Glass Ceiling
Glass ceiling is perhaps the most widely known and discussed phenomenon in today’s world. It is a metaphorical term that is commonly used to describe the unseen barrier that divides a part of the population from improving beyond a certain point.
Do anyone of you know when this term was first used and where? Yes, it was first used in the Wall Street Journal in 1986 by two reporters.
In fact, all these women have been exposed to problems of harassment, glass ceilings and a huge list of gender based problems. It is the virtue of staying honest and true to the chosen path which has driven these women continuously and helped them in achieving what they all they wanted to achieve.
Another thing that I think we all need to earn and exercise everyday is the distribution of our work by setting targets. This can be done properly by setting a proper time-table and framework. It is equally important for them to be indifferent to mentalities posed by others
Feminism
Feminism is the practice of advocacy of rights of women based on grounds of equality of the sexes. It is dependent on a number of opinions, beliefs, practices and stereotypes. There are actually many perspectives related to this issue and it is being addressed will increased concern currently all over the world. This is experienced and witnessed in various aspects including political, economic and social realms of life.
These situations have led to feminism being addressed as a revolution slowly and I don’t know if you are aware of this but there are various types of feminism depending on which various issues are addressed related to the stereotyped problems I just discussed.
Socialist feminism for example deals with inequalities that exist in the social realm and respect. It relates to the capitalist issues and raises concern about the question of women staying at home and not being able to earn for themselves like men are able to. This has been reduced to substantial levels as we all know in today’s world.
The next type of feminism is reformist feminism in which the legislative aspects of feminism are correlated along with radicalism to actually bring about pragmatic changes in the systems. It is mainly concerned with bringing about changes faced by the middle class women as well as women in the lower realms of society who are not exposed to enough opportunities so that they can overcome the problems of gender gap and achieve their dreams.
I think that it is the best form of feminism because it is the type of feminism that causes changes to happen. The last form of feminism is radical feminism wherein, problems related to the dominance of male over female by using their physical or psychological oppression happens.
EMERGING ECONOMIES
As we all know, we are gathered here to discuss the concepts of emerging economies. What do we understand by the term emerging? It can be understood to be gradually arising or improving , right? And what are economies essentially?
The systems that run the livelihoods of citizens and also en sure the running of nations at large by generation of gross domestic product (GDP) and revenue generation. So now, if I have to answer I posed earlier, emerging economies are countries or nations that are more developed than the developing countries but are not as strong as developed countries. Can you name some of the emerging economies? The five largest emerging economies in today’s world are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
These are commonly known as the BRICS countries as they are increasingly improving the situation in their countries in terms of economy by increasing the amount of globalisation the countries are essentially involved with.
Hence, as you all can guess, that these countries are increasingly becoming attractive in terms of areas of foreign direct investment. This is for the obvious reason that investing in these areas will cause huge amounts of returns at correct times if the investments are done in a scientific way and by that I mean after rigorous research and analysis of the sector or the industry where the investment is being done.
However, as these are emerging economies, there are a lot of risks associated with investments in these areas. Effectively it becomes important to keep valid back up plans and inventory ready before investing in these economies so that the situation is safe. Because of increase in the total amount of foreign direct investment in these areas there has also been an increase in the total amount of employment generation in these countries. This will in turn help in increasing the per capita income generation in these countries and economies at large.
This is because the return amounts for the investors in these areas are larger than average investment returns. The powerhouse of emerging economies are China and India together as these countries constitute 40% of the world’s labour force and population. I think it is very astonishing but true that these two economies have experienced a total economic output of $32.6 trillion together which is much higher than the economic output that has been for either the European Union or the United States in the year 2017.
So now the question how can we be sure that the investments that we will be doing are safe and are definitely going to yield average returns if not great returns. This has to be done by diversifying the investments done. If you invest in many different sectors or ventures you might end up winning all or some but not losing all. This is a technique that we all end up using consciously or unconsciously don’t we? This will again cause the saving rates for us to increase and hence investment in these countries will lead to increased revenue generation.
You all must be curious as we have all gathered about a very interesting concept which is Catch Up Effect. Now, please don’t feel it is a complicated concept. It is really easy as you only need to understand the concept of convergence, that is, the method by which developing countries try to fasten their speed of development so that their income levels match with the income generation levels and capacities of the developed countries.
This is easier for the developing countries to do because of the generation of higher per capita incomes as compared to the already developed countries. Now it is possible that many of you are thinking now is it possible that developing countries can have growth rates higher than the already developed countries.
The possibilities of growth in the developing countries are way more than that in already developed countries and so the catch up effect occurs. Try to understand it this way – the returns to capital for developing countries will inevitably be higher than the returns to capital in developed countries. This is so because the technology levels in the developed and developing countries are different.
The developed countries are already used to the advanced technological levels and when these highly advanced and innovated technological skills are applied and used in the developing countries, these countries having higher growth opportunities grow way more than the developed countries.
Now, please note that the amount of catch up varies from one developing country to another. This is so because there are a number of factors that affect the opportunities and growth rates of different countries which can be social, political or even institutional. In fact, this is an empirically proven fact. So the GDP generation rates of developing countries start to match with the developed countries’ GDP.
However, you should know that the catch up effect does not even in the regular course of the development but requires a great happening in a nation like an invention, discovery or huge investments from other countries in the form of Foreign Direct Investment.
Lives of people, income levels and even the infrastructural basis of these countries get bettered because of the increased growth rates and opportunities in these countries. So as the phenomenon of catch up effect occurs, the individuals of the country are able to shift their focus from problems of surviving to problems of increased capacity development and potential usage. The catch up effect thus is indeed a miraculous phenomenon
It has been occurring across a large number of developing countries. Few countries have been able to use this and grow at levels higher than the other developing countries. These countries are now termed as emerging economies.
Currently, Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa are the largest emerging economies in the world with some of these countries together having income generation higher than that of the European Union or the United States at large. Catch up effect is thus an important economic concept.
