatry to be an unforgivable sin.
According to the Aghan media outlet Raha Press, the director of the local ministry said that even looking at the face of a female mannequin is against Sharia law.
An initial order called for the removal of mannequins completely, but a compromise on just removing the heads was agreed, MailOnline said.
Raha Press reported that shopkeepers in Herat are dismayed by the beheading order, citing how expensive the mannequins are. One shopkeeper said mannequins cost up to $200 each, per the news outlet, and added that cutting their heads off is a "great loss" for him.
The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan was reinstated in September, after the fall of Kabul. The all-male ministry replaced the former Ministry of Women Affairs, stoking fears that the Taliban's moral police would decimate women's rights in the country.
This week, Sky News reported that the ministry told taxi drivers they should not take women on long journeys if they do not have a male chaperone.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ta ... 41443.html
What Does Marriage Ask Us to Give Up?
I spent most of my 20s and 30s single, only to marry and then come to the conclusion that my marriage should end. Now I am single again. But I am not alone. My marriage ended during the pandemic, while I was at home with family. Since the pandemic began, my daughter and I have been living in what my family jokingly calls “the compound” — a house my mother and I bought together before I was married. She and my siblings and their families live there, in an attempt to withstand the waves of gentrification that have displaced everyone in my family every four to five years, as the sketchy neighborhoods we can afford get “discovered” by rich young people.
The compound is a noisy place. Sometimes, when everyone is talking and laughing and joking at once, my daughter, who is young enough that language is still new to her, will raise her voice in a keening screech to try to join in the cacophony. Living with all this noise has stirred up many emotions: gratitude to my family for their support, the irritation of adolescence as we sometimes catch ourselves in the dances of our older selves; a longing for sleep that can only be felt in a household full of children who are all awake and ready to play by 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday.
What has not materialized is the intense loneliness that people warned me would come with divorce. It was always interesting, telling people about the divorce. Some friends with small children almost panicked about what would come, about how the separation was too rash. But I am lucky in that most of my friends have lived lives falling in and out of partnerships. “You can go it alone, you know” was the much more common response.
We are living through a time when all the stories the larger culture tells us about ourselves are being rewritten: the story of what the United States is; what it means to be a man or a woman; what it means to be a child; what it means to love oneself or other people. We are imagining all of this again so that these stories can guide and comfort us rather than control us.
It’s a different world from the one my parents inhabited when they divorced, one in which many people treated their separation as if it were an infectious disease and shunned us for a number of years. There was the way people spoke to me when they thought my parents were married and the way the tone shifted when they figured out my mother was now alone. A distinct refrain, when growing up: “It’s really just your mother and you all?”
Even as a child, I bristled at the assumptions behind that question. It seemed obvious to me then, having lived in a two-parent home that was deeply unhappy and dysfunctional, that the number of parents around to make a working family was arbitrary, that people beholden to the rigid mathematics of mother and father and children equals stability were shortsighted, ignoring all we know of human interactions and ways we make family throughout human history. To believe that one equation would work for us all seemed so simplistic and childish that for much of my young adulthood, I simply disregarded it.
But the cultural myths around coupledom are hard to resist. It was easy, in childhood, to simply decide there must be another way. It was harder, in adulthood, after years spent marinating in so many cultural stories about what marriage could promise — legitimacy, maturity, stability, strength — to resist that programming. Marriage, of course, can be all those things to many people, but my own brought something different, which has led to this desire to be alone again.
There is a lot of hand wringing currently about the decline of marriage in America. No matter that divorce rates have also gone down, and that when people are marrying, it is at later ages. Our culture may have changed to allow other ways for people to chart their lives, but whole industries and institutions — banking, real estate, health care, insurance, advertising and most important, taxation — revolve around assumptions of marriage as the norm. Without that base assumption, the logic of many of those transactions is thrown out.
It can feel daunting to come up with new narratives about what it means to mature — to be worthy of housing and financial stability and health care, to find companionship or emotional support — when these industries have so much invested, both financially and ideologically, in a particular way of measuring life and community.
In search of new narratives, I have found myself drawn to Diane di Prima’s 2001 memoir, “Recollections of My Life as a Woman.” It focuses on her childhood and life in New York — a portrait of the artist as a young woman, in all her romantic and intuitive glory. Ms. di Prima is remarkable because as a poet in her early 20s in 1950s New York, she decided she wanted to be a mother, and a single mother at that.
“I was a poet,” she wrote, continuing, “There was nothing that I could possibly experience, as a human in a female body, that I would not experience …. There should, it seemed to me, be no quarrel between these two aims: to have a baby and to be a poet.” Nevertheless, she continued, “A conflict held me fast.”
Her memoir revolves around this conflict between motherhood and the demands of an artist. At a certain point, overwhelmed by the demands of parenting children alone while running a press, founding an avant-garde theater, protecting her left-wing friends from raids by the F.B.I. and the grinding poverty of an artist’s life in New York City, Ms. di Prima entered into a marriage of convenience with a man she distrusted. He was the ex-boyfriend of her male best friend. Besides its messy origins, this relationship resembles the dream I’ve heard so many straight women describe, in a joking, not joking way — wishing to start a family with a friend, to avoid the complications of romantic love.
But Ms. di Prima is honest about the limitations of the arrangement. She wrote that she avoided the pains of romance, but the man she married is still a domineering, abusive mess, in her recounting. Furthermore, in marriage, she has lost something integral to herself. “One of my most precious and valued possessions was my independence: my struggle for control over my own life,” she wrote, continuing, “I didn’t see that it had no intrinsic value for anyone but myself, that it was a coin that was precious only within the realm, a currency that could not cross borders.”
These words, when I read them, sounded in me like the chime of a tuning fork. I had never before read such a precise description of what marriage asks some people to give up. Those who panic over the rise in the number of single Americans do not see that this statistic includes lives of hard-won independence — lives that still intersect with a community, with a home, with a belief in something wider than oneself. The people clinging to old narratives around singledom and marriage can’t yet see these lives for what they are because, as Ms. di Prima puts it, they are not “an objectively valuable commodity.” Their meaning is “a currency that cannot cross borders.”
These lives threaten the communal narratives currently in place. But what is a threat to some can be to others a glimmer of a new world coming.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/opin ... 778d3e6de3
I spent most of my 20s and 30s single, only to marry and then come to the conclusion that my marriage should end. Now I am single again. But I am not alone. My marriage ended during the pandemic, while I was at home with family. Since the pandemic began, my daughter and I have been living in what my family jokingly calls “the compound” — a house my mother and I bought together before I was married. She and my siblings and their families live there, in an attempt to withstand the waves of gentrification that have displaced everyone in my family every four to five years, as the sketchy neighborhoods we can afford get “discovered” by rich young people.
The compound is a noisy place. Sometimes, when everyone is talking and laughing and joking at once, my daughter, who is young enough that language is still new to her, will raise her voice in a keening screech to try to join in the cacophony. Living with all this noise has stirred up many emotions: gratitude to my family for their support, the irritation of adolescence as we sometimes catch ourselves in the dances of our older selves; a longing for sleep that can only be felt in a household full of children who are all awake and ready to play by 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday.
What has not materialized is the intense loneliness that people warned me would come with divorce. It was always interesting, telling people about the divorce. Some friends with small children almost panicked about what would come, about how the separation was too rash. But I am lucky in that most of my friends have lived lives falling in and out of partnerships. “You can go it alone, you know” was the much more common response.
We are living through a time when all the stories the larger culture tells us about ourselves are being rewritten: the story of what the United States is; what it means to be a man or a woman; what it means to be a child; what it means to love oneself or other people. We are imagining all of this again so that these stories can guide and comfort us rather than control us.
It’s a different world from the one my parents inhabited when they divorced, one in which many people treated their separation as if it were an infectious disease and shunned us for a number of years. There was the way people spoke to me when they thought my parents were married and the way the tone shifted when they figured out my mother was now alone. A distinct refrain, when growing up: “It’s really just your mother and you all?”
Even as a child, I bristled at the assumptions behind that question. It seemed obvious to me then, having lived in a two-parent home that was deeply unhappy and dysfunctional, that the number of parents around to make a working family was arbitrary, that people beholden to the rigid mathematics of mother and father and children equals stability were shortsighted, ignoring all we know of human interactions and ways we make family throughout human history. To believe that one equation would work for us all seemed so simplistic and childish that for much of my young adulthood, I simply disregarded it.
But the cultural myths around coupledom are hard to resist. It was easy, in childhood, to simply decide there must be another way. It was harder, in adulthood, after years spent marinating in so many cultural stories about what marriage could promise — legitimacy, maturity, stability, strength — to resist that programming. Marriage, of course, can be all those things to many people, but my own brought something different, which has led to this desire to be alone again.
There is a lot of hand wringing currently about the decline of marriage in America. No matter that divorce rates have also gone down, and that when people are marrying, it is at later ages. Our culture may have changed to allow other ways for people to chart their lives, but whole industries and institutions — banking, real estate, health care, insurance, advertising and most important, taxation — revolve around assumptions of marriage as the norm. Without that base assumption, the logic of many of those transactions is thrown out.
It can feel daunting to come up with new narratives about what it means to mature — to be worthy of housing and financial stability and health care, to find companionship or emotional support — when these industries have so much invested, both financially and ideologically, in a particular way of measuring life and community.
In search of new narratives, I have found myself drawn to Diane di Prima’s 2001 memoir, “Recollections of My Life as a Woman.” It focuses on her childhood and life in New York — a portrait of the artist as a young woman, in all her romantic and intuitive glory. Ms. di Prima is remarkable because as a poet in her early 20s in 1950s New York, she decided she wanted to be a mother, and a single mother at that.
“I was a poet,” she wrote, continuing, “There was nothing that I could possibly experience, as a human in a female body, that I would not experience …. There should, it seemed to me, be no quarrel between these two aims: to have a baby and to be a poet.” Nevertheless, she continued, “A conflict held me fast.”
Her memoir revolves around this conflict between motherhood and the demands of an artist. At a certain point, overwhelmed by the demands of parenting children alone while running a press, founding an avant-garde theater, protecting her left-wing friends from raids by the F.B.I. and the grinding poverty of an artist’s life in New York City, Ms. di Prima entered into a marriage of convenience with a man she distrusted. He was the ex-boyfriend of her male best friend. Besides its messy origins, this relationship resembles the dream I’ve heard so many straight women describe, in a joking, not joking way — wishing to start a family with a friend, to avoid the complications of romantic love.
But Ms. di Prima is honest about the limitations of the arrangement. She wrote that she avoided the pains of romance, but the man she married is still a domineering, abusive mess, in her recounting. Furthermore, in marriage, she has lost something integral to herself. “One of my most precious and valued possessions was my independence: my struggle for control over my own life,” she wrote, continuing, “I didn’t see that it had no intrinsic value for anyone but myself, that it was a coin that was precious only within the realm, a currency that could not cross borders.”
These words, when I read them, sounded in me like the chime of a tuning fork. I had never before read such a precise description of what marriage asks some people to give up. Those who panic over the rise in the number of single Americans do not see that this statistic includes lives of hard-won independence — lives that still intersect with a community, with a home, with a belief in something wider than oneself. The people clinging to old narratives around singledom and marriage can’t yet see these lives for what they are because, as Ms. di Prima puts it, they are not “an objectively valuable commodity.” Their meaning is “a currency that cannot cross borders.”
These lives threaten the communal narratives currently in place. But what is a threat to some can be to others a glimmer of a new world coming.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/opin ... 778d3e6de3
China’s Looming Crisis:
A Shrinking Population
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, JIN WU and CLAIRE FU UPDATED January 17, 2020
Chinese academics recently delivered a stark warning to the country’s leaders: China is facing its most precipitous decline in population in decades, setting the stage for potential demographic, economic and even political crises in the near future.
For years China’s ruling Communist Party implemented a series of policies intended to slow the growth of the world’s most populous nation, including limiting the number of children couples could have to one. The long term effects of those policies mean the country will soon enter an era of “negative growth,” or a contraction in the size of the total population.
A report, issued this month by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is the latest recognition that while China’s notorious “one child” policy may have achieved its original aim of slowing population growth, it has also created new challenges for the government.
A decline in the birth rate and an increase in life expectancy means there will soon be too few workers able to support an enormous and aging population, the academy warned. The academy estimated the contraction would begin in 2027, though others believe it would come sooner or has already begun.
The government has recognized the worrisome demographic trend and in 2013 began easing enforcement of the “one child” policy in certain circumstances. It then raised the limit to two children for all families in 2016, in hopes of encouraging a baby boom. It did not work.
After a brief uptick that year, the birth rate fell again in 2017, with 17.2 million babies born compared to 17.9 in 2016. Although the number of families having a second child rose, the overall number of births continued to drop.
In 2018, the total number of births fell to 15.2 million, a drop of nearly 12 percent nationally from 2017. Some cities and provinces have reported declines in local birth rates of as much as 35 percent.
On Friday, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that in 2019, the total number of births fell for the third year, to 14.6 million.
The fertility rate required to maintain population levels is 2.1 children per woman, a figure known as “replacement level fertility.”
The fertility rates in many advanced economies have fallen as their societies have become wealthier and older.
China’s fertility rate has officially fallen to 1.6 children per woman, but even that number is disputed.
Yi Fuxian, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has written that China’s government has obscured the actual fertility rate to disguise the disastrous ramifications of the “one child” policy. According to his calculations, the fertility rate averaged 1.18 between 2010 and 2018.
As in other countries, there are myriad reasons for the declining birth rate, including rising prosperity and new opportunities for women. China’s economic expansion has created a society where many young couples now struggle with economic pressures -- including rising education and housing costs -- making it difficult to have even one child, let alone two.
But the most profound cause of the drop, Professor Yi and others said, was the “one child” policy. Fewer children were born, and because of cultural preferences for male offspring, fewer of them were girls.
Chinese women born during the years following the “one child” policy are now reaching or have already passed their peak fertility age. There are simply not enough of them to sustain the country’s population level, despite new efforts by the government to encourage families to have two children.
The looming demographic crisis could be the Achilles heel of China’s stunning economic transformation over the last 40 years.
The declining population could create an even greater burden on China’s economy and its labor force. With fewer workers in the future, the government could struggle to pay for a population that is growing older and living longer.
A decline in the working-age population could also slow consumer spending and thus have an impact on the economy in China and beyond.
Many compare China’s demographic crisis to the one that stalled Japan’s economic boom in the 1990s.
Some experts believe the population has already started shrinking. In a recent paper, Dr. Yi and Su Jian, an economist at Peking University, argued that the population contracted in 2018, the first year it has done so since the famines of 1961 and 1962 induced by the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s industrialization campaign. The researchers said inaccurate census estimates had obscured the actual population and fertility rates.
“It can be seen that 2018 is a historic turning point in China’s population,” Dr. Yi wrote in an email. “China’s population has begun to decline and is rapidly aging. Its economic vitality will keep waning.”
Graphical illustrations at:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... risis.html
A Shrinking Population
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, JIN WU and CLAIRE FU UPDATED January 17, 2020
Chinese academics recently delivered a stark warning to the country’s leaders: China is facing its most precipitous decline in population in decades, setting the stage for potential demographic, economic and even political crises in the near future.
For years China’s ruling Communist Party implemented a series of policies intended to slow the growth of the world’s most populous nation, including limiting the number of children couples could have to one. The long term effects of those policies mean the country will soon enter an era of “negative growth,” or a contraction in the size of the total population.
A report, issued this month by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is the latest recognition that while China’s notorious “one child” policy may have achieved its original aim of slowing population growth, it has also created new challenges for the government.
A decline in the birth rate and an increase in life expectancy means there will soon be too few workers able to support an enormous and aging population, the academy warned. The academy estimated the contraction would begin in 2027, though others believe it would come sooner or has already begun.
The government has recognized the worrisome demographic trend and in 2013 began easing enforcement of the “one child” policy in certain circumstances. It then raised the limit to two children for all families in 2016, in hopes of encouraging a baby boom. It did not work.
After a brief uptick that year, the birth rate fell again in 2017, with 17.2 million babies born compared to 17.9 in 2016. Although the number of families having a second child rose, the overall number of births continued to drop.
In 2018, the total number of births fell to 15.2 million, a drop of nearly 12 percent nationally from 2017. Some cities and provinces have reported declines in local birth rates of as much as 35 percent.
On Friday, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that in 2019, the total number of births fell for the third year, to 14.6 million.
The fertility rate required to maintain population levels is 2.1 children per woman, a figure known as “replacement level fertility.”
The fertility rates in many advanced economies have fallen as their societies have become wealthier and older.
China’s fertility rate has officially fallen to 1.6 children per woman, but even that number is disputed.
Yi Fuxian, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has written that China’s government has obscured the actual fertility rate to disguise the disastrous ramifications of the “one child” policy. According to his calculations, the fertility rate averaged 1.18 between 2010 and 2018.
As in other countries, there are myriad reasons for the declining birth rate, including rising prosperity and new opportunities for women. China’s economic expansion has created a society where many young couples now struggle with economic pressures -- including rising education and housing costs -- making it difficult to have even one child, let alone two.
But the most profound cause of the drop, Professor Yi and others said, was the “one child” policy. Fewer children were born, and because of cultural preferences for male offspring, fewer of them were girls.
Chinese women born during the years following the “one child” policy are now reaching or have already passed their peak fertility age. There are simply not enough of them to sustain the country’s population level, despite new efforts by the government to encourage families to have two children.
The looming demographic crisis could be the Achilles heel of China’s stunning economic transformation over the last 40 years.
The declining population could create an even greater burden on China’s economy and its labor force. With fewer workers in the future, the government could struggle to pay for a population that is growing older and living longer.
A decline in the working-age population could also slow consumer spending and thus have an impact on the economy in China and beyond.
Many compare China’s demographic crisis to the one that stalled Japan’s economic boom in the 1990s.
Some experts believe the population has already started shrinking. In a recent paper, Dr. Yi and Su Jian, an economist at Peking University, argued that the population contracted in 2018, the first year it has done so since the famines of 1961 and 1962 induced by the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s industrialization campaign. The researchers said inaccurate census estimates had obscured the actual population and fertility rates.
“It can be seen that 2018 is a historic turning point in China’s population,” Dr. Yi wrote in an email. “China’s population has begun to decline and is rapidly aging. Its economic vitality will keep waning.”
Graphical illustrations at:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... risis.html
Re: SOCIAL TRENDS
Divorce Is Down in China, but So Are Marriages
While officials say a new law has helped save marriages, the bigger challenge in the country’s demographic crisis is that fewer people are getting married in the first place.
HONG KONG — Faced with a soaring divorce rate, the ruling Communist Party in China introduced a rule last year to keep unhappy marriages together by forcing couples to undergo a 30-day “cooling off” period before finalizing a divorce.
The rule appears to have worked, according to government statistics released this week, which show a steep drop in divorce filings in 2021.
Local officials have hailed the new rule as a success in the country’s effort to grow families and curb a demographic crisis threatening China’s economy. But the party has a much bigger challenge to reckon with: Fewer and fewer Chinese citizens are getting married in the first place.
Along with the decline in the divorce rate, the number of marriage registrations plunged to a 36-year low in 2021. The fall in marriages has contributed to a plummet in birthrates, a worrying sign in China’s rapidly graying society and a phenomenon more familiar in countries like Japan and South Korea.
Many young Chinese people say they would prefer not to get married, as a job becomes harder to find, competition more fierce and the cost of living less manageable.
“I do not want to get married at all,” said Yao Xing, a 32-year-old bachelor who lives in the city of Dandong, near China’s border with North Korea. His parents are pressuring him to get married and have children, but Mr. Yao said his job buying and selling kitchenware had made it hard to keep a steady income, which he sees as a prerequisite to marriage. Besides, he added, many women don’t want to get married anyway.
“I think more and more people around me don’t want to get married, and the divorce rate and marriage rate in China have dropped significantly, which I think is an irreversible trend,” Mr. Yao said.
Rising gender inequality at work and at home has caused many women to think twice about marriage as well. Better educated and more financially independent than their mothers, younger women have watched as their economic position has changed while society’s view of them has not.
“We call this a package deal, where a woman is not just marrying a man but the whole family,” said Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, a provost chair professor and founding director of the Center for Family and Population Research at the National University of Singapore. “This package does not seem to be a good deal anymore.”
The couples who do get married in China often prefer not to have children, citing worries about the rising cost of education and the burden of taking care of aging parents while also having young children. Some are delaying getting married, choosing instead to live together without the ceremony and, often, without the children.
“The relatively lower marriage rates coupled with rising divorce rates might signal the deinstitutionalization of marriage, which means more people might choose cohabitation over marriage,” said Ye Liu, a senior lecturer in the department of international development at King’s College London.
Fearful of the day when the population might begin to shrink, the Chinese government has spent years introducing policies to encourage marriage and having children. It has revised strict family planning rules twice in the last decade, first by ending a decades-old “one child” policy in 2015, and later by allowing married couples to have three children.
Officials have promised better maternity leave and protections for working mothers, though many pregnant women still report discrimination in the work force. Some cities have tried incentives like marriage leave, which gives newlyweds extra vacation days, to encourage couples to get married and start a family.
Despite these efforts, marriage rates have fallen every year since 2014. Around 7.6 million people got married in 2021, the lowest figure since officials started recording marriages in 1986, according to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Worried that married couples were moving too quickly to end their relationships, officials put in place a divorce “cooling off” period in January last year. The rule required couples to wait 30 days after filing for a divorce to continue with divorce proceedings.
“Some of the past divorce cases are impulsive divorces,” Dong Yuzheng, a population expert and president of Guangdong Academy of Population Development, told Chinese state media this week.
“Some people often quarrel when they encounter a trivial matter, and the so-called lack of common language is actually the result of the incorrect attitude of both parties, who do not put themselves in the right position and want to divorce impulsively when their emotions come up,” Mr. Dong said.
Chinese officials and academics like Mr. Dong have credited the cooling-off period for helping to slow the divorce rate. Officials said 2.1 million couples successfully completed divorce registrations in 2021, a 43 percent decline from 3.7 million in 2020.
Other experts say additional factors may have been at play. Ethan Michelson, an expert on Chinese marriage law and gender inequality at Indiana University, said the drop in the divorce rate might have to do with the difficulty of scheduling divorce appointments in the pandemic.
The data reported by the government is limited to what is known as “divorces by agreement,” which are processed by civil affairs bureaus and not by courts, where lengthy legal battles can occur. In the types of cases reported, spouses are required to apply jointly in person for divorce. After the 30-day cooling off, the couple must return or the divorce application is withdrawn.
Lockdowns and social distancing rules made the logistics of that process more difficult. There were also indications that the demand for divorce remained strong. In the three months before Chinese officials introduced the cooling-down period, people rushed to get divorced. More than a million filings were made, a 13 percent increase from a year earlier. And as state media trumpeted the slowing divorce rate this week, many Chinese people took to the internet to cast doubt on the news.
On Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter, a discussion around the new data was read by more than 310 million people. Many of the comments were disparaging. One commentator asked: “How many people don’t get divorced because they can’t? And the number of marriages is the lowest in 36 years.” Another person asked, “Why should we get married?”
Others were concerned about the consequences for victims of domestic violence. Rights activists have warned that the cooling-off rule is detrimental to people living in abusive marriages. Officials have countered that argument by claiming victims of domestic violence can ask the court to dissolve their marriages. But many victims, as well as stay-at-home mothers, do not have an income to pay for their own legal fees.
The overall message to women in China has been overwhelmingly negative, said Mr. Michelson, the professor at Indiana University and the author of an upcoming book on divorce in China. “Women are learning that if they get married they are risking losing everything,” he said. “They are risking their freedom to get out of a marriage.”
Liu Yi contributed research.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/busi ... 778d3e6de3
While officials say a new law has helped save marriages, the bigger challenge in the country’s demographic crisis is that fewer people are getting married in the first place.
HONG KONG — Faced with a soaring divorce rate, the ruling Communist Party in China introduced a rule last year to keep unhappy marriages together by forcing couples to undergo a 30-day “cooling off” period before finalizing a divorce.
The rule appears to have worked, according to government statistics released this week, which show a steep drop in divorce filings in 2021.
Local officials have hailed the new rule as a success in the country’s effort to grow families and curb a demographic crisis threatening China’s economy. But the party has a much bigger challenge to reckon with: Fewer and fewer Chinese citizens are getting married in the first place.
Along with the decline in the divorce rate, the number of marriage registrations plunged to a 36-year low in 2021. The fall in marriages has contributed to a plummet in birthrates, a worrying sign in China’s rapidly graying society and a phenomenon more familiar in countries like Japan and South Korea.
Many young Chinese people say they would prefer not to get married, as a job becomes harder to find, competition more fierce and the cost of living less manageable.
“I do not want to get married at all,” said Yao Xing, a 32-year-old bachelor who lives in the city of Dandong, near China’s border with North Korea. His parents are pressuring him to get married and have children, but Mr. Yao said his job buying and selling kitchenware had made it hard to keep a steady income, which he sees as a prerequisite to marriage. Besides, he added, many women don’t want to get married anyway.
“I think more and more people around me don’t want to get married, and the divorce rate and marriage rate in China have dropped significantly, which I think is an irreversible trend,” Mr. Yao said.
Rising gender inequality at work and at home has caused many women to think twice about marriage as well. Better educated and more financially independent than their mothers, younger women have watched as their economic position has changed while society’s view of them has not.
“We call this a package deal, where a woman is not just marrying a man but the whole family,” said Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, a provost chair professor and founding director of the Center for Family and Population Research at the National University of Singapore. “This package does not seem to be a good deal anymore.”
The couples who do get married in China often prefer not to have children, citing worries about the rising cost of education and the burden of taking care of aging parents while also having young children. Some are delaying getting married, choosing instead to live together without the ceremony and, often, without the children.
“The relatively lower marriage rates coupled with rising divorce rates might signal the deinstitutionalization of marriage, which means more people might choose cohabitation over marriage,” said Ye Liu, a senior lecturer in the department of international development at King’s College London.
Fearful of the day when the population might begin to shrink, the Chinese government has spent years introducing policies to encourage marriage and having children. It has revised strict family planning rules twice in the last decade, first by ending a decades-old “one child” policy in 2015, and later by allowing married couples to have three children.
Officials have promised better maternity leave and protections for working mothers, though many pregnant women still report discrimination in the work force. Some cities have tried incentives like marriage leave, which gives newlyweds extra vacation days, to encourage couples to get married and start a family.
Despite these efforts, marriage rates have fallen every year since 2014. Around 7.6 million people got married in 2021, the lowest figure since officials started recording marriages in 1986, according to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Worried that married couples were moving too quickly to end their relationships, officials put in place a divorce “cooling off” period in January last year. The rule required couples to wait 30 days after filing for a divorce to continue with divorce proceedings.
