Academic achievement is influenced by how pupils 'do' gender at school

by University of Cambridge

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Pupils' achievements at school are often shaped by the way that they 'act out' specific gender roles, according to a new study which warns against over-generalising the gender gap in education.

The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge, suggests that young people's attainment is linked to their ideas about what it means to be male or female. Those who defy traditional gender stereotypes appear to do better in the classroom.

Annual GCSE results in the UK, in common with many western countries, typically show that boys lag behind girls academically, but the research argues that this broad pattern masks a more nuanced picture. In particular, the researchers warn that a large sub-group of girls, who conform fairly rigidly to some traditional 'feminine' norms, could be academically at-risk. They point out that these girls are often 'invisible' in broad surveys of attainment by gender that show girls performing well as a group.

The researchers examined the English and Maths results of almost 600 GCSE candidates at four schools in England. On average, the girls did significantly better in English, while boys were slightly better at Maths. Girls outperformed boys overall.

But the study then went a step further, analysing sub-groups of boys and girls according to how they expressed their gender identity. This revealed that around half of the girls displayed 'maladaptive patterns of motivation, engagement and achievement'. By contrast, around two-thirds of boys were motivated, engaged and did well in exams. The pupils' academic performance corresponded closely to their sense of gender.

Dr. Junlin Yu, a researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said: "There has been a lot of justifiable concern about low attainment among boys, but we really need to move on from looking at averages, and ask which specific groups of boys and girls are falling behind. These findings suggest that part of the answer is linked to how pupils 'do' gender at school."

The study asked pupils to complete questionnaires which measured their motivation and engagement, and also examined how far they conformed to certain gender 'norms'.


These norms were drawn from two widely-used scales that identify the characteristics which people in western countries consider 'typically' masculine or feminine. The supposedly 'masculine' traits were emotional control, competitiveness, aggression, self-reliance, and risk-taking. The 'feminine' traits were thinness, an interest in appearance, concern with relationships, and an inclination towards domesticity.

In reality, most people exhibit a combination of masculine and feminine traits and the researchers found that pupils typically belonged to one of seven gender profiles that blended these characteristics. They classified these as:
'Resister boys' (69% of boys): typically resist traditional ideas about masculinity.
'Cool guys' (21%): competitive risk-takers, but concerned with appearance and romantic success.
'Tough guys' (10%): have an emotionally 'hard' image, self-reliant.
'Relational girls' (32% of girls): shun appearance norms, comfortable connecting with others emotionally.
'Modern girls' (49%): concerned with appearance, but also self-reliant and emotionally distant.
'Tomboys' (12%): uninterested in feminine qualities, often regarded as 'one of the lads.'
'Wild girls' (7%): embrace masculine behaviours, but also display an exaggeratedly 'feminine' appearance.

These profiles were then cross-referred with the pupils' GCSE results.

On average, the sample group performed as international trends predict. Girls had an average grade of 6.0 (out of 9) in English, compared with the boys' average of 5.3. In Maths boys averaged 5.9; slightly higher than the girls' 5.5.

But the researchers also found strong correlations between the specific gender profiles and patterns of engagement, motivation, and attainment. The two groups who resisted conventional gender norms—resister boys and relational girls—were found to be 'better academically adjusted' and typically did well in exams. The lowest overall performers were the 'cool guys' and 'tough guys'.

This significantly affected the average patterns of attainment by gender. In English, for example, relational girls far outperformed all other pupils in the cohort (averaging 6.3), almost single-handedly raising the girls' average.

The 'modern' and 'wild' girls typically had more mediocre GCSE results. More worryingly, these groups also displayed signs of low engagement and motivation: they gave up easily when faced with difficult tasks, and generally put less effort into their work. Collectively, these girls represented 56% of the total, but their underachievement was partially obscured by the high attainment average for girls.

The study suggests that one reason for the close correspondence between gender profile and academic achievement is that adolescents tend to express strong and inflexible ideas about gender, which influences their attitude towards school. For example, 'cool guys', who prize risk-taking and winning, consistently admitted to not trying hard at school—probably because doing so maintained the illusion that they would succeed if they put in more effort.

Attitudes towards gender probably also influence pupils' engagement with certain subjects. Previous studies have, for example, shown that Maths is often perceived as 'male'. Tellingly, within the sample, tomboys—girls who rejected 'feminine' traits—earned higher grades than the other girls in Maths.

The study's main recommendation is that efforts to close the gender gap in attainment need to focus less on 'girls versus boys' and more on these nuanced profiles. However, the researchers also suggest that schools could support pupils by encouraging them to think beyond traditional gender stereotypes.

"Among boys in particular, we found that those who resist gender norms were in the majority, but at school it often doesn't feel that way," Yu said. "Teachers and parents can help by encouraging pupils to feel that they won't be ridiculed or marginalised if they don't conform to traditional gender roles. Our findings certainly suggest that resistance to stereotypes is fast becoming less the exception, and more the rule."

The research appears in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.Researchers study videogame use patterns and the differences in gender among adolescents

More information: Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020). DOI: 10.1007/s10964-020-01293-z

Journal information: Journal of Youth and Adolescence

New algorithms could reduce polarization driven by information overload

by Mary L. Martialay, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

As the volume of available information expands, the fraction a person is able to absorb shrinks. They end up retreating into a narrow slice of thought, becoming more vulnerable to misinformation, and polarizing into isolated enclaves of competing opinions. To break this cycle, computer scientists say we need new algorithms that prioritize a broader view over fulfilling consumer biases.


