Most parents care deeply about their children. If that were enough, we would not see the inequalities we currently do in children's opportunities and healthy development-children out of school, children laboring, children living in poverty. While the scale of the problems can seem overwhelming, history has shown that massive progress is possible on problems that once seemed unsolvable. Within the span of less than twenty-five years, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has been cut in half, the number of children under age five that die each day has dropped by over 12,000, and the percentage of girls attending school has climbed from just three in four to over 90 percent. National action, laws, and public policies fundamentally shape children's opportunities. Children's Chances urges a transformational shift from focusing solely on survival to targeting children's full and healthy development. Drawing on never-before-available comparative data on laws and public policies in 190 countries, Jody Heymann and Kristen McNeill tell the story of what works and what countries around the world are doing to ensure equal opportunities for all children. Covering poverty, discrimination, education, health, child labor, child marriage, and parental care, Children's Chances identifies the leaders and the laggards, highlights successes and setbacks, and provides a guide for what needs to be done to make equal chances for all children a reality.

In a world where basic human rights are under attack and discrimination is widespread, Advancing Equality reminds us of the critical role of constitutions in creating and protecting equal rights. Combining a comparative analysis of equal rights in the constitutions of all 193 United Nations member countries with inspiring stories of activism and powerful court cases from around the globe, the book traces the trends in constitution drafting over the past half century and examines how stronger protections against discrimination have transformed lives. Looking at equal rights across gender, race and ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability, social class, and migration status, the authors uncover which groups are increasingly guaranteed equal rights in constitutions, whether or not these rights on paper have been translated into practice, and which nations lag behind. Serving as a comprehensive call to action for anyone who cares about their country's future, Advancing Equality challenges us to remember how far we all still must go for equal rights for all. A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

News stories on the impact of job loss appear daily in the media. Less reported is that working conditions in many countries around the world have deteriorated as rapidly as jobs have been lost--and this affects ten times as many people. Working conditions significantly impact our health, the amount of time we can spend with family, our options during momentous life events (such as the birth of a child or the death of a parent), and whether we keep or lose a job when the unexpected occurs. Inexplicably, the global community has nearly universally accepted the argument that any country that guarantees a floor of decent working conditions will suffer higher unemployment and will be less competitive.
"Raising the Global Floor" shatters this widely held view by presenting the first ever, global analysis of the relationship between labor conditions, national competitiveness, and unemployment rates in 190 countries. The authors' findings are dramatic. They show that there is no relationship between unemployment rates and providing basic protections in a series of critical areas. Strikingly, data also indicate that good working conditions can make countries "more" competitive. There are no long-term economic gains to be had if workers are denied paid sick leave, paid annual leave, paid parental leave, the right to a day of rest, and many other basic protections that would improve the quality of their lives.

