scholarly journals Do You Want Sustainable Olympics? Environment, Disaster, Gender, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12879
Author(s):  
Eiji Yamamura

The slogans of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were “symbol of resilience from the Great East Japan Earthquake” and “Compact Olympics”. The Olympics were also expected to demonstrate “gender equality” and to enhance sustainability in modern society. However, in practice, the cost of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 was far greater than estimated. The slogan was changed to “symbol of overcoming COVID-19” although in reality, infection spread dramatically during the games. Overall, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics did not turn out as expected or meet the expectations of the populace. Using individual-level data, we tested how and to what extent Japanese proponents of a sustainable society supported the compact Olympics announced in 2016. The key findings are: (1) most people support policies for environmental protection, gender equality, and disaster prevention and (2) they would have wished to reduce public expenditure for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Further examination with a questionnaire yielded similar results for the male but not for the female sample.

Social Forces ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Parolin

Abstract Routine-biased technological change has emerged as the dominant explanation for the differential earnings growth of occupations at greater risk of automation, such as machine operators or office clerks, relative to less routine occupations. In contrast, this paper finds that the declining earnings returns to an occupation’s routine task intensity (RTI) can largely be attributed to the decline of organized labor. Using individual-level data on 3.3 million employed adults across the United States from 1983 to 2017, this paper finds that organized labor has two countervailing effects on occupations at greater risk of automation. First, higher union coverage within a state and industry inhibits the decline in earnings returns to an occupation’s RTI. Second, higher union coverage hastens the decline in employment shares of occupations with higher RTI. The result is that occupations at greater risk of automation experience more favorable earnings growth where unions are more resilient, but at the cost of accelerated declines in their employment shares. Counterfactual analyses demonstrate that if union coverage in the United States had remained stable at 1983 levels, the earnings returns to an occupation’s RTI might not have declined from 1983 to 2017, and the observed pattern of occupational earnings polarization in the 1990s might not have occurred. However, the mean RTI of occupations might have declined by an additional 21 percent from 1983 to 2017 relative to the observed decline. The findings suggest that the social consequences of automation are conditional on the strength of organized labor.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Carrera ◽  
Dana P. Goldman ◽  
Geoffrey Joyce ◽  
Neeraj Sood

We use individual level data on purchases of cholesterol-lowering drugs to study the responses of physicians and patients to variation in the cost of drugs. In a sample of first-time statin prescriptions to employees from 12 Fortune 500 firms, we find that co-pay variation across plans has a small effect on the choice of drug, and this effect does not vary with patient income. After the highly publicized patent expiration of Zocor, however, prescriptions for this drug increased substantially, especially for lower income patients. Our analysis suggests that physicians can perceive the price sensitivity of their patients and adjust their initial prescriptions accordingly, but only in response to a large and universal price change. (JEL D14, G22, I11, I13, L65)


Author(s):  
Marco Di Maggio ◽  
Vincent Yao

Abstract We study the personal credit market using unique individual-level data covering fintech and traditional lenders. We show that fintech lenders acquire market share by lending first to higher-risk borrowers and then to safer borrowers, and rely mainly on hard information to make credit decisions. Fintech borrowers are significantly more likely to default than neighbor individuals with the same characteristics borrowing from traditional financial institutions. Furthermore, they tend to experience a short-lived reduction in the cost of credit, because their indebtedness increases more than non-fintech borrowers after loan origination. However, fintech lenders’ pricing strategies are likely to take this into account.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Parolin

Routine-biased technological change has emerged as the dominant explanation for the differential earnings growth of occupations at greater risk of automation, such as machine operators or office clerks, relative to less routine occupations. In contrast, this paper finds that the declining earnings returns to an occupation’s routine task intensity (RTI) can largely be attributed to the decline of organized labor. Using individual-level data on 3.3 million employed adults across the 50 United States from 1983-2017, this paper finds that organized labor has two countervailing effects on occupations at greater risk of automation. First, higher union coverage within a state and industry inhibits the decline in earnings returns to an occupation’s RTI. Second, higher union coverage hastens the decline in employment shares of occupations with higher RTI. The result is that occupations at greater risk of automation experience more favorable earnings growth where unions are more resilient, but at the cost of accelerated declines in their employment shares. Counterfactual analyses demonstrate that if union coverage in the U.S. had remained stable at 1983 levels, the earnings returns to an occupation’s RTI might not have declined from 1983-2017, and the observed pattern of occupational earnings polarization in the 1990s might not have occurred. However, the mean RTI of occupations might have declined by an additional 21 percent from 1983-2017 relative to the observed decline. The findings suggest that the social consequences of automation are conditional on the strength of organized labor.