"This is a call to arms," said Boleslaw Szymanski, a professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "Informed citizens are the foundation of democracy, but the interest of big companies, who supply that information, is to sell us a product. The way they do that on the internet is to repeat what we showed interest in. They're not interested in a reader's growth; they're interested in the reader's continued attention."

Szymanski and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, San Diego, explore this troubling "paradox of information access," in a paper published on arXiv.org.

"You would think that enabling everybody to be an author would be a blessing," said Szymanski, an expert in social and cognitive networks, with previous work that includes findings on the power of a committed minority to sway outcomes. "But the attention span of human beings is not prepared for hundreds of millions of authors. We don't know what to read, and since we cannot select everything, we simply go back to the familiar, to works that represent our own beliefs."

Nor is the effect entirely unprecedented, said Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor and University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign lead on the project.

"It's not the first time that affordances of connectivity and increased access have led to polarization," said Abdelzaher. "When the U.S. interstate freeway system was built, urban socioeconomic polarization increased. Connectivity allowed people to self-segregate into more homogenous sprawling neighborhoods. The big question this project answers is: how to undo the polarizing effects of creating the information super-highway?"

The effect is exacerbated when our own human limitations are combined with information curations systems that maximize "clicks."

To disrupt this cycle, the authors contend that the algorithms that provide a daily individualized menu of information must be changed from systems that merely "give consumers more of what these consumers express interest in."

The authors propose adapting a technique long used in conveying history, which is to provide a tighter summation for events further back from the present day. They call this model for content curation "a scalable presentation of knowledge." Algorithms would shift from "extractive summarization," which gives us more of what we consumed in the past, to "abstractive summarization," which increases the proportion of available thought we can digest.


"As long as you do balance content, you can cover more distant knowledge in much less space," said Szymanski, who is also the director of a Network Science and Technology Center at Rensselaer. "Although readers have a finite attention span, they still have a slight knowledge in new areas, and then they can choose to shift their attention in a new direction or stay the course."

Few analytical models exist to measure the trend toward what the authors call "ideological fragmentation in an age of democratized global access." But one, which the authors considered, treats individuals as "particles in a belief space"—almost like a fluid—and measures their changing positions based on the change in content they share over time. The model "confirms the emergence of polarization with increased information overload."

The more ideologically isolated and polarized we are, the more we are vulnerable to disinformation tailored to reinforce our own biases. Szymanski and his colleagues offer a slew of technical solutions to reduce misinformation, including better data provenance and algorithms that detect misinformation, such as internal consistency reasoning, background consistency reasoning, and intra-element consistency reasoning tools.

"The very sad development discussed in this paper is that today, people are not conversing with each other. We are living in our own universe created by the data which is coming from these summarization systems, data that confirms our innate biases," Szymanski said. "This a big issue which we face as a democracy, and I think we have a duty to address it for the good of society."

Szymanski and his co-authors are working on mathematical models that both measure the extent of polarization in various media, and predict how trends would change under various mitigating strategies.


Explore furtherForces behind growing political polarization in congress revealed in new model

More information: Abdelzaher et al., The Paradox of Information Access: Growing Isolation in the Age of Sharing. arXiv:2004.01967 [cs.CY]. arxiv.org/abs/2004.01967

Provided by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

TEEN AGE HACKERS,EH UPDATED
3 charged in massive Twitter hack, Bitcoin scam (Update)

by David Fischer
\

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Fla., released the photo Graham Ivan Clark, 17, after his arrest Friday, July 31, 2020. Clark is accused of hacking Twitter, gaining access to the account of Bill Gates, Elon Musk and many others. Clark was able to scam people around the glove of more than $100,000 in Bitcoin. (Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office via AP)

A British man, a Florida man and a Florida teen were identified by authorities Friday as the hackers who earlier this month took over Twitter accounts of prominent politicians, celebrities and technology moguls to scam people around the globe out of more than $100,000 in Bitcoin.


Graham Ivan Clark, 17, was arrested Friday in Tampa, where the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office will prosecute him as adult. He faces 30 felony charges, according to a news release. Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, U.K., and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, were charged in California federal court.

In one of the most high-profile security breaches in recent years, hackers sent out bogus tweets on July 15 from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked.

The tweets offered to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address.

"There is a false belief within the criminal hacker community that attacks like the Twitter hack can be perpetrated anonymously and without consequence," U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson for the Northern District of California said in a news release. "Today's charging announcement demonstrates that the elation of nefarious hacking into a secure environment for fun or profit will be short-lived."

Although the case against the teen was also investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren explained that his office is prosecuting Clark in Florida state court because Florida law allows minors to be charged as adults in financial fraud cases such as this when appropriate. He added that Clark was the leader of the hacking scam.

"This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and he'll be prosecuted here," Warren said.

Security experts were not surprised that the alleged mastermind of the hack is a 17-year-old, given the relative amateur nature both of the operation and the hackers' willingness afterward to discuss the hack with reporters online.

"I think this is a great case study showing how technology democratizes the ability to commit serious criminal acts," said Jake Williams, founder of the cybersecurity firm Rendition Infosec. "I'm not terribly surprised that at least one of the suspects is a minor. There wasn't a ton of development that went into this attack."


Williams said the hackers were "extremely sloppy" in how they moved the Bitcoin around.

