the DON JONES INDEX…
		GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 5/22/23… 15,050.64 5/15/23… 15,026.13
	6/27/13… 15,000.00
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 5/22/23... 33,426.83; 5/15/23... 33,300,62; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

LESSON for May 22, 2023 – “MOTHER (not america, but...) BELARUS?”

Yesterday was Mother’s Day.

Around the world and in America, too, children gave cards and gifts their fathers had gotten for them, some of the fathers taking wives and, sometimes, whole families out to dinner. Gaudy sentiments were expressed. Flower shop and candymakers reaped profits. Romantic or domestic comedies aired on broadcast, cable television, streamed of DVD’d; grown up children texted or messaged Mom on their devices.

Proclamations were issued, celebrating the 109^th anniversary of the holiday.

Back to work today, politicians in the Carolinas showered mothers in their states, too – mandatory childbearing, enforced by States, Deep or Shallow. Despite polling showing that even the red states were, at least, concerned about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, North Carolina passed a law cutting the term limit for termination pregnancies from twenty weeks to twelve and, after the Governor’s veto, passed it again by an overwhelming veto. Jealous South Carolinians responded by criminalizing abortion after six weeks, whether or not Mother was even aware that she was pregnant.

More babies. More balloons. More boxed chocolates and flowers.

More bills.

Among the provisions of the North Carolina veto override, one has been hailed (albeit in whispers) by feminists and liberals... the obligation of working fathers to either take care of, at least, pay child support payments to the mother of a fetus which they would otherwise have supported aborting. (If paternity, however, can be proven and the deserting parent located and sanctioned... the legal complications will be significant and – perhaps as a posthumous tribute to Jerry Springer or the assorted paternity court “reality” shows populating dayting television – and vexing.) The ranks of working single mothers are already high and... should House Speaker Kevin Mac’s “red line” ultimatum (below) to either compel recipients of the various forms of financial aid now in effect... welfare, food stamps, HUD subsidies and the like... to work for their charity or let the economy debt ceiling collapse and crash... there will be many, many more of them.

Childcare (and its cost) will become at issue here if any debt ceiling compromise honors K-Mac’s red line.

Further bans upon abortion – Saturday, the legislature in Nebraska became the latest to outlaw the procedure after a relatively modest twelve weeks, even making allowances for rape, incest and the mother’s health... much to the anger of the more militant right-to-life advocates.

A desperate woman travels to the Netherlands to buy abortion pills from India. At home, women, liberals and Democrats predictably took to the streets with loud demonstrations but, as of the present, with little violence and only a few arrests. Family care clinics obediently closed up shop.

Mother’s Day, a commentary in a recent Old Farmer’s Almanac begins, was the consequence of a prototypical women’s movement to, reported Heidi Stonehill (May 4^th, Attachment One), intended better the lives of Americans. “Its forgotten origins spring from two lifelong activists who championed efforts toward better health, welfare, and peace.”. 

Who Invented Mother’s Day?

“The creation of a national Mother’s Day,” Stonehill informs, “is primarily attributed to three women: Ann Reeves Jarvis, Ann’s daughter, Anna M. Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe (otherwise known as the author and composer of the famous Civil War anthem, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which was first published in February 1862).

Ann Reeves Jarvis

“Known as “Mother Jarvis,” Ann Reeves Jarvis was a young Appalachian homemaker who taught Sunday school lessons. She also was a lifelong activist who, in the mid-1800s, had organized “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in West Virginia to combat unsanitary living conditions. Reeves Jarvis was concerned about the high infant mortality rate, especially pervasive in Appalachia, and,” according to Ms. Stonehill, “wanted to educate and help mothers who needed it the most.

“During the Civil War, Mother Jarvis had also organized women’s brigades, encouraging women to help without regard for which side their men had chosen. After the war, she proposed a Mothers’ Friendship Day to promote peace between former Union and Confederate families.”

Anna M. Jarvis

After her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died in 1905, Miss Anna Jarvis from Philadelphia wished to memorialize her mother’s life and started campaigning for a national day to honor all mothers. 

Anna’s ideas were less about public service and more about simply honoring the role of motherhood and the sacrifices made in the home. She bombarded public figures and various civic organizations with telegrams, letters, and in-person discussions. She addressed groups large and small. At her own expense, she wrote, printed, and distributed booklets extolling her idea.