“Some of the past divorce cases are impulsive divorces,” Dong Yuzheng, a population expert and president of Guangdong Academy of Population Development, told Chinese state media this week.
“Some people often quarrel when they encounter a trivial matter, and the so-called lack of common language is actually the result of the incorrect attitude of both parties, who do not put themselves in the right position and want to divorce impulsively when their emotions come up,” Mr. Dong said.
Chinese officials and academics like Mr. Dong have credited the cooling-off period for helping to slow the divorce rate. Officials said 2.1 million couples successfully completed divorce registrations in 2021, a 43 percent decline from 3.7 million in 2020.
Other experts say additional factors may have been at play. Ethan Michelson, an expert on Chinese marriage law and gender inequality at Indiana University, said the drop in the divorce rate might have to do with the difficulty of scheduling divorce appointments in the pandemic.
The data reported by the government is limited to what is known as “divorces by agreement,” which are processed by civil affairs bureaus and not by courts, where lengthy legal battles can occur. In the types of cases reported, spouses are required to apply jointly in person for divorce. After the 30-day cooling off, the couple must return or the divorce application is withdrawn.
Lockdowns and social distancing rules made the logistics of that process more difficult. There were also indications that the demand for divorce remained strong. In the three months before Chinese officials introduced the cooling-down period, people rushed to get divorced. More than a million filings were made, a 13 percent increase from a year earlier. And as state media trumpeted the slowing divorce rate this week, many Chinese people took to the internet to cast doubt on the news.
On Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter, a discussion around the new data was read by more than 310 million people. Many of the comments were disparaging. One commentator asked: “How many people don’t get divorced because they can’t? And the number of marriages is the lowest in 36 years.” Another person asked, “Why should we get married?”
Others were concerned about the consequences for victims of domestic violence. Rights activists have warned that the cooling-off rule is detrimental to people living in abusive marriages. Officials have countered that argument by claiming victims of domestic violence can ask the court to dissolve their marriages. But many victims, as well as stay-at-home mothers, do not have an income to pay for their own legal fees.
The overall message to women in China has been overwhelmingly negative, said Mr. Michelson, the professor at Indiana University and the author of an upcoming book on divorce in China. “Women are learning that if they get married they are risking losing everything,” he said. “They are risking their freedom to get out of a marriage.”
Liu Yi contributed research.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/busi ... 778d3e6de3
Re: SOCIAL TRENDS
The Nuclear Family Is No Longer the Norm. Good.
Over 20 years ago, the sociologist Vern Bengtson gave a lecture in which he predicted that multigenerational bonds would be ascendant in the 21st century. Bengtson, who spent decades studying generations of 300 California families, pushed back against the idea that the decline of the nuclear family model was bad for society.
Even two decades ago, Americans were increasingly moving away from the “mom, dad and two kids” family structure that corresponded with the norms and pop culture of the 1950s. As years went on, more people got divorced, more people were having children outside marriage, and older generations were living longer. Some, like David Popenoe of Rutgers University, saw this as a crisis for children, writing in 1993, “I see the family as an institution in decline and believe that this should be a cause for alarm.” But Bengtson theorized that these changes could be positive and protective, economically and emotionally. He wrote, “For many Americans, multigenerational bonds are becoming more important than nuclear family ties for well-being and support over the course of their lives.”
This argument was “a little scoffed at at the time,” said Merril Silverstein, a professor of sociology at Syracuse University who researches aging and was a colleague of Bengtson’s at the University of Southern California. But Bengtson, who died in 2019, was prescient: A new report from Pew Research Center found that “multigenerational living has grown sharply in the U.S. over the past five decades and shows no sign of peaking.”
Analyzing census data, Pew found that the population living in multigenerational households in the United States has quadrupled since 1971. In March 2021, nearly 60 million people were living “with multiple generations under one roof.” According to Pew, while these living arrangements are more common in Asian, Black and Hispanic households, they are also rising among non-Hispanic white Americans. (Immigration accounts for part of the increase in the U.S., Pew said, with extended families still the norm in many regions and countries, save for parts of North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, according to the U.N.’s population division.)
As part of the same report, Pew examined data from its own nationally representative survey of 9,676 adults, including 1,548 living in multigenerational households, to see why they were choosing to live with extended family and how they felt about their living situations. The top two reasons for multigenerational living were financial issues and caregiving needs. And overall, Americans who live with relatives from other generations feel good about it: “More adults living in multigenerational households say the experience has been very positive (30 percent) or somewhat positive (27 percent) than say it has been somewhat negative (14 percent) or very negative (3 percent),” Pew noted.
As the historian Stephanie Coontz wrote, the idealized American nuclear family, with a father as breadwinner and mother as caregiver, living atomized from the rest of their community, was a “historical fluke,” and throughout history, parents have always relied on relatives and friends for help with the caregiving of children.
You don’t even have to share a residence to realize major benefits; they just need to live nearby. The Times’s Quoctrung Bui and Claire Cain Miller discovered in 2015 that American adults lived a median distance of just 18 miles from their mothers, and they cited a 2013 paper by the economists Janice Compton and Robert Pollak, who found that “labor force participation by married women with children increased by as much as 10 percentage points when they lived near their mothers or mothers-in-law and unanticipated child care needs seemed to play a big role.”
I’ve personally found this to be true. We live about 10 miles from my parents, and they’ve saved my bacon in the child care department more times than I can count. If we hadn’t lived with them during part of 2020 when child care was unavailable and we had two kids at home, my husband or I would have had to take a leave from work. Beyond the child care piece of it, my children see my parents once a week for dinner, which everyone enjoys. Sometimes for kids, grandparental relationships can be a little less fraught than those with parents: Grandma doesn’t have to be the one dropping the hammer, making you do homework and brush your teeth every night. She can be a source of support with less rancor.
Despite the upsides, living with your parents into adulthood is sometimes still portrayed as something embarrassing, a failure to launch, but it shouldn’t be. In fact, it’s now the norm.
“In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household,” Pew found, and that remained true in 2021 for men in that age group.
Steven Ruggles, a professor of history and population studies at the University of Minnesota, told me that this is happening, in part, because the relative incomes of young men have been steeply declining since the 1970s, and they are more likely than their female counterparts to be living at home. At the same time, housing prices are way up, availability is way down, and especially in big cities, buying a home is out of reach for most young people; this is an economic fact of life right now, and no one should be mocked for it.
That said, multigenerational living isn’t some kind of utopia. “Those with upper incomes were the most likely to say their experience had been positive,” Juliana Horowitz, an associate director of social trends research at Pew, told me, partly because “upper-income people are more likely to say there’s enough space for everyone to live comfortably.” It’s not surprising that it might be more relaxing to live with your mother when she has her own floor. And some of the growth in multigenerational households is due to more grandparents raising grandchildren, which has been fueled in part by the opioid crisis that is devastating the country. No one would say that’s a good thing.
Per Pew, “About a quarter of adults in multigenerational homes say it is stressful all or most of the time.” Bengtson predicted this years ago in his address. “There are potentially negative consequences of the longer years of shared lives across generations,” he said, one of which is “protracted conflict.” He quoted one mother who described “a lifelong lousy parent-child relationship” that just stretched out to infinity. No one said the new norm didn’t come with challenges — and no one, not me anyway, is against the nuclear family model. But we should acknowledge its fragility, which was made ever clearer by the Covid pandemic and the chaos it wrought in all of our infrastructures of care.
Which is why I think moving toward a more extended family model — what sociologists call a vertical rather than a horizontal family structure — is mostly to the good. During the pandemic, a Harvard study found that Americans ages 18 to 25 and mothers of young children were the demographic groups most likely to report “miserable degrees of loneliness,” and even before the pandemic, the Health Resources and Services Administration described a “loneliness epidemic,” which was particularly acute among seniors.
“I think it’s a net positive,” said Silverstein. “In gerontology, we like to say dependence is a double-edged sword. We want to rely on people, but we also resent them, and that’s part of the human condition.” Do I still act like a sulky teenager sometimes when I’m around my parents for more than 48 hours? I do! Would I move away from them? Nope, not if I could help it.
Want More on Multigenerational Living?
One of my favorite essayists and thinkers, Kaitlyn Greenidge, wrote about living with her mother and sisters in what they jokingly call “the compound” and how it has offered her a new narrative about what it means to mature. “Living with all this noise has stirred up many emotions: gratitude to my family for their support, the irritation of adolescence as we sometimes catch ourselves in the dances of our older selves, a longing for sleep that can only be felt in a household full of children who are all awake and ready to play by 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday,” she wrote.
What happens when your family doesn’t want to or isn’t able to help you care for your children? It can feel very sour, Anne Helen Petersen explained, and force decisions about work and child care that can make you pretty unhappy.
In The Atlantic in 2020, my Times Opinion colleague David Brooks argued that “the nuclear family was a mistake.” He went deep into the history of the family in the United States and agreed with Coontz that “the period when the nuclear family flourished was not normal. It was a freakish historical moment when all of society conspired to obscure its essential fragility.”
“While new human mothers around the world are renowned for our pluck and adaptability, maternal grandmothers are the rare global constant in our lives,” Abigail Tucker pointed out in this Times piece from 2021. She also noted that women who feel supported by their kin may have lower rates of postpartum depression.
Tiny Victories
Parenting can be a grind. Let’s celebrate the tiny victories.
My grandson was really upset by his first Covid shot, so I offered to teach him my tried-and-true pain-coping technique: Lamaze childbirth method. Before the second shot, two weeks of five-minute FaceTime practice doing slow deep breathing, relaxing his body, staring at one spot and reciting a mantra culminated in a triumphant phone call: “Grandma, it worked!”
— Diana Zimmerman, Great Neck, N.Y.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Over 20 years ago, the sociologist Vern Bengtson gave a lecture in which he predicted that multigenerational bonds would be ascendant in the 21st century. Bengtson, who spent decades studying generations of 300 California families, pushed back against the idea that the decline of the nuclear family model was bad for society.
Even two decades ago, Americans were increasingly moving away from the “mom, dad and two kids” family structure that corresponded with the norms and pop culture of the 1950s. As years went on, more people got divorced, more people were having children outside marriage, and older generations were living longer. Some, like David Popenoe of Rutgers University, saw this as a crisis for children, writing in 1993, “I see the family as an institution in decline and believe that this should be a cause for alarm.” But Bengtson theorized that these changes could be positive and protective, economically and emotionally. He wrote, “For many Americans, multigenerational bonds are becoming more important than nuclear family ties for well-being and support over the course of their lives.”
This argument was “a little scoffed at at the time,” said Merril Silverstein, a professor of sociology at Syracuse University who researches aging and was a colleague of Bengtson’s at the University of Southern California. But Bengtson, who died in 2019, was prescient: A new report from Pew Research Center found that “multigenerational living has grown sharply in the U.S. over the past five decades and shows no sign of peaking.”
Analyzing census data, Pew found that the population living in multigenerational households in the United States has quadrupled since 1971. In March 2021, nearly 60 million people were living “with multiple generations under one roof.” According to Pew, while these living arrangements are more common in Asian, Black and Hispanic households, they are also rising among non-Hispanic white Americans. (Immigration accounts for part of the increase in the U.S., Pew said, with extended families still the norm in many regions and countries, save for parts of North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, according to the U.N.’s population division.)
As part of the same report, Pew examined data from its own nationally representative survey of 9,676 adults, including 1,548 living in multigenerational households, to see why they were choosing to live with extended family and how they felt about their living situations. The top two reasons for multigenerational living were financial issues and caregiving needs. And overall, Americans who live with relatives from other generations feel good about it: “More adults living in multigenerational households say the experience has been very positive (30 percent) or somewhat positive (27 percent) than say it has been somewhat negative (14 percent) or very negative (3 percent),” Pew noted.
As the historian Stephanie Coontz wrote, the idealized American nuclear family, with a father as breadwinner and mother as caregiver, living atomized from the rest of their community, was a “historical fluke,” and throughout history, parents have always relied on relatives and friends for help with the caregiving of children.
You don’t even have to share a residence to realize major benefits; they just need to live nearby. The Times’s Quoctrung Bui and Claire Cain Miller discovered in 2015 that American adults lived a median distance of just 18 miles from their mothers, and they cited a 2013 paper by the economists Janice Compton and Robert Pollak, who found that “labor force participation by married women with children increased by as much as 10 percentage points when they lived near their mothers or mothers-in-law and unanticipated child care needs seemed to play a big role.”
I’ve personally found this to be true. We live about 10 miles from my parents, and they’ve saved my bacon in the child care department more times than I can count. If we hadn’t lived with them during part of 2020 when child care was unavailable and we had two kids at home, my husband or I would have had to take a leave from work. Beyond the child care piece of it, my children see my parents once a week for dinner, which everyone enjoys. Sometimes for kids, grandparental relationships can be a little less fraught than those with parents: Grandma doesn’t have to be the one dropping the hammer, making you do homework and brush your teeth every night. She can be a source of support with less rancor.
Despite the upsides, living with your parents into adulthood is sometimes still portrayed as something embarrassing, a failure to launch, but it shouldn’t be. In fact, it’s now the norm.
“In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household,” Pew found, and that remained true in 2021 for men in that age group.
Steven Ruggles, a professor of history and population studies at the University of Minnesota, told me that this is happening, in part, because the relative incomes of young men have been steeply declining since the 1970s, and they are more likely than their female counterparts to be living at home. At the same time, housing prices are way up, availability is way down, and especially in big cities, buying a home is out of reach for most young people; this is an economic fact of life right now, and no one should be mocked for it.
That said, multigenerational living isn’t some kind of utopia. “Those with upper incomes were the most likely to say their experience had been positive,” Juliana Horowitz, an associate director of social trends research at Pew, told me, partly because “upper-income people are more likely to say there’s enough space for everyone to live comfortably.” It’s not surprising that it might be more relaxing to live with your mother when she has her own floor. And some of the growth in multigenerational households is due to more grandparents raising grandchildren, which has been fueled in part by the opioid crisis that is devastating the country. No one would say that’s a good thing.
Per Pew, “About a quarter of adults in multigenerational homes say it is stressful all or most of the time.” Bengtson predicted this years ago in his address. “There are potentially negative consequences of the longer years of shared lives across generations,” he said, one of which is “protracted conflict.” He quoted one mother who described “a lifelong lousy parent-child relationship” that just stretched out to infinity. No one said the new norm didn’t come with challenges — and no one, not me anyway, is against the nuclear family model. But we should acknowledge its fragility, which was made ever clearer by the Covid pandemic and the chaos it wrought in all of our infrastructures of care.
Which is why I think moving toward a more extended family model — what sociologists call a vertical rather than a horizontal family structure — is mostly to the good. During the pandemic, a Harvard study found that Americans ages 18 to 25 and mothers of young children were the demographic groups most likely to report “miserable degrees of loneliness,” and even before the pandemic, the Health Resources and Services Administration described a “loneliness epidemic,” which was particularly acute among seniors.
“I think it’s a net positive,” said Silverstein. “In gerontology, we like to say dependence is a double-edged sword. We want to rely on people, but we also resent them, and that’s part of the human condition.” Do I still act like a sulky teenager sometimes when I’m around my parents for more than 48 hours? I do! Would I move away from them? Nope, not if I could help it.
Want More on Multigenerational Living?
One of my favorite essayists and thinkers, Kaitlyn Greenidge, wrote about living with her mother and sisters in what they jokingly call “the compound” and how it has offered her a new narrative about what it means to mature. “Living with all this noise has stirred up many emotions: gratitude to my family for their support, the irritation of adolescence as we sometimes catch ourselves in the dances of our older selves, a longing for sleep that can only be felt in a household full of children who are all awake and ready to play by 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday,” she wrote.
What happens when your family doesn’t want to or isn’t able to help you care for your children? It can feel very sour, Anne Helen Petersen explained, and force decisions about work and child care that can make you pretty unhappy.
In The Atlantic in 2020, my Times Opinion colleague David Brooks argued that “the nuclear family was a mistake.” He went deep into the history of the family in the United States and agreed with Coontz that “the period when the nuclear family flourished was not normal. It was a freakish historical moment when all of society conspired to obscure its essential fragility.”
“While new human mothers around the world are renowned for our pluck and adaptability, maternal grandmothers are the rare global constant in our lives,” Abigail Tucker pointed out in this Times piece from 2021. She also noted that women who feel supported by their kin may have lower rates of postpartum depression.
Tiny Victories
Parenting can be a grind. Let’s celebrate the tiny victories.
My grandson was really upset by his first Covid shot, so I offered to teach him my tried-and-true pain-coping technique: Lamaze childbirth method. Before the second shot, two weeks of five-minute FaceTime practice doing slow deep breathing, relaxing his body, staring at one spot and reciting a mantra culminated in a triumphant phone call: “Grandma, it worked!”
— Diana Zimmerman, Great Neck, N.Y.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Your Kids Are Not Doomed
Over the past few years, I’ve been asked one question more than any other. It comes up at speeches, at dinners, in conversation. It’s the most popular query when I open my podcast to suggestions, time and again. It comes in two forms. The first: Should I have kids, given the climate crisis they will face? The second: Should I have kids, knowing they will contribute to the climate crisis the world faces?
And it’s not just me. A 2020 Morning Consult poll found that a quarter of adults without children say climate change is part of the reason they didn’t have children. A Morgan Stanley analysis found that the decision “to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline.”
But one thing I’ve noticed, after years of reporting on climate change: The people who have devoted their lives to combating climate change keep having children. I hear them playing in the background of our calls. I see them when we Zoom. And so I began asking them why.
“I unequivocally reject, scientifically and personally, the notion that children are somehow doomed to an unhappy life,” Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia, told me.
To bring a child into this world has always been an act of hope. The past was its own parade of horrors. The best estimates we have suggest that across most of human history, 27 percent of infants didn’t survive their first year and 47 percent of people died before puberty. And life was hard, even if you were lucky enough to live it.
As Dylan Matthews writes at Vox:
What today we’d characterize as extreme poverty was until a few centuries ago the condition of almost every human on earth. In 1820, some 94 percent of humans lived on less than $2 a day. Over the next two centuries, extreme poverty fell dramatically; in 2018, the World Bank estimated that 8.6 percent of people lived on less than $1.90 a day. And the gains were not solely economic. Before 1800, average life spans didn’t exceed 40 years anywhere in the world. Today, the average human life expectancy is more like 73.
No mainstream climate models suggest a return to a world as bad as the one we had in 1950, to say nothing of 1150. Was the world so bad, for virtually the entirety of human history, that our ancestors shouldn’t have made our lives possible? If not, then nothing in our near future looks so horrible that it turns reproduction into an immoral act.
I worry, writing this, that it will be taken as a dismissal of the suffering climate change will unleash. It’s not. An appreciation of how bad our past was should deepen our fury at how recklessly our future is being treated. We have done so much to build a sea wall between us and the pitiless world. We have done so much to make the future better than the past. To give back any portion of those gains or even to prevent the progress we could otherwise see is worse than a tragedy. It is a crime.
But that, and not apocalypse, is the most likely path we’re on. This, strange as it is to say, is progress. As Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist, notes, many credible estimates from a decade ago put us on track for the average global temperature to increase 4 or even 5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels by 2100. That would be cataclysmic. But the falling cost of clean energy and the rising ambition of climate policy have changed that. The Climate Action tracker puts our current policy path at about 2.7 degrees of warming by 2100. If the commitments world governments have made since the Paris climate accord hold, we’re on track for a rise of 2 degrees or even less.
And there is still more reason for optimism. One of the truly thrilling papers I’ve read in recent years carried the plodding title “Empirically Grounded Technology Forecasts and the Energy Transition.” The authors looked at more than 2,900 forecasts for how fast the cost of installing solar power would fall from 2010 to 2020. The average prediction was 2.6 percent annually. No prediction was above 6 percent. But solar power costs actually fell by 15 percent per year. Other technologies have seen similar drops in costs. If these curves hold in the future — and they could well steepen if backed by better policy — then we are, even now, underestimating the possible path of progress.
But hope is not a plan. And no one should mistake 2.5 degrees of warming — or even 2 degrees — for success. We will have caused incalculable damage to ecosystems. We will have worsened droughts, floods, famines, heat waves. We will have bleached coral reefs, acidified the ocean, driven countless animal species to extinction. Millions, maybe tens of millions, of people will die from increased heat, and more will be killed by the indirect consequences of climate change. Far more yet will be forced to flee their homes or live lives of deep poverty or suffering. We will have stolen the full possibility of their flourishing from them.
Credit...D3sign/Getty Images
All of that, though, also describes the world we inhabit, not just the world we’re creating. Climate models force us to confront vast expanses of future suffering that, if they were ongoing around us, we might fail to see. As my colleague David Wallace-Wells — a father of two and the author of “The Uninhabitable Earth,” as well as a must-read newsletter — wrote to me, “What looks like apocalypse in prospect often feels more like grim normality when it arrives in the present.” Oof.
This is no mere abstraction or prediction. The evidence that we ignore mass suffering is all around us. We are ignoring it right now, just as we did yesterday, and just as we will tomorrow. “An estimated 20 million people died of Covid, and now we’re over it. What do we make of that?” Wallace-Wells wrote to me. “Ten million people a year are dying of air pollution. What do we make of that? And what does it tell us about climate change, which is quite unlikely (as I wrote in my big piece on pollution) to ever kill as many as now die from particulates?”
.
This reflects a facet of our climate future that conversations about the life prospects of well-off children in the United States obscure. It is true that climate change will affect both the rich and the poor. It is not true that it will affect them equally. Wealthy Californians breathing in wildfire smoke are not facing the suffering of poor Bangladeshis whose homes lie in the path of cyclones.
Even a world with 2 degrees of warming is a world in which we will have looted the future of billions of people to power a present we preferred. And not “we” as in all human beings. “We” as in the rich countries that are responsible for the vast majority of the greenhouse gases trapped in our atmosphere. (It is true that China has recently become the largest emitter, but we dwarf the Chinese cumulatively and continue to emit far more per person.)
“The people who are least responsible for climate change are the most affected by it,” Marvel told me. “I’m struggling to find appropriate academic language to describe this, but I just keep ending up at ‘That’s wrong.’ It’s simply morally wrong.”
Climate change is and will be an engine of global inequality. Richer people and countries will buy their way out of the worst consequences, often using wealth accumulated by burning fossil fuels. The fear about the future our children will face, when voiced by well-off residents of wealthy countries, sometimes strikes me as a transference of guilt into terror. To face what we’ve done to others is unimaginable. It is easier, somehow, to imagine we have done it to ourselves.
That gets to the second version of this question: Is it immoral to have children, knowing how much carbon emissions residents of rich countries are responsible for? This argument recasts not having children as a form of climate reparations. People in rich countries use more resources than people in poor countries. Fewer people means less resource use.
Fredric Jameson, the Marxist literary critic, is often credited with the observation that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. A similar limit to our political imaginations lurks in this conversation: It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of carbon pollution. “Almost all pollution is fixed by the structure of society,” Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, told me. “The goal is to undo that structure so children can be born into a society that is not putting out carbon pollution. That’s the project.”
And it is a doable one. Per capita carbon emissions in the United States fell from more than 22.2 tons in 1973 to 14.2 tons in 2020. And it can fall much farther. Germans emitted 7.7 tons of carbon per person in 2020. Swedes emitted 3.8 tons. “In a net-zero world, nobody has a carbon footprint, and we could stop tabulating guilt by counting babies,” Wallace-Wells told me.
To decarbonize society is to embrace a better world, for reasons far beyond climate change. “The immediate benefits of climate mitigation actions are spectacular: better air quality, better health outcomes, reduced inequality,” Marvel wrote to me. “I want these things. I also want reforestation and peat bogs and coastal restoration and rewilding. I’m excited about (but not counting on) awesome new tech like cheap carbon removal and nuclear fusion. I’m more excited about boring but effective tech like heat pumps and transmission lines.”
This is a vision of more, not less. Electric cars are quicker to accelerate. A well-insulated home is warmer. Induction stoves don’t fill your home with particulates that are linked to asthma in children and reduced cognitive performance in adults. The wind doesn’t stop blowing because an autocrat has a tantrum; harnessing the solar radiation that bathes our world doesn’t leave us in hock to the House of Saud.
I don’t just prefer a world of net-zero emissions to a world of net-zero children. I think those worlds are in conflict. We face a political problem of politics, not a physics problem. The green future has to be a welcoming one, even a thrilling one. If people cannot see themselves in it, they will fight to stop it. If the cost of caring about climate is to forgo having a family, that cost will be too high. A climate movement that embraces sacrifice as its answer or even as its temperament might do more harm than good. It may accidentally sacrifice the political appeal needed to make the net-zero emissions world real.
Worse, it sees young people as passive consumers rather than agents of change. But over the past decade, rising generations have transformed climate politics. Much of the progress we’ve seen comes from their relentless advocacy and energy. The world they will inhabit is changing because they are changing the world.
“Imagine Greta Thunberg,” Stokes said. “Her mother was an opera singer. Then she decided to have children. And it turned out one of the children she had became this amazing climate advocate who, hopefully, will have this huge effect on pollution. Should she not have had her child because some model said kids are bad for the planet? At some point we’re asking whether we believe in the continuation of society and the possibility of young people to be an engine for change.”
My children will live a story that I cannot write and cannot control. It will be their story. To become a parent is to feel, every day, the weight and hope and terror of that fact. I can’t tell you whether it’s the right choice for you, but no climate model can, either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opin ... _best_algo
And it’s not just me. A 2020 Morning Consult poll found that a quarter of adults without children say climate change is part of the reason they didn’t have children. A Morgan Stanley analysis found that the decision “to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline.”
But one thing I’ve noticed, after years of reporting on climate change: The people who have devoted their lives to combating climate change keep having children. I hear them playing in the background of our calls. I see them when we Zoom. And so I began asking them why.
“I unequivocally reject, scientifically and personally, the notion that children are somehow doomed to an unhappy life,” Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia, told me.
To bring a child into this world has always been an act of hope. The past was its own parade of horrors. The best estimates we have suggest that across most of human history, 27 percent of infants didn’t survive their first year and 47 percent of people died before puberty. And life was hard, even if you were lucky enough to live it.
As Dylan Matthews writes at Vox:
What today we’d characterize as extreme poverty was until a few centuries ago the condition of almost every human on earth. In 1820, some 94 percent of humans lived on less than $2 a day. Over the next two centuries, extreme poverty fell dramatically; in 2018, the World Bank estimated that 8.6 percent of people lived on less than $1.90 a day. And the gains were not solely economic. Before 1800, average life spans didn’t exceed 40 years anywhere in the world. Today, the average human life expectancy is more like 73.