Williams said it did not appear that the three used any services that make cryptocurrency difficult to trace by "tumbling" transactions of multiple users, a technique akin to money laundering.

He also said he was conflicted about whether Clark should be charged as an adult.

"He definitely deserves to pay (for jumping on the opportunity) but potentially serving decades in prison doesn't seem like justice in this case," Williams said.

Twitter previously said hackers used the phone to fool the social media company's employees into giving them access. It said hackers targeted "a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack."

"This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems," the company tweeted.

In this Wednesday Nov. 6, 2013, file photo, the Twitter logo appears on an updated phone post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Twitter says the hackers responsible for a recent high-profile breach used the phone to fool the social media company's employees into giving them access. The company revealed a few more details late Thursday, July 30, 2020 about the hack earlier this month, which it said targeted "a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack." (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

After stealing employee credentials and getting into Twitter's systems, the hackers were able to target other employees who had access to account support tools, the company said.

The hackers targeted 130 accounts. They managed to tweet from 45 accounts, access the direct message inboxes of 36, and download the Twitter data from seven. Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders has said his inbox was among those accessed.

Internal Revenue Service investigators in Washington, D.C., were able to identify two of the hackers by analyzing Bitcoin transactions on the blockchain—the ledger where transactions are recorded—including ones the hackers attempted to keep anonymous, federal prosecutors said.

Spear-phishing is a more targeted version of phishing, an impersonation scam that uses email or other electronic communications to deceive recipients into handing over sensitive information.

Twitter said it would provide a more detailed report later "given the ongoing law enforcement investigation."

The company has previously said the incident was a "coordinated social engineering attack" that targeted some of its employees with access to internal systems and tools. It didn't provide any more information about how the attack was carried out, but the details released so far suggest the hackers started by using the old-fashioned method of talking their way past security.

British cybersecurity analyst Graham Cluley said his guess was that a targeted Twitter employee or contractor received a message by phone asking them to call a number.

"When the worker called the number they might have been taken to a convincing (but fake) helpdesk operator, who was then able to use social engineering techniques to trick the intended victim into handing over their credentials," Clulely wrote Friday on his blog.

It's also possible the hackers pretended to call from the company's legitimate help line by spoofing the number, he said.

Fazeli's father said Friday he hasn't been able to talk to his son since Thursday.

"I'm 100% sure my son is innocent," Mohamad Fazeli said. "He's a very good person, very honest, very smart and loyal."

"We are as shocked as everybody else," he said by phone. "I'm sure this is a mix up."

Attempts to reach relatives of the other two weren't immediately successful. Hillsborough County court records didn't list an attorney for Clark, and federal court records didn't list attorneys for Sheppard or Fazeli.

© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.


Twitter says hackers used phone to fool staff, gain access

by Kelvin Chan

Twitter says the hackers responsible for a recent high-profile breach used the phone to fool the social media company's employees into giving them access.

The company revealed a few more details late Thursday about the hack earlier this month, which it said targeted "a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack."

"This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems," the company tweeted.

The embarrassing July 15 attack compromised the accounts of some of its most high profile users, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, in an apparent attempt to lure their followers into sending money to an anonymous Bitcoin account.

After stealing employee credentials and getting into Twitter's systems, the hackers were able to target other employees who had access to account support tools, the company said.

The hackers targeted 130 accounts. They managed to tweet from 45 accounts, access the direct message inboxes of 36, and download the Twitter data from seven. Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders has said his inbox was among those accessed.

Spear-phishing is a more targeted version of phishing, an impersonation scam that uses email or other electronic communications to deceive recipients into handing over sensitive information.

Twitter said it would provide a more detailed report later "given the ongoing law enforcement investigation."

The company has previously said the incident was a "coordinated social engineering attack" that targeted some of its employees with access to internal systems and tools. It didn't provide any more information about how the attack was carried out, but the details released so far suggest the hackers started by using the old-fashioned method of talking their way past security.

British cybersecurity analyst Graham Cluley said his guess was that a targeted Twitter employee or contractor received a message by phone asking them to call a number.

"When the worker called the number they might have been taken to a convincing (but fake) helpdesk operator, who was then able to use social engineering techniques to trick the intended victim into handing over their credentials," Clulely wrote Friday on his blog.

It's also possible the hackers pretended to call from the company's legitimate help line by spoofing the number, he said.


Explore further Bitcoin scam shows Twitter needs better internal controls, expert says

© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE
 Florida teen charged in massive Twitter hack, Bitcoin theft

RANSOMWARE TOOL OF THE JUVENILE HACKER

By DAVID FISCHER

FILE - In this Wednesday Nov. 6, 2013, file photo, the Twitter logo appears on an updated phone post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Twitter says the hackers responsible for a recent high-profile breach used the phone to fool the social media company's employees into giving them access. The company revealed a few more details late Thursday, July 30, 2020 about the hack earlier this month, which it said targeted “a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack.” (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida teen hacked the Twitter accounts of prominent politicians, celebrities and technology moguls to scam people around globe out of more than $100,000 in Bitcoin, authorities said Friday.

The 17-year-old boy was arrested earlier Friday in Tampa, where the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office will prosecute the case. He faces 30 felony charges, according to a news release.

The hacks led to bogus tweets being sent out July 15 from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked.

The tweets offered to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address.