After promoting memorials in West Virginia and Philadelphia, where the Mayor proclaimed a local Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May, Representative J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama and Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas presented a joint resolution to Congress that Mother’s Day be observed nationwide. The resolution was passed by both houses.

“In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill designating the second Sunday in May as a legal holiday to be called “Mother’s Day”—dedicated “to the best mother in the world, your mother.”

Julia Ward Howe

Author of the famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, published in 1862, Howe called for a “Mother’s Day for Peace” after the Civil War, dedicated to the celebration of peace and the eradication of war. As expressed in her “Mother’s Day Proclamation” of 1870, Howe felt that “mothers should gather to prevent the cruelty of war and the waste of life since mothers of mankind alone bear and know the cost.”

Howe succeeded in getting a Mother’s Day implemented in Boston and other locations, but the holiday “died a quick death in the years preceding World War I.”

A Bittersweet Legacy

Anna would eventually come to regret her promotion of Mother’s Day – dismayed to see it “become more commercialized with the sending of greeting cards and flowers.”

Olivia Waxman, reporting for Time on the occasion of Mother’s Day five years ago, considered the origins of the holiday “surprisingly sad”. (Time, April 25, 2018 12:28 pm edt | originally published: May 11, 2017 12:00 pm edt. Attachment Two.)

“(W)hat the elder Jarvis had probably had in mind was something different than what her daughter eventually brought to reality,” Waxman posited, citing evidence that the original idea was for a “Mothers’ Day” — a day for mothers, plural, not a day for one’s own mother — on which mothers would get together for a day of service to help out other mothers who were less fortunate than they were, according to Katharine Lane Antolini, an assistant professor of history and gender studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College and author of Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for the Control of Mother’s Day.

“Her experience of motherhood had been infused with sadness,” recalled Waxman of the elder Jarvis - of the 13 children that she bore, only four lived to adulthood. “Her story was not uncommon; an estimated 15 to 30% of infants in that Appalachian region died before their first birthday throughout the 19th and early 20th century, largely due to epidemics that were spread by poor sanitary conditions, according to Antolini’s book.” (See Attachments on infant and maternal mortality below.)

Anna never bore children and may have wanted a more “uplifting tone” than what her own mother and Howe had envisioned... “She didn’t want it to be turned into a beggars’ day,” says Antolini. “She thought even poor mothers were rich if they had their kids’ love.”

And for someone who started such a happy day, her life ended in a sad way. Her Mother’s Day campaign was funded primarily by her inheritance, and she came to resent the the fact that florists and candy makers were making lots of money from the idea without crediting her. Jarvis came to feel that the day was being used as “a means of profiteering,” as the New York Times reported on May 18, 1923.

Seventy five years after Jarvis died in a Pennsylvania poorhouse after her “long and fruitless campaign to excise” the holiday she had founded four decades earlier from the American calendar, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, author of “Fool Proof” and contributor to the liberal Slate webzine, asserted that... all of the balloons and candy and flowers to the contrary, “America’s mothers are suckers”... “mother-suckers” at that! (May 14, 2023, Attachment Three)

Slate also concurred that Jarvis resented what she saw as the deep betrayal of commercialization. “The telegraph companies with their ready-made greetings, the florists with their high-pressure campaigns and the awful prices, and the candy manufacturers and greeting card manufacturers have made a lucrative racket out of my ideas,” she complained, furious that Americans were “placating their mothers with chocolates instead of respect.”

Respect was in short supply but, once the plague took hold in 2020, obligations increased and it really “felt like moms had been left holding the bag. The pandemic laid bare an American predicament: When a society insists that caring is for suckers, someone has to play the fool. Or, as a headline in the New York Times put it: In an emergency, “Americans Turned to Their Usual Backup Plan: Mothers.”

Waxman, moreover suggests that the cloying nature of Mother’s Day is, in fact, a conspiracy by those agents of the Darkside or Deep State or what have you... men!... who still earn more and dominate more (see Attachments below on equality status) and gloss over their oppression with Hallmark cards and roses, not “...reproductive rights, or affordable child care, or safe schools” alrhough they might receive “a pamphlet on active shooter drills to practice at home.”