No mainstream climate models suggest a return to a world as bad as the one we had in 1950, to say nothing of 1150. Was the world so bad, for virtually the entirety of human history, that our ancestors shouldn’t have made our lives possible? If not, then nothing in our near future looks so horrible that it turns reproduction into an immoral act.
I worry, writing this, that it will be taken as a dismissal of the suffering climate change will unleash. It’s not. An appreciation of how bad our past was should deepen our fury at how recklessly our future is being treated. We have done so much to build a sea wall between us and the pitiless world. We have done so much to make the future better than the past. To give back any portion of those gains or even to prevent the progress we could otherwise see is worse than a tragedy. It is a crime.
But that, and not apocalypse, is the most likely path we’re on. This, strange as it is to say, is progress. As Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist, notes, many credible estimates from a decade ago put us on track for the average global temperature to increase 4 or even 5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels by 2100. That would be cataclysmic. But the falling cost of clean energy and the rising ambition of climate policy have changed that. The Climate Action tracker puts our current policy path at about 2.7 degrees of warming by 2100. If the commitments world governments have made since the Paris climate accord hold, we’re on track for a rise of 2 degrees or even less.
And there is still more reason for optimism. One of the truly thrilling papers I’ve read in recent years carried the plodding title “Empirically Grounded Technology Forecasts and the Energy Transition.” The authors looked at more than 2,900 forecasts for how fast the cost of installing solar power would fall from 2010 to 2020. The average prediction was 2.6 percent annually. No prediction was above 6 percent. But solar power costs actually fell by 15 percent per year. Other technologies have seen similar drops in costs. If these curves hold in the future — and they could well steepen if backed by better policy — then we are, even now, underestimating the possible path of progress.
But hope is not a plan. And no one should mistake 2.5 degrees of warming — or even 2 degrees — for success. We will have caused incalculable damage to ecosystems. We will have worsened droughts, floods, famines, heat waves. We will have bleached coral reefs, acidified the ocean, driven countless animal species to extinction. Millions, maybe tens of millions, of people will die from increased heat, and more will be killed by the indirect consequences of climate change. Far more yet will be forced to flee their homes or live lives of deep poverty or suffering. We will have stolen the full possibility of their flourishing from them.
Credit...D3sign/Getty Images
All of that, though, also describes the world we inhabit, not just the world we’re creating. Climate models force us to confront vast expanses of future suffering that, if they were ongoing around us, we might fail to see. As my colleague David Wallace-Wells — a father of two and the author of “The Uninhabitable Earth,” as well as a must-read newsletter — wrote to me, “What looks like apocalypse in prospect often feels more like grim normality when it arrives in the present.” Oof.
This is no mere abstraction or prediction. The evidence that we ignore mass suffering is all around us. We are ignoring it right now, just as we did yesterday, and just as we will tomorrow. “An estimated 20 million people died of Covid, and now we’re over it. What do we make of that?” Wallace-Wells wrote to me. “Ten million people a year are dying of air pollution. What do we make of that? And what does it tell us about climate change, which is quite unlikely (as I wrote in my big piece on pollution) to ever kill as many as now die from particulates?”
.
This reflects a facet of our climate future that conversations about the life prospects of well-off children in the United States obscure. It is true that climate change will affect both the rich and the poor. It is not true that it will affect them equally. Wealthy Californians breathing in wildfire smoke are not facing the suffering of poor Bangladeshis whose homes lie in the path of cyclones.
Even a world with 2 degrees of warming is a world in which we will have looted the future of billions of people to power a present we preferred. And not “we” as in all human beings. “We” as in the rich countries that are responsible for the vast majority of the greenhouse gases trapped in our atmosphere. (It is true that China has recently become the largest emitter, but we dwarf the Chinese cumulatively and continue to emit far more per person.)
“The people who are least responsible for climate change are the most affected by it,” Marvel told me. “I’m struggling to find appropriate academic language to describe this, but I just keep ending up at ‘That’s wrong.’ It’s simply morally wrong.”
Climate change is and will be an engine of global inequality. Richer people and countries will buy their way out of the worst consequences, often using wealth accumulated by burning fossil fuels. The fear about the future our children will face, when voiced by well-off residents of wealthy countries, sometimes strikes me as a transference of guilt into terror. To face what we’ve done to others is unimaginable. It is easier, somehow, to imagine we have done it to ourselves.
That gets to the second version of this question: Is it immoral to have children, knowing how much carbon emissions residents of rich countries are responsible for? This argument recasts not having children as a form of climate reparations. People in rich countries use more resources than people in poor countries. Fewer people means less resource use.
Fredric Jameson, the Marxist literary critic, is often credited with the observation that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. A similar limit to our political imaginations lurks in this conversation: It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of carbon pollution. “Almost all pollution is fixed by the structure of society,” Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, told me. “The goal is to undo that structure so children can be born into a society that is not putting out carbon pollution. That’s the project.”
And it is a doable one. Per capita carbon emissions in the United States fell from more than 22.2 tons in 1973 to 14.2 tons in 2020. And it can fall much farther. Germans emitted 7.7 tons of carbon per person in 2020. Swedes emitted 3.8 tons. “In a net-zero world, nobody has a carbon footprint, and we could stop tabulating guilt by counting babies,” Wallace-Wells told me.
To decarbonize society is to embrace a better world, for reasons far beyond climate change. “The immediate benefits of climate mitigation actions are spectacular: better air quality, better health outcomes, reduced inequality,” Marvel wrote to me. “I want these things. I also want reforestation and peat bogs and coastal restoration and rewilding. I’m excited about (but not counting on) awesome new tech like cheap carbon removal and nuclear fusion. I’m more excited about boring but effective tech like heat pumps and transmission lines.”
This is a vision of more, not less. Electric cars are quicker to accelerate. A well-insulated home is warmer. Induction stoves don’t fill your home with particulates that are linked to asthma in children and reduced cognitive performance in adults. The wind doesn’t stop blowing because an autocrat has a tantrum; harnessing the solar radiation that bathes our world doesn’t leave us in hock to the House of Saud.
I don’t just prefer a world of net-zero emissions to a world of net-zero children. I think those worlds are in conflict. We face a political problem of politics, not a physics problem. The green future has to be a welcoming one, even a thrilling one. If people cannot see themselves in it, they will fight to stop it. If the cost of caring about climate is to forgo having a family, that cost will be too high. A climate movement that embraces sacrifice as its answer or even as its temperament might do more harm than good. It may accidentally sacrifice the political appeal needed to make the net-zero emissions world real.
Worse, it sees young people as passive consumers rather than agents of change. But over the past decade, rising generations have transformed climate politics. Much of the progress we’ve seen comes from their relentless advocacy and energy. The world they will inhabit is changing because they are changing the world.
“Imagine Greta Thunberg,” Stokes said. “Her mother was an opera singer. Then she decided to have children. And it turned out one of the children she had became this amazing climate advocate who, hopefully, will have this huge effect on pollution. Should she not have had her child because some model said kids are bad for the planet? At some point we’re asking whether we believe in the continuation of society and the possibility of young people to be an engine for change.”
My children will live a story that I cannot write and cannot control. It will be their story. To become a parent is to feel, every day, the weight and hope and terror of that fact. I can’t tell you whether it’s the right choice for you, but no climate model can, either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opin ... _best_algo
Re: SOCIAL TRENDS
France rules against burkini swimwear for religious reasons
The Associated Press
Wed, June 22, 2022, 2:23 PM
PARIS (AP) — France’s top administrative court ruled Tuesday against allowing body-covering “burkini” swimwear in public pools for religious reasons, arguing that it violates the principle of government neutrality toward religion.
While worn by only a small number of people in France, the head-to-ankle burkini draws intense political debate in the country.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin hailed the ruling by the Council of State as a “victory for secularism.” Some Muslim women decried it as unfairly targeting their faith and their bodies, and based on outdated misconceptions about Islam.
The city of Grenoble, led by a mayor from the Greens party, voted last month to allow women to wear burkinis in public pools after campaigning by local activists. The city also voted to allow women to swim topless, as part of a broader relaxation of swimwear rules.
The prefect, or top government official, for the Grenoble region blocked the burkini decision, arguing it ran counter to France’s secular principles.
The Council of State upheld the prefect’s move Tuesday, saying in a statement that the Grenoble vote was made “to satisfy a religious demand” and “harms the neutrality of public services.”
The ruling was the first under a controversial law, championed by President Emmanuel Macron, aimed at protecting “republican values” from what his government calls the threat of religious extremism.
Clothing rules in public pools in France are strict, for what authorities say are reasons of hygiene: caps are required, and baggy swim trunks or other voluminous clothing is generally banned. Wetsuits are not allowed in many pools too, as are some sun-protection suits.
A few other cities and towns allow burkinis in public pools. The city of Rennes is among them, but its decision was aimed at loosening swimwear rules and not based on religious reasons.
The Grenoble mayor argued that women should be able to wear what they want and express their religious conviction in pools like in the street. Opponents of the burkini – who include local officials from the far right but also the left — argued that the swimwear represents the oppression of women and a potential gateway to Islamic radicalism.
Six years ago, the Council of State struck down a local burkini ban, amid shock and anger after some Muslim women were ordered to remove body-concealing garments on French Riviera beaches.
For Fatima Bent of Muslim feminist group Lallab, Tuesday’s ruling is “a clear step backwards” that will further isolate women who cover their heads and bodies in public.
While some Muslim women are forced by male relatives to cover themselves, she said, “Muslim women are not homogenous. (French authorities) look at Muslim women through a single prism.” She blamed a leftover colonial-era “fixation with the body of Muslim women by politicians who want to control them.”
Grenoble’s decision about swimming topless has not been threatened in the courts.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fr ... 41336.html
The Associated Press
Wed, June 22, 2022, 2:23 PM
PARIS (AP) — France’s top administrative court ruled Tuesday against allowing body-covering “burkini” swimwear in public pools for religious reasons, arguing that it violates the principle of government neutrality toward religion.
While worn by only a small number of people in France, the head-to-ankle burkini draws intense political debate in the country.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin hailed the ruling by the Council of State as a “victory for secularism.” Some Muslim women decried it as unfairly targeting their faith and their bodies, and based on outdated misconceptions about Islam.
The city of Grenoble, led by a mayor from the Greens party, voted last month to allow women to wear burkinis in public pools after campaigning by local activists. The city also voted to allow women to swim topless, as part of a broader relaxation of swimwear rules.
The prefect, or top government official, for the Grenoble region blocked the burkini decision, arguing it ran counter to France’s secular principles.
The Council of State upheld the prefect’s move Tuesday, saying in a statement that the Grenoble vote was made “to satisfy a religious demand” and “harms the neutrality of public services.”
The ruling was the first under a controversial law, championed by President Emmanuel Macron, aimed at protecting “republican values” from what his government calls the threat of religious extremism.
Clothing rules in public pools in France are strict, for what authorities say are reasons of hygiene: caps are required, and baggy swim trunks or other voluminous clothing is generally banned. Wetsuits are not allowed in many pools too, as are some sun-protection suits.
A few other cities and towns allow burkinis in public pools. The city of Rennes is among them, but its decision was aimed at loosening swimwear rules and not based on religious reasons.
The Grenoble mayor argued that women should be able to wear what they want and express their religious conviction in pools like in the street. Opponents of the burkini – who include local officials from the far right but also the left — argued that the swimwear represents the oppression of women and a potential gateway to Islamic radicalism.
Six years ago, the Council of State struck down a local burkini ban, amid shock and anger after some Muslim women were ordered to remove body-concealing garments on French Riviera beaches.
For Fatima Bent of Muslim feminist group Lallab, Tuesday’s ruling is “a clear step backwards” that will further isolate women who cover their heads and bodies in public.
While some Muslim women are forced by male relatives to cover themselves, she said, “Muslim women are not homogenous. (French authorities) look at Muslim women through a single prism.” She blamed a leftover colonial-era “fixation with the body of Muslim women by politicians who want to control them.”
Grenoble’s decision about swimming topless has not been threatened in the courts.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fr ... 41336.html
People of Indian descent a rising force in the U.S. and Canada
Douglas Todd: People of Indian descent a rising force in the U.S. and Canada
Analysis: People of Indian origin are on a roll across the U.S. and Canada — in education, high-tech and politics.
The CEOs of five of the most powerful high-tech companies in North America have origins in India. They’re heading Microsoft, Google, IBM, Twitter and Match Group (which owns Tinder).
And people of Indian ancestry are punching above their weight in politics in the U.S. and Canada. “There may well be an Indian-American president before there is an American Indian one,” says The Economist.
The educational achievements of people of Indian origin are above the norm in North America. And the wages of Indo Americans are among the strongest of any ethnic group in the U.S. and Canada. This is not to mention one study showing people of Indian origin are almost four times more likely to own a home than the average Canadian.
The influence of Indo North Americans is destined to expand further. Let’s look at why.
India is the second highest source country for immigrants to the U.S., where 4.6 million have Indian origins, or 1.4 per cent of the total. They are mostly from southern India and tend to live in the U.S. South and East.
In Canada, India is the No. 1 source country for immigrants by far, accounting for 30 per cent of all newcomers since 2016.
There are 1.4 million people with Indian roots in Canada, most of whom are immigrants. They make up four per cent of the population. Generally from Northern India, most live in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
Even though many are already flying high in U.S. high-tech, the impact of people of Indian background on Canadian business, especially, is growing sharply.
The CEOs of five of the most powerful high-tech companies in North America have origins in India. Here, the CEO of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, Sundar Pichai, testifies in a 2021 video hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The CEOs of five of the most powerful high-tech companies in North America have origins in India. Here, the CEO of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, Sundar Pichai, testifies in a 2021 video hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives. PHOTO BY HANDOUT /via REUTERS
The tech sectors in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are expanding on the strength of a workforce where two of five are foreign born. And U.S. immigration rules designed to protect homegrown workers means our southern neighbour is losing thousands of Indian high-tech experts and others to Canada.
With the U.S. restricting its coveted H-1B working visa (including with a rule that no one country can be the source of more than seven per cent of recipients), many computer specialists are among the more than 217,000 people from Indian who can work in Canada as foreign students (they make up 30 per cent of all international students).
Canada also accepted 128,000 people from India last year as new immigrants, many of them programmers. And it’s on track for a similar number in 2022. That compares to just 39,000 immigrants from India in 2015, when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were first elected.
Such business success is made possible in large part because educational levels soar among those of Indian descent.
In the U.S. three of four of adults of Indian background have bachelors degrees or better, according to Pew Research. That’s the highest of any Asian immigrant group, with Chinese Americans coming in at 57 per cent. The overall bachelor’s degree average in the U.S. is 38 per cent.
In Canada, educational achievement is also pronounced. A recent Statistics Canada study by Theresa Qiu and Grant Schellenberg found 50 per cent of South Asian-Canadians (mostly from India) had bachelors degrees or more. The portion rose to 62 per cent among South Asian women.
The portion of bachelors degrees among Canadians with origins in South Asia is much higher than the 24 per cent for white men and 38 per cent for white women, as well as the 17 per cent for Latin American men and 28 per cent for Latin American women. One of the few ethnic groups scoring higher than South Asians are Chinese Canadians.
And wages reflect education levels. The median household income in the U.S. of Indian households is by far the highest of any ethnic-Asian group, at US$119,000, according to Pew.
The typical Chinese American household brings in US$82,000. The median household income across the U.S. is US$67,000.
While U.S. figures on housing are not readily available, a consumer survey by Vivintel, based in Toronto, found that South Asians, a solid majority of whom are from India, are almost four times more likely to buy a home than the average Canadian.
“Home ownership is very important to South Asians … because they’re told by their parents that renting is just throwing away your money,” says Rahul Sethi, a 38-year-old director of Vivintel who immigrated to Canada from India with his family.
Former Canadian Army lieutenant-colonel and defence minister Harjit Sajjan, who is now minister of international development, speaks during an announcement about funding to rebuild the fire-ravaged village of Lytton, B.C., on June 14.
Former Canadian Army lieutenant-colonel and defence minister Harjit Sajjan, who is now minister of international development, speaks during an announcement about funding to rebuild the fire-ravaged village of Lytton, B.C., on June 14. PHOTO BY DARRYL DYCK THE CANADIAN PRESS /THE CANADIAN PRESS
One of the most intriguing aspects of the rise of Indians in North America is their oversized affect on politics.
And it’s not just because of U.S. vice-president Kamala Harris, who went to an English-language high school in Montreal after her scientist mother from India, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, got a job researching breast cancer at McGill University.
Even though Harris is a front-runner as a future Democrat presidential nominee, she’s far from alone in U.S. halls of power.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, who surveys Asian American attitudes from the University of California, maintains Indo Americans are far likelier than other immigrant groups to get involved in politics as donors, voters and candidates. They tend to favour Democrats by a margin of three to one.
Ram Villivalam, a state senator in Illinois, says having Harris running to be president gives confidence to Indo Americans. Pramala Jayapal, the first woman of South Asian descent to preside over the Congress, is now one of four influential Indo American politicians, dubbed the Samosa Caucus, in the House.
A similar movement is happening in Canadian politics.
The Indo Canadian population, like the Indo American, leans liberal-left. More than 38 per cent of respondents to a 2021 YouGov poll would cast a vote for the Liberals — twice the number that planned to go with the Conservatives.
One in five backed the left-wing New Democratic Party, the country’s third largest party, which has been lead for five years by Indo Canadian Jagmeet Singh.
More than 12 per cent of cabinet ministers in the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are Indo Canadian, including Harjit Sajjan and Anita Anand. At least 14 Liberal MPs are Indo Canadian.
This impact list goes on in politics, as well as in business and education. Indo North Americans are on a roll.
[email protected]
@douglastodd
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Analysis: People of Indian origin are on a roll across the U.S. and Canada — in education, high-tech and politics.
The CEOs of five of the most powerful high-tech companies in North America have origins in India. They’re heading Microsoft, Google, IBM, Twitter and Match Group (which owns Tinder).
And people of Indian ancestry are punching above their weight in politics in the U.S. and Canada. “There may well be an Indian-American president before there is an American Indian one,” says The Economist.
The educational achievements of people of Indian origin are above the norm in North America. And the wages of Indo Americans are among the strongest of any ethnic group in the U.S. and Canada. This is not to mention one study showing people of Indian origin are almost four times more likely to own a home than the average Canadian.
The influence of Indo North Americans is destined to expand further. Let’s look at why.
India is the second highest source country for immigrants to the U.S., where 4.6 million have Indian origins, or 1.4 per cent of the total. They are mostly from southern India and tend to live in the U.S. South and East.
In Canada, India is the No. 1 source country for immigrants by far, accounting for 30 per cent of all newcomers since 2016.
There are 1.4 million people with Indian roots in Canada, most of whom are immigrants. They make up four per cent of the population. Generally from Northern India, most live in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
Even though many are already flying high in U.S. high-tech, the impact of people of Indian background on Canadian business, especially, is growing sharply.
The CEOs of five of the most powerful high-tech companies in North America have origins in India. Here, the CEO of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, Sundar Pichai, testifies in a 2021 video hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The CEOs of five of the most powerful high-tech companies in North America have origins in India. Here, the CEO of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, Sundar Pichai, testifies in a 2021 video hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives. PHOTO BY HANDOUT /via REUTERS
The tech sectors in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are expanding on the strength of a workforce where two of five are foreign born. And U.S. immigration rules designed to protect homegrown workers means our southern neighbour is losing thousands of Indian high-tech experts and others to Canada.
With the U.S. restricting its coveted H-1B working visa (including with a rule that no one country can be the source of more than seven per cent of recipients), many computer specialists are among the more than 217,000 people from Indian who can work in Canada as foreign students (they make up 30 per cent of all international students).
Canada also accepted 128,000 people from India last year as new immigrants, many of them programmers. And it’s on track for a similar number in 2022. That compares to just 39,000 immigrants from India in 2015, when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were first elected.
Such business success is made possible in large part because educational levels soar among those of Indian descent.
In the U.S. three of four of adults of Indian background have bachelors degrees or better, according to Pew Research. That’s the highest of any Asian immigrant group, with Chinese Americans coming in at 57 per cent. The overall bachelor’s degree average in the U.S. is 38 per cent.
In Canada, educational achievement is also pronounced. A recent Statistics Canada study by Theresa Qiu and Grant Schellenberg found 50 per cent of South Asian-Canadians (mostly from India) had bachelors degrees or more. The portion rose to 62 per cent among South Asian women.
The portion of bachelors degrees among Canadians with origins in South Asia is much higher than the 24 per cent for white men and 38 per cent for white women, as well as the 17 per cent for Latin American men and 28 per cent for Latin American women. One of the few ethnic groups scoring higher than South Asians are Chinese Canadians.
And wages reflect education levels. The median household income in the U.S. of Indian households is by far the highest of any ethnic-Asian group, at US$119,000, according to Pew.
The typical Chinese American household brings in US$82,000. The median household income across the U.S. is US$67,000.
While U.S. figures on housing are not readily available, a consumer survey by Vivintel, based in Toronto, found that South Asians, a solid majority of whom are from India, are almost four times more likely to buy a home than the average Canadian.
“Home ownership is very important to South Asians … because they’re told by their parents that renting is just throwing away your money,” says Rahul Sethi, a 38-year-old director of Vivintel who immigrated to Canada from India with his family.
Former Canadian Army lieutenant-colonel and defence minister Harjit Sajjan, who is now minister of international development, speaks during an announcement about funding to rebuild the fire-ravaged village of Lytton, B.C., on June 14.
Former Canadian Army lieutenant-colonel and defence minister Harjit Sajjan, who is now minister of international development, speaks during an announcement about funding to rebuild the fire-ravaged village of Lytton, B.C., on June 14. PHOTO BY DARRYL DYCK THE CANADIAN PRESS /THE CANADIAN PRESS
One of the most intriguing aspects of the rise of Indians in North America is their oversized affect on politics.
And it’s not just because of U.S. vice-president Kamala Harris, who went to an English-language high school in Montreal after her scientist mother from India, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, got a job researching breast cancer at McGill University.
Even though Harris is a front-runner as a future Democrat presidential nominee, she’s far from alone in U.S. halls of power.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, who surveys Asian American attitudes from the University of California, maintains Indo Americans are far likelier than other immigrant groups to get involved in politics as donors, voters and candidates. They tend to favour Democrats by a margin of three to one.
Ram Villivalam, a state senator in Illinois, says having Harris running to be president gives confidence to Indo Americans. Pramala Jayapal, the first woman of South Asian descent to preside over the Congress, is now one of four influential Indo American politicians, dubbed the Samosa Caucus, in the House.
A similar movement is happening in Canadian politics.
The Indo Canadian population, like the Indo American, leans liberal-left. More than 38 per cent of respondents to a 2021 YouGov poll would cast a vote for the Liberals — twice the number that planned to go with the Conservatives.
One in five backed the left-wing New Democratic Party, the country’s third largest party, which has been lead for five years by Indo Canadian Jagmeet Singh.
More than 12 per cent of cabinet ministers in the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are Indo Canadian, including Harjit Sajjan and Anita Anand. At least 14 Liberal MPs are Indo Canadian.
This impact list goes on in politics, as well as in business and education. Indo North Americans are on a roll.
[email protected]
@douglastodd
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Britain not ready for brown PM, says Shashi Tharoor
No one should underestimate the lingering racism of the general British public
Rarely has the Indian public been as interested in a British prime ministerial election as this year. The reason is not hard to find: among the two finalists whose names are being put to a ballot of all the nearly 1.8 lakh members of the Conservative Party is Rishi Sunak, the Indian-origin former chancellor of the exchequer. Sunak, a bright, articulate, England-born and expensively educated multi-millionaire who also happens to be married to Infosys’s Narayana Murthy’s daughter, Akshata, has conducted an impressive, slick campaign that saw him consistently lead the pack throughout many rounds of balloting among Conservative MPs to determine the final shortlist of two. And, yet, he is trailing his rival, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, in every poll of Conservative members, even though Truss is much less bright and well-spoken and barely squeezed through to the final round (after trailing in third place throughout the balloting).
Many reasons are advanced for why Sunak seems about to lose the race among the Tory members (who are generally more conservative than the MPs): Sunak’s unpopular tax increases, the revelation that his wife was not paying UK taxes on her considerable Indian income by claiming “non-domiciled” status, and the fact that even as a British cabinet minister he retained a US green card, acquired during his years working in that country. (None of these breaches any law, though in politics appearances are often more important than legalities.) All this adds up to a perception of him as the embodiment of cosmopolitanism, competence, and technocracy, qualities reviled by Brexit-loving Tory culture-warriors. Some have even claimed he comes across as arrogant and overbearing, but “Dishy Rishi” is genuinely modest in speech and manner, even though he has much to be immodest about. So why, then, is he trailing in the polls, when his own peers in parliament consider him the most qualified MP?
Rishi Sunak | REUTERSRishi Sunak | REUTERS
Very simple. Sunak’s main problem is something that no British commentator is prepared to concede. He is not white. No one likes to admit that such considerations exist, because saying so is seen as politically incorrect in these supposedly enlightened times. But they are fundamental. No one should underestimate the lingering racism of the general British public. As the brown-skinned son of immigrants who is openly and unapologetically Hindu, Sunak, despite his upper-class British accent, cannot hide his foreignness. To many white Britons, he just isn’t one of them—and never will be.
So when results are announced on September 5, Truss will probably be prime minister, and Sunak fobbed off with the consolation prize of a key ministry—perhaps foreign affairs, maybe home (the exchequer, which he relinquished during the political crisis that brought down Boris Johnson, is now with another brown man, the Iraqi-Kurd-origin Nadhim Zahawi). No one will say it, but the unspoken realisation across the country will be that Britain still is not ready for an Indian prime minister. Still, Sunak has brought the Indian community in Britain a long way towards the highest office in the land. It is a journey that began in 1892, when Dadabhai Naoroji, the Indian nationalist who authored the “drain theory” about British colonial exploitation of India, stood as Liberal Party candidate for Central Finsbury and won. Two other Indian Parsis, one the pro-empire Mancherjee Bhownaggree, the other the communist Shapurji Saklatvala, were also elected in the early 20th century. But they remained curiosities, and none of them had a particularly long or illustrious parliamentary career. None ascended to any prestigious positions in government.
Today, the picture is very different: people of Indian origin have, astonishingly enough, held two of the four “great offices of state” (home, finance, foreign affairs and prime minister). The other two posts no longer look out of reach.That is remarkably impressive, as evidence of how far Britain has come from the unabashed racism of its colonial past. Let us not forget the xenophobia with which some Indians reacted to the prospect of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi becoming our prime minister in 2004. We, too, have prejudices to overcome, so even if he loses on September 5, let us applaud Britain for Sunak even having come so close.
