LA Times (June 20)
“Each day three or four children under age 17 die and an additional 16 are hospitalized from a single cause: gunfire. In fact… gun violence is the third leading cause of death for American kids between ages 1 and 17, and the second leading cause of injury-related deaths after motor vehicle accidents.” It is “the nation’s shame” that “we know it’s a problem…. We know steps can be taken to address it. But we don’t take them.”
Tags: Accidents, Children, Death, Gun violence, Gunfire, Hospitalized, Shame, U.S.
Financial Times (January 14)
“Decades of anaemic wage increases, lower job security and lacklustre consumption” have undermined a generation of Japanese who are now coming to age. Dismal economic factors have “stripped away” their incentives “to leave home, buy cars, marry, have children, take risks and generally grow up.”
Tags: Anaemic, Cars, Children, Consumption, Dismal, Incentives, Japan, Job security, Marriage, Risks, Wages
Washington Post (October 19)
“Of all the sad statistics associated with U.S. gun violence, none is more pitiful than the single digits that represent the ages of little children who unintentionally shoot themselves or others after getting hold of a gun.” On average a child shoots someone (or himself) unintentionally once a week. “No count can capture the lasting emotional damage of these shootings, to those who shoot as well as, if they survive, those who are shot.”
Tags: Children, Emotional damage, Gun violence, Sad, Shootings, Statistics, U.S.
New York Times (October 15)
“India is a vigorous democracy that has sent an orbiter to Mars. Yet its children are more likely to starve than children in far poorer nations in Africa. In a remarkable failure of democracy, India is the epicenter of global malnutrition: 39 percent of Indian children are stunted from poor nutrition.”
Institutional Investor (July 20)
With social security on track to run dry in the U.S. by 2033, members of Generation X (born from 1965-1981) are taking an overwhelmingly self-reliant view toward retirement: 65% don’t expect any inheritance, pension or social security payments. “Gen Xers’ woes are increasingly shared by Millennials as they age. Like Millennials, Gen Xers tended to marry later and delay having children. Perhaps Gen Xers’ experiences with retirement planning—dominated by the sense that it is an insurmountable task—will serve as a proxy for how the younger and larger Millennial generation will fare.”
Tags: Children, Generation X, Inheritance, Marry, Millennials, Pension, Retirement, Social security, U.S.
The Telegraph (October 16)
“Instead of changing a structure of employment that clearly does not work for women, Apple and Facebook are offering employees the chance to freeze their eggs and have children later.” Egg freezing and storage is the latest Silicon Valley perk designed “to attract more female employees” and “tackle the Gender Pay Gap.” But to some, this sounds surreal. “Women freeze the source of life itself? That’s not a perk, it’s an outrage.”
Tags: Apple, Children, Eggs, Employment, Facebook, Freezing, Gender, Outrage, Pay gap, Perk, Silicon Valley, Women
The Economist (June 21)
“Since time immemorial, Chinese children have been expected to take care of their aged parents—but rising incomes and shifting norms are changing things.” Retirement homes, some quite stylish, may prove the wave of the future in China.
Tags: Children, China, Elderly, Future, Incomes, Norms, Parents, Retirement, Retirement homes
Chicago Trbiune (December 25, 2013)
“For our love of peace, for our love of each other and especially for our love of the children and our belief in their need to dream, we welcome, yes, praise, this day, this Christmas, that dawns with a chorus of joy.”
New York Times (June 10)
“Those who see Japan’s performance over the last decades as an unmitigated failure have too narrow a conception of economic success. Along many dimensions—greater income equality, longer life expectancy, lower unemployment, greater investments in children’s education and health, and even greater productivity relative to the size of the labor force—Japan has done better than the United States. It may have quite a lot to teach us. If Abenomics is even half as successful as its advocates hope, it will have still more to teach us.”
Tags: Abenomics, Children, Economic success, Income equality, Investment, Japan, Labor force, Life expectancy, Productivity, U.S., Unemployment
Chicago Tribune (April 1)
“In the world’s most populous nation, attending to your filial obligations is no longer entirely up to your discretion. It’s a legal obligation.” In China, “the government has enacted a law mandating that children visit their parents and that employers give the children time off to do so. And if Junior shirks his duty, Mom and Dad can sue him to force compliance.”