Adrienne Rich, feminist poet and essayist, wrote of early motherhood, “Patriarchy would seem to require not only that women shall assume the major burden of pain and self-denial for the furtherance of the species, but that a majority of that species—women—shall remain essentially unquestioning and unenlightened.”

In other words, “there is widespread suspicion that women might cynically use the moral imperative of motherhood to sucker others into paying their way.”

Waxman also notes the suspicion among some, that women... especially racial and economic minorities... are exploiting the welfare system to breed children solely for the government check. (This appear to be the reasoning behind the Republican “red line” as would require Americans receiving Federal benefits such as Medicare and food stamps... predominantly women, often single mothers whose husbands or “boyfriends” sought other pastures... to work for their charity. The childcare issue and concomitant expense goes unmentioned – although perhaps a Federal commitment to hire more childcare workers at at least substistance wages might find its way onto the bargaining table.

Another suggestion from the DJI – if MAGAmericans hate paying for food stamps to keep “those people” alive and breeding, perhaps an alternative (which would reduce government spending, at least somewhat) would be to keep the program, but remove subsidies from some items commonly termed “junk food”... candy and corn chips and Twinkies and Cheetos and Coke. Maybe even invest in local groceres and farmer’s markets to provide healthy produce as might not rot the brains of children already starting at a disadvantage. It would cut spending... but would K-Mac accept it as fulfilling his “red line” demands?

In addition to the minorities and the poor, Mother’s Day involves certain traumas and troubles for the families of what we might prefer to call “different” family groupings, as might include either blended or co-parented unions, children with one absent parent... whether through the military or a mobile job like the truck drivers and airline workers in such short supply – even incarcerated fathers and, here and there, mothers.

Options.org asks Don Jones to consider another outlier group... the children of LGBTQ parents.

“Families today don’t all look the same, like they did in 1950s TV shows—and that’s a good thing,” say the Optioneers (Attachment Four). “More children than ever are being raised by single parents, adoptive parents, same-sex parents, or in blended families.”

Mothers’ Day can get a bit... er... confusing for the child with two moms (or daddies), so Amanda Hopping-Winn, chief program officer at the Family Equality Council, recommends that we not assume every family has a mother and a father, period.

“Mother’s Day can be a challenging time for these families, as it can be for anyone struggling to become parents. It reminds us of the family we so desperately desire but have not yet achieved.”

Options asks Americans of all genders, races, faiths and convictions to become advocates for unity and diversity. Any parent can talk to schools about planned Mother’s Day or gendered activities—not only LGBTQ parents. “Another way to include all families is to ask store managers for gender-neutral or otherwise inclusive holiday cards. If you see some at your card store, let them know you appreciate it.”

Schools can have gender-neutral Parents’ Day or Family Day instead of Mother’s and Father’s Days, hand out bad books (except in Florida, perhaps) and also be sensitive to children who have lost a parent through death... or maybe divorce, or some other reason.

The holiday, of late, has taken hits from partisans of both sides of the political spectrum. As “woke” concepts like diversity and a heightened sensitivy towards the victim class ooze into the mainstream (in some places more than other), some critics... perhaps echoing Anna Jarvis in her later years... hold reservations about Mother’s Day not only for the dollars and cents sensibilities of retailers, but also for the effects of other families’ celebrations on hidden or even pariah classes.

On the other side of the dime, the religious and radical right has its own issues with Mother’s Day. Only the most severe and most extreme taskmaster object to the commercialism and celebrations in general... in fact, their veneration of the Second Sunday in May for their own families, and for the rest of the adult (and, not infrequently) underaged parents is paramount, even when parenting coerced by church and state. Would-be or failed abortive mothers who tell their stories of learning to accept, then love, their children are numerous – some gleefully exploited, as are expressions of regret, even suicides, among those who opted for freedom over duty.

The concern for mother’s moral and infants’ physical health, however, lags somewhat behind the enthusiasm that has propelled the pro-life crusaders to victory after victory in the courts, at the ballot box and in state and local legislatures coast to coast (well almost, none of the Pacific states has yet prohibited or reduced abortion terms or conditions, so the Westward expansion of the prohibitions stops at state capitals like Boise or Cheyenne,

For the time being, according to U.S. News and World Report, decisions on abortion (surgical or chemical and, perhaps sooner than some might wish for or dread, contraception) have been returned to the states (the proposed nationwide criminalization is, almost all agree, dead so long as President Joe holds his veto power), “and in many cases, the issue is already heading back to court.” USNWP calls the new landscape “volatile”, and the evolving situation means that access to abortion in some states is restricted, in part, by complexity alone. (May 8^th, Attachment Five)

Mail-order medications, for example - access to the pills at both physical stores and online pharmacies, and has sparked legal questions, particularly in the most restrictive states. “An analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, found that medication abortion – often a two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol – accounted for more than half of all facility-based abortions in 2020.