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Rarely has the Indian public been as interested in a British prime ministerial election as this year. The reason is not hard to find: among the two finalists whose names are being put to a ballot of all the nearly 1.8 lakh members of the Conservative Party is Rishi Sunak, the Indian-origin former chancellor of the exchequer. Sunak, a bright, articulate, England-born and expensively educated multi-millionaire who also happens to be married to Infosys’s Narayana Murthy’s daughter, Akshata, has conducted an impressive, slick campaign that saw him consistently lead the pack throughout many rounds of balloting among Conservative MPs to determine the final shortlist of two. And, yet, he is trailing his rival, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, in every poll of Conservative members, even though Truss is much less bright and well-spoken and barely squeezed through to the final round (after trailing in third place throughout the balloting).
Many reasons are advanced for why Sunak seems about to lose the race among the Tory members (who are generally more conservative than the MPs): Sunak’s unpopular tax increases, the revelation that his wife was not paying UK taxes on her considerable Indian income by claiming “non-domiciled” status, and the fact that even as a British cabinet minister he retained a US green card, acquired during his years working in that country. (None of these breaches any law, though in politics appearances are often more important than legalities.) All this adds up to a perception of him as the embodiment of cosmopolitanism, competence, and technocracy, qualities reviled by Brexit-loving Tory culture-warriors. Some have even claimed he comes across as arrogant and overbearing, but “Dishy Rishi” is genuinely modest in speech and manner, even though he has much to be immodest about. So why, then, is he trailing in the polls, when his own peers in parliament consider him the most qualified MP?
Rishi Sunak | REUTERSRishi Sunak | REUTERS
Very simple. Sunak’s main problem is something that no British commentator is prepared to concede. He is not white. No one likes to admit that such considerations exist, because saying so is seen as politically incorrect in these supposedly enlightened times. But they are fundamental. No one should underestimate the lingering racism of the general British public. As the brown-skinned son of immigrants who is openly and unapologetically Hindu, Sunak, despite his upper-class British accent, cannot hide his foreignness. To many white Britons, he just isn’t one of them—and never will be.
So when results are announced on September 5, Truss will probably be prime minister, and Sunak fobbed off with the consolation prize of a key ministry—perhaps foreign affairs, maybe home (the exchequer, which he relinquished during the political crisis that brought down Boris Johnson, is now with another brown man, the Iraqi-Kurd-origin Nadhim Zahawi). No one will say it, but the unspoken realisation across the country will be that Britain still is not ready for an Indian prime minister. Still, Sunak has brought the Indian community in Britain a long way towards the highest office in the land. It is a journey that began in 1892, when Dadabhai Naoroji, the Indian nationalist who authored the “drain theory” about British colonial exploitation of India, stood as Liberal Party candidate for Central Finsbury and won. Two other Indian Parsis, one the pro-empire Mancherjee Bhownaggree, the other the communist Shapurji Saklatvala, were also elected in the early 20th century. But they remained curiosities, and none of them had a particularly long or illustrious parliamentary career. None ascended to any prestigious positions in government.
Today, the picture is very different: people of Indian origin have, astonishingly enough, held two of the four “great offices of state” (home, finance, foreign affairs and prime minister). The other two posts no longer look out of reach.That is remarkably impressive, as evidence of how far Britain has come from the unabashed racism of its colonial past. Let us not forget the xenophobia with which some Indians reacted to the prospect of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi becoming our prime minister in 2004. We, too, have prejudices to overcome, so even if he loses on September 5, let us applaud Britain for Sunak even having come so close.
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The U.K. now has its most diverse Cabinet in history thanks to new PM Liz Truss
Prime Minister Liz Truss and her new Cabinet members at 10 Down St. on Sept. 7 for their first Cabinet meeting. Top row, from left: Truss; Kwasi Kwarteng, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Suella Braverman, home secretary. Bottom row, from left: James Cleverly, foreign secretary; Ben Wallace, defense secretary; Thérèse Coffey, deputy prime minister, health secretary.
Bloomberg via Getty Images; Getty Images; Anadolu Agency via Getty Images; PA Images via Getty Images; AP;
LONDON — Britain's new Prime Minister Liz Truss took office on Tuesday afternoon and has spent much of the time since then focused on appointing new members of her government, and in particular her Cabinet.
She has very pointedly chosen a number of close political allies for senior roles, and dismissed members of her Conservative Party who had publicly supported her chief rival in the party leadership race, former finance minister Rishi Sunak.
It is notable that for the first time in British history, none of the four most senior ministerial positions — prime minister, finance minister, foreign secretary and home secretary — have been taken up by a white male.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss holds her first Cabinet meeting after taking office at Downing St. on Sept. 7 in London.
Kwasi Kwarteng, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Kwarteng, 47, takes on the role of finance minister (exchequer is Britain's treasury) for the world's sixth-largest economy, at a time of enormous challenge for the country's coffers. He is the son of Ghanaian parents who immigrated to Britain, and was raised in London before studying at the elite boarding school, Eton College, then at Cambridge University. During his time as a student, he appeared on a well-known British quiz show called University Challenge, where he used a curse word twice when he was unable to remember an answer — though his team subsequently went on to win that year's contest. Kwarteng subsequently attended Harvard University before completing a Ph.D. in economic history at Cambridge, and has written several books as well as worked as a bank analyst in the City of London. He was first elected to Parliament in 2010, when the Conservatives took power, and has previously worked at the finance ministry in a more junior role, and more recently ran the U.K.'s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Suella Braverman, home secretary
Braverman, 42, is a trained trial lawyer and most recently served as Britain's attorney general before being given this new role by Truss, which places her in charge of the country's four dozen police forces, as well its domestic security and international espionage agencies, known colloquially as MI5 and MI6. Her parents, of Indian origin, moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960s, her father from Kenya and her mother from Mauritius. She grew up in northwest London, attended Cambridge University and continued her legal studies at the Sorbonne in Paris before passing the state bar exams in New York. She has been a well-known hard-liner over Brexit, and in late 2018 as a minister in the U.K.'s Department for Exiting the European Union, she was so unhappy with the terms of a version of the country's Brexit deal that then Prime Minister Theresa May had proposed, that she ultimately resigned from her role in government. She also ran in the most recent Conservative Party leadership contest to replace Johnson, before dropping out to support Truss, the eventual winner.
James Cleverly, foreign secretary
Cleverly, 53, is the son of a father from the west of England and a mother from Sierra Leone, but grew up in South East London and just east of the capital. He attended a private school, met his wife as a student and after a brief stint in Britain's military has served in the country's army reserves for many years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After a career in publishing, he gained attention in Conservative Party circles after writing a study that looked at approaches Conservatives could take to win over more black voters. During Johnson's time as London mayor, Cleverly worked under Johnson in a role overseeing the city's fire departments. For several months, he also chaired the Conservative Party during Johnson's tenure as prime minister, but over the past year has worked more directly for Truss at the country's foreign ministry, where he has held several junior roles over the past three years. He briefly ran the U.K.'s Education Department after dozens of minister's resigned earlier this summer, prompting Johnson's own resignation announcement. Cleverly has been a public critic not only of Truss' leadership rival Sunak, but also the government of China, and once called for the closure of Britain's several dozen Confucius Institutes, which promote Chinese culture and learning.
Ben Wallace, defense secretary
A taciturn former soldier, Wallace, 52, has gained plaudits from across his party for his head-down and focused attention during the past six months of the conflict in Ukraine, where Britain's military and weaponry has played a substantial and supportive role for Kyiv. Wallace was asked by many colleagues to consider running for Conservative leader after Johnson announced he would step down in July but said he was not interested in the prime ministership and subsequently maintained a studied neutrality throughout the contest. He is one of only four ministers to hold onto his role during the transition from the Johnson to Truss administration. As a legislator since 2010, he has repeatedly expressed his support for the concept of small government, one he holds in common with his new boss. He is keen on sports, particularly skiing, having worked as an instructor in Austria soon after graduating high school, and worked in the aerospace industry before becoming a politician.
Thérèse Coffey, deputy prime minister, health secretary
A close friend of Truss since just before they first entered parliament in 2010, Coffey, 50, has held a number of senior posts under successive prime ministers but will now deputize for Truss as well as take on the challenging task of running Britain's beleaguered National Health Service, which faces a massive backlog of operations and slow ambulance emergency response times. She studied chemistry at the same Oxford college as former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but was forced to leave the university when she failed several exams. She completed her studies at University College, London, where she ultimately earned a Ph.D. in the subject. She has previously overseen the country's Work and Pensions Department and served as an environment minister and government whip, and before entering politics, worked for the candy giant Mars as well as the BBC.
Uganda at 50 – Time for Jubilation but also time for Serious Reflection – by Mohamed Keshavjee
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 16, 2022
Ugandan Asians throughout the world have been celebrating this year which sees the 50th anniversary of their expulsion by the mercurial self-styled dictator, Idi Amin Dada, who saw himself as the saviour of Uganda, a country that Winston Churchill named the ‘Pearl of Africa’. Stories abound about how wonderful life was for the Indian community until, all of a sudden, a mad dictator had a dream in which God instructed him to get rid of all the Asians, whom he referred to as ‘economic saboteurs’ milking the country of its resources at the cost of its indigenous population.
Idi Amin Dada. Photo: Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
While stories of human suffering are the stock in trade of all expulsions, the Ugandan expulsion narrative, if it is to have any lasting educational impact, has to be more substantial — going beyond the perilous drive to Entebbe airport or being received with ‘open arms’ in the UK. Narratives of the expulsion have to delve into the pathology of conflict and how Asians in East Africa were placed in a buffer position between the interests of colonial powers and the aspirations of the indigenous populations.
Questions we need to ponder are: Firstly, can Indian minorities in other areas of Africa and elsewhere, such as in former European colonies, suffer the same fate today? If the answer is yes, as I submit it is, what steps can they take to prevent this? How can they organise their lives so that they are not seen exclusively as traders, only in the country to make money? In an era of neoliberal hegemony where capitalism is even bottoming out the middle classes, how can Asian commercial enterprise be viewed as being different to ensure that populist sentiments are not directed at them when governments themselves fail to care for their mass populations. This issue becomes more pressing in countries that have inherited colonial structures where Asians have always played the role of middlemen in the economy such as South Africa , Mocambique, Fiji, Guyana, Malawi, Madagascar and Botswana. Asian entrepreneurialism has to be combined with greater involvement with civil society and a genuine attempt to help indigenous people have a stake in the economy — perhaps most critically at the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
Secondly, what has the expulsion taught Indian diasporic communities about the politics of resettlement in the Western world and Australia? While Canada played a major role in accepting some 6,000 Ugandan Asians, how many were received with ‘open arms ‘in the UK. To quote the migration studies scholar Saima Nasar, “to say that Ugandan Asians were readily and warmly welcomed in 1970s Britain would be to offer a distorted history of immigration and asylum. While Ugandan Asians have no doubt shaped Britain’s economic, political, and sociocultural landscapes, it is important to avoid celebratory narratives that overlook histories of struggle and discrimination.” Nasar goes on to explain that nowhere is this more significant than in the ‘refugee narratives’ of Britain’s Ugandan Asian population, “who have been variously described as imperial subjects, refugees and more recently as model migrants”. Mahmood Mamdani’s book From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britain, re-published in 2011 describes the situation very succinctly.
Uganda Asians at the airport. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
In this context not much is discussed of the role of non-state actors such as the Aga Khan and his role in the resettlement of the Ismailis in Canada, or of the UNHCR and the resettlement of those thousands who became stateless. In the words of Arafat Jamal, UNHCR representative in South Sudan, these are classic examples of “finding alternative pathways to resettlement.” This is a story that requires much greater research.
Thirdly, what background do our children have of the Asian minority situation in East Africa in the 1970s so that they may understand the whole issue of expulsion. Sadly, very little of this has emerged in any discussions. Scholars such as Yash Ghai, Yash Tandon, (both still alive) and Piyo Rattansi who recently passed away, are not even known. Books such as Portrait of a Minority: Asians in East Africa , a 1965 OAU classic on this subject, are not referred to or discussed, as is the case with memoirs of Diplomats, such as Prem Bhatia’s Indian Ordeal in Africa which highlights the daily ordeal Indian minorities faced in East Africa at the hands of corrupt politicians who had no time for history let alone for a community that felt vulnerable and, in the words of Yash Tandon, were seen and treated like “stepchildren of the colonial empire.”
Fourthly, what is the lesson for African governments or governments in other parts of the world that view the Indian minorities who were brought there by the colonial authorities as workers, petty traders, or petty administrators as exploiters worthy to be expelled or maltreated. This issue remains real and alive in countries such as Fiji, Madagascar, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Botswana, Malawi, and ironically Uganda itself today. Here the situation is quite clear. Some may wish to emulate Idi Amin and threaten that they would do the same. Others may learn the lesson from Uganda itself and see how the country suffered economically for years until the Indians were invited back to the country to re-play the critical role they once played in the distributive trade.
Uganda Asians queuing for help outside the office of the British High Commissioner, 1972. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
For the Indians the lesson is plain – to survive in the Africa of today they have to diversify their interests and do exactly what they were once accused of doing. That is having their ‘tun, mun and dhun’ (body, mind and wealth) in different parts of the world which in today’s globalised world is much more acceptable than 50 years ago when it was viewed as a sign of disloyalty.
Indians have achieved this versatility through sheer hard work and resilience through years of sacrifice and garnering of their resources very carefully. In the words of Iqbal Asaria, a leading exponent of sustainable development, “we did not achieve this by landing on a bed of roses. We worked very hard. This is experience gained by being baptised in the fiercest of fires.”
Fifthly, how do those brought up under the shadow of the expulsion rid themselves of the trauma — actual or inherited? For Sophie Kanabar, her mother never spoke about what she had to endure in Uganda and also at the time of the expulsion. She felt this must have been painful and talking about it would have been therapeutic. Sophie herself changed her name so that life would be easier. She is only now coming to terms with the trauma. Others recall the fear of those early days. For all our waxing lyrical about how many bankers we have produced and how many millionaires arose from this debacle, there still remains the pain of expulsion and being thrown out overnight from a country many had come to love as home.
Mr. Geoffrey Rippon in Kampala, meeting Asians queuing outside the British High Commission seeking help. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
Sixthly, there is the notion of racism. How did this play itself out at various levels of interface? What did the Asians of East Africa face when they first arrived in Uganda? How did they combat this? Who were the great stalwarts who fought racism? Then there was institutional racism so deeply embedded in colonial immigration rules and more surprisingly in the independence constitutions themselves — not to mention the Ugandan Immigration Act that mirrored the British one in 1968. What about racism in Britain with Asians arriving in the country on the back of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech and going to Leicester, the very city that placed an advert in a leading Ugandan daily warning them not to come there. The notion of “open arms” needs to be carefully reconsidered. There is also the question of racism at the level of Indian daily family life in Uganda in the colonial period as well as in the early days of Independence. This is very clearly brought out in a play called “90 days” by Ashok Patel produced at the Curve Theatre, Leicester on 4 August 2022, marking the day Amin passed his edict. The question of interracial dynamics is brilliantly portrayed in Mira Nair’s prizewinning film “Mississippi Masala.”
Passengers on the SS KARANJA, after having been expelled from Uganda, taking a last look at East Africa. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
Seventh, what if this happened today and if it did, might the Western countries respond the same way as they did 50 years ago? The answer I feel is probably no. The world is a different place today. Populist movements are much more vocal, socially active and influential. Immigration would become a critical factor and could be used in a much more politicised way.
A group of displaced persons from Uganda arriving in Europe through the UNHCR programme. Photo: Courtesy of the UNHCR ©
Diasporic Indians by and large would suffer untold suffering. A small segment would leverage its global networks to a much greater extent than it was ever able to do in the past. Perhaps diasporic communities settled in the West may be in some position to help. Asian minorities globally have become in Roger Ballard’s words “skilled cultural navigators”. Asians would go to any country willing to accept them. However as ‘skilled cultural navigators’ they would perhaps realise that prevention is better than cure and that — living in former plantation colonies whose economies are still based on extractive capitalism —they would be best advised not to be seen only as a commercial community. They should conduct themselves as commercial communities whose entrepreneurialism is informed by principles of social justice and ethics. They should show more visibly how their commercial ethics are aimed at improving the quality of life of themselves and others among whom they live and who are in need.
Weary aged passengers receiving receive gifts from relatives and well-wishers on their way to Mombasa, Kenya. Photo: Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
With the global networks many Asians have built today this should be a possibility with some of their children going back and forth to the countries from which they moved to the West. Their children with a background of first world technology coupled with commercial acumen acquired through family training might be in a much better position to do this than the governments to which they were, in one way or another, affiliated at the time of the “wind of change.”
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan , UN High Commissioner for Refugees at the time of the Ugandan Asian Expulsion, at Geneva Airport. The UNHCR was part of ” the alternative pathways to resettlement ” Photo: Courtesy of the UNHCR ©
The Aga Khan in conversation with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (1938-2018). The Aga Khan was able to negotiate with the Canadian government in 1972 for the resettlement of thousands of Ismailis in Canada following their expulsion from Uganda.
Photograph courtesy of the website of the Ismaili Imamat
Uganda 2022 is a time to celebrate but at the same time it is also a time to reflect. As Milan Kundera, the famous Czech writer reminds us. “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” If Uganda 2022 is going to be of educational value for future generations, we need to ensure that memory is fully aware of how power was actually played out at every level at different times. Here oral history is of some value, but it does not capture the whole story. The educational programme on which this year is predicated would gain enormously with making teachers in schools aware of history, and the actual dynamics of a region which was caught in a number of crossfires such as the Cold War, nationalism, unsolved end-of-empire issues and, above all, the question of the nation state and its impunity in the face of a growing consciousness of human rights.
About Dr. Mohamed Keshavjee
Dr. Mohamed Keshajvee. Photo: Parvaiz Machivalla ©
Dr. Mohamed M Keshavjee is an international specialist in cross- cultural mediation who lived in Kenya at the time of the decolonisation of East Africa. He is author of the book “Diasporic Distractions” – a book of short stories reflecting the predicament of the Indians in East Africa at the time of Independence. He is also the author of a book on South Africa entitled “Into that Heaven of Freedom” that describes life for an Indian extended family under apartheid South Africa.
ismailimail.blog/2022/09/16/uganda-at-50-time-for-jubilation-but-also-time-for-serious-reflection-by-mohamed-keshavjee/
Ugandan Asians throughout the world have been celebrating this year which sees the 50th anniversary of their expulsion by the mercurial self-styled dictator, Idi Amin Dada, who saw himself as the saviour of Uganda, a country that Winston Churchill named the ‘Pearl of Africa’. Stories abound about how wonderful life was for the Indian community until, all of a sudden, a mad dictator had a dream in which God instructed him to get rid of all the Asians, whom he referred to as ‘economic saboteurs’ milking the country of its resources at the cost of its indigenous population.
Idi Amin Dada. Photo: Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
While stories of human suffering are the stock in trade of all expulsions, the Ugandan expulsion narrative, if it is to have any lasting educational impact, has to be more substantial — going beyond the perilous drive to Entebbe airport or being received with ‘open arms’ in the UK. Narratives of the expulsion have to delve into the pathology of conflict and how Asians in East Africa were placed in a buffer position between the interests of colonial powers and the aspirations of the indigenous populations.
Questions we need to ponder are: Firstly, can Indian minorities in other areas of Africa and elsewhere, such as in former European colonies, suffer the same fate today? If the answer is yes, as I submit it is, what steps can they take to prevent this? How can they organise their lives so that they are not seen exclusively as traders, only in the country to make money? In an era of neoliberal hegemony where capitalism is even bottoming out the middle classes, how can Asian commercial enterprise be viewed as being different to ensure that populist sentiments are not directed at them when governments themselves fail to care for their mass populations. This issue becomes more pressing in countries that have inherited colonial structures where Asians have always played the role of middlemen in the economy such as South Africa , Mocambique, Fiji, Guyana, Malawi, Madagascar and Botswana. Asian entrepreneurialism has to be combined with greater involvement with civil society and a genuine attempt to help indigenous people have a stake in the economy — perhaps most critically at the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
Secondly, what has the expulsion taught Indian diasporic communities about the politics of resettlement in the Western world and Australia? While Canada played a major role in accepting some 6,000 Ugandan Asians, how many were received with ‘open arms ‘in the UK. To quote the migration studies scholar Saima Nasar, “to say that Ugandan Asians were readily and warmly welcomed in 1970s Britain would be to offer a distorted history of immigration and asylum. While Ugandan Asians have no doubt shaped Britain’s economic, political, and sociocultural landscapes, it is important to avoid celebratory narratives that overlook histories of struggle and discrimination.” Nasar goes on to explain that nowhere is this more significant than in the ‘refugee narratives’ of Britain’s Ugandan Asian population, “who have been variously described as imperial subjects, refugees and more recently as model migrants”. Mahmood Mamdani’s book From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britain, re-published in 2011 describes the situation very succinctly.
Uganda Asians at the airport. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
In this context not much is discussed of the role of non-state actors such as the Aga Khan and his role in the resettlement of the Ismailis in Canada, or of the UNHCR and the resettlement of those thousands who became stateless. In the words of Arafat Jamal, UNHCR representative in South Sudan, these are classic examples of “finding alternative pathways to resettlement.” This is a story that requires much greater research.
Thirdly, what background do our children have of the Asian minority situation in East Africa in the 1970s so that they may understand the whole issue of expulsion. Sadly, very little of this has emerged in any discussions. Scholars such as Yash Ghai, Yash Tandon, (both still alive) and Piyo Rattansi who recently passed away, are not even known. Books such as Portrait of a Minority: Asians in East Africa , a 1965 OAU classic on this subject, are not referred to or discussed, as is the case with memoirs of Diplomats, such as Prem Bhatia’s Indian Ordeal in Africa which highlights the daily ordeal Indian minorities faced in East Africa at the hands of corrupt politicians who had no time for history let alone for a community that felt vulnerable and, in the words of Yash Tandon, were seen and treated like “stepchildren of the colonial empire.”
Fourthly, what is the lesson for African governments or governments in other parts of the world that view the Indian minorities who were brought there by the colonial authorities as workers, petty traders, or petty administrators as exploiters worthy to be expelled or maltreated. This issue remains real and alive in countries such as Fiji, Madagascar, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Botswana, Malawi, and ironically Uganda itself today. Here the situation is quite clear. Some may wish to emulate Idi Amin and threaten that they would do the same. Others may learn the lesson from Uganda itself and see how the country suffered economically for years until the Indians were invited back to the country to re-play the critical role they once played in the distributive trade.
Uganda Asians queuing for help outside the office of the British High Commissioner, 1972. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
For the Indians the lesson is plain – to survive in the Africa of today they have to diversify their interests and do exactly what they were once accused of doing. That is having their ‘tun, mun and dhun’ (body, mind and wealth) in different parts of the world which in today’s globalised world is much more acceptable than 50 years ago when it was viewed as a sign of disloyalty.
Indians have achieved this versatility through sheer hard work and resilience through years of sacrifice and garnering of their resources very carefully. In the words of Iqbal Asaria, a leading exponent of sustainable development, “we did not achieve this by landing on a bed of roses. We worked very hard. This is experience gained by being baptised in the fiercest of fires.”
Fifthly, how do those brought up under the shadow of the expulsion rid themselves of the trauma — actual or inherited? For Sophie Kanabar, her mother never spoke about what she had to endure in Uganda and also at the time of the expulsion. She felt this must have been painful and talking about it would have been therapeutic. Sophie herself changed her name so that life would be easier. She is only now coming to terms with the trauma. Others recall the fear of those early days. For all our waxing lyrical about how many bankers we have produced and how many millionaires arose from this debacle, there still remains the pain of expulsion and being thrown out overnight from a country many had come to love as home.
Mr. Geoffrey Rippon in Kampala, meeting Asians queuing outside the British High Commission seeking help. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
Sixthly, there is the notion of racism. How did this play itself out at various levels of interface? What did the Asians of East Africa face when they first arrived in Uganda? How did they combat this? Who were the great stalwarts who fought racism? Then there was institutional racism so deeply embedded in colonial immigration rules and more surprisingly in the independence constitutions themselves — not to mention the Ugandan Immigration Act that mirrored the British one in 1968. What about racism in Britain with Asians arriving in the country on the back of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech and going to Leicester, the very city that placed an advert in a leading Ugandan daily warning them not to come there. The notion of “open arms” needs to be carefully reconsidered. There is also the question of racism at the level of Indian daily family life in Uganda in the colonial period as well as in the early days of Independence. This is very clearly brought out in a play called “90 days” by Ashok Patel produced at the Curve Theatre, Leicester on 4 August 2022, marking the day Amin passed his edict. The question of interracial dynamics is brilliantly portrayed in Mira Nair’s prizewinning film “Mississippi Masala.”
Passengers on the SS KARANJA, after having been expelled from Uganda, taking a last look at East Africa. Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
Seventh, what if this happened today and if it did, might the Western countries respond the same way as they did 50 years ago? The answer I feel is probably no. The world is a different place today. Populist movements are much more vocal, socially active and influential. Immigration would become a critical factor and could be used in a much more politicised way.
A group of displaced persons from Uganda arriving in Europe through the UNHCR programme. Photo: Courtesy of the UNHCR ©
Diasporic Indians by and large would suffer untold suffering. A small segment would leverage its global networks to a much greater extent than it was ever able to do in the past. Perhaps diasporic communities settled in the West may be in some position to help. Asian minorities globally have become in Roger Ballard’s words “skilled cultural navigators”. Asians would go to any country willing to accept them. However as ‘skilled cultural navigators’ they would perhaps realise that prevention is better than cure and that — living in former plantation colonies whose economies are still based on extractive capitalism —they would be best advised not to be seen only as a commercial community. They should conduct themselves as commercial communities whose entrepreneurialism is informed by principles of social justice and ethics. They should show more visibly how their commercial ethics are aimed at improving the quality of life of themselves and others among whom they live and who are in need.
Weary aged passengers receiving receive gifts from relatives and well-wishers on their way to Mombasa, Kenya. Photo: Photo: Courtesy Mohamed Amin Foundation ©
With the global networks many Asians have built today this should be a possibility with some of their children going back and forth to the countries from which they moved to the West. Their children with a background of first world technology coupled with commercial acumen acquired through family training might be in a much better position to do this than the governments to which they were, in one way or another, affiliated at the time of the “wind of change.”
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan , UN High Commissioner for Refugees at the time of the Ugandan Asian Expulsion, at Geneva Airport. The UNHCR was part of ” the alternative pathways to resettlement ” Photo: Courtesy of the UNHCR ©
The Aga Khan in conversation with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (1938-2018). The Aga Khan was able to negotiate with the Canadian government in 1972 for the resettlement of thousands of Ismailis in Canada following their expulsion from Uganda.
