'Precarious employment' still rising in Toronto & Hamilton

Since, I've written some blog posts on employment situation in Toronto, I won't write a long post again, except, highlighting a few stats from this article.

- precarious employment includes people in temp & contract work, along with those with uncertain work schedules, irregular earnings, inconsistent hours of work or jobs without benefits, & also includes some self-employed people as precarious, only if they have irregular, unpredictable work

- almost half (44%) of adults in Toronto & Hamilton are in precarious employment

- once someone is in precarious employment, chances are high that they are going to be in trapped in it

- workers in precarious employment are almost twice as likely to report worse mental health than those in secure positions

- visible minorities are far more likely to be working in unstable jobs

- “Not only has work become less secure for racialized workers, but also the pay has actually decreased for them,” said Wayne Lewchuk, McMaster professor of labour studies & economics

- precarious employment has grown almost twice as fast as standard employment since 1997

- more men are landing in precarious employment, while white women are the only ones who are getting more secure employment & less precarious employment

- In Toronto, only 45.7% of respondents are now holding permanent full-time jobs with benefits

- 47% of Canadian firms in a recent Deloitte poll said they plan to increase the use of “contingent, outsourced, contract or part-time” workers in the next 3 to 5 years
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/precarious-employment-still-rising-in-toronto-and-hamilton/article24531959/

Precarious employment is becoming more prevalent in Canada’s largest city, a shift that is putting financial strain & emotional stress on households.

44% of adults in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area work in jobs that have some degree of insecurity, a study ... says. That share, which includes people working through temp agencies, freelancers & contract workers, is greater than the last time the survey was conducted in 2011, when it was 41%.

The new study is based on a survey of 4,193 people & produced by United Way Toronto & McMaster University.

The changing nature of work carries a broad impact. For many workers, unstable employment means less access to training & opportunities to get ahead, fewer benefits, more trouble managing finances & more anxiety. The effect spills into family & home life too, making it difficult to pay for school trips & plan any activities ... .

The study also looked at whether people are able to climb out of insecure employment. “One of the biggest ‘ah has’ for us was that no, in fact – if you are in precarious employment, there’s a very good chance you’re going to become trapped in it,” said Susan McIsaac, president & CEO of United Way Toronto. This is the case not just for those in low-income work, but “for many people in the middle class, this was a huge challenge in being able to maintain their middle-class status.”

Its definition includes people in temp & contract work, along with those with uncertain work schedules, irregular earnings, inconsistent hours of work or jobs without benefits. It counts some self-employed people as precarious, only if they have irregular, unpredictable work.

That’s the case for Anna Withrow. She has been largely self-employed since 2001, as a communications & marketing consultant, & says erratic earnings have wreaked havoc with her life.

“Cash flow has been the biggest crippling thing,” said Ms. Withrow, 45, who lives in Toronto. Her income has ranged from $24,000 to about $77,000, with no income at all in some months, & she has worked anywhere between 40 & 100 hours per week.

The impact has been both financial – a run-up in debts, making it difficult to pay the mortgage & finish renovations – & physical too, leading to acute stress, a less nutritious diet & weight gain. “If the right position came along, I would take it tomorrow.”

Workers in precarious jobs are almost twice as likely to report worse mental health than those in secure positions, the survey shows. Nearly half of them say they often don’t know their work schedules at least a week in advance. Scheduling uncertainty makes it hard to find child care.

Visible minorities are far more likely to be working in unstable jobs.

“Not only has work become less secure for racialized workers, but also the pay has actually decreased for them,” said Wayne Lewchuk, McMaster professor of labour studies and economics.

The study comes as the provincial government is reviewing its employment & labour laws, noting that non-standard work has grown almost twice as fast as standard employment since 1997.

By gender, a growing share of men are landing in precarious employment, he noted, likely a result of fewer factory jobs, while white women “are the only group in the study who saw an increase in secure employment & a decrease in precarious employment.”

The longer-term trend points to more insecure employment, said Prof. Lewchuk. “Each time there’s a recovery, the level of security is a little bit lower than the previous boom. I think this is because the competitive pressures are greater – firms are looking to cut costs … technology has changed, & there’s an infrastructure where they can go to temp agencies, & get not just unskilled workers, but they can get CEOs now.”