If mifepristone is taken off the market, medication-assisted abortion will remain available through misoprostol-only regimens, which are said to be somewhat less effective than the two-drug combination. Abortion rights advocates are also challenging state-level restrictions on access to abortion pills in both North Carolina and West Virginia. In early May, abortion clinics in Virginia, Montana and Kansas filed a lawsuit in additional attempts to preserve access to the drug.

A recent poll found that there is widespread confusion about the legality of medication abortion.

(The USNews.com site has an extensive addenda of charts and graphs and summaries of state-by-state protocols here.)

Pro-life legislation occasionally results in pro-not-life for mothers and infants, complicating and enhancing the already questionable American standings on infant and maternal mortality.

The former is defined by the World Population Review as “a population-related metric that monitors the deaths of newborn (and sometimes unborn) children... typically expressed as the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births.” (Attachment Six)

Codifying the rather obvious conclusion that global poverty correlates with infant mortality (as shown by the charts and graphs of the Attachment) WPR lists the top causes of infant mortality as being “neonatal encephalopathy (problems with brain function due to lack of oxygen during birth), infections, complications of preterm birth, lower respiratory infections, and diarrheal diseases.” (Since the last survey, war also has to be listed among the root causes, as if some of its collateral damage, like starvation.) Before the Ukraine war and the plague, collective global infant mortality rate had significantly decreased in recent decades, “dropping from approximately 140 per 1,000 live births in 1950-55 to 52.8 in 2000 and on to 27.4 in 2020.”

UNICEF, an agency of the United Nations concerned with the health, nutrition and prospects of childen and, by extension, their mothers on a worldwide basis surveyed infant mortality worldwide and found the most deadly places in which to be born are sub-Saharan African nations with Sierra Leone  topping the kill list – ranked over 80. The safest countries are largely white, rich and cold (although Singapore and Japan make the top ten list) with Iceland leading the way with a mortality rate of 1.54.

Infant mortality in the United States was 5.44 in 2020. “This rate was 50th among the 195 countries and territories measured, and significantly higher than in dozens of other developed countries such as Sweden (2.15), Japan (1.82), and Australia (3.14),” although a wider definition of “infant death” may be lowering the Americans’ score.

The American ranking is slightly better than that of Uruguay, slightly worse than that of Communist China.

UNICEF’s own stats on infant and maternal mortality found the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) declined by 34 per cent – from 342 deaths to 223 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UN inter-agency estimates. This translates into an average annual rate of reduction of 2.1 per cent. “While substantive, this is about one third of the 6.4 per cent annual rate needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births” that wish-listers wish to invoke into being by 2030.

“Though there has been significant progress in reducing global MMR between 2000 and 2015, the numbers have been stagnant when averaging rates of reduction between 2016 and 2022,” the causes being unstated but probably attributable to plague and war. In most regions, the rate of reduction stalled “and in Western Europe and North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean, MMR increased over the 2016-2022 period.”

As regards the childbearing mortality rates of mothers... maternal death, also called maternal mortality... as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy”... there has been the good news, and then, there is the bad.

UNICEF has been discovering, compiling and ranking statistical data of maternal mortality by country over two decades, encompassing three separate surveys commissioned by the United Nations and other reckoning bodies, principally the World Health Organization (WHO)... a base in 2000 AD, a second in 2017 and the third in 2020 (just before the advent of the plague).

(Some nations did not provide data or, for other reasons, were not ranked for 2020.)

