Latest / Stephanomics / Abortion Ruling Is Part of a Global Reversal of Women’s Rights

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Abortion Ruling Is Part of a Global Reversal of Women’s Rights · Stephanomics

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephan Mix, the podcast that brings
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the global economy to you, and there's no way around it.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: We have an exercise in contrast on the program this
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: week in a few minutes, a hopeful report from Indonesia
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: on the new breed of work anywhere digital nomads and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: how governments are redesigning their visa policies to attract them.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: But before that, we have to talk about the dramatic
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: reduction and female reproductive rights that occurred in the US
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: last week when the Supreme Court overturned Row versus Wade.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: The respected Oxford political economist Nyrie Woods has a troubling
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: global take on that decision. I have a fascinating conversation
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: with her in a few minutes. But first, here's Bloomberg
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: u S economy reporter Katia Dmitrieva. Do you have the
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: money to be a single mom? Like? What would you
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: what would you do? You have? Three thousands? Say exactly,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: But I don't have the time to find at work,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Like where's the money going to come from? I'm just
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: gonna take care of the baby. Don't I have to
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: go to work there right now? Like every month, I
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: just say, let's say three hundred to five. I have
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to pay a babysitter, now, food, diapersonal that I'm not
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: gonna have money. I'm just gonna be working to pay
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: rent and to have a baby. So it's like, no,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: what's the life out of that? That was Jane, a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: student from Honduras who now lives in Texas. She's describing
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: what went through her head earlier this year after discovering
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: she was unexpectedly pregnant, but without the financial resources or
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: support to afford a child, and unwilling to take the
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  Speaker 1: health risk. Jane, who's not using her real name for
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: fear of legal action or deportation, I knew that she
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  Speaker 1: wanted an abortion, but getting one in a state that
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  Speaker 1: passed tough restrictions just last fall was a different story.
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  Speaker 1: She would end up breaking the law to get care.
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  Speaker 1: Her only other option was to carry an unwanted pregnancy
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  Speaker 1: to term. Jane's experience could now become a reality for
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  Speaker 1: millions of people across the US. After the Supreme Court
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  Speaker 1: struck down Roe v. Wade, thirty three million people won't
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  Speaker 1: have access or affordable access to care. Women who have
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: found greater equality in society and a greater foothold in
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the economy may lose that. David Slusky, Associate professor of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: economics at the University of Kansas, says the consequences are profound.
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  Speaker 1: Loss of access to abortion, um and reproductive healthcare substantially
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  Speaker 1: worsens the household financial outcomes and preventive care rates, and
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  Speaker 1: educational attainment and income and professional advancement. Results in more
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  Speaker 1: children to single mothers and to poor families and families
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: with the least resources to take care of these children.
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  Speaker 1: It's tough to highlight immediate economic cause and effect, partly
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: because they take place across years, decades, and generations. Professor
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Sluski was one of the one fifty four economists who
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: sent a brief to the Supreme Court in support of
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: upholding abortion access. They argued that three decades of research
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: has shown that it positively impacts a woman's lifelong finances,
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  Speaker 1: wage potential, education, family wealth, and even things like credit scores.
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  Speaker 1: Those who benefit most are young women and women of color,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: like Jane. I spoke with her in her apartment near
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  Speaker 1: Dallas in May. She's been in the US for about
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: seven years but is not legally able to work to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: afford groceries rent and tuition. She works under the table
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: at a residential construction company, answering the phones up until April.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: She also had a second job cleaning office buildings at night,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: but lost it after severe morning sickness. Neither job provides
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: paid time off or health benefits. Well, I that week
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  Speaker 1: that I was feeling really sick, they asked me like, no,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: we don't have someone to substitute you. And I had
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to go work like that, having nauseous and just feeling
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: like headaches, and they were like, no, you don't have
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a substitute, so you have to go to work. I
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: just felt really bad, like I'm telling you, I'm sick.
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  Speaker 1: The law in Texas prohibits abortions after roughly six weeks,
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  Speaker 1: and for Jane, the few remaining clinics in the state
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  Speaker 1: were so booked up that she probably would not have
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  Speaker 1: been able to secure an appointment in time. I'm like,
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  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, because I cannot take time off from
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: my job. I already missed a week. I don't have
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: seek weaker, so I was just like, oh my gosh,
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  Speaker 1: I cannot. I cannot waste one work one more week.