The results show almost six in 10 workers hold some form of secure employment — with 48% in permanent, full-time jobs that pay some benefits, & 8% permanent, part-time employees. This share has slightly fallen. Meanwhile, the portion of people in the least secure type of work, dubbed “precarious,” grew to 28.5% last year from 25.9% 3 years earlier.

In the city of Toronto, less than half, or 45.7%, of respondents are now holding permanent full-time jobs with benefits.

A debate has emerged over precarious employment – how it’s defined & what the long-term trends are. One analysis, by Toronto-Dominion Bank in March, found precarious employment levels in Canada are higher than before the recession, though they’re currently declining. It said this type of work often tracks business cycles, & that precarious employment will remain “elevated” over the next 2 years.

A 2013 paper by the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity found a growing number of workers in Toronto are employed in temporary, part-time, low-paying positions in routine-service industries.

Almost half, or 47%, of Canadian firms in a recent Deloitte poll said they plan to increase the use of “contingent, outsourced, contract or part-time” workers in the next 3 to 5 years, a strategy the consulting firm says helps give firms the ability to scale up or down as business needs fluctuate.

In a global report ..., the Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development said workers on temp contracts in Canada have “particularly low annual earnings” & that the annual median earnings of the self employed are also “considerably lower” compared with salaried workers.

...

The paper recommends a range of measures, including the need for ensuring all workers have access to skills & work training, to developing – & sharing – the business case for secure employment. At the federal level, it called for better labour market information & for updating employment insurance rules to better fit with today’s jobs market.

Criminal Minds, S1E10 (quote 1)

This is my interpretation of this great quote by Sir Peter Ustinov.
  
When someone keeps pursuing their dreams, they keep raising the bar / stakes to achieve ever more of their dreams, to the point that they start to step onto others' dreams & start turning them into nightmares.
 
For instance, Steve Jobs had a dream of combining humans with beautiful & brilliant machines; to make human lives easier & more comfortable. But after achieving his first dream of making Apple 1, he raised the bar & moved on to his next dream of making Apple 2. Then, after achieving that dream, he moved on to his next dream of making Macintosh. After a few hiccups in his career, he then moved on to those colourful Macs, then iPods, iPhones, & iPads.

 
Reading / listening this story of a college-dropout-turned-entrepreneur is very inspiring for people around the world. But we forget how his "super abundance of dreams" turned the dreams of millions around the world into nightmares.
 
For example, cameras in iPhones (& then other OS based phones) destroyed the photographing film & camera businesses, like Kodak, for instance. Kodak employees were thinking of one day retiring into the sunset & seeing their kids go to colleges / universities & then be successful in their lives, but their dreams turned into nightmares, when Kodak went bankrupt.
 
We can take this example into any other latest tech entrepreneur's dreams & how his/her dreams created nightmares for millions of others; dreams of Travis Kalanick (Uber's CEO) & nightmares of taxi drivers, dreams of Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger (Founders of Instagram) & nightmares of employees of photographic film & camera companies) etc.
 
We can also apply this quote to any one of the industries from tobacco to oil & gas to defence & military to financial services to even geopolitical affairs. Companies in all these industries, & politicians in the geopolitical arena, are trying to achieve the dreams of owners (single owner or multiple shareholders), management, employees, & politicians at all levels, at the expense of creating nightmares for millions around the world with climate change problems, wars, austerity measures, & adverse health conditions (i.e. cancers etc.).
 

Human right to water: Salvodoran NGOs & a global campaign

We may have heard such a phrase recently, "Water is the new oil." What I disagree with such a statement is that water is much more valuable than oil & it's so valuable, because it's that much more required to live. We can't survive couple of days without water. We definitely can live without oil.

Cruel irony is that although, the earth consists of 75% water, clean, drinking water is a tiny fraction of that 75% water mass on Earth. And, billions of $$$ have been, & still being, spent in creating weapons of mass destruction, by, none other than, developed countries, instead of developing technologies to filter that 75% of sea water.

In the midst of 4-year-long drought, California just planned to start its seawater filtration system. Although, it was developed & built the last time California went through a year-long drought, it was never used. The biggest problem with that filtration system, beside being energy-intensive, is that the salty & briny water as the by-product of the clean water it will provide. That briny water will be discarded back into the sea. If the drought continues on for long, then more & more of that seawater will be processed through that filtration system & more systems may be put on the Californian coast.