"A narrative of remarkable vividness, sobriety, clarity, and balance."--Oliver Sacks "I do not say this lightly. This book should be read by everyone in medicine: students, residents, physicians, and insurers."--Daniel D. Federman, Harvard Medical School "Jody Heymann affirms the power of stories, when written as beautifully as these, to instruct and to move. At the same time, "Equal Partners" speaks directly and clearly to a debate previously conducted in a jargon that is blessedly absent from this fine book."--Ethan Canin ""Equal Partners" is a narrative of remarkable vividness, sobriety, clarity, and balance. Jody Heymann has plumbed patienthood to its depths, and has reentered medicine as a deep listener to patients and their needs, and as an advocate for a medicine which does not infantilize but recognizes individuality and autonomy, and makes patients equal partners with their physicians."--Oliver Sacks One week after graduating with honors from Harvard Medical School, Jody Heymann woke up in an emergency room with no memory of how she got there, and, within hours, was turned from physician into patient. The hospitalization and brain surgery that followed taught her more about the practice of medicine in America than all her years of schooling. Her deeply disturbing conclusion: patients all too often occupy the bottom rung of the ladder, with their legs tied to prevent them from climbing. Heymann's experiences as a patient convinced her to work toward a new, more compassionate spirit of medicine--one in which physicians and patients are equal partners. Jody Heymann is Director of Policy at the Harvard University Center for Society and Health, Associate Professor of Health and Social Behavior at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Assistant Professor of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Taking Parenting Public makes a compelling case that parenting has become dangerously undervalued in America today. It calls for a new investment--both personal and public--into the work of raising children and argues that we are all 'stockholders' in the next generation. With a foreword by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, Taking Parenting Public crosses boundaries to bring together thinkers from diverse fields spanning the political spectrum. It features contributions from distinguished experts in economics, political science, public policy, child development, public health, history, and the media. While recent books have focused on working mothers or absent fathers, Taking Parenting Public is the first volume to take a comprehensive look at the common struggles of parents. These essays go beyond the usual calls for more and better child care and other strategies of 'parent replacement' to offer fresh ideas for 'parent replenishment, ' ways of putting mothers and fathers back into the lives of their children not only as economic providers, but also as emotional and moral providers. For more information visit the National Parenting Association Web site.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Well into the twenty-first century, achieving gender equality in the economy remains unfinished business. Worldwide, women's employment, income, and leadership opportunities lag men's. Building and using a one-of-a-kind database that covers 193 countries, this book systematically analyzes how far we've come and how far we have to go in adopting evidence-based solutions to close the gaps. Spanning topics including girls' education, employment discrimination of all kinds, sexual harassment, and caregiving needs across the life course, the authors bring the findings to life through global maps, stories of laws' impact in courts and beyond, and case studies of making change. A powerful call to action, Equality within Our Lifetimes reveals how gender equality is both feasible and urgently needed to address some of the greatest challenges of our generation.

Making Equal Rights Real brings together leaders from around the world who have been working effectively to increase equal economic and social rights, ranging from rights in the workplace to property ownership and education. The contributors tell the detailed stories of effective approaches to implementing equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities in North America, women in Africa, children in the Middle East and sexual minorities in Asia. They also describe approaches taken around the world to increase equal rights for people living in poverty, for those living with disabilities and for all people seeking the information they need to hold their government accountable for implementing everyone's rights. The book addresses what can be done by policymakers, civil society, non-governmental organizations, lawyers seeking to implement equal rights legislation and advocates working in the community, as well as those developing constitutions and negotiating international agreements.

There is very little argument that the world is facing severe environmental challenges. Ongoing air and water pollution, increasing energy consumption, and the depletion of natural resources have all placed considerable stress on the capacity of our environment to support the present quality of human life in a sustainable manner. Ensuring a Sustainable Future does what few previous works have: it examines these trends' disproportionate impact on the poor and the economically viable solutions that can serve to remedy them - solutions that simultaneously address environmental and economic problems. This gap in previous research, evidence, and writing has left low-income countries often unwilling to take on major environmental problems and many poor communities believing they faced impossible choices between improving the environment in which they live and increasing the jobs and income available. Bringing together evidence-based recommendations and in-depth case studies of successful policies and programs around the world, Ensuring a Sustainable Future examines innovative solutions to this crucial challenge. In doing so, it addresses a comprehensive range of environmental sustainability challenges affecting low-, middle-, and high-income countries.

Making Equal Rights Real brings together leaders from around the world who have been working effectively to increase equal economic and social rights, ranging from rights in the workplace to property ownership and education. The contributors tell the detailed stories of effective approaches to implementing equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities in North America, women in Africa, children in the Middle East and sexual minorities in Asia. They also describe approaches taken around the world to increase equal rights for people living in poverty, for those living with disabilities and for all people seeking the information they need to hold their government accountable for implementing everyone's rights. The book addresses what can be done by policymakers, civil society, non-governmental organizations, lawyers seeking to implement equal rights legislation and advocates working in the community, as well as those developing constitutions and negotiating international agreements.