Although the case was investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren explained that his office is prosecuting the teen in Florida state court because Florida law allows minors to be charged as adults in financial fraud cases such as this when appropriate.

“This defendant lives here in Tampa, he committed the crime here, and he’ll be prosecuted here,” Warren said.

Twitter previously said hackers used the phone to fool the social media company’s employees into giving them access. It said targeted “a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack.”

“This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems,” the company tweeted.

After stealing employee credentials and getting into Twitter’s systems, the hackers were able to target other employees who had access to account support tools, the company said.

The hackers targeted 130 accounts. They managed to tweet from 45 accounts, access the direct message inboxes of 36, and download the Twitter data from seven. Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders has said his inbox was among those accessed.

Spear-phishing is a more targeted version of phishing, an impersonation scam that uses email or other electronic communications to deceive recipients into handing over sensitive information.

Twitter said it would provide a more detailed report later “given the ongoing law enforcement investigation.”

The company has previously said the incident was a “coordinated social engineering attack” that targeted some of its employees with access to internal systems and tools. It didn’t provide any more information about how the attack was carried out, but the details released so far suggest the hackers started by using the old-fashioned method of talking their way past security.

British cybersecurity analyst Graham Cluley said his guess was that a targeted Twitter employee or contractor received a message by phone asking them to call a number.
Full Coverage: Technology

“When the worker called the number they might have been taken to a convincing (but fake) helpdesk operator, who was then able to use social engineering techniques to trick the intended victim into handing over their credentials,” Clulely wrote Friday on his blog.

It’s also possible the hackers pretended to call from the company’s legitimate help line by spoofing the number, he said.

___

Associated Press Writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.


Three people charged in US for alleged roles in massive Twitter hackIssued on: 31/07/2020 -

A massive Twitter hack on July 15, 2020 has seen charges laid against three people in the US. © Olivier Douliery, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

US prosecutors on Friday announced they have charged three people, one of them from Britain, for roles in hijacking celebrity Twitter accounts and tricking people out of money.

The US attorney's office in California said 19-year-old Mason "Chaewon" Sheppard of Britain along with Nima Fazeli, 22, of Florida were facing criminal charges in the case.

Details about the third individual were not released by US officials, but state prosecutors in Florida separately announced criminal charges against a 17-year-old accused of masterminding the massive hack of high-profile Twitter users.

(AFP)

Q&A: Sociologist discusses why women's careers have suffered more than men's during the pandemic
by Lindsay Dowling-Savelle, Dalhousie University
Impacted by the pandemic, many women are trading present and future earnings and putting a costly gap in their resumes, says Dr. Foster. Credit: Thought Catalog

It's been more than four months since the COVID-19 pandemic forced many parts of the economy to shut down almost instantaneously. Businesses, daycares, healthcare practices and education systems were required to close their doors to help prevent the spread of the deadly virus.


While many people faced job loss, others were forced to enter uncharted territory as their home and professional lives collided. They were asked to adapt to a new way of life that involved working from home while fulfilling many other roles all at once, including providing primary care to children and elders, homeschooling and more.

The move to remote working and the closure of offices and daycares has had a significant impact on the careers of women for a number of reasons. Subsequently, the pandemic has forced us to take a hard look at gender equity in the workplace.

We asked Karen Foster, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, to explain why women's careers have been more negatively impacted by the pandemic than their male counterparts.

How does gender inequity impact women in the workforce and how were these inequities exacerbated by the pandemic?

As much as we like to think we've made great strides in gender equity, I can think of three ways, right off the bat, that the pandemic has exacerbated existing gendered problems. The most obvious is probably that during the pandemic, women with children were far more likely to drop out of the labor market, quit their jobs, stop looking for work etc., to take care of their kids compared to men with children, and women and men without children. My former doctoral supervisor, Andrea Doucet, has done a lot of research on men taking on more of the responsibility for children, but even she notes that women continue to do the lion's share of that work, and moreover, to feel responsible for it. When push came to shove, because women's earnings typically are lower than men's within couples (despite a growing proportion of female breadwinner couples in Canada) it would have made sense for women to stay home with the kids because they earn less. But it also made sense on a cultural level—because we have gendered assumptions about who's best suited to care for children, and because women are socialized to prioritize care. There are people who think we should preserve those assumptions, but even they ought to recognize that if care work is important, it should be supported and even remunerated. Women shouldn't have to trade economic security for their caring roles and responsibilities, and we are seeing women do that because of the pandemic. My colleague Sylvia Fuller at UBC has crunched the numbers to show that, despite your awesome neighbor who quit his job to care for the kids, statistically it is mothers who are bearing the brunt of the closure of daycares and schools. They're trading present and future earnings and putting a costly gap in their resumes.


A second gendered aspect of the pandemic is that the types of jobs that disappeared first were public-facing service jobs. Women dominate jobs in retail and the service sector, and social distancing threw a lot of that work into jeopardy. Economist Armine Yalnizyan has, accordingly, termed what we're going through a "shecession" and, to link it back to the first point, she is urging us to commit to a "shecovery," in which childcare is essential. Tammy Schirle at Wilfrid Laurier had similar findings.

But at the same time, many of the jobs that got deemed essential during the pandemic are also dominated by women: mainly grocery store workers and health care support workers across a range of specific occupations. Women got the worst of both worlds here—they were more likely to be in sectors that shut down, and also more likely to be working the jobs that got busier, more dangerous and more stressful as a result of COVID.