As you can imagine what will happen to the seawater when one or more of these machines keep throwing back that very salty, briny water back in it. It will disturb the delicate balance of salt & other minerals in the seawater. Besides, adversely affecting the marine life & the aquatic environment, that seawater will eventually start to turn more & more salty (ratio of salt will increase in less water). In that case, more energy will be required to filter that much water for a lot less of clean water. It's an imperfect technology, & it will only create adverse reactions later on.

It's a bandaid solution to a much larger water crisis. There are lots of these solutions going around. Another stupid solution state of Nevada came up with is building a large pipeline to transfer water from a municipality in northern Nevada to Vegas, since Hoover Dam (the primary water provider to Vegas) is quickly drying up.

Solutions are supposed to be beneficial to all, not depriving one set of humans from water, so another set can thrive. Or one set of animals (marine) die, so humans can survive. Solutions to water crisis need to be sustainable & long-lasting. That will need research & scientific collaboration. That research needs financial resources. But, governments of developed countries are putting their financial & human resources to come up with the latest breakthrough in how to kill other people (or other living beings, from animals to plants, i.e. deforestation).

Remember, more people die of preventable diseases & human-caused problems in developed countries than terrorism, foreign or domestic. For instance, per CDC, almost 35,000 people died of gun-related deaths in 2013, in US, or the fact that in North America, over 59,000 women die each year from breast cancer. That's almost 100,000 North American deaths, in North America, in only 1 year (2013) by only 2 causes of death. How many North Americans have been killed by terrorists in the past 20 years? I would suggest a number around 10,000 (civilian & military combined).

So, if all those financial resources are diverted towards preventing these unnecessary deaths in our own countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia, & any number of European countries), foreign terrorists would lose their interests in trying to kill us. We don't meddle in their business & they won't meddle in us. Our problem is preventing people from carcinogenic materials in our water, food, & air. Our problem is to provide our own people with clean water.

Do I see this as a hopeless situation? Yes. Do I see humans will ever turn away & learn from their mistakes? Yes, but it will be too late by the time they come around. Water has already become a crisis. We can already see how climate change has already become a huge, world-wide, crisis, but is it stopping US from fracking & polluting clean drinking water? Did that stop the government from allowing Shell to exploit Arctic for its fossil fuel reserves? Is it stopping Canada from turning away billions of $$$ in fossil fuel investments in Alberta? Canadian government got out of Kyoto protocol & recently came up with its own set of emissions cutting targets, but investing in green economy ... oh no, that won't happen. By the way, most of the mining companies, which contributed to the contamination of water sources in South America, are Canadian. 

I urge anyone who will read this post to watch the 2011 documentary, "Last Call at the Oasis." These ideas & problems are discussed in it & how, we humans, are digging our own graves by ignoring these crises, for example, this water crisis. At this point, I can only hope that influential people around the world wake up to these crises & start to do something, per their abilities, before it's too late. There is no point in regretting when you have deliberately crossed the point of no return.

By the way, as an update, on the said constitutional reform vote in El Salvador in the article (6th paragraph below), that vote was defeated on April 30th, & hence, international business interests won their right to exploit water & land for their own use. (That's why, I said above, I am much more hopeless than hopeful that we will change our situation).
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http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/25/human-right-water-salvadoran-ngos-global-campaign

“We saw a group of strangers & asked what they were doing. When they said they were looking for mines, we told them naively that there were no landmines here,” says Felipe Tobar, the mayor of San Jose Las Flores.
 
This was his community’s first encounter with Aurora Mineral Resource Group, a large mining company that began exploration in the Salvadoran town in 2005. After learning that the government had permitted exploration for a gold mine without their consultation, the communities were anxious to protect their water sources from the mines. In Latin America’s most water-scarce country, 98% of fresh water is contaminated; metal mining has long been one of the contributing factors.
 
The villagers took matters into their own hands. They took away the markings that the prospectors had been putting into place & rebuffed company representatives. “They sent public relations people to speak to us, but each time they were escorted out by dozens of community members & eventually the company gave up,” says Tobar. For this community, as for many others in El Salvador, the need to protect water resources was far more vital than any employment that the mine might offer.
 