In the last half-century, radical changes have rippled through the workplace and the home from Boston to Bombay. In the face of rapid globalization, these changes affect us all, and we can no longer confine ourselves to addressing working and social conditions within our own borders without simultaneously addressing them on a global scale. Based on over a thousand in-depth interviews and survey data from more than 55,000 families spanning five continents, Forgotten Families is the first truly global account of how the changing conditions of work threaten children, women and men, and the infirm. It addresses problems faced by working families in industrialized and developing countries alike, touching on issues of child health and development, barriers to parents getting and keeping jobs, problems families confront daily and in times of crisis, and the roles of growing inequalities. Rich in individual stories and deeply human, Heymann's book proposes innovative and imaginative ideas for solving the problems of the truly belabored together as a global community.

This text describes how government and industry have failed working families and what we can do to get beyond this critical impasse. It draws on systematic national research on how the need to meet family obligations is affecting working Americans of all social classes and ethnic groups. What happens when kids get sick? When an elderly parent is hospitalized? How do poor families - who have been studied in less depth than their middle-class peers - cope with work-family demands? Jody Heymann's documented research points to a widening gap between working families and the health and development of children. She demonstrates how lack of essential services and support lead to increased school failure, chronic illness, and diminished chance of success for adults and children. Outdated labour policy and practice must be brought into the 21st-century argues Heymann.

Despite international and national guarantees of equal rights, there remains a great deal to be done to achieve global employment equality for individuals with disabilities. In OECD countries, the employment rate of persons with disabilities was just over 40%, compared to 75% for persons without a disability; in many low- and middle-income countries, the employment rates are even lower. There are numerous reasons why persons with disabilities fare poorly in the labor market; Disability and Equity at Work is the first book to document what can be done to improve this imbalance. Chapters in this volume address all relevant facets of this topic and include: * Extensive examination of the factors contributing to inequitable access to work among persons with disability * Analysis of the economic benefits of increasing employment equity * Successful employment strategies at every stage of a worker's career * Evidence-based recommendations and in-depth case studies of innovative policies and programs around the world Chapter contributors include leaders from international organizations, government, civil society, and academia, including experts from UN agencies, leaders in nongovernmental advocacy and research organizations, and senior academics in the field. Disability and Equity at Work fills a needed gap that will appeal to those interested in and engaged in public policy, global health, equal rights, business, labor, and other fields.

Every year over a quarter of a million children die of AIDS. Another two million children currently live with HIV, most in sub-Saharan Africa. Millions more are affected when AIDS enters their families or their communities. Orphans are perhaps the most visible: 15 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS; 12 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. The increasing burden of care due to HIV/AIDS falls mainly on extended family: first they care for the sick and dying relatives, and then they take responsibility for the children left behind. Today, the extended family cares for over 90% of double orphans. Adults who take on these immense caregiving burdens have less time for their own children, fewer financial resources, and greater difficulties securing food and shelter. Thus, children who have parents providing care to sick relatives or who share scarce resources with foster children may also experience disadvantage. In communities severely affected by AIDS, traditional safety nets are often eroded by cumulative mortality: teachers are absent from school because of their own illness or that of family members, and basic health facilities can be overwhelmed by AIDS care needs, all of which leave children increasingly vulnerable. The impact is most severe in environments where government- and state-level support is weakest-where universal education, health care, and social welfare are either partially available or not available at all. Protecting Childhood in the AIDS Pandemic will bring together lessons from experts around the world on what has worked, and what would need to be done to transform the outcomes of children of all ages whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS. Examining which public policies and programs have worked best to meet the full range of children's needs, from medical care to social support and from infancy to adolescence, this is the volume for academics, social scientists, policymakers, and on-the-ground practitioners.