Maternal mortality refers, as defined by UNICEF refers to deaths due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth (no deadline given). From 2000 to 2020, the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) declined by 34 per cent – from 342 deaths to 223 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UN inter-agency estimates. This translates into an average annual rate of reduction of 2.1 per cent. While substantive, this is about one third of the 6.4 per cent annual rate needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030 – according to the Unicef Attachment Seven; (also refer to footnotes at the Wikipedia website, below)

The maternal mortality ratio is used as a criterion for the quality of medical care in a country. The global rate is 211 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017 (2017 or latest available year for some countries).^[2]

The number of women and girls who died each year from complications of pregnancy and childbirth declined from 451,000 in 2000 to 287,000 in 2020. “These improvements are particularly remarkable in light of rapid population growth in many of the countries where maternal deaths are highest. Still, almost 800 women are dying each day from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, which is equivalent to one every two minutes.”

“Maternal death can be caused directly by postpartum haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and hypertensive disorders, pregnancy-related infections, and complications of unsafe abortion,” UNICEF contends, “as well as indirectly by pre-existing medical conditions aggravated by the pregnancy.”

Lower rates of maternal death occur where pregnant women before and during the birthing are “attended by skilled health personnel such as doctors, nurses or midwives. As complications require prompt access to quality obstetric services, these skilled health personnel, who are regularly supervised and have the proper equipment and supplies, can avert maternal death by providing life-saving drugs such as antibiotics, blood transfusions, caesarean sections, and other surgical interventions.”

Access to such assistance, medication and emergency care is, it goes without saying, contingent upon wealth.

As with infant mortality, it should come as no surprise that the white, Western and better-off nations performed better as regards to maternal mortality. Large inequalities exist between regions of the world and countries within those regions...in 2020, (sub-Saharan Africa had 545 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births as compared to 4 in Australia and New Zealand. In fact, sub-Saharan Africa alone accounted for 70% of global maternal deaths in 2020.)

Lifetime risk of maternal death

The lifetime risk of maternal death is the probability that a 15-year-old girl will die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth over her lifetime; it takes into account both the maternal mortality ratio and the total fertility rate (average number of births per woman during her reproductive years under current age-specific fertility rates). Thus, in a high-fertility setting, a woman faces the risk of maternal death multiple times, and her lifetime risk of death will be higher than in a low-fertility setting. Similar to maternal mortality ratio, the lifetime risk of maternal death varies largely across countries. In 2020, the lifetime risk of maternal death in low income countries as a whole was 1 in 49, compared to 1 in 5,300 in high-income countries. Among regions, women in sub-Saharan Africa face the highest lifetime risk (1 in 41), which is approximately 268 times higher than in Western Europe (1 in 11,000).

The lifetime risk of maternal death ranges from 1 in 5,300 in high income countries to 1 in 49 in low income countries.

Sources: WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank, Trends in Maternal Mortality: 2000 to 2020, WHO, Geneva, 2023.

UNICEF also compiled statistics on the “lifetime” risk of maternal mortality – meaning “the probability that a 15-year-old girl will die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth over her lifetime; it takes into account both the maternal mortality ratio and the total fertility rate (average number of births per woman during her reproductive years under current age-specific fertility rates).”

Similar to maternal mortality ratio, the lifetime risk of maternal death varies largely across countries. In 2020, the lifetime risk of maternal death in low income countries as a whole was 1 in 49, compared to 1 in 5,300 in high-income countries; again, women in sub-Saharan Africa facing the highest lifetime risk (1 in 41), which is approximately 268 times higher than in Western Europe (1 in 11,000).

@remove box via A

The @american journal of maternal care? (AJMC) and Commonwealth Fund surveyed eleven “developed” nations in December, 2020... just before the full effects of the plague became notable... and determined that the United States had “the highest maternal mortality rate, a relative undersupply of maternity care providers, and (was) the only country not to guarantee access to provider home visits or paid parental leave in the postpartum period.” (Attachment Eight) Maternal deaths were found to be increasing in the United States since 2000, and although 700 pregnancy-related deaths occur each year, “two-thirds of these deaths are considered to be preventable,” according to the OECD and CDC.

But not for lack of (national) wealth. Compared with any other wealthy nation, the United States also spent the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care. The United States (and Canada) “have the lowest overall supply of midwives and obstetrician-gynecologists (OB-GYNs) — 12 and 15 providers per 1000 live births, respectively,” whereas all other countries have a supply that is between 2 and 6 times greater.

The role of midwives has been found to be comparable or preferable to physician-led care in terms of mother and baby outcomes and more efficient use of health care resources. WHO recommends midwives as an evidence-based approach to reducing maternal mortality, citing deliveries in the Netherlands and U.K.