In terms of access to water, El Salvador is the third most unequal country in Latin America & the Caribbean, according to a 2010 report by the UN. But now a powerful coalition of NGOs & community groups is attempting to get access to water enshrined in law as a human right. El Foro del Agua, a water coalition of more than 100 organisations & community groups, is calling for a national ban on metal mining, a constitutional amendment recognising the human right to water, & a general water law that would legally establish social control of water resources & services. Through consultation & research with communities on the front line of the water struggle, these strategies are aimed, in part, at shifting the power dynamics to strengthen the sovereignty of the Salvadoran people to determine their own freshwater future.
 
Binding national laws to protect community water rights would help other local communities that have been less successful in their struggles to protect water from harmful developments. It is no small miracle that environmental strategies developed at the grassroots level have been introduced for debate at the Salvadoran legislature. Yet despite support from the ruling Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front party, opposition parties defending the interests of transnational corporations have blocked these strategies at the legislative assembly.
 
And now a constitutional amendment for El Salvador to recognise water & food as human rights is set to expire. In 2012, the Salvadoran legislative assembly voted unanimously in favour of the amendment. But Salvadoran law states that a vote for constitutional reform must be supported by 2 consecutive legislatures – the bill is introduced by one legislature & ratified by the following one. If the amendment is not ratified by the current legislature by 30 April 2015, it becomes void. Even if the new legislature were to reintroduce the bill, it would take another 4 to 6 years to ratify.
 
If passed, however, the formal recognition of water & food as human rights would provide a strong tool in the struggle to protect water in El Salvador. It would affirm the primacy of local access to water supplies & ecosystem needs over foreign interests. Although the current government has vowed to maintain a de facto moratorium on metal mining that has been in place since 2008, without binding legislation environmental groups fear that this stopgap measure will not provide the long-term water strategy the country needs.
 
The human right to water is increasingly serving as a tool for communities throughout the world. In Uruguay, formal recognition of the human right to water & sanitation resulted in the banning of private water & sanitation services. In Indonesia on 24 March, weeks after the constitutional court deemed a World Bank-imposed water law to be anti-constitutional for allowing the privatisation of water, the Central Jakarta District Court annulled a 17-year old private-public-partnership arguing that it violated the human right to water. As in El Salvador, campaigns in Uruguay & Indonesia were led by people’s coalitions.

“The thousands of people organising to defend water in El Salvador are writing the shared history of the continent,” says Marcela Olivera, coordinator of La Red Vida, a coalition representing groups working on water issues from across the Americas. “They are showing the world that from El Salvador & Mexico to Argentina & Uruguay, we are not only capable of resisting the neoliberal agenda, but also of building concrete alternatives.”

In the meantime, the communities of San Jose Las Flores & Nueva Trinidad are not taking any chances. They are among a growing number of municipalities in Chalatenango who are declaring themselves as territories free of mining through municipal laws. In Central America, where environmental health & public policy decisions are dominated by the interests of big (primarily Canadian) mining companies, places like Chalatenango show that it is still possible to assert local power & maintain “liberated territories”.

Meera Karunananthan is international water campaigner for the Blue Planet Project & co-author of a new report on El Salvador’s water struggles.

Indonesia facing overpopulation crisis

The problem with limited resources for an increasing population, in Indonesia & around the world, are not anything to do reproducing more people or family planning. There are more than enough resources in this world to easily sustain an increasing population, because the nature keeps the population of the world in a balance. If people are being born, then people are also dying at an increasing rate, through natural or human causes (gun violence, car accidents, airplane crashes etc.).

Primary problem is the resources are concentrated in a few hands & those hands keep amassing more resources without letting any go. Some of those resources are being controlled by the governments & politicians around the world are corrupt career politicians. They all either take lobbying payments (legal) or bribes (illegal) to essentially do the same thing; favour one party's benefits over another's.

Green economy is touted around the world but no country, except very few, e.g. some European countries, Asian superpowers (China & India), & some Southeastern countries (e.g. Singapore) are actually doing something in this regard. Most countries are not doing anything either because they don't have financial power or fossil fuel industries are way too strong in their countries.

