crisis

Women are worse affected by the crisis and changes to pensions

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Liam Foster
Liam Foster

Liam Foster gives us an insights into his latest article in Policy & Politics on the impact of the latest pension reforms on women. Liam is from the University of Sheffield, UK.

The global economic and financial circumstances since the summer of 2007 are without precedent in post-war history. The resultant higher unemployment, lower growth, increasing national debt and financial market volatility have made it harder to deliver on pension promises and demonstrated serious weaknesses in the design of many pension schemes and their long-term sustainability. The crisis has enhanced existing challenges as well as creating new ones. This has accelerated the momentum of change in relation to pensions in a number of EU countries. Recent strategies to deal with pension challenges have differed with some countries extending help to safeguard private schemes while, in others, pension Continue reading →

Crisis is not intrinsically problematic

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Originally posted on September 1st on the Crick Centre blog.

Mark Chou from the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne argues that crises aren’t necessarily bad for democracy, but can force us to think in new and innovative ways about how we organise our democratic societies.

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In The Confidence Trap, probably one of the most talked about books on democracy written in recent years, David Runciman tackles what he calls the history of democracy in crisis.

Like the GFC which consumed global financial markets, democracy too has been embroiled its own ‘crisis talk’ in recent years. From Britain, Australia and the United States to Egypt, Thailand and Russia, we’ve seen firsthand how vulnerable democracies – both new and established – can be. But unique as these democratic crises may feel, Runciman reminds us that they are in fact just the latest in a long line of democracies in crisis. Continue reading →