2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (49) ◽  
pp. 31063-31069
Author(s):  
Thomas Breda ◽  
Elyès Jouini ◽  
Clotilde Napp ◽  
Georgia Thebault

The so-called “gender-equality paradox” is the fact that gender segregation across occupations is more pronounced in more egalitarian and more developed countries. Some scholars have explained this paradox by the existence of deeply rooted or intrinsic gender differences in preferences that materialize more easily in countries where economic constraints are more limited. In line with a strand of research in sociology, we show instead that it can be explained by cross-country differences in essentialist gender norms regarding math aptitudes and appropriate occupational choices. To this aim, we propose a measure of the prevalence and extent of internalization of the stereotype that “math is not for girls” at the country level. This is done using individual-level data on the math attitudes of 300,000 15-y-old female and male students in 64 countries. The stereotype associating math to men is stronger in more egalitarian and developed countries. It is also strongly associated with various measures of female underrepresentation in math-intensive fields and can therefore entirely explain the gender-equality paradox. We suggest that economic development and gender equality in rights go hand-in-hand with a reshaping rather than a suppression of gender norms, with the emergence of new and more horizontal forms of social differentiation across genders.


Author(s):  
Barbara J. Risman

This chapter introduces the innovators and provides a portrait of them. The chapter analyzes these innovators at the individual, interactional, and macro level of the gender structure. The chapter begins at the individual level of analysis because these young people emphasize how they challenge gender by rejecting requirements to restrict their personal activities, goals, and personalities to femininity or masculinity. They refuse to live within gender stereotypes. These Millennials do not seem driven by their feminist ideological beliefs, although they do have them. Their worldviews are more taken for granted than central to their stories. Nor are they consistently challenging gender expectations for others, although they often ignore the gender expectations they face themselves. They innovate primarily in their personal lives, although they do reject gendered expectations at the interactional level and hold feminist ideological beliefs about gender equality.


2014 ◽  
Vol 908 ◽  
pp. 355-358
Author(s):  
Jie Zhao

With the development of economy and the improvement of people's living level, improving living conditions and public buildings, architectural design requirements are also constantly improved. Modern architecture should consider not only beautiful and comfortable, but also take into account the design individuality, while taking into consideration the people-oriented design concept of environmental protection and energy saving. This also makes the environmental friendly and energy-saving building is the development direction of future architecture. This paper analyzes the modern architecture of the ecological and environmental protection, gives the method to realize the construction of energy-saving environmental protection design and the use of new materials, new equipment and new technology of the existing.


Author(s):  
Jingjing Wang ◽  
Xueying Wu ◽  
Ruoyu Wang ◽  
Dongsheng He ◽  
Dongying Li ◽  
...  

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has stimulated intensive research interest in its transmission pathways and infection factors, e.g., socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, climatology, baseline health conditions or pre-existing diseases, and government policies. Meanwhile, some empirical studies suggested that built environment attributes may be associated with the transmission mechanism and infection risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, no review has been conducted to explore the effect of built environment characteristics on the infection risk. This research gap prevents government officials and urban planners from creating effective urban design guidelines to contain SARS-CoV-2 infections and face future pandemic challenges. This review summarizes evidence from 25 empirical studies and provides an overview of the effect of built environment on SARS-CoV-2 infection risk. Virus infection risk was positively associated with the density of commercial facilities, roads, and schools and with public transit accessibility, whereas it was negatively associated with the availability of green spaces. This review recommends several directions for future studies, namely using longitudinal research design and individual-level data, considering multilevel factors and extending to diversified geographic areas.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 557
Author(s):  
Elena Raptou

This study investigated the relationship of behavioral factors, such as snack choices, obesity stereotypes and smoking with adolescents’ body weight. Individual-level data for 1254 Greek youths were selected via a formal questionnaire. Snack choices seem to be gender specific with girls showing a stronger preference for healthier snacks. Frequent consumption of high-calorie and more filling snacks was found to increase Body Mass Index (BMI) in both genders. Fruit/vegetable snacks were associated with lower body weight in females, whereas cereal/nut snacks had a negative influence in males’ BMI. The majority of participants expressed anti-fat attitudes and more boys than girls assigned positive attributes to lean peers. The endorsement of the thin-ideal was positively associated with the BMI of both adolescent boys and girls. This study also revealed that neglecting potential endogeneity issues can lead to biased estimates of smoking. Gender may be a crucial moderator of smoking–BMI relationships. Male smokers presented a higher obesity risk, whereas female smokers were more likely to be underweight. Nutrition professionals should pay attention to increase the acceptance of healthy snack options. Gender differences in the influence of weight stereotypes and smoking on BMI should be considered in order to enhance the efficacy of obesity prevention interventions.


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