All children and youth, regardless of the situations into which they were born, deserve the opportunity to improve their life chances by acquiring the knowledge and skills that will help them thrive in the future. As the world lags far behind the Millennium Development and Education for All goals, swift, targeted, and effective action is needed to improve both access and quality in education. Bringing together evidence-based recommendations and in-depth case studies of successful programs from around the world, this edited volume details effective educational equity initiatives and assesses how these models could be improved, expanded, and adapted to diverse contexts. Lessons in Educational Equality is uniquely comprehensive in its scope and its focus on how best to increase educational equality from early childhood to the tertiary level, and in contexts that span the geographic and political spectrum. This volume offers concrete solutions to barriers based on gender, income, disability, race, ethnicity, and language. Chapters on gender address equity for female students in tertiary science and engineering programs, primary and secondary education for socially excluded girls, and equitable early childhood education for boys and girls. Socioeconomic equity is examined in chapters on promoting equal opportunities in secondary school across social class, quality primary education for the poor, and early childhood strategies for closing the achievement gap. Chapters on disability detail strategies for making inclusive education a part of the Millennium Development goals and for increasing access and achievement in tertiary education. Approaches to racial, ethnic, and linguistic equity are presented in chapters on bridging the gap in higher education, improving primary and secondary school quality and outcomes, and providing well-designed early childhood education.

In the last half-century, radical changes have rippled through the workplace and the home from Boston to Bombay. In the face of rapid globalization, these changes affect us all, and we can no longer confine ourselves to addressing working and social conditions within our own borders without
simultaneously addressing them on a global scale. Based on over a thousand in-depth interviews and survey data from more than 55,000 families spanning five continents, Forgotten Families is the first truly global account of how the changing conditions of work threaten children, women and men, and
the infirm. It addresses problems faced by working families in industrialized and developing countries alike, touching on issues of child health and development, barriers to parents getting and keeping jobs, problems families confront daily and in times of crisis, and the roles of growing
inequalities. Rich in individual stories and deeply human, Heymann's book proposes innovative and imaginative ideas for solving the problems of the truly belabored together as a global community.

Extensive research has shown that social factors are as important as biological ones in determining health, and their impact is enormous in both adults and children. The challenge of changing public policies and programs remains. Healthier Societies: From Analysis to Action addresses the fundamental questions which will lead the way toward countries investing seriously in improving social conditions, as a way of improving population health.
The book is divided into three parts. Section one addresses to what extent health is determined by biological factors, by social factors, and more fundamentally, by the interaction between the two. Section two examines four case studies that demonstrate the ways in which social change can dramatically affect adults' health, as well as launch children's lives onto healthy trajectories. This section analyzes the cases of nutrition, working conditions, social inequalities, and geographic disparities. The third section of the book takes a serious look at what would be involved in translating the research findings described throughout the book into action.

A map of the relationship between work and health that is truly global, both geographically and in its coverage of the impact of work on the health of individuals, families, and societies, has not previously been drawn. Global Inequalities at Work is the first book to fill in the map. Drawing from studies done around the world, it critically examines the many ways in which work is affecting health around the world.

The first section covers the wide range of risks - physical, chemical, and social - to the health of employees in agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial workplaces. Part II provides a detailed analysis of how working conditions can dramatically influence the health and welfare of family members, including children, elderly parents, and the disabled, in both the developing and industrial world.

Part III examines the relationships between work and health at the societal level by focusing on two examples: the ways in which working conditions affect income inequalities and health, and the ways in which working conditions influence gender inequalities and health. Part IV investigates the new challenges to and opportunities for improving the relationship between work and health that are presented by a rapidly globalizing economy.

Global Inequalities at Work addresses these issues at a time when globalization is both markedly changing the impact of work on the health of individuals, families, and societies, and radically revising what can be done about it. Leaders from universities, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations bring to this edited volume expertise from six continents.

While many aspects of work have changed dramatically over the last few decades, society has struggled to adapt, to the detriment of working families. Work schedules and demands continue to reflect a time when at least one parent stayed home, women remain underpaid relative to men on average, and public schools still base their hours on an agrarian calendar. Unfinished Work provides insights into why we have not yet seen an effective national response to the challenges faced by most working families in America today, and offers solutions from leading thinkers in the field across the disciplines of political science, sociology, economics, history, and public policy.