Midwives differ from OB-GYNs in that they help manage a normal pregnancy, assist with childbirth, and provide care during the postpartum period. In contrast, OB-GYNs are physicians trained to identify issues and intervene should abnormal conditions arise. OB-GYNs typically only provide care in hospital-based settings and are, therefore, far more costly – either to the family or to the insurance company or government paying the bills. “Midwife services are not uniformly covered by private insurance plans in the United States, whereas both midwifery and obstetrician care services are covered by universal health insurance in some other countries.”

Moreover, the abortion controversy has impacted even those who choose to carry their pregnancies to term – inasmuch as, in some states, “appeals courts have ruled to end Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide a number of health services to low-income women, including pregnancy services such as postpartum care,” thus perversely (and enthusiastically) compelling some who would otherwise have and raise children to seek abortions.

Other impacted services include mental health (including infant homicides and maternal suicides), depression and breastfeeding dysfunction.

The Commonwealth Fund report also found that the United States “was the only high-income country that does not guarantee paid leave to mothers after childbirth. All other 10 countries guarantee at least a 14-week paid leave time from work while several provide more than a year of maternity leave.”

“Addressing systemic racism so that Black and Indigenous people are not at risk when they are pregnant is critical to reducing U.S. maternal mortality, while offering paid maternity leave to all birthing people would contribute to their health and the health of their babies, as well as strengthen the financial security of families,” wrote Laurie Zephyrin, MD, and Roosa Tikkanen of The Commonwealth Fund in STAT News.

WHO defines maternal death, also called maternal mortality, as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes." So defined, a Wikipedia ranking of the best and worst countries for maternal mortality finds that, incredibly, the dictatorship of Belarus ranks first. (Attachment Nine)

Some peanuts from the Quora Forum gallery attempted to explain why Belarus (Attachment Ten) outperformed the rest of the world... including the United States (one of the few nations that got worse in 2017 and worser still by 2020 – tumbling down the charts into a tie with Lebanon and Malaysia (and only slightly better than female-unfriendly Iran!).

“Belarus certainly has some problems but basic healthcare in that country (and that covers very well maternity and child health) is universal, inexpensive and paid for by taxation,” posted PR.

“Access to health care and good nutrition is very irregular in the US. A lot of women actually get no prenatal care because they simply cannot afford it.” (LM)

“Belarus has good healthcare system. We here in Ukraine go to Belarus for complex surgeries, such as transplantation.” (KY... in 2020, unfortunately, before the war)

“It’s not rocket science, it’s money.” (TK)

An earlier (2017) report by globaleconomy.com found Italy, Norway and Poland matching the Belarus MMR... the United States ranking an even lower 55^th, sandwiched between Ukraine and Russia. Here, other factors were included, including “fertility, birth attendants, and GDP measured using purchasing power parities (PPPs).” (Attachment Eleven, with link to a more detailed Economic outlook around the world.

Gender Equality (and the GII index)

The empowering of Church Police to regulate and enforce childbearing has not exactly had a similar revival in the realm of childrearing, nor maternal health, nor enhancing the status of women (as well as other “pariah” citizens of the wrong ethnic, religious or sexual preference status as well as families who have undergone divorce, incarceration or even those where a parent... usually the father but, increasingly, mothers... has a working schedule that requires him or her to be absent for along period of time. Hollywood actors on location may or may not deserve a lack of sympathy from the virtuous... perhaps the writers’ strike will enable some to enjoy, or at least experience, more down home time... but other absentees include busy, globe-trotting biznessfolk (with money to hire caregivers and takers) long-haul truck drivers (who, mostly, do not) and members of the military.

The World Population Review, of late, may have ruffled some feathers among Old Testament upholding owls, chickenhawks or Jim Crows by claiming that gender equality across categories including education, employment, health, politics, and economic participation is not only a cultural responsibility, but a necessary and crucial part of the healthiest, most optimized economies.

