WORLD Policy Analysis Center

We are excited to share the launch of our newest initiative, – new data, a freely downloadable e-book, 100+ maps, 3 infographics, 12 policy briefs, all systematically analyzing how far we’ve come and how far we have to go in adopting evidence-based solutions to close the in the .

Spanning topics including girls’ , employment of all kinds, s*xual , and needs across the life course, Equality Within Our Lifetimes brings the findings to life through global maps, stories of laws’ impact in courts and beyond, and case studies of making change.

Equality within Our Lifetimes: How Laws and Policies Can Close – or Widen – Gender Gaps in Economies Worldwide | UCLA World Well into the 21st century, the scale and impacts of gender inequality in the economy remain staggering. Moreover, progress has stalled in key areas. Yet the global gender gaps in employment, pay, and leadership aren’t simply the result of historic discrimination, cultural bias, or individual choi...

Parental leave, along with breastfeeding breaks, can powerfully support women’s ability to initiate and continue breastfeeding while maintaining paid work. Yesterday marked 30 years since the U.S. adopted the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave to new parents. Yet while a landmark for the U.S., the FMLA remains inaccessible to millions: our new analysis finds that most workers–including 67% of Latinx workers and 60% of Black workers–are either ineligible for or cannot afford to take unpaid FMLA. Moreover, nearly a third of women are excluded from the breastfeeding breaks guaranteed by the ACA/FLSA because of their employer’s size.

Adopting a comprehensive, inclusive paid parental leave policy and closing gaps in breastfeeding break legislation would remove work-related barriers to breastfeeding; reduce racial, ethnic, and gender inequities; and align U.S. national policies with global norms.

Learn more in our new paper published in Public Health Reports:

National Policies on Parental Leave and Breastfeeding Breaks: Racial, Ethnic, Gender, and Age Disparities in Access and Implications for Infant and Child Health - Aleta Sprague, Alison Earle, Gonzalo Moreno, Amy Raub, Willetta Waisath, Jody... Objective: Parental leave and breastfeeding breaks influence the ability to initiate and continue breastfeeding. We investigated how eligibility criteria in the...

In a new study in Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, we examine the extent to which the world’s countries have passed laws to address at work comprehensively.

There has been progress over the last 5 years: 142 countries now prohibit s*xual harassment at work (78% of high-income countries, 74% of middle-income countries, and 66% of low-income countries).

But as our findings show, the gaps in national laws remain substantial. 50 countries fail to explicitly prohibit s*xual harassment at work. In 89 countries, laws do not prohibit s*xual harassment that creates a hostile work environment. 45 of the 189 UN member states that have ratified have not even taken the first step toward legally prohibiting s*xual harassment in the workplace. 9 of the 42 countries that have ratified the have not legally prohibited s*xual harassment at work. Shortcomings are evident across all regions and income groups. In 22% of high-income countries, 26% of middle-income countries, and 34% of low-income countries, no form of workplace s*xual harassment is prohibited.

There has been important progress on law. But the gaps remain large, despite the presence of widespread global and regional agreements to do better. Learn more in WORLD’s newly released findings:

Progress Towards Ending Sexual Harassment at Work? A Comparison of Sexual Harassment Policy in 192 Countries Eliminating s*xual harassment at work has an important role to play in accelerating progress toward gender equality in the economy. This study examines how 192 countries’ laws address workplace s*x...

Reducing homicides, suicides, and mass shootings in the U.S. is both urgent and feasible–in a letter sent to the Senate this morning, over 1200 national health & science leaders outline evidence-based approaches: https://bit.ly/3xnBBu0

Letter | Letter to Senate We, the undersigned leaders in public health and medicine from across the country, including members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, urge you to rapidly pass legislation based on evidence-based approaches to reduce the enormous toll of gun violence in the United Sta...

In 2020 alone, the U.S. reported a staggering 45,222 firearm deaths. Today, over 1200 national health & science leaders are urging the Senate to take evidence-based action to address this crisis: https://bit.ly/3xnBBu0

Letter | Letter to Senate We, the undersigned leaders in public health and medicine from across the country, including members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, urge you to rapidly pass legislation based on evidence-based approaches to reduce the enormous toll of gun violence in the United Sta...

