Day: November 16, 2022

As the global population hits 8 billion people, it’s hard to imagine that most countries around the world are experiencing population decline. But low birth rates are plaguing nations and most are reacting, though not necessarily in the right way.

With researchers from the Finnish Population Research Institute and the Vienna Institute of Demography, Prof. Gietel-Basten notes that low birth rates, linked to population aging and stagnation, are a source of concern around the world. However, he argues, governments are responding with policies designed to “fix” the problem, rather than tackling some of the institutional challenges associated with aging and population stagnation.

Their analysis was published in the British Medical Journal.

“The news that birth rates hit record low levels in many countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas in the past decade was met with some alarm globally,” Prof. Gietel-Basten said. “More than half the world’s population lives in countries with a total fertility rate below two children per woman. In South Korea, the rate fell to 0.81 children per woman in 2021, an unprecedented low for any country in peacetime. Adversities and anxieties linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the geopolitical climate, and climate change may further contribute to fertility declines.”

Lower fertility rates, coupled with increased life expectancy, are creating an aging population, which comes with a number of economic risks, including rising healthcare costs and a smaller global workforce.

“As a primary engine of population aging and stagnation, low birth rates are often viewed as a threat to welfare systems, healthcare, and the economy,” Prof. Gietel-Basten said. “Rather than reforming their systems through altering the pension age or raising tax, many governments have sought to find a demographic solution by pursuing top-down, target-driven policies to encourage childbearing. Such policy responses have questionable justifications, limited effect on fertility and potentially harmful effects on sexual and reproductive health, human rights, and gender equality.”

Across the globe, birth rates have decreased. There are a number of theories to explain this, including women’s empowerment, lower child mortality, and the increased cost of raising children. Research shows higher education in women and more women in the workplace are correlated with lower fertility, as is greater access to contraception.

Almost all countries with a total fertility rate below 1.5 have policies in place to raise fertility. And research shows that people in countries with low fertility rates do, on average, want to have more children than they do. Many governments have launched policies intended as quick and politically favorable fixes, but Prof. Gietel-Basten argues they should follow the principles set out at the 1994 International Conference of Population and Development to deliver a sustainable response to low fertility.

“The 1994 ICPD affirmed that sustainable demographic change was key to shaping macroeconomic prospects,” he said. “However, its program of action marked a paradigm shift by focusing on reproductive health, gender equality, and individual well-being rather than governmental needs or demographic targets. The core principles remain valid today: Individuals should be empowered to realize their reproductive goals on the basis of human rights, dignity and gender equity within the context of sexual and reproductive health.”

The researchers point out that many countries have adopted pronatalist policies that use “narrowly oriented interventions” to encourage or pressure women to have more children. These include “baby bonuses” in Singapore, which pay out more for couples with three or more children; interest-free loans to prospective parents in Hungary, and the one-off “maternity capital” benefit in Russia for mothers who have two or three children.

“Of equal importance to the actual policies is the rhetoric surrounding them, which often combines the ‘mission’ to raise birth rates with a promotion of conservative family values, where women have a responsibility and duty to bear children and thus secure the future of the nation,” Prof. Gietel-Basten said. “By promoting the child-rearing role of mothers while ignoring men’s contribution, top-down pronatalist policies and discourses tend to re-impose conservative family and gender roles and reverse progress on gender equity and rights for sexual and gender minorities.”

The researchers say this is a miscalculated approach. Pronatalist policies tend to ignore the socioeconomic factors at play in their countries: Simply put, they say, if babies that are born because of pronatalist policy move away to work elsewhere at the earliest opportunity, the net population impact is zero.

The gap between fertility aspirations and actual family size is often a symptom of societal and economic dysfunction. Comprehensive policies to support the healthy growth and development of families will be more effective at reviving birth rates, as broadening access to health and social policies makes having a family a more viable option. The researchers point out that policies supporting both partners’ involvement in child-rearing are needed: Gender-sensitive family policies can offset some of the indirect costs of having a family, which are disproportionately shouldered by women, and policies to help with family finances can reduce poverty among families with children.

“The best family-friendly policies today are aligned with human and reproductive rights and support families to maximize social and economic well-being rather than arbitrary goals of the state,” Prof. Gietel-Basten said. “Governments concerned about demographic trends should give more priority to initiatives to prevent infertility and involuntary childlessness; provide skills and services to young adults; and develop educational and medical services sensitive to the needs and wishes of different families without stigmatizing child-free lifestyles.”

The researchers advocate for policies that tackle major societal issues, including urgent reform of health and welfare systems. Such slow and steady measures don’t tend to be favorable for governments focused only on their political popularity, but tackling these key institutional challenges will enable all citizens to reach their full potential and support reproductive empowerment.

As they say: “We must learn from history and push back against attempts to fix the problem by telling women how many babies they should have.”

Source: Khalifa University

ABU DHABI, Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions are poised to remould the media industry, as they offer to “take the heavy lifting away” from journalists, enabling them to focus on dealing with bigger issues, Mike Butcher MBE, Editor-at-large of TechCrunch, told the Emirates News Agency (WAM).

“AI and ML are now being used in very simple financial reporting and that can be very useful because it means you can free up journalists to concentrate on more interesting and higher value types of journalism such as opinion or analysis. And that, I think, will ultimately be positive.”

Butcher, one of the most influential people in European technology and a seasoned tech journalist, said this in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Media Congress (GMC), which began yesterday in Abu Dhabi.