What steps need to be taken to create gender equity for women in the workplace?

Not all women have children, but a significant proportion of working women do. So childcare must be part of a recovery plan that puts gender at the forefront. So should mandatory, universal sick days for all employees in every province. When school goes back, little outbreaks are going to send kids home again, and kids will be made to stay home if they have so much as a sniffle. If we don't want parents sending sick kids to school out of desperation, they need to have paid leave from their employers. Governments might need to enact strong legislation about what employers can and can't do if their employees have to take time off or work compressed hours to meet childcare obligations. Moreover, we should think ahead to next summer. This summer showed us that a certain age of kid—say, 5-9 or 10, is too old for daycare but too young to stay home alone. These kids would typically be in summer camps or some other congregate setting (or cared for by an informal network of neighborhood kids and family), but much of that fell apart when summer camps closed and people were restricted to bubbles. What is the solution for next year, if we need it?

We need to also look at the types of jobs that will be growing post-pandemic and take steps to ensure that there is good gender representation in the training programs that prepare people for those jobs. Often gender segregation in certain sectors and jobs can be traced to the pipeline of trainees. If there aren't many women in the school programs, there won't be many women in the jobs. If we know the service sector is going to be susceptible to future shocks, we probably want to take early steps to ensure that it's not comprised of mostly women. No field should be, if we believe that economic gains and losses should be spread equitably across the population.

Finally, employers should instill a culture that encourages male employees with children to share the load with their partners. I have heard so many anecdotes about mens' employers assuming their employees' wives will take care of the kids and being shocked by anything else. There is no good reason for that beyond gendered stereotypes and discrimination. Just like more men should take parental leave when their children are born, more men should step up and share the emergency childcare burden if we enter another phase of lockdown or school closures.

What can employers, co-workers, and governments do to support women employees as they return to work during and following the pandemic?

In addition to the steps I just noted, employers could get creative. I've heard of employers hiring a childcare provider and creating an in-house daycare if they have a few employees who need it. They should continue to emphasize equity and diversity in hiring, which means understanding that gender affects the routes people take in and through the labor market, and assessing them only by controlling for those factors. We need to appreciate that women's labor force participation grows the economy. I'm not even a champion of growth, but that's the dominant objective, so why aren't we using it as an excuse to support women? Now more than ever, we probably need a universal childcare program, one that is funded enough to ensure a spot for every child and family that wants it. The cost of leaving childcare up to individual families is far greater than the cost of a universal program.

We should also look at the essential jobs we've needed more than ever during the pandemic—grocery store and health care jobs—which are female-dominated, and bump up their wages so they truly reflect the value of this work. Ditto for the newly dangerous jobs we're starting to need desperately now that we are slowly opening up: daycare workers, and, in a couple months, teachers. Insofar as these jobs are dominated by women, bringing their remuneration in line with their social value—which we can no longer ignore—is an act toward gender equity.
Women doing more childcare under lockdown but men more likely to feel their jobs are suffering
Provided by Dalhousie University

 

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Even as air pollution declines, disparities in exposure remain

Though air pollution has declined by nearly 70 percent across much of the United States, new research showed that the most polluted places in 35 years ago are still the most polluted today. Photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE

July 31 (UPI) -- The amount of particulate matter in the air in the United States has declined significantly over the last several decades, but new research suggests disparities between the most and least polluted communities persist.

Dozens of studies have previously confirmed the reality of environmental inequity. Poorer communities and minority communities are more likely to be exposed to air pollution than those living in wealthier neighborhoods.

But until now, little analysis had been done to understand if and how those disparities change over time, researchers say.

For the new study, researchers at the University of Virginia combined 36-years worth of records on fine particulate matter, particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, with U.S. census data in order to rank communities from the least to the most polluted for each year between 1981 and 2016.


The data -- detailed Friday in the journal Science -- revealed a remarkable level of continuity. Across the 36-year timeline, the most polluted places remained the most polluted places.

"Our findings call attention to the scope, scale, and remarkable persistence of air pollution disparities in the United States," lead study author Jonathan Colmer, an assistant professor of economics at UVA, told UPI.

Studies suggest that each year dirty air sends some 5.5 million people around the world to an early grave. But in the United States, the number of deaths caused by air pollution has been steadily dropping. One study determined total air pollution deaths were reduced by half between 1990 and 2010.

RELATED Air, water benefits of COVID-19 lockdowns may not last, experts say

If there is a silver lining to the latest research, it is that communities rich and poor, black and white, have shared equally in the air pollution reductions measured over the last few decades.

"We found that pollution reductions were larger in areas that were more polluted in 1981 but these locations were starting from a much higher starting point," study co-author Jay Shimshack told UPI.

"Disadvantaged neighborhoods did not experience disproportionate reductions in fine particulate matter air pollution," said Shimshack, an associate professor of public policy and economics at UVA. "Broadly speaking, everywhere experienced a 60 to 70 percent reduction between 1981 and 2016."
RELATED Small reductions in air pollution can reduce heart disease threat



While air quality is better than it used to be, particulate matter pollution remains a serious environmental problem in many parts of the country, and the latest research suggests it's still a much bigger problem in poorer communities and communities of color.

Breathing dirty air can trigger and exacerbate a variety of health problems, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. The health problems made worse by pollution are many of the same problems that already disproportionately impact minority communities.

The authors of the latest study don't have specific policy prescriptions, but they hope to study the impacts of political advocacy and policy reforms on pollution in the near future.

