The gender wage gap and women's labour mobility in Newfoundland and Labrador

This thesis examines the gender wage gap and women’s labour mobility in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Women in Newfoundland and Labrador face the highest wage gap in Canada, and a high proportion of the province’s workforce engages in employment-related geographical mobility. The first part of the study details a quantitative economic assessment of the gender wage gap using the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition that was applied to data from 2001, 2006, and 2016 Canadian Censuses and the National Household Survey from 2011. The wage gap decomposition revealed that most of the gender wage gap in Newfoundland and Labrador could not be explained by variation in demographic data, including gender, age, marital status, full-time status, and presence of children . A logit model was used to analyze the likelihood of individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador to engage in labour mobility, specifically commutes between residence and work that were greater than 100 km. Individuals that had at least a bachelor’s degree, were married, separated, divorced, or widowed, and had children were less likely to commute more than 100 km from their place of residence to their place of work, compared to individuals that had no post-secondary education, were single, and had no children. Moreover, homeowners and women were less likely to commute more than 100 km for employment. The second part of the study examines men’s and women’s experiences with employment-related geographical mobility and the role of place and place attachment to Newfoundland and Labrador. Place attachment may be an unexplained variable when considering the gender wage gap and labour market mobility in Newfoundland and Labrador. Interviews were provided by the On-The-Move Partnership and were evaluated and coded using NVivo 12 software. A qualitative analysis revealed five main themes that affect the labour market mobility decisions of men and women. When describing the labour market mobility decisions of men and women (and the potential implications for wages and the gender wage gap), it is important to consider a) the characteristics of place and community, b) the degree of family support, c) the quality of family life, d) the importance of and implications for community sustainability, and e) the implications for women and their mobility. Support networks and social interactions with family and friends were the most common reasons most women cited when deciding not to move. Additionally, most women expressed a strong sense of place and desire to raise their children in a known, safe community. Finally, the third part of this study evaluated how public policy impacts the gender wage gap and women’s labour market mobility. Of the provinces in Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador has made the least progress in narrowing the gender wage gap. This study compared Canadian and Swedish government public policies related to the gender wage gap, specifically policies of pay equity, employment benefits, childcare benefits and the pension system. Sweden has a different welfare state than Canada and has one of the lowest gender wage gaps in the world. The analysis suggests that the Canadian government should consider improving labour market policies, such as the pay equity act, and enhancing relevant programs such as employment benefits, childcare benefits and the pension system. Improving these policies will help women in Newfoundland and Labrador, and throughout Canada, be more mobile, which should reduce the gender wage gap. Furthermore, improving these policies would also decrease unemployment rates, which should alleviate strain on public resources

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

The Organ Transplant Debate in Egypt: a Social Anthropological Analysis

In this paper, I take the heated debate about the ethics of organ transplantation in Egypt, to ask why Egypt is the only Muslim country in the world that has, for the past three decades, been unable to pass legislation for a national organ transplant program. Why is it that patients and even physicians articulate their antipathy to organ transplantation in terms of “Islam” when most Muslim scholars of Islamic law have argued that the donation of organs is permissible? I argue that we cannot reduce the question of the ethics of organ donation in Egypt to abstract Islamic legal categories (permissible (mubâh) or impermissible (harâm) – as analysts both within and outside the Muslim world are apt to do. Doing so overlooks the pervasive problem of social inequalities that persist in the Egyptian medical system. In the context of vast discrepancies in health status and health care delivery, ordinary Egyptians are wary of medical institutions’ claims of re-using body parts for the common good.Cet article traite du débat sensible sur l’éthique de la greffe d’organe en Égypte et s’interroge sur la question du pourquoi l’Égypte est le seul pays musulman dans le monde qui a, durant ces trois décennies, été incapable de faire passer une législation pour un programme de transplantation nationale. Pourquoi les patients et même les médecins formulent-ils leur antipathie à la transplantation d’organes en termes d’« islam » quand la plupart des érudits musulmans ont établi que le don d’organe était possible ? Je soutiens qu’on ne peut réduire la question de l’éthique du don d’organe en Égypte à des catégories juridiques islamiques abstraites comme le licite (mubâh) ou l’illicite (harâm) – ainsi que le font des analyses provenant à la fois de l’intérieur et de l’extérieur du monde musulman. Ce faisant, on néglige le problème majeur des inégalités sociales qui persistent dans le système médical égyptien. Dans un contexte de dépenses de santé déficitaires, les Égyptiens hésitent beaucoup face aux demandes des institutions médicales à utiliser des parties de leur corps pour l’intérêt commun

The Organ Transplant Debate in Egypt: a Social Anthropological Analysis

In this paper, I take the heated debate about the ethics of organ transplantation in Egypt, to ask why Egypt is the only Muslim country in the world that has, for the past three decades, been unable to pass legislation for a national organ transplant program. Why is it that patients and even physicians articulate their antipathy to organ transplantation in terms of “Islam” when most Muslim scholars of Islamic law have argued that the donation of organs is permissible? I argue that we cannot reduce the question of the ethics of organ donation in Egypt to abstract Islamic legal categories (permissible (mubâh) or impermissible (harâm) – as analysts both within and outside the Muslim world are apt to do. Doing so overlooks the pervasive problem of social inequalities that persist in the Egyptian medical system. In the context of vast discrepancies in health status and health care delivery, ordinary Egyptians are wary of medical institutions’ claims of re-using body parts for the common good

All Eyes on Egypt: Islam and the Medical Use of Dead Bodies Amidst Cairo's Political Unrest.

Using dead bodies for medical purposes has long been considered taboo in Egypt. Public health campaigns, physicians' pleas, and the urgings of religious scholars all failed to alter public opinion regarding the donation of dead bodies either for instructional material or for therapeutic treatments. Yet in 2011, amid revolutionary turmoil in Egypt, a campaign was launched for people to donate their eyes upon death; this time, people readily signed up to be donors. Focusing on mass eye trauma that occurred in Egypt amid the political uprisings of 2011, I raise questions about when and why Islam can explain people's attitudes and behaviors, particularly toward death and medicine. The case of mass eye trauma in Egypt and citizens' reformulations of questions once jealously controlled by state-aligned doctors, politicians, and religious scholars unsettles the boundaries between 'religion' and 'secularism' in medical practice. [Formula: see text]