“Sustainable development goals and other economic targets are often unachievable if half of a country’s population is hampered by restricted opportunities. In order to improve gender equality, many governments are implementing policies that provide talent development, diversify the leadership pool, and provide support to families and caregivers of every gender,” they recommend, as introductory to the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI), most recently compiled by the World Economic Forum in 2021.a survey of 156 countries and territories around the world. (Attachment Twelve)

The top ten countries including the predictable Nordic nations (Iceland, again as Number One), but also a few wild cards such as Namibia (#6) and Rwanda (#7). The worst ten were all either Islamic Republics or other African nations where Allah holds full or partial sway... from Afghanistan #1 (or, rather, #156) to Saudi Arabia (#147).

The WPR indexed four categories of gender equality/inequality: health being one, the others being Economic Opportunity, Education and Political Power.

Despite the accession of Vice President Kamala Harris, the United States ranked low on the “political power” index – then again, 81 nations “have never had a female head of state.”

The plague was blamed for significant drop-offs in the “Economic Participation and Opportunity” category; WPR noting that females were “more likely to lose jobs as a result of the pandemic and slower to regain those jobs once pandemic-related restrictions were lifted.”

Overall, the United States’ Gender Equality Index (or Gender Inequality Index – GII) was 76.3%, a ranking of 31^st, ahead of the economically dis-equal Dutch, but slightly behind Putin-coveted Moldova. (As also customary, Afghanistan ranked worst in the world... but did, strangely, rank higher in women’s political power than not only most Islamic states but democracies like Greece and (sort of) Hungary as well as world powers Russia and China.

An earlier (2017) GII study, using slightly different criteria, but also incorporating the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), which was also introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report, “and can be interpreted as a percentage loss of human development due to shortcomings in the included dimensions.”

(See Attachment Thirteen for ORIGINS of the two measurements, DIMENSIONS (the 2017 GII encompassing reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation but not education) and the convoluted and somewhat confusing CALCULATIONS which the compilers admitted had corrected inequalities and errors in the 2010-2011 indices.)

“The GII is a complex indicator with many components that are difficult for some to interpret or calculate,” they added, so obsessives should beware.

“As there is no country with perfect gender equality,” the 2019 survey monkeys allowed, “all countries suffer some loss of human development due to gender inequality.” The difference in dimensions used in the GII and HDI meant that the GII was not interpreted as a loss of HDI, but had its own rank and value separate from the HDI – both figures being included in the WIKI rankings.

Switzerland and Norway, at that time, ranked Numbers One and Two in both (only the GII numerical tally was included), Iceland lagged behind in 9^th place (GII) but was fourth in the HDI. The United States, which tied for 46^th with Moldova in the GII, did rise to a more respectable 17^th in HDI. The then-semi-democratic Afghanistan was a few steps up from the bottom in those pre-Taliban days... Yemen ranked 162^nd and worst in the GII, Niger trailing at 189^th in the HDI.

Older rankings followed form, although South Korea joined the cold, white countries in both categories and Taiwain ranked among the top five in the GII in 2008 and 2012 before being excluded due to pressure from Communist China.

The OECD@ scolded its member countries to “step up efforts to boost gender equality: (Attachment Fourteen) and has published a manisto on the “disadvantages and barriers in most spheres of social and economic life” still faced by women and girls.

Policies advocated include “gender mainstreaming and budgeting, reforms to increase fathers’ involvement in parental leave and childcare, pay transparency initiatives to tackle gender pay gaps, and systems to address gender-based violence. It extends the perspective on gender equality to include foreign direct investment, nuclear energy and transport.”

These half a hundred wealthier-than-nations also published a data table for “Gender wage gap, Employees, Percentage, 2022 or latest available” which (without explaining what these numbers mean) situated the United States at the higher (or lower) regions of the spectrum. (We’ll try to find out more about what this means regarding the status of women, children and different sorts of families when and if possible.)

Back from the mysteries of think tank mathematics to the nuts and bolts and chocolate cherries of Mother’s Day, a rather unusual forum was convened by Oxfam, customarily known as a lobby for food production and distribution among the starving classes.

“In anticipation of Mother’s Day on May 14, we convened a group of women at Oxfam who have expertise around gender, care, and labor policies—as well as feelings about being a woman in the world today,” (Attachment Fifteen, May 12^th) a “fascinating and illuminating conversation about a holiday with deep, complicated, and emotional roots,” they promised.

Unfortunately, they did not include curricula vitae upon the participants, but Joneses who find a panelist’s remarks informative (or outrageous) can probably find more data on Google.