Photograph courtesy of the website of the Ismaili Imamat
Uganda 2022 is a time to celebrate but at the same time it is also a time to reflect. As Milan Kundera, the famous Czech writer reminds us. “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” If Uganda 2022 is going to be of educational value for future generations, we need to ensure that memory is fully aware of how power was actually played out at every level at different times. Here oral history is of some value, but it does not capture the whole story. The educational programme on which this year is predicated would gain enormously with making teachers in schools aware of history, and the actual dynamics of a region which was caught in a number of crossfires such as the Cold War, nationalism, unsolved end-of-empire issues and, above all, the question of the nation state and its impunity in the face of a growing consciousness of human rights.
About Dr. Mohamed Keshavjee
Dr. Mohamed Keshajvee. Photo: Parvaiz Machivalla ©
Dr. Mohamed M Keshavjee is an international specialist in cross- cultural mediation who lived in Kenya at the time of the decolonisation of East Africa. He is author of the book “Diasporic Distractions” – a book of short stories reflecting the predicament of the Indians in East Africa at the time of Independence. He is also the author of a book on South Africa entitled “Into that Heaven of Freedom” that describes life for an Indian extended family under apartheid South Africa.
ismailimail.blog/2022/09/16/uganda-at-50-time-for-jubilation-but-also-time-for-serious-reflection-by-mohamed-keshavjee/
When Diversity Isn’t the Right Kind of Diversity
Suella Braverman, Britain’s new home secretary, at 10 Downing Street.Credit...Tolga Akmen/EPA, via Shutterstock
The death of Queen Elizabeth II has dominated headlines this month, homages to her reign and dissections of the Harry and Meghan situation unsurprisingly pushing other news aside, especially other stories from Britain.
But even amid all the pomp, one news item out of Britain has attracted curiously little attention. Liz Truss, the new Conservative prime minister, announced her cabinet, and for the first time ever, not a single member of the inner circle — what’s referred to as the Great Offices of State — is a white man.
The home secretary, Suella Braverman, is the daughter of Kenyan and Mauritian immigrants. The mother of Foreign Minister James Cleverly emigrated from Sierra Leone. The new chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, was born to Ghanaian parents.
Did the left break into applause? Were there hosannas throughout progressive Twitter heralding this racial, ethnic and gender diversity as a step forward for society?
Not exactly.
Instead, the change was dutifully relayed, often with caveats. “Liz Truss’s cabinet: diverse but dogmatic,” noted The Guardian. The new team was criticized as elite, the product of schools like Eton, Cambridge and the Sorbonne. These people aren’t working class, others pointed out. They don’t sufficiently support the rights of those seeking asylum in Britain or policies that address climate change.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor of the Exchequer.Credit...Tolga Akmen/EPA, via Shutterstock
James Cleverly, the new foreign secretary.Credit...Tolga Akmen/EPA, via Shutterstock
“It’s a meritocratic advance for people who have done well in education, law and business,” Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future, a think tank that focuses on issues of immigration, integration and national identity, told CNN. “It’s not an advance on social class terms.”
This is an interesting criticism. “Meritocratic,” used here in a pejorative sense, means based on ability and achievement, earned through a combination of talent and hard work. Traditionally, merit served as the primary consideration in hiring, but some people today see the very systems that confer merit as rigged, especially against minorities. In an effort to rectify that imbalance and to diversify the work force, particularly for leadership positions, it has become common practice in hiring — in the business and nonprofit worlds, as in government — to make racial or ethnic diversity a more significant factor.
The trouble is that for many of the same people, ethnic and racial diversity count only when combined with a particular point of view. Even before Truss’s cabinet was completed, one member of the Labour opposition tweeted, “Her cabinet is expected to be diverse, but it will be the most right-wing in living memory, embracing a political agenda that will attack the rights of working people, especially minorities.”
Another Labour representative wrote: “It’s not enough to be a Black or ethnic minority politician in this country or a cabinet member. That’s not what representation is about. That’s actually tokenism.”
The implication is that there’s only one way to authentically represent one’s race, ethnicity or sex — otherwise you’re a phony or a pawn. Is that fair?
I’m not politically aligned with Truss on most issues. This is not the team I’d choose to lead a country reeling from Covid, an energy crisis and the twin disasters of Boris and Brexit. But it’s Truss’s prerogative to hire people with whom she is ideologically aligned and who support her policies.
And one has to assume those new hires joined her willingly and with conviction. Surely they, like all racial and ethnic minorities, are capable of the same independence of mind and diversity of thought as white people — some people Trumpy, other people Bernie.
Nor are they the first conservative minorities to hold top positions of power in Britain. It was the Conservative Party that, despite widespread antisemitism, first appointed a Jewish-born prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, in 1868. The three women who have served as prime ministers — Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and now Truss — have all been Conservatives. The former prime minister David Cameron was no lefty, yet he made a point of emphasizing ethnic and racial diversity among his leadership appointments.
Black and other ethnic minority voters in Britain aren’t uniformly lefty, either. They cast 20 percent of their votes for Conservatives in 2019.
A similar diversity of political opinion among minorities exists in the United States, and it bewilders the left. An increasing number of Latinos are running as and voting for Republican candidates. Donald Trump got more votes from ethnic minorities in 2020 than he did in 2016. Black men’s support for Trump increased by six percentage points the second time around. And that was after the murder of George Floyd, an event assumed to have galvanized many minority voters on the left.
In his prescient 1991 book, “Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby,” the law professor Stephen Carter decried many of the assumptions around diversity nascent at that time — including the notion that racial or ethnic minorities are expected to think as a group, not as individuals. He bemoaned “the idea that Black people who gain positions of authority or influence are vested with a special responsibility to articulate the presumed views of other people who are Black — in effect, to think and act and speak in a particular way, the Black way — and that there is something peculiar about Black people who insist on doing anything else.”
It’s been three decades since Carter’s book was published, and that lamentable assumption has only gained purchase. As he pointed out then: “In an earlier era, such sentiments might have been marked down as frankly racist. Now, however, they are almost a gospel for people who want to show their commitment to equality.”
It seems odd to have to point out in 2022 that “diverse” hires can be every bit as diverse on the inside as they are on the outside. For every Ketanji Brown Jackson, you’re liable to get a Clarence Thomas. Apparently, we need constant reminders that there’s more to people than meets the eye and that in multicultural societies, an acceptance of diversity must be more than skin deep.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Sunak’s Ascent Is a Breakthrough for Diversity, With Privilege Attached
Rishi Sunak’s ascent to the prime minister’s office is a significant milestone for Britain’s Indian diaspora. But for many, his immense personal wealth has made him less relatable.
LONDON — In northwest London, home to one of Britain’s largest Hindu communities, celebrations for Diwali, a festive holiday, were well underway on Monday. Children tossed small fireworks that popped as they slammed into the sidewalk. Bright lights strung across the street twinkled overhead. Families bought sweets and candles.
But many who were gathered with their families said that they suddenly had something new to celebrate — the news that Rishi Sunak, the eldest son of a doctor and pharmacist of Indian descent, will become prime minister, the first person of color to hold Britain’s highest political office.
Britain is home to a vibrant and diverse community of people with roots in India, which it ruled as a colony for nearly a century before India won independence in 1947. As many as 1.5 million people of Indian descent live in England and Wales, making them the largest ethnic group after white Britons.
That makes Mr. Sunak’s triumph a significant milestone for Britain’s Indian diaspora, whose long struggle against racism and prejudice is rarely a prominent issue in British politics.
“We are so proud and happy,” said Hemal Joshi, 43, who lives in northwest London with his wife and son. “I’ve got so many messages from India already. So he has a lot of expectation now from all over the world. Let’s see what he will do.”
Mr. Sunak, 42, has always expressed pride in his Indian roots, and he regularly points to his upbringing as the son of immigrants. But he has not put his heritage at the center of his political message, focusing instead on his experience in finance, and the British news media has not dwelled on his ethnicity.
Instead, it is Mr. Sunak’s elite education and extreme wealth that have drawn scrutiny — and become something of a political liability in a society famously divided by tensions over class.
Mr. Sunak is also a practicing Hindu, and when he took his oath of office as a member of Parliament, he did so on the Gita, a book of Hindu scripture. As chancellor of the Exchequer, he celebrated Diwali, known as the festival of lights, by putting lights outside his official residence at 11 Downing St.
Rishi Sunak lighting Diwali candles outside his official residence, 11 Downing Street, in 2020.Credit...John Sibley/Reuters
“We are very proud and very excited, being Hindus from India,” said Priya Gohil, who was just leaving the temple with her family in the borough of Harrow after offering Diwali prayers. “It’s just very relatable.”
What was less relatable to many was the air of privilege attached to him.
Mr. Sunak attended the elite Winchester College, a private boarding school in Britain, then went to Oxford University and Stanford. He made a fortune in finance, working for Goldman Sachs and two hedge funds before his political career began. He is also married to Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s wealthiest men.
“I think it’s great that we have a person of color as the prime minister for the first time,” said Shivani Dasani, 22, who was leaving a temple in northwest London. But she added, “He’s a rich, upper-class man, so he can’t speak for the entire community in that way.”
Those concerns persisted beyond London’s Indian communities. In some neighborhoods, many people were too busy finishing the workday to even know that Mr. Sunak had been chosen as prime minister. But those who did cited Mr. Sunak’s sizable wealth as one of the only things they knew about him, even as they hoped he would address the problems of inflation and soaring housing prices.
Ealing Road in London, on Monday. Some in the British capital said they were hoping that the new prime minister would address the problems of inflation and soaring housing prices.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
“He won’t know how normal people live — the working class,” said Samuel Shan, who was sweeping the floor near his fruit and vegetable stall at a market in Dalston, a diverse neighborhood that has become more gentrified in recent years. “We’ll see what he can do for us.”
Brano Gabani, a council worker originally from Slovakia, laughed humorlessly as he noted that he had “no choice” in the selection of Mr. Sunak. He said he did not know enough about the incoming prime minister’s character to assess him. But, like many others, he pointed to slow wage growth and the rising cost of living as major issues.
“Every month we lose salary; we are more poor,” he said. “I want to see him doing something, something for English people.”
Narendra H. Thakrar, the chairman of the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir temple in the Wembley area of London, said he believed that Mr. Sunak was the right man to steer the nation during a time of uncertainty, and that his appeal transcended any particular ethnic or religious community.
“There are many difficulties this country is facing at the moment economically, and I think that Rishi Sunak is the right person to take over as prime minister,” he said. “He has proved himself to be a good chancellor, and let’s hope he will do justice to the country. I am sure he will.”
Celebrating Diwali at the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir temple in London on Monday.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
As he stood alongside the tan, intricately carved sandstone temple on Monday, Mr. Thakrar rejoiced in the confluence of the Diwali holiday and Mr. Sunak’s victory, calling it “a great day.” Mr. Sunak, he said, was “a devout Hindu and he loves his community.”
Around the same time, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was congratulating Mr. Sunak and describing the Indian community in Britain as a “living bridge” between the two nations.
Zubaida Haque, the former executive director of the Equality Trust, a British charity, said that the pride Mr. Sunak’s victory might inspire needed to be placed in context. While representation matters, “that doesn’t mean that Britain has great social mobility,” she said, pointing to his wealthy upbringing.
“It’s still a great achievement that Rishi Sunak will get the top job in this country, but let’s not pretend that racial inequality is no longer a barrier,” she said.
Ms. Dasani, who was at the temple in Wembley with her family, expressed a similar sentiment, saying she believed that the earlier leadership race lost by Mr. Sunak brought to light “a lot of racism that still exists in the U.K.”
She said she felt that people questioned his Britishness in a way they never did with his white counterparts.
Ms. Dasani also cited Conservative Party policies that she said were hostile to immigrants and asylum seekers. Human rights groups, for example, condemned a policy initiated under Mr. Johnson aimed at sending some refugees arriving in Britain to Rwanda.
The chairman of the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir temple said he believed that Mr. Sunak was the right man to steer the nation during a time of uncertainty.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
But she said she still believed that having broader cultural representation on such a prominent stage could have a positive effect on the national psyche.
“I think there is a worry among South Asian people in the U.K. that if we are too loud about our culture people will see us as not properly British,” she said. “So I think it is a good thing that he is so open about his culture and his religion.”
Halima Begum, chief executive of Runnymede Trust, a research institute focusing on racial equality, called Mr. Sunak’s triumph a defining moment.
“It is a poignant and symbolic moment for a grandchild of the British Empire to take up the highest office of the land,” she said.
Still, Dr. Begum said that she hoped Mr. Sunak would put his skills as former chancellor to use to address problems affecting minority ethnic groups in Britain, including inflation and rising interest rates that have driven up household mortgages.
“The rest of the British public will be looking at what immediate actions Sunak will take to weather the storm,” she said.
Mujib Mashal contributed reporting from New Delhi.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
LONDON — In northwest London, home to one of Britain’s largest Hindu communities, celebrations for Diwali, a festive holiday, were well underway on Monday. Children tossed small fireworks that popped as they slammed into the sidewalk. Bright lights strung across the street twinkled overhead. Families bought sweets and candles.
But many who were gathered with their families said that they suddenly had something new to celebrate — the news that Rishi Sunak, the eldest son of a doctor and pharmacist of Indian descent, will become prime minister, the first person of color to hold Britain’s highest political office.
Britain is home to a vibrant and diverse community of people with roots in India, which it ruled as a colony for nearly a century before India won independence in 1947. As many as 1.5 million people of Indian descent live in England and Wales, making them the largest ethnic group after white Britons.
That makes Mr. Sunak’s triumph a significant milestone for Britain’s Indian diaspora, whose long struggle against racism and prejudice is rarely a prominent issue in British politics.
“We are so proud and happy,” said Hemal Joshi, 43, who lives in northwest London with his wife and son. “I’ve got so many messages from India already. So he has a lot of expectation now from all over the world. Let’s see what he will do.”
Mr. Sunak, 42, has always expressed pride in his Indian roots, and he regularly points to his upbringing as the son of immigrants. But he has not put his heritage at the center of his political message, focusing instead on his experience in finance, and the British news media has not dwelled on his ethnicity.
Instead, it is Mr. Sunak’s elite education and extreme wealth that have drawn scrutiny — and become something of a political liability in a society famously divided by tensions over class.
Mr. Sunak is also a practicing Hindu, and when he took his oath of office as a member of Parliament, he did so on the Gita, a book of Hindu scripture. As chancellor of the Exchequer, he celebrated Diwali, known as the festival of lights, by putting lights outside his official residence at 11 Downing St.
Rishi Sunak lighting Diwali candles outside his official residence, 11 Downing Street, in 2020.Credit...John Sibley/Reuters
“We are very proud and very excited, being Hindus from India,” said Priya Gohil, who was just leaving the temple with her family in the borough of Harrow after offering Diwali prayers. “It’s just very relatable.”
What was less relatable to many was the air of privilege attached to him.
Mr. Sunak attended the elite Winchester College, a private boarding school in Britain, then went to Oxford University and Stanford. He made a fortune in finance, working for Goldman Sachs and two hedge funds before his political career began. He is also married to Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s wealthiest men.
“I think it’s great that we have a person of color as the prime minister for the first time,” said Shivani Dasani, 22, who was leaving a temple in northwest London. But she added, “He’s a rich, upper-class man, so he can’t speak for the entire community in that way.”
Those concerns persisted beyond London’s Indian communities. In some neighborhoods, many people were too busy finishing the workday to even know that Mr. Sunak had been chosen as prime minister. But those who did cited Mr. Sunak’s sizable wealth as one of the only things they knew about him, even as they hoped he would address the problems of inflation and soaring housing prices.
Ealing Road in London, on Monday. Some in the British capital said they were hoping that the new prime minister would address the problems of inflation and soaring housing prices.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
“He won’t know how normal people live — the working class,” said Samuel Shan, who was sweeping the floor near his fruit and vegetable stall at a market in Dalston, a diverse neighborhood that has become more gentrified in recent years. “We’ll see what he can do for us.”
Brano Gabani, a council worker originally from Slovakia, laughed humorlessly as he noted that he had “no choice” in the selection of Mr. Sunak. He said he did not know enough about the incoming prime minister’s character to assess him. But, like many others, he pointed to slow wage growth and the rising cost of living as major issues.
“Every month we lose salary; we are more poor,” he said. “I want to see him doing something, something for English people.”
Narendra H. Thakrar, the chairman of the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir temple in the Wembley area of London, said he believed that Mr. Sunak was the right man to steer the nation during a time of uncertainty, and that his appeal transcended any particular ethnic or religious community.
“There are many difficulties this country is facing at the moment economically, and I think that Rishi Sunak is the right person to take over as prime minister,” he said. “He has proved himself to be a good chancellor, and let’s hope he will do justice to the country. I am sure he will.”
Celebrating Diwali at the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir temple in London on Monday.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
As he stood alongside the tan, intricately carved sandstone temple on Monday, Mr. Thakrar rejoiced in the confluence of the Diwali holiday and Mr. Sunak’s victory, calling it “a great day.” Mr. Sunak, he said, was “a devout Hindu and he loves his community.”
Around the same time, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was congratulating Mr. Sunak and describing the Indian community in Britain as a “living bridge” between the two nations.
Zubaida Haque, the former executive director of the Equality Trust, a British charity, said that the pride Mr. Sunak’s victory might inspire needed to be placed in context. While representation matters, “that doesn’t mean that Britain has great social mobility,” she said, pointing to his wealthy upbringing.
“It’s still a great achievement that Rishi Sunak will get the top job in this country, but let’s not pretend that racial inequality is no longer a barrier,” she said.
Ms. Dasani, who was at the temple in Wembley with her family, expressed a similar sentiment, saying she believed that the earlier leadership race lost by Mr. Sunak brought to light “a lot of racism that still exists in the U.K.”
She said she felt that people questioned his Britishness in a way they never did with his white counterparts.
Ms. Dasani also cited Conservative Party policies that she said were hostile to immigrants and asylum seekers. Human rights groups, for example, condemned a policy initiated under Mr. Johnson aimed at sending some refugees arriving in Britain to Rwanda.
The chairman of the Shri Sanatan Hindu Mandir temple said he believed that Mr. Sunak was the right man to steer the nation during a time of uncertainty.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
But she said she still believed that having broader cultural representation on such a prominent stage could have a positive effect on the national psyche.
“I think there is a worry among South Asian people in the U.K. that if we are too loud about our culture people will see us as not properly British,” she said. “So I think it is a good thing that he is so open about his culture and his religion.”
Halima Begum, chief executive of Runnymede Trust, a research institute focusing on racial equality, called Mr. Sunak’s triumph a defining moment.
“It is a poignant and symbolic moment for a grandchild of the British Empire to take up the highest office of the land,” she said.
Still, Dr. Begum said that she hoped Mr. Sunak would put his skills as former chancellor to use to address problems affecting minority ethnic groups in Britain, including inflation and rising interest rates that have driven up household mortgages.
“The rest of the British public will be looking at what immediate actions Sunak will take to weather the storm,” she said.
Mujib Mashal contributed reporting from New Delhi.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
No Culture for Alienated Men
There were three important deaths recently: Ted Kaczynski, Silvio Berlusconi, Cormac McCarthy. A strange assortment of characters — the murderer who imagined himself a philosopher, the louche tycoon who created modern Western populism, the novelist who traded in biblical cadences without biblical reassurances.
Or maybe not so strangely assorted; maybe the three men were variations on a theme — that theme being alienation, and specifically masculine alienation, from the patterns and rules of late-modern civilization, and the different rebellions that alienation might inspire.
There is a lot of talk lately about a crisis of manhood, manifest in statistics showing young men falling behind young women in various indicators of education and ambition, answered from the left by therapeutic attempts to detoxify masculinity and from the right by promises of masculine revival. The root of the problem seems clear enough, even if the solutions are contested: The things that men are most adapted for (or socialized for, if you prefer that narrative, though the biological element seems inescapable) are valued less, sometimes much less, in the peacetime of a postindustrial civilization than in most of the human past.
In a phrase, when we talk about traditional modes of manhood, we’re often talking about mastery through physical strength and the capacity for violence. That kind of mastery will always have some value, but it had more value in 1370 than in 1870 and more in 1870 than it does today. And the excess, the superfluity, must therefore be repressed, tamed or somehow educated away.
So what happens to men who aren’t interested in that taming process? One answer is offered by Kaczynski’s terrorist career: They become enraged and twisted; they fantasize about a truer, freer, more authentic past; they confuse grievance with philosophy (the Kaczynski manifesto has its online admirers, but most of what he’s preaching is packaged more entertainingly by “Fight Club”); they imagine revolutions but deliver empty homicidal gestures. School shooters, religious terrorists, paladins of the meaningless atrocity — these are Kaczynski’s heirs.
Then there is Berlusconi, a very different kind of he-rebel. For the Italian prime minister, modern society’s taming of masculinity allowed him to offer machismo as a form of burlesque, an entertainment, rebellion with a wink, a leer, and a snigger rather than the Unabomber’s alienated rage. In his shtick the danger of male violence was reduced to the milder threat of male misbehavior, and in his political career you could see how the bad boy politician can thrive in a feminized context — by being just shocking enough to stand out from the crowd, just different enough to draw the discontented to his banner, but always reassuringly performative and cheesy, a bunga-bunga man rather than a killer.
It’s not surprising that other populist leaders have offered this same kind of masculine burlesque — Donald Trump, of course, but also Boris Johnson with his shambolic naughtiness. It’s also not surprising that for both Berlusconi’s Italy and Johnson’s Britain, the policy results feel like a dead end: If our therapeutic age tends toward a certain kind of stagnation, electing men who make a spectacle of their virility isn’t any kind of magic ticket back to dynamism.
Finally, where Kaczynski represented rage and Berlusconi spectacle, Cormac McCarthy represented — well, call it witness, maybe, or memory, or prophecy, or all three. His novels were intensely masculine, intensely violent, and largely unconcerned with the burdens of being a man under tamed or civilized conditions. He simply left those conditions behind — personally to some extent, leading a life substantially rougher than many of his literary contemporaries, and absolutely in his novels, whether they went out to the violent fringes of our own peaceful world, back into a berserker past, or forward into our civilization’s ashes.
In “No Country for Old Men,” not his most important book but one of the best entry points, you get the essential McCarthy vision — a view of the civilized world as a passing thing, enfiladed by shadows, haunted by forces it can deny but not withstand.
In this vision it doesn’t matter how much the world is tamed and softened: Violence will always come back; masculinity will always have its day. But not a day of power and domination, of the sort that certain online influencers fantasize about. Instead, as Graeme Wood wrote in The Atlantic, McCarthy placed his men in conditions they couldn’t fully master, “in the crossfire of gods and demigods on a battleground that preceded human existence and will continue long after we are all gone.”
His characters’ admirable manliness, where it existed, consisted in survival, endurance, integrity. His cosmology was pre-Christian, shorn of any liberal optimism, but not entirely purged of hope. But that hope could only be glimpsed, not seized — discovered not in mastery, but mystery.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Or maybe not so strangely assorted; maybe the three men were variations on a theme — that theme being alienation, and specifically masculine alienation, from the patterns and rules of late-modern civilization, and the different rebellions that alienation might inspire.
There is a lot of talk lately about a crisis of manhood, manifest in statistics showing young men falling behind young women in various indicators of education and ambition, answered from the left by therapeutic attempts to detoxify masculinity and from the right by promises of masculine revival. The root of the problem seems clear enough, even if the solutions are contested: The things that men are most adapted for (or socialized for, if you prefer that narrative, though the biological element seems inescapable) are valued less, sometimes much less, in the peacetime of a postindustrial civilization than in most of the human past.
In a phrase, when we talk about traditional modes of manhood, we’re often talking about mastery through physical strength and the capacity for violence. That kind of mastery will always have some value, but it had more value in 1370 than in 1870 and more in 1870 than it does today. And the excess, the superfluity, must therefore be repressed, tamed or somehow educated away.
So what happens to men who aren’t interested in that taming process? One answer is offered by Kaczynski’s terrorist career: They become enraged and twisted; they fantasize about a truer, freer, more authentic past; they confuse grievance with philosophy (the Kaczynski manifesto has its online admirers, but most of what he’s preaching is packaged more entertainingly by “Fight Club”); they imagine revolutions but deliver empty homicidal gestures. School shooters, religious terrorists, paladins of the meaningless atrocity — these are Kaczynski’s heirs.
Then there is Berlusconi, a very different kind of he-rebel. For the Italian prime minister, modern society’s taming of masculinity allowed him to offer machismo as a form of burlesque, an entertainment, rebellion with a wink, a leer, and a snigger rather than the Unabomber’s alienated rage. In his shtick the danger of male violence was reduced to the milder threat of male misbehavior, and in his political career you could see how the bad boy politician can thrive in a feminized context — by being just shocking enough to stand out from the crowd, just different enough to draw the discontented to his banner, but always reassuringly performative and cheesy, a bunga-bunga man rather than a killer.
It’s not surprising that other populist leaders have offered this same kind of masculine burlesque — Donald Trump, of course, but also Boris Johnson with his shambolic naughtiness. It’s also not surprising that for both Berlusconi’s Italy and Johnson’s Britain, the policy results feel like a dead end: If our therapeutic age tends toward a certain kind of stagnation, electing men who make a spectacle of their virility isn’t any kind of magic ticket back to dynamism.
Finally, where Kaczynski represented rage and Berlusconi spectacle, Cormac McCarthy represented — well, call it witness, maybe, or memory, or prophecy, or all three. His novels were intensely masculine, intensely violent, and largely unconcerned with the burdens of being a man under tamed or civilized conditions. He simply left those conditions behind — personally to some extent, leading a life substantially rougher than many of his literary contemporaries, and absolutely in his novels, whether they went out to the violent fringes of our own peaceful world, back into a berserker past, or forward into our civilization’s ashes.
In “No Country for Old Men,” not his most important book but one of the best entry points, you get the essential McCarthy vision — a view of the civilized world as a passing thing, enfiladed by shadows, haunted by forces it can deny but not withstand.
In this vision it doesn’t matter how much the world is tamed and softened: Violence will always come back; masculinity will always have its day. But not a day of power and domination, of the sort that certain online influencers fantasize about. Instead, as Graeme Wood wrote in The Atlantic, McCarthy placed his men in conditions they couldn’t fully master, “in the crossfire of gods and demigods on a battleground that preceded human existence and will continue long after we are all gone.”
His characters’ admirable manliness, where it existed, consisted in survival, endurance, integrity. His cosmology was pre-Christian, shorn of any liberal optimism, but not entirely purged of hope. But that hope could only be glimpsed, not seized — discovered not in mastery, but mystery.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/17/opin ... 778d3e6de3
How a Vast Demographic Shift Will Reshape the World
Tables and statistical illustrations can be accessed at:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3
The world’s demographics have already been transformed. Europe is shrinking. China is shrinking, with India, a much younger country, overtaking it this year as the world’s most populous nation.