“I don’t really believe the idea that a machine can replace human reporters or journalists, because ultimately humans don’t want their media and journalism to be automatically delivered by a robot, because people don’t really trust robots, but they all trust another human being,” he assured.

Butcher led talks as part of the GMC’s Media Future Labs, a future-focused series of invite-only roundtables made up of experienced industry professionals featuring no-holds barred and honest discussions on the various challenges confronting the media sector, with a focus on how to take the industry forward and ensure its bright future.

Sharing insights on the role of tech disruptors in changing global perceptions of how media should operate, Butcher explained, “Media ultimately still resides on the bastion, the foundations journalism of trying to get to the truth fairly and impartially and that should come out, even if you’re using TikTok or Instagram, you should still produce content with those values in mind. But because of the nature of the platforms, you have to do it in a different way. A journalist doing a thread on Twitter will produce a different kind this story compared to perhaps doing it on a video format, but the content and the value still should be the same.”

His remarks are relevant as the dominant reign of social media in the industry is perhaps one of the most controversial issues, if not the most. Statics have revealed that, nowadays, the percentage of people – particularly young adults – getting news from TikTok has tripled since 2020, with the average American viewer watches 80 minutes of TikTok a day – an average that exceeds the combined watch time recorded on both Facebook and Instagram.

Asked what he thinks is the best model in present-day journalism, Butcher cited what is known as the ‘digital-first’ model as the most optimal. “The panels we’ve run here today at the Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi, have said repeatedly that media organisations have frequently moved to what is known as digital-first [models], putting digital platforms first, ahead of traditional platforms such as broadcast or print,” he elaborated. “If you look at the technology media journalism, we started years ago producing digital-first ahead of things like print or broadcast and you’ve seen that happen now inside mainstream media organisations. So, digital first is the new watchword, with some even creating their own digital platforms not just using the ones produced by the technology industry.”

On the role that policymakers can play in supporting the growth of digital media and startups, Butcher noted that “policymakers will hopefully still stand on the side of journalism, and truth and fairness.”

“In many ways, the media industry is looking to policymakers to put pressure on the tech platforms to behave more fairly, to allow media organisations to fund themselves properly, and to not cut them off from sources of funding. Also, it’s very important for countries especially for the development of democracy to have a free and fair press. If that is influenced badly by tech platforms, then that can have an ongoing effect, the knock-on effect to democratic institutions. So, it’s important for policymakers pay a great deal of attention to that and enable journalism and media to operate independently.”

This topic is necessary to spotlight against a backdrop of increasing monopolisation practiced by big tech across many sectors such as social media, with the responsibility falling on regulatory leaders to back underdogs, startups and independent content creators who struggle to secure funding and ultimately expand, due to the power levers that big tech hold in the market.

Speaking of his experience working at TechCrunch, an American online newspaper that is considered a leader and disruptor in the field of tech journalism, providing honest and insightful coverage of activity across technology, startups, venture capital funding, and Silicon Valley, Butcher said that they had to adapt very quickly to produce new kinds of content, new kinds of formats. “It’s been a revolution inside the journalism industry, and it’s been very exciting.”

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, The Organising Committee of the Zayed Charity Marathon has decided to extend the registration of participants until the evening of next Friday, 18th November, due to the high demand for participation from various groups and nationalities.

In its statement issued today, the Committee confirmed the completion of preparations for the launch of the Zayed Charity Marathon in Abu Dhabi next Saturday, November 19, under the auspices of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler’s Representative in Al Dhafra Region. The proceeds of this event will be donated to the Organ Donation Programme supported by the Emirates Red Crescent.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, UAE residents will be able to access all of their favourite OTT (Over-the-Top) platforms offering film and TV content on a single consolidated service, without the need to subscribe to each OTT separately.

E-vision, a subsidiary of the e&, formerly known as Etisalat Group, will launch the consolidated OTT streaming services next year, a senior executive told the Emirates News Agency (WAM).

Subscription fatigue

“Subscription fatigue of customers” [compulsion to subscribe to several streaming services at a time] has prompted the E-vision to launch a consolidated service, said Zahra Zayat, Chief Commercial Officer f E-vision.

In an interview with WAM at the Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi, she explained that such a consolidation can technically be done overnight, but there is huge resistance from international OTT players in the market.

“They do not want to be next to their competitors, especially weaker ones. From our side, we want our customers get direct access to them [all OTT services together]. Sometimes customers can access them through their mobile phone numbers. So, we have found a way to do it,” Zayat revealed.

One-stop shop

“It is an opportunity to create a clear winner in the market, aggregating all streaming services under one umbrella as a one-stop shop,” she emphasised.

Asked the practicability of such a solution, given the resistance from the OTT players, she said, “once you start onboarding some platforms, others will fear to remain standalone.”

Asked the potential number of OTTs in e-vision’s upcoming consolidated service, she said, “We are actually open to everyone. Because we have a fragmented customer base in terms of language and taste. So, we truly want everyone,” stressed the executive.

Discussion on media investment

She was a speaker at a panel discussion titled “Outlining media investment trends and how they will affect media landscape,” at the Global Media Congress (GMC), which was moderated by Asif Ismail, a Washington-based journalist, producer and publisher.

The first edition of the GMC was opened on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Presidential Court.

The conference-cum-exhibition event is organised by ADNEC Group in partnership with Emirates News Agency (WAM).

The three-day Congress, taking place under the theme “Shaping the Future of the Media Industry”, sees participation from more than 1,200 media sector pioneers, specialists, and influencers from six continents in the globe, with more than 30 debates and workshops featuring more than 162 globally renowned speakers.

Source: Emirates News Agency