Five years on from United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)'s , when countries worldwide recommitted to advancing women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work, our data shows both global progress & significant gaps.
Encouragingly, nearly all countries (93%) prohibit at least some form of gender discrimination at work.

However,

-14 countries still do not prohibit gender discrimination at work. Another 55 prohibit gender discrimination at work, but have no protection from retaliation for women who report it.

-Five years since the launch of , there are still 50 countries that do not legally prohibit s*xual harassment at work.

-82 countries fail to guarantee women the same pay for work of equal value as men.

As concludes and countries look toward the future, ensuring all countries have national laws that guarantee gender equality is more important than ever. Access our new data to learn more:

Workplace Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment | UCLA World Advancing gender equality across society requires that governments take steps to ensure all women have access to equal opportunities

The U.S. is one of 8 countries without national for new mothers- and the only OECD country without. 185 countries globally – at all income levels – have figured out how to provide sufficient leave. Our data shows that globally, the average paid leave for mothers is 29 weeks, and the average paid leave for fathers is 16 weeks.

Current plans would establish 4 weeks of paid parental leave, down from the 12 weeks initially proposed. But four weeks of paid parental leave is not enough for the U.S. to catch up with the rest of the world – and not enough to reap the full benefits of leave, as Claire Cain Miller reports in this week’s NYT The Upshot article:

The World ‘Has Found a Way to Do This’: The U.S. Lags on Paid Leave The U.S. is one of six countries with no national paid leave. The Democrats have cut their plan to four weeks, which would still make it an outlier.

Our new Health Affairs study reveals that the U.S. is one of just 11 countries globally without paid medical leave--and even for unpaid leave, eligibility rules exclude tens of millions while widening racial & gender gaps in access. For example, 18.7% of Latina women are ineligible for leave through FMLA because of its annual work hours requirement, compared to just 8.4% of white men.

There are better options. Our findings show that adopting a permanent, universal, and adequately paid sick and medical leave policy is not only critical to equity in the U.S. but also feasible, straightforward, and overdue—and that providing at least three months of paid medical leave is readily achievable.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/37p8aeF

The U.S. is one of just 11 countries around the world that did not provide paid sick leave at a national level before the pandemic began. Had paid sick days been available, fewer people would have had to go to work sick and there would have been less spread. This failure to act is not because of any unique barriers to providing sick leave in the U.S., where 9 states and at least 23 cities and counties have passed paid sick days or paid medical leave legislation. Further, these policies have had impact: a new study in JAMA Health Forum shows that New York City’s paid sick days law increased access to preventive care and reduced emergency room visits. It’s time to pass national paid sick leave in the U.S. to improve health for all and take a critical step toward reducing the marked inequalities in health across race and class:

National Paid Sick Leave Is Critical for Health and Reducing Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities At a high cost to millions of people every year, the US has become increasingly isolated as 1 of the very few countries that entirely lacks any national paid sick leave.1 Around the world, 181 countries provided for paid sick leave before the pandemic began; only the US and 10 other countries did...

The rights to social protection and decent work are always critical but take on new urgency amid . To mark , we’re sharing findings from our new study, which analyzes protections for these rights in 193 constitutions:

54% of constitutions guarantee a right to some form of social protection
23% explicitly protect income during unemployment and illness, respectively
31% guarantee safe working conditions

To learn more about constitutional rights to social protection and decent work globally, check out our maps: https://bit.ly/37MZfDy, factsheets: http://worldpolicycenter.org/decentworkfactsheet and http://worldpolicycenter.org/incomeprotectionfactsheet, & new journal article: https://bit.ly/33ZCYRJ.

Ensuring everyone has the opportunity and time to vote matters to good policy. If you are in the US, please vote in the upcoming election (Nov 3rd). Questions about registering, checking your registration, or how to vote? Use vote.org or
http://ow.ly/srel50BUYJg

Voting & Elections - Common Cause | Join the Movement We are fighting to uphold the demands of the Constitution that every eligible citizen has the freedom to vote and that their votes are accurately counted.