But what we’ve seen so far is just the beginning.
The projections are reliable, and stark: By 2050, people age 65 and older will make up nearly 40 percent of the population in some parts of East Asia and Europe. That’s almost twice the share of older adults in Florida, America’s retirement capital. Extraordinary numbers of retirees will be dependent on a shrinking number of working-age people to support them.
In all of recorded history, no country has ever been as old as these nations are expected to get.
As a result, experts predict, things many wealthier countries take for granted — like pensions, retirement ages and strict immigration policies — will need overhauls to be sustainable. And today’s wealthier countries will almost inevitably make up a smaller share of global G.D.P., economists say.
This is a sea change for Europe, the United States, China and other top economies, which have had some of the most working-age people in the world, adjusted for their populations. Their large work forces have helped to drive their economic growth.
Those countries are already aging off the list. Soon, the best-balanced work forces will mostly be in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East, according to U.N. projections. The shift could reshape economic growth and geopolitical power balances, experts say.
Largest working-age share of population
Top 10 largest economies today
1990
Japan
South Korea
Germany
Italy
Russia
United States
France
China
Thailand
United Kingdom
2023
South Korea
Brazil
Colombia
China
Thailand
Iran
Myanmar
Vietnam
Bangladesh
Indonesia
2050
South Africa
Myanmar
India
Bangladesh
Philippines
Pakistan
Kenya
Indonesia
Egypt
Ethiopia
Sources: U.N. World Population Prospects, World Bank Graphic includes countries with at least 50 million people in 2023. Largest economies are determined by gross domestic product.
In many respects, the aging of the world is a triumph of development. People are living longer, healthier lives and having fewer children as they get richer.
The opportunity for many poorer countries is enormous. When birth rates fall, countries can reap a “demographic dividend,” when a growing share of workers and few dependents fuel economic growth. Adults with smaller families have more free time for education and investing in their children. More women tend to enter the work force, compounding the economic boost.
Demography isn’t destiny, and the dividend isn’t automatic. Without jobs, having a lot of working-age people can drive instability rather than growth. And even as they age, rich countries will enjoy economic advantages and a high standard of living for a long time.
1990
2023
2050
The world’s dominant powers had large working-age
populations in the 1990s. Others were still very young.
Today, much of Europe is aging, and
Japan is particularly old.
In 2050, most of today’s richest countries will be old. Others
will have huge working-age populations for the first time.
Russia
U.K.
France
Pakistan
Pakistan
China
China
U.S.
U.S.
Japan
U.S.
Japan
China
India
India
India
Nigeria
Nigeria
Ethiopia
D.R.C.
Indonesia
Indonesia
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
But the economic logic of age is hard to escape.
“All of these changes should never surprise anyone. But they do,” said Mikko Myrskylä, director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. “And that’s not because we didn't know. It’s because politically it’s so difficult to react.”
The Opportunity of Youth
50 youngest countries in 2050
2023
10 children for every 10 working-age adults
9
8
Niger
7
Dem. Rep. of Congo
Somalia
6
Central African Rep.
Angola
Tanzania
Nigeria
5
Afghanistan
Ethiopia
Tajikistan
Kenya
4
Countries with a very high proportion of children today will have fewer child dependents and more workers in 2050. Many are in Africa, Asia or Oceania.
3
2
1
0 children for every 10 working-age adults
1990
2050
Source: Times analysis of U.N. World Population Prospects
As in many young countries, birth rates in Kenya have declined drastically in recent years. Women had an average of eight children 50 years ago, but only just over three last year. Demographically, Kenya looks something like South Korea in the mid-1970s, as its economy was beginning a historic rise, although its birth rate is declining somewhat more slowly. Much of South Asia and Africa have similar age structures.
The upside is enormous.
A similar jump in the working-age population may explain about a third of the economic growth through the end of the last century in South Korea, China, Japan and Singapore, according to the best estimates — an enormous amount of economic growth.
Young populations
Working
age
Old populations
2050
Oldest regions
Europe
020406080+Ages:
Albania
Particularly old
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Rep.
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Kosovo
Latvia
Lithuania
Netherlands
N. Macedonia
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Moldova
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine
U.K.
Eastern Asia
020406080+Ages:
China
Particularly old
Hong Kong
North Korea
Japan
Mongolia
South Korea
Taiwan
Northern America
020406080+Ages:
Canada
Particularly old
United States
Australia and New Zealand
020406080+Ages:
Australia
New Zealand
Youngest region
Sub-Saharan Africa
020406080+Ages:
Angola
Particularly young
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Central African Rep.
Chad
Comoros
Rep. of Congo
Ivory Coast
Dem. Rep. of Congo
Djibouti
Eq. Guinea
Eritrea
Eswatini
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Togo
Uganda
Tanzania
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Countries shown are those projected to have a population of 1 million or more by 2050, according to U.N. projections. Ages are shown as five-year averages. Regions are based on U.N. classifications.
Many of these demographic changes are already baked in: Most people who will be alive in 2050 have already been born.
But predictions always involve uncertainty, and there is evidence that sub-Saharan African countries’ fertility rates are dropping even faster than the U.N. projects — meaning that those African countries could be even better positioned in 2050 than currently expected.
But without the right policies, a huge working-age population can backfire rather than lead to economic growth. If large numbers of young adults don’t have access to jobs or education, widespread youth unemployment can even threaten stability as frustrated young people turn to criminal or armed groups for better opportunities.
“If you don’t have employment for those people who are entering the labor force, then it’s no guarantee that the demographic dividend is going to happen,” said Carolina Cardona, a health economist at Johns Hopkins University who works with the Demographic Dividend Initiative.
East Asian countries that hit the demographic sweet spot in the last few decades had particularly good institutions and policies in place to take advantage of that potential, said Philip O’Keefe, who directs the Aging Asia Research Hub at the ARC Center of Excellence in Population Aging Research and previously led reports on aging in East Asia and the Pacific at the World Bank.
Other parts of the world – some of Latin America, for example – had age structures similar to those East Asian countries’ but haven’t seen anywhere near the same growth, according to Mr. O’Keefe. “Demography is the raw material,” he said. “The dividend is the interaction of the raw material and good policies.”
The Challenges of Aging
50 oldest countries in 2050
There will be three adults age 65 or older for every four working-age adults in South Korea in 2050. Most of the oldest places will be in Asia and Europe.
8 seniors for every 10 working-age adults
Hong Kong
For every two working-age adults in Japan, there is currently at least one person who is age 65 or older.
South Korea
2023
Italy
7
Spain
Taiwan
Greece
6
Singapore
Slovenia
Thailand
Germany
5
Mainland China
Finland
Japan
Netherlands
Canada
4
3
1990
2050
Source: U.N. World Population Prospects
Today’s young countries aren’t the only ones at a critical juncture. The transformation of rich countries has only just begun. If these countries fail to prepare for a shrinking number of workers, they will face a gradual decline in well-being and economic power.
The number of working-age people in South Korea and Italy, two countries that will be among the world’s oldest, is projected to decrease by 13 million and 10 million by 2050, according to U.N. population projections. China is projected to have 200 million fewer residents of working age, a decrease higher than the entire population of most countries.
Large countries with the highest share of population 65 or older by 2050
Italy
South Korea
Japan
Spain
2023
2050
2023
2050
2023
2050
2023
2050
72m
In 2050, the number of
older South Korean
adults will near
the number of
working-age adults.
53m
39m
37m
36m
37m
Working
age
31m
27m
24m
23m
19m
18m
16m
14m
Old
14m
12m
9.9m
9.5m
7.2m
Young
6.4m
5.8m
5.8m
5m
3.8m
Source: U.N. World Population Prospects 2022
To cope, experts say, aging rich countries will need to rethink pensions, immigration policies and what life in old age looks like.
Change will not come easy. More than a million people have taken to the streets in France to protest raising the retirement age to 64 from 62, highlighting the difficult politics of adjusting. Immigration fears have fueled support for right-wing candidates across aging countries in the West and East Asia.
“Much of the challenges at the global level are questions of distribution,” Dr. Myrskylä said. “So some places have too many old people. Some places have too many young people. It would of course make enormous sense to open the borders much more. And at the same time we see that’s incredibly difficult with the increasing right-wing populist movements.”
The changes will be amplified in Asian countries, which are aging faster than other world regions, according to the World Bank. A change in age structure that took France more than 100 years and the United States more than 60 took many East and Southeast Asian countries just 20 years.
Not only are Asian countries aging much faster, but some are also becoming old before they become rich. While Japan, South Korea and Singapore have relatively high income levels, China reached its peak working-age population at 20 percent the income level that the United States had at the same point. Vietnam reached the same peak at 14 percent the same level.
Pension systems in lower-income countries are less equipped to handle aging populations than those in richer countries.
In most lower-income countries, workers are not protected by a robust pension system, Mr. O’Keefe said. They rarely contribute a portion of their wages toward retirement plans, as in many wealthy countries.
“That clearly is not a situation that’s going to be sustainable socially in 20 years’ time when you have much higher shares of aged population,” he said. “Countries will have to sort out what model of a pension system they need to provide some kind of adequacy of financial support in an old age.”
And some rich countries won’t face as profound a change — including the United States.
Slightly higher fertility rates and more immigration mean the United States and Australia, for example, will be younger than most other rich countries in 2050. In both the United States and Australia, just under 24 percent of the population is projected to be 65 or older in 2050, according to U.N. projections — far higher than today, but lower than in most of Europe and East Asia, which will top 30 percent.
Aging is a tremendous achievement despite its problems.
“We’ve managed to increase the length of life,” Dr. Myrskylä said. “We have reduced premature mortality. We have reached a state in which having children is a choice that people make instead of somehow being coerced, forced by societal structures into having whatever number of children.”
People aren’t just living longer; they are also living healthier, more active lives. And aging countries’ high level of development means they will continue to enjoy prosperity for a long time.
But behavioral and governmental policy choices loom large.
“You can say with some kind of degree of confidence what the demographics will look like,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “What the society will look like depends enormously on policy choices and behavioral change.”
Methodology
Countries are categorized as having large working-age populations if people between the ages of 15 and 64, an age group commonly used by demographers, make up at least 65 percent of the total population.
Countries where at least a quarter of the population is under age 15 and where less than 65 percent of the population is working age are categorized as having a large young population. Countries are categorized as having a large old population if those age 65 and older make up more than a quarter of the population.
Unless noted otherwise, graphics include all countries with a population of at least 50,000 people.
Correction: July 17, 2023
An earlier version of the table that lists countries with the largest working-age shares of population incorrectly included Indonesia twice under 2050. India is projected to have the third-largest working-age share, not Indonesia. (As the table correctly noted, Indonesia is projected to rank eighth in 2050.)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3
The world’s demographics have already been transformed. Europe is shrinking. China is shrinking, with India, a much younger country, overtaking it this year as the world’s most populous nation.
But what we’ve seen so far is just the beginning.
The projections are reliable, and stark: By 2050, people age 65 and older will make up nearly 40 percent of the population in some parts of East Asia and Europe. That’s almost twice the share of older adults in Florida, America’s retirement capital. Extraordinary numbers of retirees will be dependent on a shrinking number of working-age people to support them.
In all of recorded history, no country has ever been as old as these nations are expected to get.
As a result, experts predict, things many wealthier countries take for granted — like pensions, retirement ages and strict immigration policies — will need overhauls to be sustainable. And today’s wealthier countries will almost inevitably make up a smaller share of global G.D.P., economists say.
This is a sea change for Europe, the United States, China and other top economies, which have had some of the most working-age people in the world, adjusted for their populations. Their large work forces have helped to drive their economic growth.
Those countries are already aging off the list. Soon, the best-balanced work forces will mostly be in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East, according to U.N. projections. The shift could reshape economic growth and geopolitical power balances, experts say.
Largest working-age share of population
Top 10 largest economies today
1990
Japan
South Korea
Germany
Italy
Russia
United States
France
China
Thailand
United Kingdom
2023
South Korea
Brazil
Colombia
China
Thailand
Iran
Myanmar
Vietnam
Bangladesh
Indonesia
2050
South Africa
Myanmar
India
Bangladesh
Philippines
Pakistan
Kenya
Indonesia
Egypt
Ethiopia
Sources: U.N. World Population Prospects, World Bank Graphic includes countries with at least 50 million people in 2023. Largest economies are determined by gross domestic product.
In many respects, the aging of the world is a triumph of development. People are living longer, healthier lives and having fewer children as they get richer.
The opportunity for many poorer countries is enormous. When birth rates fall, countries can reap a “demographic dividend,” when a growing share of workers and few dependents fuel economic growth. Adults with smaller families have more free time for education and investing in their children. More women tend to enter the work force, compounding the economic boost.
Demography isn’t destiny, and the dividend isn’t automatic. Without jobs, having a lot of working-age people can drive instability rather than growth. And even as they age, rich countries will enjoy economic advantages and a high standard of living for a long time.
1990
2023
2050
The world’s dominant powers had large working-age
populations in the 1990s. Others were still very young.
Today, much of Europe is aging, and
Japan is particularly old.
In 2050, most of today’s richest countries will be old. Others
will have huge working-age populations for the first time.
Russia
U.K.
France
Pakistan
Pakistan
China
China
U.S.
U.S.
Japan
U.S.
Japan
China
India
India
India
Nigeria
Nigeria
Ethiopia
D.R.C.
Indonesia
Indonesia
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil
But the economic logic of age is hard to escape.
“All of these changes should never surprise anyone. But they do,” said Mikko Myrskylä, director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. “And that’s not because we didn't know. It’s because politically it’s so difficult to react.”
The Opportunity of Youth
50 youngest countries in 2050
2023
10 children for every 10 working-age adults
9
8
Niger
7
Dem. Rep. of Congo
Somalia
6
Central African Rep.
Angola
Tanzania
Nigeria
5
Afghanistan
Ethiopia
Tajikistan
Kenya
4
Countries with a very high proportion of children today will have fewer child dependents and more workers in 2050. Many are in Africa, Asia or Oceania.
3
2
1
0 children for every 10 working-age adults
1990
2050
Source: Times analysis of U.N. World Population Prospects
As in many young countries, birth rates in Kenya have declined drastically in recent years. Women had an average of eight children 50 years ago, but only just over three last year. Demographically, Kenya looks something like South Korea in the mid-1970s, as its economy was beginning a historic rise, although its birth rate is declining somewhat more slowly. Much of South Asia and Africa have similar age structures.
The upside is enormous.
A similar jump in the working-age population may explain about a third of the economic growth through the end of the last century in South Korea, China, Japan and Singapore, according to the best estimates — an enormous amount of economic growth.
Young populations
Working
age
Old populations
2050
Oldest regions
Europe
020406080+Ages:
Albania
Particularly old
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Rep.
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Kosovo
Latvia
Lithuania
Netherlands
N. Macedonia
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Moldova
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Ukraine
U.K.
Eastern Asia
020406080+Ages:
China
Particularly old
Hong Kong
North Korea
Japan
Mongolia
South Korea
Taiwan
Northern America
020406080+Ages:
Canada
Particularly old
United States
Australia and New Zealand
020406080+Ages:
Australia
New Zealand
Youngest region
Sub-Saharan Africa
020406080+Ages:
Angola
Particularly young
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Central African Rep.
Chad
Comoros
Rep. of Congo
Ivory Coast
Dem. Rep. of Congo
Djibouti
Eq. Guinea
Eritrea
Eswatini
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Togo
Uganda
Tanzania
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Countries shown are those projected to have a population of 1 million or more by 2050, according to U.N. projections. Ages are shown as five-year averages. Regions are based on U.N. classifications.
Many of these demographic changes are already baked in: Most people who will be alive in 2050 have already been born.
But predictions always involve uncertainty, and there is evidence that sub-Saharan African countries’ fertility rates are dropping even faster than the U.N. projects — meaning that those African countries could be even better positioned in 2050 than currently expected.
But without the right policies, a huge working-age population can backfire rather than lead to economic growth. If large numbers of young adults don’t have access to jobs or education, widespread youth unemployment can even threaten stability as frustrated young people turn to criminal or armed groups for better opportunities.
“If you don’t have employment for those people who are entering the labor force, then it’s no guarantee that the demographic dividend is going to happen,” said Carolina Cardona, a health economist at Johns Hopkins University who works with the Demographic Dividend Initiative.
East Asian countries that hit the demographic sweet spot in the last few decades had particularly good institutions and policies in place to take advantage of that potential, said Philip O’Keefe, who directs the Aging Asia Research Hub at the ARC Center of Excellence in Population Aging Research and previously led reports on aging in East Asia and the Pacific at the World Bank.
Other parts of the world – some of Latin America, for example – had age structures similar to those East Asian countries’ but haven’t seen anywhere near the same growth, according to Mr. O’Keefe. “Demography is the raw material,” he said. “The dividend is the interaction of the raw material and good policies.”
The Challenges of Aging
50 oldest countries in 2050
There will be three adults age 65 or older for every four working-age adults in South Korea in 2050. Most of the oldest places will be in Asia and Europe.
8 seniors for every 10 working-age adults
Hong Kong
For every two working-age adults in Japan, there is currently at least one person who is age 65 or older.
South Korea
2023
Italy
7
Spain
Taiwan
Greece
6
Singapore
Slovenia
Thailand
Germany
5
Mainland China
Finland
Japan
Netherlands
Canada
4
3
1990
2050
Source: U.N. World Population Prospects
Today’s young countries aren’t the only ones at a critical juncture. The transformation of rich countries has only just begun. If these countries fail to prepare for a shrinking number of workers, they will face a gradual decline in well-being and economic power.
The number of working-age people in South Korea and Italy, two countries that will be among the world’s oldest, is projected to decrease by 13 million and 10 million by 2050, according to U.N. population projections. China is projected to have 200 million fewer residents of working age, a decrease higher than the entire population of most countries.
Large countries with the highest share of population 65 or older by 2050
Italy
South Korea
Japan
Spain
2023
2050
2023
2050
2023
2050
2023
2050
72m
In 2050, the number of
older South Korean
adults will near
the number of
working-age adults.
53m
39m
37m
36m
37m
Working
age
31m
27m
24m
23m
19m
18m
16m
14m
Old
14m
12m
9.9m
9.5m
7.2m
Young
6.4m
5.8m
5.8m
5m
3.8m
Source: U.N. World Population Prospects 2022
To cope, experts say, aging rich countries will need to rethink pensions, immigration policies and what life in old age looks like.
Change will not come easy. More than a million people have taken to the streets in France to protest raising the retirement age to 64 from 62, highlighting the difficult politics of adjusting. Immigration fears have fueled support for right-wing candidates across aging countries in the West and East Asia.
“Much of the challenges at the global level are questions of distribution,” Dr. Myrskylä said. “So some places have too many old people. Some places have too many young people. It would of course make enormous sense to open the borders much more. And at the same time we see that’s incredibly difficult with the increasing right-wing populist movements.”
The changes will be amplified in Asian countries, which are aging faster than other world regions, according to the World Bank. A change in age structure that took France more than 100 years and the United States more than 60 took many East and Southeast Asian countries just 20 years.
Not only are Asian countries aging much faster, but some are also becoming old before they become rich. While Japan, South Korea and Singapore have relatively high income levels, China reached its peak working-age population at 20 percent the income level that the United States had at the same point. Vietnam reached the same peak at 14 percent the same level.
Pension systems in lower-income countries are less equipped to handle aging populations than those in richer countries.
In most lower-income countries, workers are not protected by a robust pension system, Mr. O’Keefe said. They rarely contribute a portion of their wages toward retirement plans, as in many wealthy countries.
“That clearly is not a situation that’s going to be sustainable socially in 20 years’ time when you have much higher shares of aged population,” he said. “Countries will have to sort out what model of a pension system they need to provide some kind of adequacy of financial support in an old age.”
And some rich countries won’t face as profound a change — including the United States.
Slightly higher fertility rates and more immigration mean the United States and Australia, for example, will be younger than most other rich countries in 2050. In both the United States and Australia, just under 24 percent of the population is projected to be 65 or older in 2050, according to U.N. projections — far higher than today, but lower than in most of Europe and East Asia, which will top 30 percent.
Aging is a tremendous achievement despite its problems.
“We’ve managed to increase the length of life,” Dr. Myrskylä said. “We have reduced premature mortality. We have reached a state in which having children is a choice that people make instead of somehow being coerced, forced by societal structures into having whatever number of children.”
People aren’t just living longer; they are also living healthier, more active lives. And aging countries’ high level of development means they will continue to enjoy prosperity for a long time.
But behavioral and governmental policy choices loom large.
“You can say with some kind of degree of confidence what the demographics will look like,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “What the society will look like depends enormously on policy choices and behavioral change.”
Methodology
Countries are categorized as having large working-age populations if people between the ages of 15 and 64, an age group commonly used by demographers, make up at least 65 percent of the total population.
Countries where at least a quarter of the population is under age 15 and where less than 65 percent of the population is working age are categorized as having a large young population. Countries are categorized as having a large old population if those age 65 and older make up more than a quarter of the population.
Unless noted otherwise, graphics include all countries with a population of at least 50,000 people.
Correction: July 17, 2023
An earlier version of the table that lists countries with the largest working-age shares of population incorrectly included Indonesia twice under 2050. India is projected to have the third-largest working-age share, not Indonesia. (As the table correctly noted, Indonesia is projected to rank eighth in 2050.)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3
Re: SOCIAL TRENDS
USA TODAY
What is Burning Man? What to know about its origin, name and what people do there
Francisco Guzman, USA TODAY
Updated Sun, September 3, 2023 at 2:29 PM CDT
In 1986, two men burned an eight-foot tall human-shaped sculpture in San Francisco’s Baker Beach as a small crowd gathered to watch the first annual Burning Man.
Today, tens of thousands of people gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert each summer for about nine days to create a temporary city known for its communal living and eccentric displays of art and expression.
Here’s what to know about Burning Man as authorities investigate a death Sunday while more than 70,000 people were told to shelter in place after heavy rain made it difficult to drive out of the swampy desert venue.
Why is it called Burning Man?
The annual gathering, which went on hiatus in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, got its name from a giant sculpture called The Man. The sculpture is burned to cap off the event.
When did Burning Man start?
Burning Man started in 1986 when founders Larry Harvey and Jerry James burned a human-shaped sculpture at Baker Beach in San Francisco.
During the 1990s, Burning Man grew in popularity and was moved to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
What do people do at Burning Man? What's its purpose?
Tens of thousands of people known as “Burners” travel to Nevada to create a kind of utopia. They build villages, a medical center, an airport and performance stages.
Burning Man is all about self-expression and the rejection of corporatism and capitalism. Instead of using money, attendees borrow, barter and trade for what they need.
People create a fleeting, self-sustaining community that (theoretically) leaves no trace or trash upon its completion. However, the encampment is not without its problems, including drug use, arrests and sexual assaults, The Reno Gazette Journal reported, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Can anyone just go to Burning Man?
Every person needs a valid ticket and vehicle pass to enter Black Rock City, the temporary city at Burning Man.
What are the 10 principles of Burning Man?
Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey laid out these 10 principles of Burning Man in 2004:
Radical inclusion: Anyone may be a part of Burning Man.
Gifting: Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving.
Decommodification: In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions or advertising.
Radical self-reliance: Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on their inner resources.
Radical self-expression: Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual.
Communal effort: Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration.
Civic responsibility: Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants.
Leaving no trace: Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather.
Participation: Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation.
Immediacy: Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is Burning Man? What to know about its name, what people do there
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/bu ... 10740.html
What is Burning Man? What to know about its origin, name and what people do there
Francisco Guzman, USA TODAY
Updated Sun, September 3, 2023 at 2:29 PM CDT
In 1986, two men burned an eight-foot tall human-shaped sculpture in San Francisco’s Baker Beach as a small crowd gathered to watch the first annual Burning Man.
Today, tens of thousands of people gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert each summer for about nine days to create a temporary city known for its communal living and eccentric displays of art and expression.
Here’s what to know about Burning Man as authorities investigate a death Sunday while more than 70,000 people were told to shelter in place after heavy rain made it difficult to drive out of the swampy desert venue.
Why is it called Burning Man?
The annual gathering, which went on hiatus in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, got its name from a giant sculpture called The Man. The sculpture is burned to cap off the event.
When did Burning Man start?
Burning Man started in 1986 when founders Larry Harvey and Jerry James burned a human-shaped sculpture at Baker Beach in San Francisco.
During the 1990s, Burning Man grew in popularity and was moved to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
What do people do at Burning Man? What's its purpose?
Tens of thousands of people known as “Burners” travel to Nevada to create a kind of utopia. They build villages, a medical center, an airport and performance stages.
Burning Man is all about self-expression and the rejection of corporatism and capitalism. Instead of using money, attendees borrow, barter and trade for what they need.
People create a fleeting, self-sustaining community that (theoretically) leaves no trace or trash upon its completion. However, the encampment is not without its problems, including drug use, arrests and sexual assaults, The Reno Gazette Journal reported, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Can anyone just go to Burning Man?
Every person needs a valid ticket and vehicle pass to enter Black Rock City, the temporary city at Burning Man.
What are the 10 principles of Burning Man?
Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey laid out these 10 principles of Burning Man in 2004:
Radical inclusion: Anyone may be a part of Burning Man.
Gifting: Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving.
Decommodification: In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions or advertising.
Radical self-reliance: Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on their inner resources.
Radical self-expression: Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual.
Communal effort: Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration.
Civic responsibility: Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants.
Leaving no trace: Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather.
Participation: Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation.
Immediacy: Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is Burning Man? What to know about its name, what people do there
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/bu ... 10740.html
One Day on the Border: 8,900 Migrants Arrested, and More on the Way
A sudden surge of people from around the globe is showing up at the southern border, despite dangers and deportations. ‘If you don’t take risks, you cannot win,’ said one man who traveled from Peru.
They come from Brazil, Burkina Faso, Uzbekistan, India and dozens of other countries, a moving global village of hundreds of thousands of people crossing the Rio Grande and slipping through gaps in the border wall at a pace of nearly 9,000 people a day, one of the highest rates of unlawful crossings in months.
Despite new border barriers and thickets of razor wire, risk of deportation and pleas for patience, a resurgent tide of men, women and children is not waiting. Driven by desperation, families and individuals are pushing across the southern border and past new efforts by the Biden administration to keep migrants waiting until they secure hard-to-get appointments to enter the nation with permission.
The influx is creating a humanitarian and political crisis that stretches from packed migrant processing facilities in border states to major American cities struggling to house and educate the new families. Though many get through, thousands are being sent back across the border or on flights to their home countries. But from Texas to California, more than two dozen migrants who have entered illegally in recent days said they could not afford to wait.
