{
  "title": "What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society by Minouche Shafik",
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  "summary": "In a new book, LSE Director Minouche Shafik writes that our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Overview / diagnosis",
      "content": "- The social contract shapes how we raise children, engage in education, relate to employers, and experience sickness and old age.\n- The social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change.\n- Four out of five people in China, Europe, India, and the United States feel that the system isn’t working for them (Edelman 2019).\n- In most advanced economies parents fear that their children will be worse off than they are (Edelman 2019).\n- The pandemic hit the most vulnerable—the old, the sick, women, and those in precarious jobs—the hardest and exacerbated existing inequalities."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Three pillars of a new social contract",
      "content": "- The new social contract depends on three pillars: security, shared risk, and opportunity.\n\nH3: Security\n- Labor markets have become more flexible and informal working is now common in both developing and advanced economies.\n- The balance has tilted too far toward flexibility for employers at the expense of security for workers.\n- Minimum safeguards proposed:\n  - A floor on income so no one falls below it (cash transfer programs in developing economies; tax credits for low-wage workers in advanced economies).\n  - Access to a basic health care package.\n  - A minimum state pension to prevent destitution in old age.\n  - Sick leave, unemployment insurance, and access to reskilling regardless of employment contract.\n  - In developing economies: bring more workers into the formal sector.\n  - In advanced economies: mandate that employers pay benefits to flexible workers.\n- Bottom line: everyone must have a minimum level of security for a decent life.\n\nH3: Shared risk\n- Too many risks are borne by individuals when they would be more efficiently managed collectively.\n- Employer flexibility is feasible if workers are guaranteed unemployment insurance and retraining until they find a new job.\n- Risks from economic shocks should be shared by employers and society as a whole.\n- Rebalancing risks for childcare, health, and old age:\n  - Parental leave costs are often borne by employers; funding through general taxation would create a more level playing field and be less burdensome for firms, especially smaller ones.\n  - Health risks are more efficiently managed by pooling across a large population while motivating healthy behavior.\n  - Link pension ages to life expectancy to ensure individuals save enough for retirement.\n  - Financial security in old age can be funded through general taxation rather than linking it to employment.\n  - Automatic enrollment in pension plans and insurance for old-age care would give people more security.\n\nH3: Opportunity\n- Talent is wasted when people lack opportunities to advance.\n- Social mobility examples:\n  - Denmark: on average about two generations to rise from lower to middle income.\n  - United Kingdom: five generations.\n  - United States: five generations.\n  - Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa: more than nine generations.\n- Harnessing talent is good for the economy:\n  - Better use of all talent explains between 20 and 40 percent of the productivity gains in the US economy between 1960 and 2010 (Hsieh and others 2019).\n  - If today’s “lost Einsteins”—women, minorities, and people with low incomes—could innovate to the same degree as white men from high-income families, the rate of breakthroughs could quadruple (Bell and others 2017).\n- Policies to expand opportunity:\n  - Start early: the first 1,000 days of life are the most important for brain development; intervening in this period equalizes opportunities and provides foundational skills.\n  - Extra nutrition for preschoolers and help with parenting skills improve educational outcomes and higher incomes later in life.\n    - Example: In Jamaica, young children visited just once a week by a community health worker earned 42 percent more 20 years later than children who did not get such support (Gertler and others 2014).\n  - All young people should be entitled to education and training and a lifetime endowment to pay for additional skill development over much longer careers.\n  - Adult learning with strong links to employers, early intervention, and sustained funding can keep people in work and contributing.\n  - Reduce unpaid household work imbalance: women do about two hours a day more unpaid household work than men.\n  - More generous parental leave, public funding to support families, and a fairer division of labor at home would better use female talent."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Is it affordable? — fiscal and international dimensions",
