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Are you creating an illusion about your lack of time?
2 Minute Read - It’s that time of the year again. You’re rested, motivated, and ready to take on the world. I am sure you also have a few New Year’s resolutions jotted down next to the plans you have for taking over the world! But, I am going to urge you to take 2 minutes or so, to re-look those plans and decide whether everything you have planned is really necessary. While doing some work on the concept of leisure time, I recently came…
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COVID-19 and the Decent Work Agenda
6 Minute Read - The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us how valuable time is. We were and still are in a constant race against time. We raced to produce a vaccine to save as many lives as possible, we raced to implement interventions before each new wave hit and the same is happening right now. All of this is in an effort to increase the amount of time we get to spend on earth or to ensure our survival as individuals and as the human…
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Why we need to start measuring quality of work and how to do it
4 Minute Read - Global inequality has become more pressing in recent decades as social unrest has become ever prevalent and writers on the subject more vocal. The predominant focus of the inequality debate has been on the differences between rich and poor countries; African countries being consistently cited as disadvantaged in this relationship. However, this focus has tended to overlook the inequalities which exist on the continent itself. It is in this area that this special issue of the African Review of Economics and Finance is dedicated as well as studies on stratification…
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Five ways to measure the effects of a crisis like COVID-19 on women
4 Minute Read - Social issues and crises tend to affect women more severely than men. This is why terms like “gender mainstreaming policies”, “gender-responsive interventions” and “gender-based budgeting” have become more popular in public policy discussions in recent years. The case has been made for the need to include gender in every analysis of social policy. But many of the toolkits which have been designed to do so have come up short. This is for a variety of reasons. Some of these shortcomings include…
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Pandemic underscores burden women carry doing paid and unpaid reproductive labour
4 Minute Read - Debates about women’s unpaid reproductive labour have been going on since the first woman received cash for her services. Reproductive labour includes cooking, cleaning, and caring for the elderly, the sick and children. It’s important to make the distinction between paid and unpaid reproductive labour. Paid reproductive labour is performed in exchange for money or a wage. Unpaid reproductive labour is done for free, and usually for the household in which the individual lives. This reproductive work has traditionally been undervalued…
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A SONA with too many plans?
4 Minute Read - The President delivered his State Of the Nation Address (SONA) on the 20th of June; the second one this year. As the South African tradition goes, the state of the nation is dismal. People are living in poverty, they don’t have jobs, inequality does not seem to be letting up, and the economy is just not providing the type of growth which is needed to address these social ills. Though there was some repetition from what was presented in the February…