“If you don’t take risks, you cannot win,” said Daniel Soto, 35, who crossed with his mother on Tuesday after they sold their car, restaurant and house in Lima, Peru, betting their entire fortune of $25,000 on a weeklong journey to the border near Tijuana.
Surges in migration at the southern border, while motivated by poverty, violence and hunger, are also tied to weather patterns, policy changes and personal circumstances. The pace of unlawful crossings dropped sharply in the spring amid uncertainty surrounding the end of a pandemic-era measure that allowed the government to quickly deport migrants. But numbers rebounded over the summer, and are now nearly double the 4,900 unlawful crossings a day that were recorded in mid-April.
ImageA woman cries tears of joy, surrounded by people touching her shoulders.
Maria Isabel Saez, center, learned after she was released in San Diego that her 18-year-old son had made it to a shelter in another city.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
Image
A white tent and plastic tables in a parking lot crowded with people.
The Iris Avenue Transit Center in San Diego, where migrants were dropped off by border authorities because shelters had no room. Volunteers offered food, clean clothes, phone charging and other help in the parking lot.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
Image
Two people lean over a table with maps and papers.
Staff from Immigrant Defenders, a nonprofit group, and other organizations help arriving migrants arrange travel to their U.S. destinations from San Diego.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
The Biden administration opened new pathways for entry, including an app to allow migrants to make appointments to cross into the United States in an orderly way, and started a program this summer to enable certain people to apply to immigrate at new processing centers in other countries. Around 1,500 migrants a day enter the country using the app, which is meant to help control and organize the flow of migrants into the country.
The Biden administration also allowed nearly 500,000 Venezuelan migrants who are already in the country to seek work permits and protection from deportation. The administration yielded to pressure from leaders in New York, where the recent arrival of more than 100,000 migrants in New York City has overwhelmed shelters and strained resources. Though the Biden program doesn’t apply to new arrivals, it touched off debate about whether the action would encourage more people to migrate.
Yet those moves are not enough to meet the tremendous demand, and they cannot compete with the misinformation spread by smuggling networks — a multimillion-dollar industry — or the messages sent home from other migrants who made it into the United States.
Migrants like Mr. Soto and his mother are arriving on a tailwind of stories of friends and relatives who reached New York or Chicago months earlier. Many also believe false claims from smugglers and social media that migrants would definitely be able to remain in the United States if they could make it in.
“The smuggling organizations are spreading misinformation with a global reach that they couldn’t do before,” said John Modlin, the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector chief, who is coordinating the response to border crossings in Arizona and California. “In the past, at best, they could talk to the village they were in, or a small region. Through social media, they can hit people all around the world.”
Mr. Modlin said border agents are “recovering bodies almost every day of people not making it.”
Thousands of migrants who do cross the border successfully are being deported shortly after they arrive, based on factors that include their home countries, available flights, and the discretion of border officials. But others file asylum claims when they face deportation in immigration court, and are allowed to remain in the United States while they wait for their cases to wind through immigration court, a process that can take years.
Some people will not show up for their court proceedings, and continue to live and work in the United States along with millions of other undocumented immigrants.
Some migrants who arrive using the government app are eligible for permission to stay in the country and work for two years, but may still eventually be ordered deported.
“It will work out,” said Diego Santos, a 23-year-old Brazilian who was heading to Philadelphia after being released by border authorities in San Diego. Ahead of him lay the hope of construction work, but also deportation proceedings that he now has to fight.
“I’ll do what I can to stay,” he said.
As new arrivals swamp processing facilities and strain the capacity of shelters, the Border Patrol has begun dropping off many migrants outside churches, supermarkets and gas stations, transforming border cities into scenes of confusion and triage.
In San Diego, the Border Patrol released thousands of people in the last week near a hub for trolleys and buses, many of them with little money or idea where they were.
Mamadou Barry, 19, who had traveled from Guinea, carried paperwork from U.S. authorities saying he had “failed to provide address” of his final destination. Officials had scheduled his first deportation court hearing in Los Angeles. But he knew no one there, or anywhere.
In the border city of Nogales, Ariz., local officials and nonprofit groups have scrambled to arrange for buses to take newly released migrants to a shelter in Tucson, an hour’s drive north. But one evening this week, immigration vans released 30 people in Nogales three hours after the day’s last bus to Tucson had left.
“Where are we going to sleep?” asked Liliana Quishpe, 44, who had arrived from Guatemala with her 17-year-old daughter. “They just left us here.”
The surge shows little sign of ebbing, according to Brandon Judd, the head of the Border Patrol union, who said that 8,900 people were arrested on Wednesday and another 8,360 on Thursday.
Officials in Panama say that even more migrants are now on their way north. Already this year, some 381,000 people bound for the United States have crossed the Darién Gap — a treacherous jungle bottleneck between South and Central America — and there could be a surge in October, the most popular month for crossings there.
Image
A line of people stand in the sun on a sidewalk.
Migrants stand in line to board a bus in downtown Nogales, Ariz., after being dropped off by border patrol agents. The bus will take them to a shelter in Tucson.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
Image
A man in a green shirt stands in front of a U.S. map.
A man who recently crossed into the U.S. looks at a map at a bus stop in downtown Nogales, Ariz.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
Image
People stand in line under a row of flags.
Migrants in line for lunch at Casa Alitas, a shelter in Tucson, Ariz.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
In interviews, many newly arrived migrants said they made plans to travel to the United States as soon as they had cobbled together the money to pay for the trip. Most did not plan to stay at the border, and with the aid of a network of nonprofit groups on the U.S. side, quickly set off for other cities where jobs, relatives or the promise of space in a shelter awaited them.
In Texas, Yosnavys Venta, a 23-year-old from Venezuela, said he spent six months in Mexico trying again and again to get an appointment using the new mobile app. Some who have used the app said they were able to secure appointments right away, others said they could not get one for months.
Mr. Venta finally gave up earlier this month and decided to take his chances in joining thousands of migrants who sloshed across the Rio Grande and into the overwhelmed city of Eagle Pass, Texas.
So many migrants have poured in to the city that on Thursday, the mayor authorized law enforcement officers to arrest people for trespassing if they clamber onto the banks of a city-owned riverside park. Mayor Rolando Salinas, a Democrat, said his small city can’t sustain thousands of migrants coming into the community.
Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona, a Democrat, joined border law-enforcement officials and mayors in criticizing the Biden administration for what she called haphazard releases of migrants. “Arizona is being overwhelmed,” she said Friday.
Even places with more resources, like Pima County, Ariz., are struggling.
“It’s been really hectic,” said Mark Evans, a spokesman for Pima County, which runs buses that collect migrants from small border towns and take them to a large shelter in Tucson. “We shouldn’t be doing this. There’s an entire federal agency designed to provide this kind of shelter, and that’s FEMA.”
Blas Nuñez-Neto, an assistant secretary of Homeland Security, said the influx of migrants from countries beyond Mexico and Central America had put “an incredible amount of pressure” on the system.
Image
A man in an orange shirt hugs a man in a striped shirt outside.
Johan Vargas, left, celebrates with his friend Leonardo Fermin after they made it across the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas. The two met at the Darién Gap while traveling from Venezuela toward the United States.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times
Image
People stand on a river bank with razor wire surrounding them.
People try to decide where to cross to turn themselves in to federal agents in Eagle Pass, Texas. With the international bridge closed, the only option was to cross the river and pass through razor wire on the shore.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times
Image
A large group of people sit on the ground outside at night.
Migrants who turned themselves in waited to be processed by border agents in Eagle Pass, Texas.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times
The Biden administration has expanded the number of appointments available to migrants who use the mobile app, scheduling some 43,000 appointments a month.
Demand still far outstrips available slots, though, and many migrant families who are stranded in fetid, dangerous makeshift tent encampments along the Mexican side of the border have given up trying to use the app, preferring to brave a perilous crossing across the Rio Grande and often paying cartels that control the river.
“They are tired of waiting,” said Juan Fierro Garcia, a pastor in the El Buen Samaritano migrant shelter, in Juarez, Mexico. “They are more desperate.”
In Arizona, Walter Garcia, a 26-year-old firefighter from Guatemala, is among many migrants who barely even considered the legal route. Like many people making their way to the U.S., he had never heard of the new app.
His mother had managed to slip into the United States through the desert a year ago, so Mr. Garcia figured that he could do the same. He paid a smuggler $3,000 last week to take him to a gash in the border wall in Arizona, and on Wednesday, Mr. Garcia was freed from immigration custody and waiting at the Tucson airport for a flight to New Jersey to meet his mother.
“Two days in immigration, and we’re out,” he said. “It was easy.”
Migrant shelters in Texas, Arizona and California say they are struggling to find cots and hotel rooms to house the hundreds of new families and single adults who arrive every day, and local governments have scrambled to keep up with the pace of migrants being released onto the streets.
Outside a community center in San Diego, Ender Pirela, a 23-year-old from Venezuela, recalled how he had almost given up waiting for an appointment to enter the United States.
Mr. Pirela’s older brother had used the new app to enter six months ago, and ended up in Dallas. He worked at construction and saved $2,500 so that Ender could make the same journey.
Mr. Pirela said he and two traveling companions spent six weeks in Monterey, Mexico, where they were harassed and robbed and forced to sleep on the street when they ran out of money. Many other migrants, fearing for their safety, gave up waiting and crossed illegally, he said, but he waited.
“When our date arrived,” Mr. Pirela said, “there were tears everywhere.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/us/m ... 778d3e6de3
They come from Brazil, Burkina Faso, Uzbekistan, India and dozens of other countries, a moving global village of hundreds of thousands of people crossing the Rio Grande and slipping through gaps in the border wall at a pace of nearly 9,000 people a day, one of the highest rates of unlawful crossings in months.
Despite new border barriers and thickets of razor wire, risk of deportation and pleas for patience, a resurgent tide of men, women and children is not waiting. Driven by desperation, families and individuals are pushing across the southern border and past new efforts by the Biden administration to keep migrants waiting until they secure hard-to-get appointments to enter the nation with permission.
The influx is creating a humanitarian and political crisis that stretches from packed migrant processing facilities in border states to major American cities struggling to house and educate the new families. Though many get through, thousands are being sent back across the border or on flights to their home countries. But from Texas to California, more than two dozen migrants who have entered illegally in recent days said they could not afford to wait.
“If you don’t take risks, you cannot win,” said Daniel Soto, 35, who crossed with his mother on Tuesday after they sold their car, restaurant and house in Lima, Peru, betting their entire fortune of $25,000 on a weeklong journey to the border near Tijuana.
Surges in migration at the southern border, while motivated by poverty, violence and hunger, are also tied to weather patterns, policy changes and personal circumstances. The pace of unlawful crossings dropped sharply in the spring amid uncertainty surrounding the end of a pandemic-era measure that allowed the government to quickly deport migrants. But numbers rebounded over the summer, and are now nearly double the 4,900 unlawful crossings a day that were recorded in mid-April.
ImageA woman cries tears of joy, surrounded by people touching her shoulders.
Maria Isabel Saez, center, learned after she was released in San Diego that her 18-year-old son had made it to a shelter in another city.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
Image
A white tent and plastic tables in a parking lot crowded with people.
The Iris Avenue Transit Center in San Diego, where migrants were dropped off by border authorities because shelters had no room. Volunteers offered food, clean clothes, phone charging and other help in the parking lot.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
Image
Two people lean over a table with maps and papers.
Staff from Immigrant Defenders, a nonprofit group, and other organizations help arriving migrants arrange travel to their U.S. destinations from San Diego.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
The Biden administration opened new pathways for entry, including an app to allow migrants to make appointments to cross into the United States in an orderly way, and started a program this summer to enable certain people to apply to immigrate at new processing centers in other countries. Around 1,500 migrants a day enter the country using the app, which is meant to help control and organize the flow of migrants into the country.
The Biden administration also allowed nearly 500,000 Venezuelan migrants who are already in the country to seek work permits and protection from deportation. The administration yielded to pressure from leaders in New York, where the recent arrival of more than 100,000 migrants in New York City has overwhelmed shelters and strained resources. Though the Biden program doesn’t apply to new arrivals, it touched off debate about whether the action would encourage more people to migrate.
Yet those moves are not enough to meet the tremendous demand, and they cannot compete with the misinformation spread by smuggling networks — a multimillion-dollar industry — or the messages sent home from other migrants who made it into the United States.
Migrants like Mr. Soto and his mother are arriving on a tailwind of stories of friends and relatives who reached New York or Chicago months earlier. Many also believe false claims from smugglers and social media that migrants would definitely be able to remain in the United States if they could make it in.
“The smuggling organizations are spreading misinformation with a global reach that they couldn’t do before,” said John Modlin, the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector chief, who is coordinating the response to border crossings in Arizona and California. “In the past, at best, they could talk to the village they were in, or a small region. Through social media, they can hit people all around the world.”
Mr. Modlin said border agents are “recovering bodies almost every day of people not making it.”
Thousands of migrants who do cross the border successfully are being deported shortly after they arrive, based on factors that include their home countries, available flights, and the discretion of border officials. But others file asylum claims when they face deportation in immigration court, and are allowed to remain in the United States while they wait for their cases to wind through immigration court, a process that can take years.
Some people will not show up for their court proceedings, and continue to live and work in the United States along with millions of other undocumented immigrants.
Some migrants who arrive using the government app are eligible for permission to stay in the country and work for two years, but may still eventually be ordered deported.
“It will work out,” said Diego Santos, a 23-year-old Brazilian who was heading to Philadelphia after being released by border authorities in San Diego. Ahead of him lay the hope of construction work, but also deportation proceedings that he now has to fight.
“I’ll do what I can to stay,” he said.
As new arrivals swamp processing facilities and strain the capacity of shelters, the Border Patrol has begun dropping off many migrants outside churches, supermarkets and gas stations, transforming border cities into scenes of confusion and triage.
In San Diego, the Border Patrol released thousands of people in the last week near a hub for trolleys and buses, many of them with little money or idea where they were.
Mamadou Barry, 19, who had traveled from Guinea, carried paperwork from U.S. authorities saying he had “failed to provide address” of his final destination. Officials had scheduled his first deportation court hearing in Los Angeles. But he knew no one there, or anywhere.
In the border city of Nogales, Ariz., local officials and nonprofit groups have scrambled to arrange for buses to take newly released migrants to a shelter in Tucson, an hour’s drive north. But one evening this week, immigration vans released 30 people in Nogales three hours after the day’s last bus to Tucson had left.
“Where are we going to sleep?” asked Liliana Quishpe, 44, who had arrived from Guatemala with her 17-year-old daughter. “They just left us here.”
The surge shows little sign of ebbing, according to Brandon Judd, the head of the Border Patrol union, who said that 8,900 people were arrested on Wednesday and another 8,360 on Thursday.
Officials in Panama say that even more migrants are now on their way north. Already this year, some 381,000 people bound for the United States have crossed the Darién Gap — a treacherous jungle bottleneck between South and Central America — and there could be a surge in October, the most popular month for crossings there.
Image
A line of people stand in the sun on a sidewalk.
Migrants stand in line to board a bus in downtown Nogales, Ariz., after being dropped off by border patrol agents. The bus will take them to a shelter in Tucson.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
Image
A man in a green shirt stands in front of a U.S. map.
A man who recently crossed into the U.S. looks at a map at a bus stop in downtown Nogales, Ariz.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
Image
People stand in line under a row of flags.
Migrants in line for lunch at Casa Alitas, a shelter in Tucson, Ariz.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
In interviews, many newly arrived migrants said they made plans to travel to the United States as soon as they had cobbled together the money to pay for the trip. Most did not plan to stay at the border, and with the aid of a network of nonprofit groups on the U.S. side, quickly set off for other cities where jobs, relatives or the promise of space in a shelter awaited them.
In Texas, Yosnavys Venta, a 23-year-old from Venezuela, said he spent six months in Mexico trying again and again to get an appointment using the new mobile app. Some who have used the app said they were able to secure appointments right away, others said they could not get one for months.
Mr. Venta finally gave up earlier this month and decided to take his chances in joining thousands of migrants who sloshed across the Rio Grande and into the overwhelmed city of Eagle Pass, Texas.
So many migrants have poured in to the city that on Thursday, the mayor authorized law enforcement officers to arrest people for trespassing if they clamber onto the banks of a city-owned riverside park. Mayor Rolando Salinas, a Democrat, said his small city can’t sustain thousands of migrants coming into the community.
Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona, a Democrat, joined border law-enforcement officials and mayors in criticizing the Biden administration for what she called haphazard releases of migrants. “Arizona is being overwhelmed,” she said Friday.
Even places with more resources, like Pima County, Ariz., are struggling.
“It’s been really hectic,” said Mark Evans, a spokesman for Pima County, which runs buses that collect migrants from small border towns and take them to a large shelter in Tucson. “We shouldn’t be doing this. There’s an entire federal agency designed to provide this kind of shelter, and that’s FEMA.”
Blas Nuñez-Neto, an assistant secretary of Homeland Security, said the influx of migrants from countries beyond Mexico and Central America had put “an incredible amount of pressure” on the system.
Image
A man in an orange shirt hugs a man in a striped shirt outside.
Johan Vargas, left, celebrates with his friend Leonardo Fermin after they made it across the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas. The two met at the Darién Gap while traveling from Venezuela toward the United States.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times
Image
People stand on a river bank with razor wire surrounding them.
People try to decide where to cross to turn themselves in to federal agents in Eagle Pass, Texas. With the international bridge closed, the only option was to cross the river and pass through razor wire on the shore.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times
Image
A large group of people sit on the ground outside at night.
Migrants who turned themselves in waited to be processed by border agents in Eagle Pass, Texas.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times
The Biden administration has expanded the number of appointments available to migrants who use the mobile app, scheduling some 43,000 appointments a month.
Demand still far outstrips available slots, though, and many migrant families who are stranded in fetid, dangerous makeshift tent encampments along the Mexican side of the border have given up trying to use the app, preferring to brave a perilous crossing across the Rio Grande and often paying cartels that control the river.
“They are tired of waiting,” said Juan Fierro Garcia, a pastor in the El Buen Samaritano migrant shelter, in Juarez, Mexico. “They are more desperate.”
In Arizona, Walter Garcia, a 26-year-old firefighter from Guatemala, is among many migrants who barely even considered the legal route. Like many people making their way to the U.S., he had never heard of the new app.
His mother had managed to slip into the United States through the desert a year ago, so Mr. Garcia figured that he could do the same. He paid a smuggler $3,000 last week to take him to a gash in the border wall in Arizona, and on Wednesday, Mr. Garcia was freed from immigration custody and waiting at the Tucson airport for a flight to New Jersey to meet his mother.
“Two days in immigration, and we’re out,” he said. “It was easy.”
Migrant shelters in Texas, Arizona and California say they are struggling to find cots and hotel rooms to house the hundreds of new families and single adults who arrive every day, and local governments have scrambled to keep up with the pace of migrants being released onto the streets.
Outside a community center in San Diego, Ender Pirela, a 23-year-old from Venezuela, recalled how he had almost given up waiting for an appointment to enter the United States.
Mr. Pirela’s older brother had used the new app to enter six months ago, and ended up in Dallas. He worked at construction and saved $2,500 so that Ender could make the same journey.
Mr. Pirela said he and two traveling companions spent six weeks in Monterey, Mexico, where they were harassed and robbed and forced to sleep on the street when they ran out of money. Many other migrants, fearing for their safety, gave up waiting and crossed illegally, he said, but he waited.
“When our date arrived,” Mr. Pirela said, “there were tears everywhere.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/us/m ... 778d3e6de3
The Permanent Migration Crisis
On Wednesday the Biden administration announced that it will offer work permits and deportation protections to over 400,000 Venezuelans who have arrived in the United States since 2021. On paper this is a humanitarian gesture, a recognition of the miseries of life under the Maduro dictatorship. In political practice it’s a flailing attempt to respond to a sudden rise in anti-immigration sentiment in blue cities, particularly New York, as the surge of migrants overwhelms social services and shelters.
I say flailing because the fundamental problem facing the Biden administration is on the southern border, where every attempt to get ahead of the extraordinary numbers trying to cross or claim asylum has been overwhelmed.
In Eagle Pass, Texas, The Wall Street Journal reports that in a week, an estimated 10,000 migrants have entered the city, whose entire population is less than 30,000. The subsequent movement of migrants to places like New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., has been encouraged by red-state governors, but under any circumstances such crowds in Eagle Pass would eventually mean rising numbers in big cities. And policies that make it easier to work in those cities, like the Biden move, are likely to encourage more migration until the border is more stable and secure.
The liberal confusion over this situation, the spectacle of Democratic politicians like Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul sounding like Fox News hosts, is a foretaste of the difficult future facing liberals across the Western world.
For decades, liberal jurisdictions have advertised their openness to migrants, while relying on the sheer difficulty of international migration and restrictions supported by conservatives to keep the rate of arrivals manageable, and confine any chaos to the border rather than the metropole.
What’s changed, and what will keep changing for decades, are the numbers involved. Civil wars and climate change will play their part, but the most important shifts are, first, the way the internet and smartphones have made it easier to make your way around the world, and second, the population imbalance between a rich, rapidly-aging West and a poorer, younger Global South, a deeply unstable equilibrium drawing economic migrants north.
All of this is a bigger problem for Europe than the United States — European aging is more advanced, Africa’s population will boom for decades (in 50 years there may be five Africans for every European) while Latin America’s birthrates have declined. The European equivalent of Eagle Pass is the island of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost possession, where the number of recent migrants exceeds the native population. This surge is just the beginning, Christopher Caldwell argues in an essay for The Spectator on the continent’s dilemmas, which quotes a former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy: “The migration crisis has not even started.”
America’s challenge is less dramatic but not completely different. The world has shrunk, and there is no clear limit on how many people can reach the Rio Grande. So what’s happening this year will happen even more: The challenges of mass arrivals will spread beyond the border, there will be an increased demand for restrictions even from people generally sympathetic to migrants, but the sheer numbers will make any restrictions less effectual.
This combination can yield a pattern like what we’ve seen in Britain after Brexit and Italy under Giorgia Meloni: Politicians are elected promising to take back control of borders, but their policies are ineffective and even right-wing governments preside over high migration rates. The choice then is to go further into punitive and callous territory, as the Trump administration did with its family-separation policy and its deal with Mexico — or else to recoil as many voters did from Trump’s policies, which encouraged the Democrats to move leftward, which left them unprepared to deal with the crisis when they came to power, which now threatens to help elect Trump once again.
In a sense you might distill the challenge facing liberals to a choice: Take more responsibility for restricting immigration, or get used to right-wing populists doing it for you.
But in fact the problems for both left and right will be messier than this. The populists themselves will not always know how to fulfill their promises. The interests of liberals in immigrant destinations like New York City may diverge from liberals in college towns or suburbs. The scale and diversity of migration will create unexpected alliances (a lot of Venezuelan migrants might vote for Trump if given the chance, after their experience with socialism) and new lines of internal fracture.
Most likely there will be neither a punitive end to the crisis nor a successful humanitarian means of managing it. There will be a general rightward evolution, a growing tolerance for punitive measures (“Build the wall” could be a liberal slogan eventually), that has some effect on the flow of migration — but doesn’t prevent it from being dramatic, chaotic and transformative, on the way to whatever new world order may await.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/23/opin ... 778d3e6de3
U.S. Will Build Stretch of Border Wall and Begin Deportations to Venezuela
The decisions underscore the challenges facing the Biden administration as humanitarian crises around the world drive more migrants to the U.S. border.
Unlawful crossings into the United States from Mexico have been increasing in recent months. Migrants are processed at locations like this one in Brownsville, Texas.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
The Biden administration on Thursday said it would expand former President Donald Trump’s wall on the Mexican border and begin deporting thousands of Venezuelans in an effort to cut down on the migrant surge that shows no signs of abating.
The moves are an about-face by the White House, which is under political pressure to stem the flow of people. Criticism is intensifying among Republicans as well as Democratic leaders in New York, Chicago and elsewhere who say the influx is overwhelming their ability to house and feed the migrants.
During his campaign for president, Mr. Biden denounced efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it was “not a serious policy solution.” But on Thursday the administration said it was waiving more than 20 federal laws and regulations to allow for the construction of physical barriers along a portion of the border in South Texas, near McAllen.
In announcing that the U.S. government would begin deporting Venezuelans who enter the United States unlawfully, the Biden administration was reversing a policy of not sending migrants back to the troubled South American country, where years of political unrest and economic turmoil have driven millions of people to flee. Last month alone, 50,000 migrants from that country crossed the southern border, a record number, and they now represent the second largest nationality group, dwarfed only by Mexicans.
The announcement about deportations came only three weeks after the administration granted a temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants who had already entered the United States unlawfully. That was an effort to make it easier for those migrants to work and, in doing so, reduce the strain on New York and Chicago, which have struggled to serve thousands of migrants, many from Venezuela.
But some experts said that in granting Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S., to a large number of Venezuelans, the government risked encouraging even more migration from the country, and the deportation announcement on Thursday appeared to be the administration’s answer to those concerns.
On a day when three of Mr. Biden’s cabinet officials were in Mexico to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the news about the border wall and deportations underlined the challenges Mr. Biden and his administration were wrestling with, as humanitarian crises around the world drive more migrants to the U.S. border while a deeply divided Congress leaves in place an outdated, dysfunctional immigration system.
In defending the decision to move forward with a segment of the wall, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that the work was a legal requirement stemming from appropriations during the Trump administration. But Mr. Biden still finds himself helping to build a border wall that was one of the signature objectives of his predecessor, even as he maintains that such barriers are ineffective in curbing unlawful entry from Mexico.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Mr. Mayorkas said that easing the laws was necessary to expedite construction of sections of a border wall in South Texas, where thousands of migrants have been crossing the Rio Grande daily to reach U.S. soil.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” Mr. Mayorkas said, adding that waiving laws and other requirements was necessary to complete the work more quickly.
The U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, where the new stretch of the wall is to be built, had encountered more than 245,000 migrants who had entered the country between ports of entry, or unlawfully, in the 2023 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the notice said.
It added that construction would be built with funds appropriated by Congress in 2019 for wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley. That appropriation followed a disaster declaration by the Trump administration amid soaring numbers of border crossers.
Mr. Biden said on Thursday that he had no choice but to use the money for the wall.
“The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t,” he told reporters, apparently referring to Congress.
Asked whether he thought the border wall was effective, he replied, “no.”
In January 2021, on Mr. Biden’s first day in office, the administration revoked the disaster declaration and halted construction. In a proclamation, he said that, “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”
Nearly $200 million out of the $1.375 billion that Congress designated for barriers in the Rio Grande Valley was still available, and the money had to be used by the end of the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the law.
As the number of migrants entering the United States has soared in recent months, Mr. Biden has come under fire from Republican leaders, who have made immigration a core issue in the presidential race, and he has faced increasing pressure from mayors of some Democratic-led cities.