Green economy would have reduced or mitigated the adverse effects of climate change by now, if these efforts would have started a few decades ago. These efforts would have also provided jobs, increased GDP, & positively supported the economies. But, for this to happen, all countries need to work together towards a common goal, instead of fighting like little kids in the playpen (this usually happens in those trade & climate change conferences every year, & hence, after so many gatherings of the "bright minds" of our world, we still are headed head-long into a worldwide disaster).

Another problem is consumerism of the masses. Instead of reducing unnecessary increase in consumption, thanks to slick marketing efforts of multinational corporations around the world, everyone wants everything at any cost.

Financial resources are, as I said earlier, concentrated in a few hands. These elites keep amassing fortunes at the expense of the general public of their own race & ethnicity. They have no compassion for their own people.

We can apply the same idea to housing, food, & water shortages. Clean water is already very little in the world & even then, it is getting polluted, through fracking, for instance, in US. California is in a 4-year drought & there is no let up in its condition. Food production & affordable housing availability; all can be attributed to limited resources not being deployed in a proper efficient & effective manner. If these limited resources could have been or still can be deployed in a responsible manner, then these crises can be easily averted.

I believe you got the general idea what I am trying to say. Resources, be they be financial, food, water, housing, transportation, energy etc. are keep getting concentrated in a few hands. The general public is left to fight for a few scraps at the bottom of the barrel. Instead of working collaboratively towards a common goal of creating a thriving worldwide economy & life for everyone, regardless of our differences, we all are headed for worldwide disaster & human suffering.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/asia/2015/03/indonesia-facing-overpopulation-crisis-150319200635063.html

You know a country is overpopulated when people cannot afford to queue. In Indonesia this is visible every day at bus & train stations.
 
Transport facilities have long lost their battle with exploding demand.
 
Even the most polite people turn into animal-like creatures when a bus or train arrives. Something that might have looked like a queue disappears instantly & the best & most aggressive pushers are getting on board. Unless every inch inside the vehicle is taken already.
 
I have learned this the hard way. Trying to be polite will cost you many hours of waiting on a weekly basis. The only real queues are the long lines of cars queuing patiently day-in, day-out on nearly every stretch of road in every major city. Yes, it is that bad.
 
Onboard a bus or train, the situation is hardly any better. I cannot help thinking about sardines. Passengers, deep in each other’s private space, have one thing in common: An empty gaze on their faces revealing their attempt to temporarily exit from humanity.
 
These daily scenes remind me of those ahead of the Eid festival when rich people hand out money to the poor who die fighting for a few dollars. Or those of children offered candy. Rarely-seen aggression on their innocent faces when they are trying to get their share. Politely waiting for your turn is only affordable to those who know there is enough for everyone.
 
Demographic experts warn this is just the beginning. If the population boom continues, Indonesia will face problems a lot worse than transport nightmares or people fighting for small cash.
 
Already Indonesia is facing housing, water & food shortages & massive natural destruction. For years now, the country has imported basic food like rice because there are not enough fields to grow food for its 250 million people. These food shortages will only get worse according to experts.
 
Not many Indonesians would blame overpopulation for these problems. Ineffective government, corruption, God or nature - anything but the size of their families is to blame. An important credo says "many children means many benefits". The idea that children are the safest retirement plan is still prevalent. And with democratisation the country has given its people the liberty to produce as many as they like.
 
Meanwhile, the government proudly keeps citing statistics. Indonesia, the fourth largest country in the world, the third largest democracy, the tenth largest economy.
 
The word overpopulation has turned into a much more friendly term: demographic bonus; hundreds of millions of people are an interesting crowd for investors, or when it comes to power on a geopolitical level.
 
But what about quality of life? A term more frequently used now. When are Indonesians finally getting tired of battling for survival or simply struggling to get to work every day?
 
With a fast-growing middle class, the demand for quality of life is increasing around the country. Fresh air, clean drinking water, proper education, efficient public services will all be just a dream for most Indonesians as long as the credo "more children, more benefits" still exists.

Why do European Muslim girls look to Islamic State for marriage material?

A great opinion piece by a professor of political science at the Graduate School of International Relations & Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

It essentially explains one of the primary reasons why boys & girls, from Europe & North America, are so willing to move to Iraq & Syria, to join a group, which will seemingly restrict or even oppose the kind of lifestyle they are used to back in their homes, in Europe & North America: Financial Security.