"We still don't fully understand why disparities exist, let alone why they persist," Colmer said. "Better answers to these questions will lead to sharper policy recommendations."

For now, they said they hope that by simply detailing the problem, they can begin to plot a path for progress -- and inspire others to do the same.

"Federal and state guidelines aim for all people to enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental hazards and argue that no groups should bear a disproportionate share of pollution," Shimshack said. "On this front we are falling short."

Study of air quality in the U.S. shows income disparities still existby Bob Yirka, Science X Network, Phys.org

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A small team with members from the University of Virginia, Stanford University, and the U.S. Census Bureau has found that despite laws enacted to reduce unequal distribution of emissions of airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 µm in diameter (PM2.5) in the U.S., disparities remain. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group analyzed data over the past several decades to learn more about air quality in the U.S. Lala Ma, with the University of Kentucky, has published a Perspective piece on the work done by the team in the same journal issue.


Over the past several decades, lawmakers in the U.S. have responded to concerns about air pollution, particularly in areas around large cities. The result has been a host of new laws forcing pollution-producing entities to reduce emissions, including car makers. Because of such laws, pollution levels in the U.S. have fallen dramatically. In the late 1970s, researchers noted that poorer people were impacted more severely by air pollution than rich people. They lived closer to pollution-producing plants and often wound up downwind of such major polluters as coal fired power plants. The federal government took notice of these disparities, and in 1981, began requiring companies to add environmental justice as part of cost-benefit analyses when making business decisions. In this new effort, the researchers sought to find out if the establishment of such rules had any impact on air pollution disparities.

The work by the team involved obtaining and analyzing 36 years of air pollution data compiled by government entities. They determined that air pollution of all kinds has been greatly reduced, including PM2.5. But they also concluded that those parts of the country that were the most polluted in the early 1980s were still the most polluted in the late 2000s. And those that were the least polluted were still the least polluted. They also found that income differences had remained roughly the same, as well. Thus, despite enacting legislation aimed at unfair distribution of air pollution, the poor were still more likely to live in areas that were the most heavily polluted, while the rich continued to breathe much cleaner air.


Explore further Fine-particle air pollution has decreased across the US, but poor and minority communities are still the most polluted

More information: Jonathan Colmer et al. Disparities in PM2.5 air pollution in the United States, Science (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz9353

Journal information: Science

'It's real.' Latinos, African Americans most likely to view pollution as a serious health threatby Kim Bojórquez

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Latinos and African Americans are more likely to view pollution as a serious health threat than other groups, according to a new statewide study by the Public Policy Institute of California.


"African Americans and Latinos are more likely than others to say that air and water pollution in their part of California are very serious health threats to themselves and their families," said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, in the study.

Two-thirds of Californians surveyed said air pollution is a very serious or somewhat serious threat.

In the study, 33% of Latinos and 29% of African Americans said air pollution is a very serious health threat in their part of the state compared to 12% of whites. An estimated 24% of Latinos and 20% of African Americans said polluted drinking water is a very serious health threat in their part of their state, compared to 8% of whites.

Latinos (89%) also were more likely to say they are willing to make major lifestyle changes to address global warming, compared to 74% of African Americans, 70% of Asian Americans and 62% of whites, the study showed.

When survey participants were asked if they were willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by renewable sources like solar or wind energy, 54% of Asian Americans and 52% Latinos said they were willing to pay more, followed by 46% of African Americans and 42% of whites.

"Latinos care about climate change because they're at the front lines of climate change impacts and exposure to pollution," said Dr. Michael Mendez, author of the book, Climate Change from the Streets: How Conflict and Collaboration Strengthen the Environmental Justice Movement. "It's real. Those impacts, both economic and health impacts, are happening in Latino families."

Primarily in California's agricultural regions, according to Mendez, some Latinos' access to clean drinking water is affected by dilapidated and rotting pipes that are corrosive and contain contamination.

When it comes to air pollution, Latinos are "exposed through various forms of cumulative pollution sources, because there's a lot of noxious facilities in areas that they live and work," he said. Latino and Black communities near freeways are also affected by air pollution.

Mendez helped co-lead a task force on climate change, environment and public health for the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative's 21st Century Latino Agenda.

"More than 60% of Latinos in the U.S. reside in four key states that have historically experienced extreme events," according to the agenda. "This includes wildfires and droughts in California."

Overall, nearly half of Californians said the threat of wildfires was a "big problem" where they lived, the study showed.

Among Central Valley region residents, 16% said air pollution, vehicle emissions and smog were the most important environmental issues facing the state.

Residents living in the Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Orange/San Diego and Inland Empire regions were more likely to view global warming, climate change and greenhouse gases as the most important environmental issues facing the state.

The study found Latinos and African Americans were more likely to say stricter environmental laws and regulations were worth the cost. About 70% of Latinos and 65% of African Americans said stricter environmental laws and regulations in the state are worth the cost, according to the study.

When asked whether the state should take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions right away or wait until the state's economy and job sector improves, 56% of Latinos, 50% African Americans, 49% Asian Americans and 45% of whites said they should take action right away.

The report's findings are based on a survey of 1,561 Californians conducted between July 8-17.