“Given the high flow of people, and the political pressure from the right and left, Biden had to be more assertive on enforcement,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
“Even his own party has been asking for strong measures,” he said.
The pace of unlawful entries plummeted in the spring after the end of a pandemic-era measure that allowed the government to swiftly deport migrants. But numbers rebounded over the summer, and on some days have doubled the 4,900 unlawful crossings a day that were recorded in mid-April.
This year, more than 380,000 people bound for the United States have crossed the Darién Gap — a jungle straddling Colombia and Panama — and more were expected to come in October, the most popular month for crossings.
In a bid to stem the tide, the Biden administration over the past year has created new policies to provide legal pathways for Venezuelans, enabling them to apply for legal entry into the country if they have a financial sponsor.
But the program has been oversubscribed, and most Venezuelans do not have connections in the United States.
Venezuelan migration to the United States is a recent phenomenon. Many of the arrivals have no relatives or friends, unlike Mexicans, Haitians and Central Americans who have established networks in the country, to receive them. As a result, many Venezuelans have been sleeping in city shelters and relying on municipal and state governments for other assistance.
While border crossings by Venezuelans contributed to a monthly high in unlawful crossings along the southern border in September, when more than 200,000 people were apprehended, the United States has also experienced a spike of migrants from countries in Africa and Asia, thanks to the global reach of smuggling networks that assure clients entry into the United States.
Mexico has struggled with the tide of people moving through the country. Migrants seeking to elude officials have been riding atop cargo trains to reach the border with the United States, arriving by the thousands each day in cities like Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, across the river in Texas.
At a news conference Thursday morning, the president of Mexico, Mr. López Obrador, said that resumption of wall construction was “contrary” to what President Biden had been arguing.
“I understand there are strong pressures from political groups from the extreme right in the United States,” he said, “especially those who want to take advantage of the migratory phenomenon, the consumption of drugs, for electoral purposes.”
Starr County, Texas, where the 20 miles of wall is to go up, is home to about 66,000 people and is west of the city of McAllen. It is home to the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which follows the Rio Grande along the river’s last 275-mile stretch. The Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water and Endangered Species Act are among the federal laws that the Homeland Security Department will waive to allow construction to proceed.
At least one Democratic lawmaker said he supported the administration’s decision to extend the border wall.
“This is a necessary step to help Texas’ overwhelmed border communities deal with this current surge of migrants,” said Colin Allred, a Democratic congressman who is running for the U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz, the Republican incumbent.
“I have long said that targeted physical barriers have a role to play in securing our border at high traffic areas,” he said, “but this is only a partial solution.”
Comprehensive immigration reform, which only Congress can pass, was vital, he said.
The Biden administration has previously taken small steps to seal portions of high-traffic areas along the border. Last year, it closed gaps in the bollard fence erected by the Trump administration in Yuma, Ariz., which had become a busy crossing point for migrants who surrendered to border agents and claimed asylum.
Mr. Trump erected some 550 miles of the hulking, rust-colored bollard fence along the border, much of it to replace shorter, older barriers. Still, smugglers have successfully loosened beams to dig holes, or have flung rope-ladders over the structure, enabling many migrants to breach the border.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega in Mexico City and Zach Montague in Washington contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/us/b ... 778d3e6de3
Unlawful crossings into the United States from Mexico have been increasing in recent months. Migrants are processed at locations like this one in Brownsville, Texas.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
The Biden administration on Thursday said it would expand former President Donald Trump’s wall on the Mexican border and begin deporting thousands of Venezuelans in an effort to cut down on the migrant surge that shows no signs of abating.
The moves are an about-face by the White House, which is under political pressure to stem the flow of people. Criticism is intensifying among Republicans as well as Democratic leaders in New York, Chicago and elsewhere who say the influx is overwhelming their ability to house and feed the migrants.
During his campaign for president, Mr. Biden denounced efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it was “not a serious policy solution.” But on Thursday the administration said it was waiving more than 20 federal laws and regulations to allow for the construction of physical barriers along a portion of the border in South Texas, near McAllen.
In announcing that the U.S. government would begin deporting Venezuelans who enter the United States unlawfully, the Biden administration was reversing a policy of not sending migrants back to the troubled South American country, where years of political unrest and economic turmoil have driven millions of people to flee. Last month alone, 50,000 migrants from that country crossed the southern border, a record number, and they now represent the second largest nationality group, dwarfed only by Mexicans.
The announcement about deportations came only three weeks after the administration granted a temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants who had already entered the United States unlawfully. That was an effort to make it easier for those migrants to work and, in doing so, reduce the strain on New York and Chicago, which have struggled to serve thousands of migrants, many from Venezuela.
But some experts said that in granting Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S., to a large number of Venezuelans, the government risked encouraging even more migration from the country, and the deportation announcement on Thursday appeared to be the administration’s answer to those concerns.
On a day when three of Mr. Biden’s cabinet officials were in Mexico to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the news about the border wall and deportations underlined the challenges Mr. Biden and his administration were wrestling with, as humanitarian crises around the world drive more migrants to the U.S. border while a deeply divided Congress leaves in place an outdated, dysfunctional immigration system.
In defending the decision to move forward with a segment of the wall, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that the work was a legal requirement stemming from appropriations during the Trump administration. But Mr. Biden still finds himself helping to build a border wall that was one of the signature objectives of his predecessor, even as he maintains that such barriers are ineffective in curbing unlawful entry from Mexico.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Mr. Mayorkas said that easing the laws was necessary to expedite construction of sections of a border wall in South Texas, where thousands of migrants have been crossing the Rio Grande daily to reach U.S. soil.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” Mr. Mayorkas said, adding that waiving laws and other requirements was necessary to complete the work more quickly.
The U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, where the new stretch of the wall is to be built, had encountered more than 245,000 migrants who had entered the country between ports of entry, or unlawfully, in the 2023 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the notice said.
It added that construction would be built with funds appropriated by Congress in 2019 for wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley. That appropriation followed a disaster declaration by the Trump administration amid soaring numbers of border crossers.
Mr. Biden said on Thursday that he had no choice but to use the money for the wall.
“The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t,” he told reporters, apparently referring to Congress.
Asked whether he thought the border wall was effective, he replied, “no.”
In January 2021, on Mr. Biden’s first day in office, the administration revoked the disaster declaration and halted construction. In a proclamation, he said that, “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”
Nearly $200 million out of the $1.375 billion that Congress designated for barriers in the Rio Grande Valley was still available, and the money had to be used by the end of the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the law.
As the number of migrants entering the United States has soared in recent months, Mr. Biden has come under fire from Republican leaders, who have made immigration a core issue in the presidential race, and he has faced increasing pressure from mayors of some Democratic-led cities.
“Given the high flow of people, and the political pressure from the right and left, Biden had to be more assertive on enforcement,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
“Even his own party has been asking for strong measures,” he said.
The pace of unlawful entries plummeted in the spring after the end of a pandemic-era measure that allowed the government to swiftly deport migrants. But numbers rebounded over the summer, and on some days have doubled the 4,900 unlawful crossings a day that were recorded in mid-April.
This year, more than 380,000 people bound for the United States have crossed the Darién Gap — a jungle straddling Colombia and Panama — and more were expected to come in October, the most popular month for crossings.
In a bid to stem the tide, the Biden administration over the past year has created new policies to provide legal pathways for Venezuelans, enabling them to apply for legal entry into the country if they have a financial sponsor.
But the program has been oversubscribed, and most Venezuelans do not have connections in the United States.
Venezuelan migration to the United States is a recent phenomenon. Many of the arrivals have no relatives or friends, unlike Mexicans, Haitians and Central Americans who have established networks in the country, to receive them. As a result, many Venezuelans have been sleeping in city shelters and relying on municipal and state governments for other assistance.
While border crossings by Venezuelans contributed to a monthly high in unlawful crossings along the southern border in September, when more than 200,000 people were apprehended, the United States has also experienced a spike of migrants from countries in Africa and Asia, thanks to the global reach of smuggling networks that assure clients entry into the United States.
Mexico has struggled with the tide of people moving through the country. Migrants seeking to elude officials have been riding atop cargo trains to reach the border with the United States, arriving by the thousands each day in cities like Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, across the river in Texas.
At a news conference Thursday morning, the president of Mexico, Mr. López Obrador, said that resumption of wall construction was “contrary” to what President Biden had been arguing.
“I understand there are strong pressures from political groups from the extreme right in the United States,” he said, “especially those who want to take advantage of the migratory phenomenon, the consumption of drugs, for electoral purposes.”
Starr County, Texas, where the 20 miles of wall is to go up, is home to about 66,000 people and is west of the city of McAllen. It is home to the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which follows the Rio Grande along the river’s last 275-mile stretch. The Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water and Endangered Species Act are among the federal laws that the Homeland Security Department will waive to allow construction to proceed.
At least one Democratic lawmaker said he supported the administration’s decision to extend the border wall.
“This is a necessary step to help Texas’ overwhelmed border communities deal with this current surge of migrants,” said Colin Allred, a Democratic congressman who is running for the U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz, the Republican incumbent.
“I have long said that targeted physical barriers have a role to play in securing our border at high traffic areas,” he said, “but this is only a partial solution.”
Comprehensive immigration reform, which only Congress can pass, was vital, he said.
The Biden administration has previously taken small steps to seal portions of high-traffic areas along the border. Last year, it closed gaps in the bollard fence erected by the Trump administration in Yuma, Ariz., which had become a busy crossing point for migrants who surrendered to border agents and claimed asylum.
Mr. Trump erected some 550 miles of the hulking, rust-colored bollard fence along the border, much of it to replace shorter, older barriers. Still, smugglers have successfully loosened beams to dig holes, or have flung rope-ladders over the structure, enabling many migrants to breach the border.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega in Mexico City and Zach Montague in Washington contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/us/b ... 778d3e6de3
Re: SOCIAL TRENDS
Women behind bars — The nightmare of prisons in Pakistan
Women prisoners, who do not have anyone to take care of their children, bring them to the prison with them. Jails in Pakistan are one of the worst places for their upbringing.
Deena Jamal | Fatima Shafi | Yasar Adnan Published October 31, 2023 Updated a day ago
A housewife from Sheikhupura was five months pregnant when she was sentenced to one-year imprisonment in 2021. “I felt as though I had sentenced my unborn child to a life behind bars since I did not know when they would let me out,” said the 26-year-old, who asked to remain anonymous.
She served her sentence in Kot Lakhpat Jail in the neighbouring district of Lahore. Her baby was not just born in the jail hospital, he also stayed with her until she completed her sentence. She also has an older child who was taken care of by her family during her prison stint.
Another former inmate, whose two-year-old child stayed with her during her three-year prison stint, complained of jail food neither being sufficient nor nutritious enough for children. Education facilities too, are woefully inadequate, she said. “Teachers were unqualified and they did not take classes regularly. Books were so old and tattered that they were hardly legible,” she explained. The government, in fact, does not even provide these basic educational facilities — they are facilitated by various non-government organisations.
She also lamented the lack of privacy needed to breastfeed children. “Since we had to do this in the open, we were often ridiculed,” she said. The jail wardens would routinely make lewd remarks and often beat them up for “shamelessly exposing” themselves. Even the children were not spared from the violence, she said, which leaves long-lasting effects on their emotional and mental wellbeing.
Moazzam Ali Shah, a Lahore-based lawyer who also champions prison reforms, said children living with their imprisoned mothers are usually under the age of six.
Double jeopardy
The prison infrastructure is often ill-equipped to cater to the special needs of women prisoners. For one, they lack arrangements and products for women going through menstruation.
Amina Begum, who spent two years in Kot Lakhpat Jail for possessing drugs with the intent to sell them, lambasted the jail authorities for not taking care of women’s sanitary needs. “It was very rare that we got the sanitary pads we needed. I have seen many women tearing off pieces of their shawls to use as pads,” she said.
Sabah Begum endured much worse. She spent six years behind bars after being sentenced on multiple counts of theft. “I was slapped, made to beg for menstrual pads and do much more that I cannot speak of.”
“The Bangkok Rules provide a clear gender-specific guideline for the treatment of female prisoners,” said Shah. Officially known as ‘The United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders’, the rules were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, which includes Pakistan, on Dec 22, 2010. Consisting of 70 sections, “These guidelines clearly acknowledge that women have unique healthcare needs, which includes menstrual health, and that all women must be provided sanitary products free of charge and in a manner that respects their privacy and dignity.”
Under its international commitments, Pakistan is obligated to follow these guidelines, but current conditions show that this obligation exists merely on paper.
Sabah Begum shared that she has not been allowed back into her home since her release because her husband and in-laws know that she was subjected to sexual violence in prison because wardens bragged about having taken advantage of her situation.
A report by Justice Project Pakistan, a Lahore-based NGO working on prison reforms, reveals that such shocking sexual mistreatment is common in Pakistani prisons. The report states that 82 out of 134 female prisoners in Faisalabad jail reported to have been sexually violated.
One of the major reasons for such rampant abuse in Pakistani prisons is the shortage of women-only sections in jails. Punjab, the most densely-populated province in the country has just one women-only jail in Multan — other jails may have areas specifically designated for women, but given the overcrowding, they are often times forced to share spaces with men.
However, even in these designated areas, guards and wardens are often men due to the shortage of female prison staff. Female prisoners frequently report having been coerced to engage in sexual acts with male prison guards in exchange for small favours.
The lack of modern monitoring mechanisms, such as security cameras and the absence of publicly accountable and socially responsible prison supervision means that this abusive behaviour often goes unchecked. Prisoners who do wish to report the abuse they suffer often cannot do so due to a total absence of accountability mechanisms. In fact, they fear more retaliation if they dare complain about the misbehaviour of guards and wardens to their superiors.
Sabah Begum’s experience of submitting her complaint shows how it turned out to be a futile exercise. “I filed a complaint form but I did not have any proof so there was not much else I could have done,” she said. “But they protected each other and I was laughed at.”
Packing prisoners like sardines
Six prisoners died inside Lahore’s Camp Jail within 12 days of December 2021. The reason for death was they did not have adequate clothing and heat to protect them from the freezing winter temperatures, which was further exacerbated by the ill-equipped healthcare infrastructure within the jail. A news report by the Express Tribune revealed that a total of 200 prisoners had died across Punjab that year.
It seems like more of a miracle that prisoners in Pakistan — particularly women — do not suffer from such medical exigencies more frequently. Otherwise, the fact that there are only 24 female health workers available to cater to the medical needs of several thousand female prisoners across Pakistan is nothing short of a recipe for disaster. In 2020, the Federal Ministry of Human Rights report ‘Plight of Women in Pakistan’s Prisons’, highlighted the urgent need to increase medical staff for female prisoners, particularly gynaecologists and mental health specialists.
Another major reason for the lack of adequate healthcare for prisoners is their sheer number. The prisons are so overcrowded that it is impossible to keep them tidy and free from disease-causing conditions. This problem was underscored by the Islamabad High Court in a landmark verdict in January 2020. It noted that holding prisoners in an overcrowded prison without sufficient sanitation is “tantamount to cruel and inhumane treatment”.
In its 38-page verdict, the court went to the extent of ruling that “the incarcerated prisoners, subjected to the unimaginable degrading and inhumane treatment highlighted in these proceedings, may have become entitled to seek damages against the prison authorities and the state”.
To cite just one instance of this overcrowding, Kot Lakhpat Jail, which was built in 1965 to house 1,053 prisoners now houses more than 4,000 — neither having the physical infrastructure nor the money to take care of prisoners adequately.
Women prisoners are even worse off. The sole women-only prison in Punjab has an official capacity to cater to just 166 women, but it currently holds 877 women. Living in such overcrowded premises is neither easy nor conducive to a mentally stable environment.
Requesting not to be named, a woman who spent five years in Kot Lakhpat Jail explained: “The lack of space meant that sometimes 10 of us would share a cell built for four. It was difficult to even find a place to sleep”.
While serving time on charges of financial fraud, she reported routine violations of her personal space. She would be forced to use unsanitary and unhygienic facilities for bathing and washing since there was no other alternative, causing her to contract a host of medical problems including skin diseases such as scabies and lice. “Overcrowding was not just uncomfortable, it was also dangerous because it allowed disease to spread quickly among the prisoners,” she said.
She also experienced immense anxiety and depression during her imprisonment and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to this day. She pointed out that she was not the only one. “Everyone experienced them, at times either becoming violent towards others or inflicting self-harm.”
Reform or bust
A report released by the Human Rights Watch, a New York-based human rights organisation in March 2023 titled A Nightmare for Everyone, puts prisons in Punjab under the spotlight, documenting “widespread deficiencies in prison healthcare in Pakistan”.
Following the report, the Punjab government considered introducing reform mechanisms aimed at reducing the number of prisoners and improving the quality of food and hygiene at the jail.
On April 21, 2023, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Kot Lakhpat Jail, where he specifically inspected the healthcare facilities designated for female prisoners and directed the administration to improve sanitation and hygiene.
In reality, however, the prime minister’s directives are all but forgotten and the provincial government’s reforms did not see the light of the day. Former prisoners still give vivid descriptions of massive overcrowding and the accompanying problems of poor sanitary and hygiene conditions.
Shah believes that the central reason why prisons are so bad is “the existence of colonial-era laws governing the prison system”. He argues that “legislation in Pakistan has not been made to fit modern human rights standards.”
The most important aspect of Shah’s 13 years of advocacy includes campaigning for a decrease in the number of prisoners in Lahore’s jails by approximately 50 per cent. This reduction, he believes, can partly be achieved by providing under-trial prisoners with greater access to paroles and by awarding community service sentences to minor offenders under the Probation of Offenders Ordinance of 1960.
The 2020 report by the Ministry of Human Rights reveals that 66pc of all women in prisons were still being tried by courts without convictions.
Jails, he said, must also introduce modern monitoring technologies such as digital record-keeping, biometric access controls and close-circuit television cameras for surveillance and monitoring of both, the prisoners and the prison staff.
Shah also stressed the importance of a third party with the power to conduct regular inspections of prisons and hold incompetent and corrupt jail staff accountable as a mechanism to ensure transparency and accountability in prison administration. He cited the example of India’s Tihar Jail in Delhi, where regular inspections have helped make it an efficient prison with a “flourishing internal industry that focuses on providing employable skills and vocational training to prisoners”.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1785284/women ... n-pakistan
Women prisoners, who do not have anyone to take care of their children, bring them to the prison with them. Jails in Pakistan are one of the worst places for their upbringing.
Deena Jamal | Fatima Shafi | Yasar Adnan Published October 31, 2023 Updated a day ago
A housewife from Sheikhupura was five months pregnant when she was sentenced to one-year imprisonment in 2021. “I felt as though I had sentenced my unborn child to a life behind bars since I did not know when they would let me out,” said the 26-year-old, who asked to remain anonymous.
She served her sentence in Kot Lakhpat Jail in the neighbouring district of Lahore. Her baby was not just born in the jail hospital, he also stayed with her until she completed her sentence. She also has an older child who was taken care of by her family during her prison stint.
Another former inmate, whose two-year-old child stayed with her during her three-year prison stint, complained of jail food neither being sufficient nor nutritious enough for children. Education facilities too, are woefully inadequate, she said. “Teachers were unqualified and they did not take classes regularly. Books were so old and tattered that they were hardly legible,” she explained. The government, in fact, does not even provide these basic educational facilities — they are facilitated by various non-government organisations.
She also lamented the lack of privacy needed to breastfeed children. “Since we had to do this in the open, we were often ridiculed,” she said. The jail wardens would routinely make lewd remarks and often beat them up for “shamelessly exposing” themselves. Even the children were not spared from the violence, she said, which leaves long-lasting effects on their emotional and mental wellbeing.
Moazzam Ali Shah, a Lahore-based lawyer who also champions prison reforms, said children living with their imprisoned mothers are usually under the age of six.
Double jeopardy
The prison infrastructure is often ill-equipped to cater to the special needs of women prisoners. For one, they lack arrangements and products for women going through menstruation.
Amina Begum, who spent two years in Kot Lakhpat Jail for possessing drugs with the intent to sell them, lambasted the jail authorities for not taking care of women’s sanitary needs. “It was very rare that we got the sanitary pads we needed. I have seen many women tearing off pieces of their shawls to use as pads,” she said.
Sabah Begum endured much worse. She spent six years behind bars after being sentenced on multiple counts of theft. “I was slapped, made to beg for menstrual pads and do much more that I cannot speak of.”
“The Bangkok Rules provide a clear gender-specific guideline for the treatment of female prisoners,” said Shah. Officially known as ‘The United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders’, the rules were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, which includes Pakistan, on Dec 22, 2010. Consisting of 70 sections, “These guidelines clearly acknowledge that women have unique healthcare needs, which includes menstrual health, and that all women must be provided sanitary products free of charge and in a manner that respects their privacy and dignity.”
Under its international commitments, Pakistan is obligated to follow these guidelines, but current conditions show that this obligation exists merely on paper.
Sabah Begum shared that she has not been allowed back into her home since her release because her husband and in-laws know that she was subjected to sexual violence in prison because wardens bragged about having taken advantage of her situation.
A report by Justice Project Pakistan, a Lahore-based NGO working on prison reforms, reveals that such shocking sexual mistreatment is common in Pakistani prisons. The report states that 82 out of 134 female prisoners in Faisalabad jail reported to have been sexually violated.
One of the major reasons for such rampant abuse in Pakistani prisons is the shortage of women-only sections in jails. Punjab, the most densely-populated province in the country has just one women-only jail in Multan — other jails may have areas specifically designated for women, but given the overcrowding, they are often times forced to share spaces with men.
However, even in these designated areas, guards and wardens are often men due to the shortage of female prison staff. Female prisoners frequently report having been coerced to engage in sexual acts with male prison guards in exchange for small favours.
The lack of modern monitoring mechanisms, such as security cameras and the absence of publicly accountable and socially responsible prison supervision means that this abusive behaviour often goes unchecked. Prisoners who do wish to report the abuse they suffer often cannot do so due to a total absence of accountability mechanisms. In fact, they fear more retaliation if they dare complain about the misbehaviour of guards and wardens to their superiors.
Sabah Begum’s experience of submitting her complaint shows how it turned out to be a futile exercise. “I filed a complaint form but I did not have any proof so there was not much else I could have done,” she said. “But they protected each other and I was laughed at.”
Packing prisoners like sardines
Six prisoners died inside Lahore’s Camp Jail within 12 days of December 2021. The reason for death was they did not have adequate clothing and heat to protect them from the freezing winter temperatures, which was further exacerbated by the ill-equipped healthcare infrastructure within the jail. A news report by the Express Tribune revealed that a total of 200 prisoners had died across Punjab that year.
It seems like more of a miracle that prisoners in Pakistan — particularly women — do not suffer from such medical exigencies more frequently. Otherwise, the fact that there are only 24 female health workers available to cater to the medical needs of several thousand female prisoners across Pakistan is nothing short of a recipe for disaster. In 2020, the Federal Ministry of Human Rights report ‘Plight of Women in Pakistan’s Prisons’, highlighted the urgent need to increase medical staff for female prisoners, particularly gynaecologists and mental health specialists.
Another major reason for the lack of adequate healthcare for prisoners is their sheer number. The prisons are so overcrowded that it is impossible to keep them tidy and free from disease-causing conditions. This problem was underscored by the Islamabad High Court in a landmark verdict in January 2020. It noted that holding prisoners in an overcrowded prison without sufficient sanitation is “tantamount to cruel and inhumane treatment”.
In its 38-page verdict, the court went to the extent of ruling that “the incarcerated prisoners, subjected to the unimaginable degrading and inhumane treatment highlighted in these proceedings, may have become entitled to seek damages against the prison authorities and the state”.
To cite just one instance of this overcrowding, Kot Lakhpat Jail, which was built in 1965 to house 1,053 prisoners now houses more than 4,000 — neither having the physical infrastructure nor the money to take care of prisoners adequately.
Women prisoners are even worse off. The sole women-only prison in Punjab has an official capacity to cater to just 166 women, but it currently holds 877 women. Living in such overcrowded premises is neither easy nor conducive to a mentally stable environment.
Requesting not to be named, a woman who spent five years in Kot Lakhpat Jail explained: “The lack of space meant that sometimes 10 of us would share a cell built for four. It was difficult to even find a place to sleep”.
While serving time on charges of financial fraud, she reported routine violations of her personal space. She would be forced to use unsanitary and unhygienic facilities for bathing and washing since there was no other alternative, causing her to contract a host of medical problems including skin diseases such as scabies and lice. “Overcrowding was not just uncomfortable, it was also dangerous because it allowed disease to spread quickly among the prisoners,” she said.
She also experienced immense anxiety and depression during her imprisonment and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to this day. She pointed out that she was not the only one. “Everyone experienced them, at times either becoming violent towards others or inflicting self-harm.”
Reform or bust
A report released by the Human Rights Watch, a New York-based human rights organisation in March 2023 titled A Nightmare for Everyone, puts prisons in Punjab under the spotlight, documenting “widespread deficiencies in prison healthcare in Pakistan”.
Following the report, the Punjab government considered introducing reform mechanisms aimed at reducing the number of prisoners and improving the quality of food and hygiene at the jail.
On April 21, 2023, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Kot Lakhpat Jail, where he specifically inspected the healthcare facilities designated for female prisoners and directed the administration to improve sanitation and hygiene.
In reality, however, the prime minister’s directives are all but forgotten and the provincial government’s reforms did not see the light of the day. Former prisoners still give vivid descriptions of massive overcrowding and the accompanying problems of poor sanitary and hygiene conditions.
Shah believes that the central reason why prisons are so bad is “the existence of colonial-era laws governing the prison system”. He argues that “legislation in Pakistan has not been made to fit modern human rights standards.”
The most important aspect of Shah’s 13 years of advocacy includes campaigning for a decrease in the number of prisoners in Lahore’s jails by approximately 50 per cent. This reduction, he believes, can partly be achieved by providing under-trial prisoners with greater access to paroles and by awarding community service sentences to minor offenders under the Probation of Offenders Ordinance of 1960.
The 2020 report by the Ministry of Human Rights reveals that 66pc of all women in prisons were still being tried by courts without convictions.
Jails, he said, must also introduce modern monitoring technologies such as digital record-keeping, biometric access controls and close-circuit television cameras for surveillance and monitoring of both, the prisoners and the prison staff.
Shah also stressed the importance of a third party with the power to conduct regular inspections of prisons and hold incompetent and corrupt jail staff accountable as a mechanism to ensure transparency and accountability in prison administration. He cited the example of India’s Tihar Jail in Delhi, where regular inspections have helped make it an efficient prison with a “flourishing internal industry that focuses on providing employable skills and vocational training to prisoners”.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1785284/women ... n-pakistan