As this blog from the professor states, that in UK, a Muslim woman is 65% less likely to be employed compared to a Christian woman, & a Muslim man is 76% less likely compared to a Christian man. Of course, the assumption here, is that everyone has the same education & qualifications.

As I have said multiple times previously, & now ardently believe, that ethnic & religious discrimination is so high in Canada that young Muslim men & women are either willing to endure harsh conditions to join such groups or just given up on their dreams of ever achieving the financial & economic security they envisioned while they were going through their schooling.

One of my friends in HR field posted a blog on properly networking, about a month ago. I frankly commented on that blog that what she is telling in her blog is not wrong, but it is not customized for the minorities. All these are good tips, but it doesn't help the young Muslim men & women, who are educated, but are heavily discriminated against in workplaces.

I said that because I see it myself in my South Asian immigrant community in Canada. If this would have been a problem just with me, I would chalk it up to my luck or any number of individual factors. But it's a community-wide problem, and as soon as someone utters the "R" word (racism), the common answer is, "now, you are just being stupid."

Some Muslim women will say that there's no racism since I have a great job & a career. What they don't realize that it all depends on their dress (appearance) & name. If a Muslim girl is named, "Sarah" or "Maria", & if she drinks alcohol, & wear knee-length skirts (w/o leggings) to work, then she will have a much easier time in securing a job & career. Compare her situation against a Muslim girl with a name, like "Ambreen" (typical South Asian female name), wearing a hijab & not socializing with her friends in a dance club or a bar. She obviously going to have a much-harder time in securing a job.

Appearances & names are a huge factor. Many people won't think twice for little things like that can make a huge difference between landing a job & not even securing an interview. A young bearded Muslim man in a professional office setting will have a very hard time securing a job or making a career.

We have numerous examples of Muslim men & women changing their names to be accepted in their professional circle, "Maqsood" becomes "Max", "Mohammad" becomes "Moe", "Salman" becomes "Sal" & "Osman" becomes "Oz". Women don't shy from it, either. Either, they change it to Judeo-Christian name or simply add that name is a nickname. We have numerous examples of celebrities who were born or accepted Islam later on, but they never change their name or appearance, because of one of the main reason being that they know that they won't get new contracts for shows or gigs if they do take that step, & they shy away from discussing that part of their life.

I am more sensitive to this issue of discrimination because I encounter it everyday, in my search of a job. When I see my colleagues from my MBA class, I feel that injustice. I see that they not only have great jobs, but they are actually thriving in their careers (managerial levels), whereas, I see my non-Caucasian classmates at the clerical levels in their workplaces.

So will I myself ever take that drastic step of joining a radical group? Hell no. Will I relocate somewhere, e.g. back to my country of birth (Pakistan), to reinvigorate my career? Yes. Will it create difficulties in my life? Definitely. Was that ever my dream? No. Do I see this pattern of racial bias ever improving? Perhaps one day, but not in the short term (5-15 years).
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http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/03/04/why-do-european-muslim-girls-look-to-islamic-state-for-marriage-material/

Over the past few years, approximately 550 young Muslim women have left Europe to join Islamist groups in Syria & Iraq, often marrying fighters.

Many are well educated, from middle-class families, born & raised in Europe. They do not appear to be deeply alienated from society or women who could be easily radicalized. Why would young women leave London, Glasgow or Vienna to join a group that is considered anti-woman in its policies & behavior? Why would they go to so much trouble to reach places where their freedom of movement & expression will, at best, be severely constrained?

The reasons, according to analysts, are roughly the same reasons as for men. Some are alienated from European society. Others are angry at the inequality they see & experience. Still others are looking for adventure or have a romantic idea of wanting to help the Sunni community in the Middle East.
 
But something else is likely going on. If women are joining because they are alienated, poor or angry, why aren’t Muslim women of all ages leaving Europe for the Middle East? These feelings must extend throughout the community. But virtually all the women are between ages 15 & 19. Why?
 
One reason is that late teens & early 20s is the time when many young people begin to plan their future — what jobs to take & who to marry.