Explore furtherPandemic poses greater risks, stresses for California racial minorities, poll finds

©2020 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Study shows devastating cost of failure to coordinate economic reopenings

by MIT Sloan School of Management JULY 31, 2020

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

New, peer-reviewed research published today by the Social Analytics Lab at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows the devastating cost of the current chaotic and uncoordinated reopening of states and cities across the US. The study, which used data from mobile phones, network connections through social media and census data, estimates that total welfare is reduced dramatically when reopening is not coordinated among states and regions.


The study showed, for example, that the contact patterns of people in a given region are significantly influenced by the policies and behaviors of people in other, sometimes distant regions. In one finding, it showed that when just one third of a state's social and geographic peer states adopt shelter in place policies, it creates a reduction in mobility equal to the state's own policy decisions. When states fail to coordinate in the presence of spillovers as large as those detected in the analyzes, total welfare is reduced by almost 70 percent.

As federal, state and local governments continue opening businesses and relaxing shelter-in-place orders nationwide, policymakers are doing so without quantitative evidence on how policies in one region affect mobility and social distancing in other regions. And while some states are coordinating on COVID policy at the level of "mega regions," most, unfortunately are not. This lack of coordination will have devastating effects on efforts to control COVID-19, according to the study.

"There have been many calls for a coordinated national pandemic response in the U.S. and around the world, but little hard evidence has quantified this need," said Sinan Aral, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a corresponding author of the study. "When we analyzed the data, we were shocked by the degree to which state policies affected outcomes in other states, sometimes at great distances. Travel and social influence over digital media make this pandemic much more interdependent than we originally thought. Our results suggest an immediate need for a nationally coordinated policy across states, regions and nations around the world."

Governors from all states and territories will convene virtually for the Summer meeting of The National Governor's Association on August 5. The MIT study not only assesses the impact of an uncoordinated reopening, but also gives governors a map with which to coordinate in the absence of national guidance. The research shows for all fifty states, which states affect each other the most and thus maps the states that should be coordinating. These maps are sometimes surprising because, as a result of digital social media, each state's success with social distancing is impacted by the policy decisions not just of geographically proximate states, but also of socially connected, but geographically distant states. For instance, Florida's social distancing was most affected by New York implementing a shelter-in-place policy due to social media influence and travel between the states, despite their physical distance. New Hampshire had a strong influence on adjacent Massachusetts, despite being a small state.

As the Governor's Association convenes, this research highlights the need for states across the country to coordinate, even if they are not near one another and the results suggest which states should be coordinating with which other states based on the strength of the spillovers between them.


Explore furtherImplementation of social distancing policies correlates with significant reduction in SARS-CoV-2 transmission

More information: David Holtz et al. Interdependence and the cost of uncoordinated responses to COVID-19, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009522117

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by MIT Sloan School of Management

Fine-particle air pollution has decreased across the US, but poor and minority communities are still the most polluted

by Jonathan Colmer and Jay Shimshack, The Conversation

Fine particulate air pollution is referred to as PM2.5 because the particles are less than 2.5 microns in diameter – 40 times smaller than a grain of sand. Credit: Washington department of Ecology

Air pollution contributes to as many as 9 million premature deaths worldwide each year—twice as many as war, other violence, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Fine particulate matter air pollution is especially dangerous: Microscopic particles readily enter the lungs, bloodstream and brain, with health effects that include infant death, reduced life expectancy for adults, cancer, lung disease and heart disease.


Fine particle matter pollution concentrations in the United States have declined by roughly 70% since 1981. However, in a newly published study, we show that the areas that were most polluted in 1981 are still the most polluted today, and the least polluted areas in 1981 are still the least polluted today.

Areas that were whiter and richer in 1981 have become relatively less polluted over time. Areas that became whiter and richer between 1981 and 2016 have become relatively less polluted over time. In contrast, the neighborhoods and population groups that were most exposed to fine particle pollution 40 years ago—disproportionately low-income and minority communities—are still exposed to higher pollution levels.

As scholars who focus on environmental economics and public policy, we believe that the persistence of air pollution disparities matters. We care about who is advantaged and disadvantaged. In addition, our results have implications for environmental public policy. To the extent that policy aims to reduce pollution disparities, the job is far from finished.

Mapping pollution at a neighborhood scale

Researchers have known for decades that air pollution varies across locations due to economic activity, climate and other factors. It is also well documented that lower-income households, people of color and other disadvantaged communities are disproportionately exposed to air pollution. Since research shows that air pollution is associated with early death, lower educational attainment and lower lifetime earnings, these differences promote economic, health and social inequality.


What has not been clear is how much air pollution disparities have changed over time. We wanted to understand particulate matter air pollution disparities in a more systematic way, for the entire U.S. over many years.

Until recently, the information needed to answer this question simply wasn't available. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency monitors levels of fine particle pollution, known as PM2.5, nationwide. But its monitors offer relatively sparse coverage and are concentrated in disproportionately urban locations.

In our study, we leverage newly available data that captures PM2.5 concentrations at more than 8.6 million distinct U.S. locations from 1981 through 2016. These data were constructed from satellite observations and pollution transport modeling, along with pollution monitor records. They provide a detailed year-by-year picture of fine particulate matter concentrations for each of the roughly 65,000 Census tract "neighborhoods" in the United States.
Fine particle air pollution moves from the lungs into the bloodstream and can have widespread health impacts throughout the body.

Persistent disparities

Our analysis shows that there has been some progress over the past 35 years in reducing gaps between the most polluted and least polluted locations. In 1981 PM2.5 concentrations in the most polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 34 micrograms per cubic meter. PM2.5 concentrations in the least polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 13 micrograms per cubic meter. The difference was 22 micrograms per cubic meter.