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  Speaker 1: So it's already seven and a half. Yeah, so it's
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  Speaker 1: like I can't go to another place, like I need
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: to have them up home. If I go to Plan
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Parer or whatever, they're gonna say like you're ready more
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: than six weeks. So Jane ended up taking pills her
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: friend sent her in the mail illegal in Texas to
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: induce an abortion after seven weeks. One side effect of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: overturning row is that abortions are getting more expensive. That's
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  Speaker 1: something Reverend Daniel Kantner of the First Unitarian Church of
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Dallas hopes to help with. He's been working with other
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  Speaker 1: groups to fly women from Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico,
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  Speaker 1: to get abortions after the six week mark, free of charge.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the women already have children and can afford
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  Speaker 1: or don't want more. Many have jobs, all of them
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  Speaker 1: are below the poverty line. I spoke with him last
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  Speaker 1: month at a rally in Dallas when the Supreme Court's
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  Speaker 1: road decision was leaked and protests erupted across the country.
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  Speaker 1: And these are the poorest people in in our communities.
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  Speaker 1: This why when I say about this issue is it's
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  Speaker 1: a war on the poor. It's black and brown women
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  Speaker 1: and they're all poor, and they're all you know they
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: have no way to get themselves to the support, So
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that's why we're in this now. Understandably, the Supreme Court's
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: ruling has triggered a lot of debate and soul searching
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: in the US and around the world, and as Katie
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: has suggested there, the implications for American women and for
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the US economy are likely to be profound and quickly felt.
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  Speaker 1: But we take a global view on Stephanomics, and when
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you do that, you can see that the US is
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: not the only place where female freedoms are under attack.
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  Speaker 1: Narie Woods is the Dean of the Blavatnic School of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Government and Professor of Global Economic Governance at the University
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  Speaker 1: of Oxford, and she has made this point very forcefully
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in a piece for the Project Syndicate website. I'm delighted
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: to say that Nara is here with me now. Thank
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you very much for doing this for for Stephanomics. Snarry,
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  Speaker 1: It's always lovely to talk to you. In your piece,
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  Speaker 1: you talk about an increasingly wide ranging attack on women's liberty.
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  Speaker 1: What kind of attacks are you thinking of? So? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, which is important because the Supreme Court are
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  Speaker 1: balancing on the one side what they describe as the
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  Speaker 1: autonomy of women, and on the other the rights of
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  Speaker 1: the unborn child, and and I think people aren't looking
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: at what's happening to the autonomy of women. So I
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: in my article looked at two things, and one is
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: what's happening to the upholding of the right of women
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  Speaker 1: not to be attacked and raped. That's a pretty basic
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  Speaker 1: formal autonomy. And yet what we're seeing, even in the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: United States and in the United Kingdom, which are two
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  Speaker 1: countries which consider themselves to have a robust rule of law,
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  Speaker 1: what we're seeing is ever increasing numbers of rapes being
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  Speaker 1: recorded and reported to the police and declining numbers of
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  Speaker 1: rapes being prosecuted. And and in Britain it's quite a
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  Speaker 1: lot to do with with the cuts and funding to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the Crown Prosecution Service, cuts and funding to the court system.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, there's a number of cases where the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: police work really hard to put the file together, but
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the case just doesn't get prosecuted, and when it does, it's,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you know, two or three years after the rape occurs,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the alleged rape occurs. So so my point was, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it really struck me when I saw a young protester
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  Speaker 1: saying you know, if I don't know, if I don't
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: want a baby, I shouldn't have sex. Um. And I thought, well,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: do all women in the world actually have that choice?
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  Speaker 1: When we look at global statistics on how many women
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: suffer rate and sexual abuse, whether in the home or
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in the streets. Um, it's frightening. Um. And then you say, well,
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  Speaker 1: women are not actually having that choice. And when you say, well,
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  Speaker 1: whose job is it to uphold that autonomy? It's the
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  Speaker 1: job of all of society. But in societies where there's
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: rule of law, you would expect it to be the
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  Speaker 1: government's job to ensure that the police, the court system,
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  Speaker 1: a criminal justice system, and the prosecution system are all
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: working effectively to protect the autonomy of women. And as
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: you suggest, it's not just about what laws are there,
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  Speaker 1: because it's even we're not seeing laws enforced with the
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  Speaker 1: kind of resources needed to try those rape cases, as
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: you suggested, But there are also changes in legislation that
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: are going against women. And I noticed, you know, we're
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: not just talking We're not talking about developing countries here.