And these women have good reason to think they may have difficulties getting what they want. An extensive study of religious discrimination in Britain from 2000-2010, commissioned by the Equality & Human Rights Commission, found that Muslims in Britain “experience discrimination of a greater frequency & seriousness than other religious groups.” By the time they are teens, the study shows, many realize there is little they can do to remove it.

Late teens & early 20s is also the period when women may be naïve & inexperienced enough to believe promises made by recruiters on the Internet. When they are told things are better in Syria & Iraq, many seem to believe it.

Yet the answer may have more to do with the job & marriage markets in Europe. Young Muslim women are traveling to the Middle East to join fundamentalist groups in part because they are somehow convinced that this offers greater financial security. The more anxious women were about their economic future, according to a multiyear survey of Muslim women conducted by Lisa Blaydes & Drew Linzer, the more likely they were to turn to & support religious fundamentalism. The report found that economic insecurity was the best predictor of whether a woman would support fundamentalist beliefs.

In fact, young Muslim women in Europe have every reason to be anxious about their economic future.

One reason is that Muslim women in Britain are up to 65% less likely to be employed than white Christian women. Even if a young woman receives straight A’s from a good school — as was the case with the 3 women who recently left London for Syria — she is still more likely to face unemployment, job discrimination & low pay.

Marriage to a young Muslim man in Europe also does not necessarily offer better economic prospects because job opportunities for young Muslim men are even worse. Muslim men in Britain were up to 76% more likely to be unemployed than white male Christians of the same age & with the same qualifications. Neither a job nor marriage in Europe ensures financial security to young Muslim women living there.

There is, however, an alternative. Young Muslim women might decide that they can instead enter the marriage market in Syria & Iraq. Young European women are told by recruiters that they will have their choice of spouses, that their spouses will be able to support them & that they will be taken care of & treated well. Tweets reputedly posted by women living under Islamic State rule describe how the militant group will supply housing & food, even a monthly stipend.

The value of European women in the Syrian & Iraqi marriage market is also presented as higher than that of local women. Blondes, for example, are in demand. To some young women, it might appear as if they have gone from the bottom of the pecking order to the top.

This does not mean that these young women are making a smart choice. They clearly are not making a fully informed one. Recruiters have incentives to portray life within a fundamentalist group as more secure & honorable than life in Europe, even if it isn’t true. They also have incentives to downplay or ignore the dangers these women are likely to encounter in their new world.

Does this mean that all women joining Islamic State are heavily influenced by financial motives & a desire for a reliable social safety net? No. Some are driven by ideology, anger or a desire for adventure — or any number of motives.

But some are driven by strong economic & social incentives, which partly explain the appeal of becoming a member of a fundamentalist group. Current economic conditions have led some young women in Europe to place their trust in what they believe will be a more secure future elsewhere.

They are wrong, but it helps explain why they are so willing to leave.

Pope Francis attacks throwaway culture of world economy

All 3 major Abrahamic religions are essentially very similar. I liked one of the statements Pope made: "When money becomes an idol, it commands the choices of man. And thus it ruins man & condemns him. It makes him a slave." Sounds a lot like what Islam also says.

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Pope Francis has launched a fresh attack on economic injustice, condemning the 'throwaway culture' of globalisation & calling for new ways of thinking about poverty, welfare, employment & society.

 

In a speech ... he pointed to the 'dizzying rise in unemployment' & the problems that existing welfare systems had in meeting healthcare needs.

 

For those living 'at the existential margins' the current social & political system 'seems fatally destined to suffocate hope & increase risks & threats,' he said.

 

The Argentinian-born pope said people were forced to work long hours, sometimes in the black economy, for a few hundred euros a month because they were seen as easily replaceable.

 

''You don't like it? Go home then. What can you do in a world that works like this? Because there's a queue of people looking for work. If you don't like it, someone else will,' he said ... .

 

'It's hunger, hunger that makes us accept what they give us,' he said.

 

But his overall message was that economic rationale had to be secondary to the wider needs of human society.

 

'When money becomes an idol, it commands the choices of man. And thus it ruins man & condemns him. It makes him a slave,' he said.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2973570/Pope-Francis-attack-throwaway-culture-world-economy-financial-inequality.html

"Global Business" by Paresh Nath

"Global Business" - Paresh Nath, India

Desperation Nation

"Desperation Nation" - Jen Sorensen, US