      "content": "- A new social contract is not primarily about higher taxes, more redistribution, and a bigger welfare state.\n- It is about reordering and equalizing how opportunity and security are distributed to increase productivity and more efficiently share risks.\n- Fiscal and policy orientation:\n  - Tax the things we want less of (for example, carbon and smoking).\n  - Subsidize things we want more of (for example, education and a greener economy).\n  - Giving everyone the opportunity to use their talent reduces the need for redistribution later.\n- International system requirements:\n  - International financial institutions need resources to help societies invest and support minimum incomes, education, and health care.\n  - Better rules around global taxation so that companies pay taxes where economic activity takes place for the benefit of the people where those companies operate.\n  - Such an international system would shore up the global economy with a social contract that is both efficient and fair and therefore more likely to garner public support.\n\nWhat We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society by Minouche Shafik — IMF F&D\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- وجهة نظر - ما يدين به كل منا للآخر\n  - وجهة نظر - ما يدين به كل منا للآخر (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - وجهة نظر - ما يدين به كل منا للآخر (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 我们对彼此的义务 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年6月号·第58卷\n  - 我们对彼此的义务 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年6月号·第58卷 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - 我们对彼此的义务 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年6月号·第58卷 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Lo que nos debemos unos a otros ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Junio de 2021\n  - Lo que nos debemos unos a otros ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Junio de 2021 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Lo que nos debemos unos a otros ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Junio de 2021 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Ce que nous nous devons les uns aux autres\n  - Ce que nous nous devons les uns aux autres (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Ce que nous nous devons les uns aux autres (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Что мы должны друг другу – Финансы и развитие – Формирующиеся рынки — что впереди?– июнь 2021 года\n  - Что мы должны друг другу – Финансы и развитие – Формирующиеся рынки — что впереди?– июнь 2021 года (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Что мы должны друг другу – Финансы и развитие – Формирующиеся рынки — что впереди?– июнь 2021 года (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society by Minouche Shafik – IMF F&D\n  - What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society by Minouche Shafik – IMF F&D (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society by Minouche Shafik – IMF F&D (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2021/06/what-we-owe-each-other-book-minouche-shafik"
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    "Authors: MINOUCHE SHAFIK",
    "Published: June 1, 2021",
    "The social contract shapes how we raise children, engage in education, relate to employers, and experience sickness and old age.",
    "The social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change.",
    "Four out of five people in China, Europe, India, and the United States feel that the system isn’t working for them (Edelman 2019).",
    "In most advanced economies parents fear that their children will be worse off than they are (Edelman 2019).",
    "The pandemic hit the most vulnerable—the old, the sick, women, and those in precarious jobs—the hardest and exacerbated existing inequalities.",
    "The new social contract depends on three pillars: security, shared risk, and opportunity.",
    "Labor markets have become more flexible and informal working is now common in both developing and advanced economies.",
    "The balance has tilted too far toward flexibility for employers at the expense of security for workers.",
    "Minimum safeguards proposed:",
    "Bottom line: everyone must have a minimum level of security for a decent life.",
    "Too many risks are borne by individuals when they would be more efficiently managed collectively.",
    "Employer flexibility is feasible if workers are guaranteed unemployment insurance and retraining until they find a new job.",
    "Risks from economic shocks should be shared by employers and society as a whole.",
    "Rebalancing risks for childcare, health, and old age:",
    "Talent is wasted when people lack opportunities to advance.",
    "Social mobility examples:",
    "Harnessing talent is good for the economy:",
    "Policies to expand opportunity:",
    "A new social contract is not primarily about higher taxes, more redistribution, and a bigger welfare state.",
    "It is about reordering and equalizing how opportunity and security are distributed to increase productivity and more efficiently share risks.",
    "Fiscal and policy orientation:",
    "International system requirements:",
    "**وجهة نظر - ما يدين به كل منا للآخر**",
    "**我们对彼此的义务 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年6月号·第58卷**",
    "**Lo que nos debemos unos a otros ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Junio de 2021**",
    "**Ce que nous nous devons les uns aux autres**",
    "**Что мы должны друг другу – Финансы и развитие – Формирующиеся рынки — что впереди?– июнь 2021 года**",
    "**What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society by Minouche Shafik – IMF F&D**"
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