In 2016 PM2.5 concentrations in the most polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 10 micrograms per cubic meter. PM2.5 concentrations in the least polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 4 micrograms per cubic meter. The difference was 6 micrograms per cubic meter.

These reduced gaps likely imply that differences in pollution-induced health, wealth and productivity across locations are also declining. But while pollution gaps have declined for some disadvantaged communities, this hasn't been universal.

Next we wanted to see whether specific locations had more or less pollution than other locations, and whether the most polluted locations were the same through time. To explore these questions, we ranked each neighborhood from most polluted to least polluted for every year that we had data.

We then evaluated how these rankings changed between 1981 and 2016, and found that they remained remarkably persistent. The most polluted areas in 1981 remain the most polluted areas today, and the least polluted areas in 1981 remain the least polluted areas today. Communities that were disadvantaged in 1981 remain exposed to higher levels of pollution today. If anything, relative disparities have worsened for poorer and Hispanic communities.

A disproportionate share of the most polluted areas over the past 40 years are in Southern California, while the least polluted areas are more dispersed across the U.S. As an example, a child born in Los Angeles County in 2016 was exposed to 42% more fine particle pollution than the average child born in the United States, and 26% more pollution than a child born in New York City.

A few areas did see improvements or declines in their relative standing. Ohio, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and the Northeast Corridor became relatively less polluted from 1981 through 2016. California's Central and Imperial valleys, southwestern Arizona, southern Texas and portions of Arkansas and Oklahoma became relatively more polluted.

Fairness, equity and public policy

Our findings underline the scope, scale and persistence of air pollution disparities in the United States. But if particulate matter air quality has improved over time—which should translate into improvements in health, wealth and productivity for most Americans—why should we be concerned about relative disparities between some locations and others?

In our view, persistent disparities between the most and least polluted communities matter because fairness, equity and justice are relative concepts. We define them based on who is advantaged and who is disadvantaged at any given time. Pollution disparities translate into health, economic and social disparities.

For decades, federal and state environmental guidelines have aimed to provide all Americans with the same degree of protection from environmental hazards. The EPA's definition of environmental justice states that "no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences." On this front, our research suggests that the United States is falling short.


Explore furtherAir pollution 'greatest risk' to global life expectancy
Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Climate change and COVID-19: The denial playbook is the same

by Augusta Wilson, Earth Institute at Columbia University

JULY 31, 2020

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The phrase "every disaster movie begins with a scientist being ignored" resonates more than ever as two disasters unfold: the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. One is occurring with horrifying rapidity and one more slowly; both would be far less damaging if scientific advice were heeded earlier.

In the United States, the Trump administration has responded to the COVID-19 crisis using tactics it honed in the climate arena: ignoring or burying relevant scientific information, pushing misinformation, and silencing scientists who warn us of the dangers. This pervasive "see no evil, hear no evil" approach has handicapped the U.S.'s ability to respond to both of these unfolding crises.

From the start of the pandemic, scientists who spoke out about the increasing threat from COVID-19 were ignored and pushed out. The same thing has happened to climate scientists since the early days of the Trump administration. The mentality that climate change is a taboo subject has taken root so firmly that it filtered down from top-level political officials and is now enforced by lower-level career employees in scientific agencies.

In the early days of the administration, climate change information disappeared at an alarming rate from government websites. There was a considerable public outcry in late July when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appeared to cave to pressure from the administration and removed crucial coronavirus data from its website. This event parallels the Trump administration's behavior around climate change.

The similarities do not end there, as the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund and Columbia Law School's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law are documenting in our Silencing Science Tracker. We have found that limiting or interfering with scientists' ability to communicate publicly about their work is a frequent theme of the Trump administration. For example, the administration prevented a scientific expert from providing relevant testimony to Congress about the threats posed by climate change. It repeated this tactic when it blocked Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, from testifying to Congress about COVID-19.

Similarly, the administration prevented publication of politically unpalatable climate change research, and it has now done the same with COVID-19 research. The use of budget cuts to halt inconvenient research is another common tactic. The administration defunded politically undesirable research on climate change and has now cut funding for coronavirus research.
Other patterns include overruling or revising scientific conclusions because of political considerations and forbidding scientists to mention climate change or the pandemic.
This is far from a complete list of parallels. Unfortunately, when faced with inconvenient scientific research, the current administration only digs deeper into its toolkit of censorship and misinformation.

In April, policy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute wrote that accurate and transparent data is crucial to informed decision-making about both COVID and climate change, and to maintaining public trust. They wrote that to combat COVID and climate change effectively, it will be necessary to "ambitiously connect data across diverse global systems to make the right investments at the right time."

One of the first and most pressing tasks for the next administration will be to restore science to its rightful place and restore a culture of scientific integrity to institutions across the federal government. These are among the reasons why the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund has joined dozens of other organizations to promote pro-science measures for the next presidential term, written guides for federal scientists to understand existing scientific integrity protections, and supported expanding safeguards for federal scientists under the bipartisan Scientific Integrity Act.

Without the federal government re-prioritizing science, we cannot hope to effectively address both the COVID-19 and climate change crises we currently face.

Explore further

To counter COVID-19 misinformation, expert backs new approach to science learning

Provided by Earth Institute at Columbia University