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  Speaker 1: I mean there's European as members of the European Union
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that have been banning abortion. I think, particularly in Central
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and Eastern Europe is that that is also a bit
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of a trend. Yeah in Poland. You know, go further
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  Speaker 1: north to Russia, and you know the world was aghast
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that Russia decriminalized domestic violence or categories of domestic violence
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  Speaker 1: a few years ago. But the people who were aghast
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  Speaker 1: at Russia decriminalizing it, I think, failed to look at
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  Speaker 1: their own countries and the fact that although it might
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  Speaker 1: be on the statute books that it's illegal, it's not
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  Speaker 1: being prosecuted, and other efforts aren't being made. And what
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: we do know and that the positive side of the
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  Speaker 1: story is that actually violence against women, both rape and
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: domestic violence, they really are preventable things that the World
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Health Organization and the United Nations have very very clear
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  Speaker 1: lessons and guidelines about how any government and country and
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  Speaker 1: society that wants to can really set about preventing violence
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  Speaker 1: against women. And you know that the sadness for me
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  Speaker 1: is that the Supreme Court, instead of looking in that direction,
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  Speaker 1: looking forwards and saying, let's up hold the rights of
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the unborn child and the rights of women and the
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  Speaker 1: liberty of women, instead look backwards and say, well, what
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: is liberty? Until you know, the late twentieth century, Um,
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  Speaker 1: there was no right to abortion, so why should there
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  Speaker 1: be one now? And if they seem to overlook the
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  Speaker 1: fact quite deliberately that in that version of liberty until
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: there was no right for women to vote, there was
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: no right for women to divorce, there was no right
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: in some countries for women to have property. There was
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: no right not to be raped if they were married
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  Speaker 1: to the rapist. So so looking backwards to define liberty
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: takes us back to defining liberty as a concept, which
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  Speaker 1: you know, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was liberty
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: for white men. And I think that's very worrying in
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  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court judgment decision. And I want to say
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: we'll have a little bit on the economic implications in
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: a minute, but just thinking about what's driving this, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: there's obviously been particular governments that have come to power
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere. There's certainly political
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: moves in Russia have taken taken us in that direction.
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  Speaker 1: But did COVID also make somehow there's a more better
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: environment for for for infringing on women's rights or not
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: not protecting women's freedoms enough, I think COVID. You know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the UN and the World Health Organization both tell us
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that COVID hugely increased the problem. That in all countries
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: in which you had lockdowns, you saw more women being
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: attacked in their homes, more domestic violence, are more abuse,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and at the same time less access to help, less
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: access to justice, less access to support organizations. So the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: effect of COVID is to have increased the problem. The
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the the deeper question you're asking is did COVID reduce
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the city to solve this? Did COVID unleash a greater
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: instinct towards authoritarianism and populism in populations? Um? You know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: we've we've here at the Blevanney School, we've done an
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Oxford Government Response tracker. And one of the correlations that's
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: clear is that countries that had stringent lockdowns for a
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: long time have had the strongest political backlash against governments. UM.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: And that can make it difficult. It also makes it
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: more tempting when there's a backlash against government for um,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: what some people would call populists, but for people with exclusive,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: narrow extremist messages to kind of dog whistle to certain
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: parts of the population, to play to fear and anxiety
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to use, you know, the crack cocaine of a kind
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of that narrow exclusive nationalism or or culture wars to
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: elicit political support. And just to follow over thought, I mean,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the other be thing that has clearly helped to normalize
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: some of those more extreme physicians and bring it more
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: into the public domain as social media. We see that
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: very clearly affecting also women's involvement in politics itself absolutely,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and the frightening thing there is how international and universal
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that is. You know, in my article, I sight the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: evidence from Japan, from Sweden, from Canada, from the United Kingdom,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: in all countries, the social media attacks that women are
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: suffering are quite specific. It's not that women get more
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: online harassment than men. It's that they get a very
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: different kind of online harassment if they're politicians that politics.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Male politicians get harassment for their for their policy platforms.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Women politicians get a kind of sexualized, threatening, physical, very
