For a second year, the Worldwide Intergenerational Fairness Week (6–12 July 2020) has been marked by a series of blog articles from around the globe – this time focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on young people. As the world tentatively emerges, blinking, from lockdown, the international public sphere seems in agreement: this… Read more »
Category: Government policy
A Letter to Future Generations
Rebecca Freitag – Ambassador for the Stuttgart-based Foundation for the Rights for Future Generations and a former UN Youth Delegate for Sustainable Development – has asked herself this question: “How I will explain this historic, COVID-induced opportunity for a new beginning to my children and grandchildren – and how it finally turned out?” She imagines… Read more »
The scars of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is laying bare intergenerational inequities that have already deepened after the Global Financial Crisis and will be significant challenges for the post-COVID recovery, argues Lukas Sustala, Director of NEOS Lab, the Vienna-based think tank and academy of NEOS, a liberal Austrian party. In his book Zu spät zur Party (“Too late to… Read more »
COVID has forced Australia to re-evaluate its values
First bushfires, now COVID-19, Australia is reeling, and the young risk bearing the brunt. Sweeney Preston, a 22-year-old newsroom contributor for the FYA (Foundation for Young Australians) – as well as a comedian, cinema worker and anthropology student at the University of Melbourne – turns a critical eye on recent events, and describes how it… Read more »
China: pandemic preparedness for ageing populations
For pandemic preparedness, every country best adopts an economic demography strategy, writes Lauren A. Johnston, Research Associate, SOAS, University of London. China’s unique long-run approach is very much shaped by its demographic history, and its responsibilities towards its ageing population.
Australia under COVID-19: still “the lucky country”?
The disease itself may have touched Australia relatively lightly, but the wider consequences have hit the young particularly hard, especially in employment. Danielle Wood and Owain Emslie, CEO and Senior Associate respectively at the Grattan Institute in Melbourne, reveal the facts and figures, and the broader patterns that underlie them.
Education post-COVID – a life or death decision?
COVID-19 has placed education at high risk around the world. In Wales, the way forward is guided by Well-being of Future Generations Act of 2015. Jane Davidson, Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at University of Wales Trinity Saint David, was a leading architect of that groundbreaking legislation when, from 2007 to 2011, she was Minister for Environment,… Read more »
Will self-employed young workers be left struggling because of COVID-19?
Extraordinary measures have been put in place to try to slow down the spread of COVID-19, which have made it much harder for many self-employed workers to earn a living. David Kingman looks at how much impact the government’s new COVID-19 mitigation strategy could have on young workers who fall into this category – who… Read more »
Will 2020 be a “year of climate action”?
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister announced that 2020 will be a “defining year of climate action”. IF Researcher Melissa Bui outlines some of the changes we should be expecting to take place this year