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: very personal abuse which makes their jobs terrifying in the instances.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: And just to take things back, I mean, we tend
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to focus more on the economics in this program, but
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's been it's it's valuable to tease out
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: all of these other elements. But you know, we have
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: heard a lot this week in the US about the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: likely rise in maternal death there and the number of
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: children living in poverty as a result of making abortion
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: illegal or so much harder to get. And you know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: clearly there's a lot of economic fallout for an economy
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: if women have more children than they're ready for. Do
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: we have any evidence of the economic impact. I guess
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it's much just much less tangible. But if women are
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: less vocal in public debates, if they're discouraged from politics,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: if there's a sort of chilling effect on that, on there,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: on those kind of discussions. On your first point, we
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: have very clear evidence that abortions in the United States
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: are more and more the resort of very poor women.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And we have very clear evidence from decades of development
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: economics that the more children a woman has are, the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: less likely the prospects of those children. The less educated
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: a woman is, the less value she has as a
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: person in her own right other than as a mother,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the more likely she is to have a very large
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: number of children, not just as a choice, but also
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: as a as a as a circumstance. And if we
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: put all that together we see that if we want
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: a flourishing society with well educated, well nourished children UM,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and a society of people that can and will take
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: up jobs for which they need to be educated, we've
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: got to be looking at the rights of the born child,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: not just the rights of the unborn child. And this
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: exclusive focus on the rights of the unborn child UM
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: does a terrible thing to society. It says, where interest
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: than you until you're born. But the day you're born,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: you can live in complete poverty and have very little
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: chance of being educated or having opportunities in life because
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: our duties only extended to your moment of birth. Marry words,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: thank you so much. So here's the handbrake turn, because
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: we're heading to Bali, where the government's changing its visa
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: policies to attract not just spiritual types looking to find themselves,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: but digital nomads looking for son and good WiFi. Further
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: evidence of the way that the COVID pandemic has changed
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the world of work, at least for the lucky few
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: who can work from any home they want. Here's Indonesia
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Economy reporter Claire Yow. For the last two years, COVID
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: has redefined or working life. We got used to the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: convenience of rolling out of bed and into a meeting
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and the ease of spending the entire day in pajamas.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: As we emerge from the pandemic, that's opened a debate
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: on what exactly the new world of work should look like.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: On one side, there are business leaders like Testlas Elon
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Musk urging everyone to spend at least forty hours a
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: week in the office or else. In leaked emails sat
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to Teslas executive staff, Elon Musk told them, for the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: most parts quotes, if you don't show up, we will
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: assume you have resigned. On the other there's Brian Chesky,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: CEO of Airbnb, who announced that all their employees can
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: live and work anywhere in the world indefinitely. Flexibility is
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the future. After compensation, Flexibly will be the most important
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: benefit employers can offer. The best people aren't just in
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Silk and Valley either, not just in New York. The
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: best people are now everywhere in Any company that limits
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: their talent pole to a commut eating radius around the
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: office will be at a disadvantage. And then there's the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: middle ground, living and working somewhere on an extended working vacation.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: It's longer than your usual holiday, but shorter than permanent residents.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It's called business leisure travel. One of the joys of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Bangkok for me is the amazing cooking just about everywhere here.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I am along a street side getting some tad tie
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: before I bring it on home. Meet David Abraham. He's
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the co founder of Outpost, a co living and coworking
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: community in Southeast Asia. Think of it as we work
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: for travelers. He runs this business on the goal this
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: week out of Bangkok, next week in Bali. Like many
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of us, though, he used to be tied to an
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: office desk, working in the likes of Lehman Brothers and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the White House. It wasn't until a trip to Asia
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: in twenty twelve that he changed his mind. Thursday afternoon,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and I was in a Starbucks in Tokyo, and I
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was doing work as I usually did, and I raised
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: my head and looked around and saw a number of
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: other people working and wondered, well, if they had to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: be working in Tokyo and they were away from the office,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: why did they even have to be in Tokyo at all?
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Why couldn't they be in an amazing place like Polli,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and that's where I ended up, and the idea of
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: of coming in and creating a productive space for people
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like myself was born. It all sounds great, but there's
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: just one little snag. The question our potential gates are
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: asking is also this, like how leiggal is it for
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: me to come and stay and work from there? This
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is Thomas Despin. He runs a resort called Reconnect on
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: a remote island in Indonesia. Like David, he was also
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: lured by the idea of business leisure travel, the beauty
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of having the best of both worlds. So when you
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: live in here, you have access of course to like
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the whole island um to a pristine cold reef right
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: in front of the beach whites and beach. You have
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: access to all the water activities, so standard battle kayak,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: you can go fishing with the local badge of people.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: You can do all kind of beach activities, and of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: course you have your own private space to focus and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: work from without any destruction. M But when it comes
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to immigration and tax issues, remote work tends to be
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: a gray area. Take Indonesia for example, Tourists can keep
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: entering on a thirty day visa, but staying in the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: country for six months out of a twelve month period
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: would make you a tax resident in the eyes of
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the law. This freak Thomas out since he was operating
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: US based business while staying in Bali. So when he
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: saw the law, he tried to file his income tax
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: at the local office, but he was met with confusion
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: from the authorities, and so actually went to the tax
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: office in in January in Bali and they loved him.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I gets really loved there, Like why would you pay
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: taxes here? They say, you know, so just you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: like go back to La Engine to stay here, you
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: don't have to pay any tax. So that was actually fun.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: It's not just workers who are grappling with this. Companies
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: are too. They worry that the presence of their employees
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: in another country could make them obligated to pay corporate
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: taxes there. That's not even counting the social security and
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: labor obligations they would have to comply with. According to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a survey by the h CFO Network, almost of companies
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: said corporate taxes are their biggest concern around allowing remote work.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Personal taxes are a closed second to that end. Tourist
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: hot spots like Thailand are moving fast to modify these
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: rules and lure these business leisure travelers onto their beaches.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Travelers will soon be able to apply for a long
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: term resident visa if they want to work remotely from Thailand.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: The visa lasts for five years and comes with tax incentives.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Here's Thai Tourism and Sports Minister peep At Chakrakari, did
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you don't know that we want tax digital nomads? Their
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: income is generated from overseas. So if you earn money
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: from other countries and come to work and travel in Thailand,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the Thai government won't collected text from you. There's no
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: such tax. You will only be taxed on your spending.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: The value added tax rate is as seven percent. That
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: is an equal charge for both locals and foreigners. And
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: then across the ocean and Indonesia could also offer its
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: own five year viewsas soon, targeting remote workers and retirees.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Tourism ministers san Diego says that's potentially a billion dollar
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: opportunity for the island nation from millennials. Gen z all
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the way to order entrepreneurs to reside in Vali or
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: any parts of Indonesia. With the support of digital infrastructures,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: they can conduct their businesses. Uh. And this is something
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that is so huge because one trillion dollars worth of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: potentials that we can read, and if we could convert
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that twenty you would see a three billion US dollars
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: worth of potentials that we could turn into business opportunity
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and create jobs for the economic recovery. Despite the strong
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: will of policymakers, the legal wrangling could take years to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: catch up. But David Abraham of Outposts is optimally stick
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that we're on the fast track now more than ever.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: If we're talking in two thousand seven right now, and
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: you were talking to the future me, and you would
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: tell me I could just go and to someone else's
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: house and spend a few nights there and I can
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: pay them and that's legal, I'd say, well, that's crazy.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: But Airbnb came about. And then I can go into
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: someone else's car who's not regulated, that's not a taxi,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and I can pay them to drive me anywhere. And
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: so what I think, what we see over time is
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: that regulations do evolve and and and things do change. Um.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Business travel has always been in this nebulous situation. When
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I go to a conference and and and speak do
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I come in on? What regulation? Do I come in under?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Um There's always been a challenge that that companies have
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: had to had to navigate, and I think they've done
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: it quite effectively. Now there are new visa regimes coming in,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: but I think that this is definitely a manageable situation.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: As for governments, remote workers are a much needed lifeline
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: for a tourism sector that was so badly beaten during
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the pandemic. From Manila Claiyo from Bloomberg News, that's it
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: for this episode of Stephanomics. Will be back next week,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: but in the meantime, do please rate the show if
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you like it, and check out the Bloomberg News website.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: It's Bloomberg UK in the UK. For more economic news
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and views on the global economy. You can also follow
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: at Economics on Twitter. This episode was produced by Magnus Hendrickson,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Samma Sadi and Young Young, with special thanks to Katya Dmitrieva,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Professor Nirie Woods, Claire Yeow, Certainly, you, Wet Watana, and
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Michelle jim Risco. Mike Sasso is executive producer of Stephonomics
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and the head of Bloomberg podcast is Francesco Levi m
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: h m m