“I think it's fair to say that Mother's Day has become a weird cultural touch point for us all. I do like the history of Mother's Day in the US, which has to do with anti-militarism–but it has obviously mutated into something that's about commercialization...” (Mary Babic)

“I've been reading Caring for America, which is the history of federal funding for caregivers, and the creation of the home caregiving system. The ways in which home caregivers were excluded from federal policy is very aligned with the work that we're doing–but it also brings to mind the history of Mother's Day as honoring the sacrifice of women sending their sons to war...” (Kaitlyn Henderson)

But what does Mother's Day mean now? I see a lot of moms saying, for Mother's Day, I just want to get away from my family. I want a day off, I want to go to the spa. (Sarah Tuckey)

”The distinction between Mother's Day and Father's Day is fascinating; my daughter, now 21, often remarks when she sees a man with little kids, wondering that that’s still not the norm; it's moms who are constantly having the relationship with the little kids–either at home or even in a care facility; it's still a woman's role.” (Babic)

“As a kid, for Mother's Day, our gift would be... we will cook dinner, we will do the cleaning. And for Father's Day, it would be like we're going to do an activity.” (Henderson)

“...we don't talk about the suffering and the transformation of motherhood. We just highlight the good stuff in order to keep the society we want to keep.” (Tuckey)

“I've heard so much about people saying, especially for the birthing parent, that one of the big components of becoming a parent is losing your identity; you become subsumed into being a parent... (you) mourn the loss of who they were as they shift into this new person.” (Henderson)

There are obviously many proposed pieces (of) legislation that would fix a lot of these issues. For example, universal child care, and a more robust long term care system... (w)e had universal child care during World War Two; and at one point, Congress would have enacted universal child care, but it got vetoed by President Nixon. (Rebecca Rewald)

“...things like unemployment were built around a male breadwinner, Social Security was built around a male breadwinner. Minimum wages, everything you can imagine, was built with the framework of a nuclear household where there is a male breadwinner.” (Henderson)

“By creating these new systems we are undoing the patriarchal social decisions that were made in the past in a really productive way, and honoring the work of women that is so often erased or disrespected or undervalued. (Rewald)

“I would really love for us to really reframe a conversation around the respect for women who are the primary breadwinners–whether partnered or not, whether they have children or not.” (Henderson)

“A lot of what motherhood is like truly is suffering, on various levels. From my own experience, the moment you have a kid, you live two truths all the time. You have so much love for a tiny little thing, but also so much fear and so much sadness...” (Tuckey)

“I have friends who feel like it's a day that recognizes the societal pressure to reproduce. And the idea that if you do not do so as a woman, you are not fulfilling your purpose of existence.” (Henderson)

“...for generations, as our economy has industrialized and urbanized, it's all been built on the unit of a household where the kids are raised, and the elderly are cared for, and the labor is completely uncompensated. And that is the bedrock that the whole machine runs on–they make more workers, and the workers go to work, but it’s unrecognized and unpaid. (Babic)

“(And) (i)t's interesting thinking about whose motherhood has been respected in this country... motherhood was never respected for Black women, despite the fact that enslaved status followed the status of the mothers. You know, it was like motherhood was used against Black women for such a long time... (a)nd in which communities is the maternal mortality rate the highest? and the infant mortality rate the highest?” (Henderson)

“Even the act of mothering has become a privilege because you have the time and resources to do it. So many women have given birth and have children, but they don't actually get to be mothers in the fullest sense because of all of these other burdens that they have on them... So there's a lot to question about Mother's Day and what we're actually celebrating. (Rewald)

“I have the privilege of being able to reset myself so that when my family comes home at the end of the day, I can be the best mother I can be.” (Tucker)

“(W)hat if we lived in a society where one parent could make enough money to sustain a family of four? Then, one of the parents could stay home if they wanted to take care of their kids. (Rewald)

“To talk a little bit about our work at Oxfam, it’s shocking to me that our country does not guarantee paid leave after you give birth. It splits your body in two. It completely changes your body. It takes months to recover...” (Babic)

“It was really stark in the early days. I firmly believe this country needs to give the people who go through the act of carrying and then birthing a child at least six months off from everything.” (Tuckey)

“...that's particularly ironic with the abortion stuff, right? They've made it harder for you not to give birth, but it's still really hard to actually be a mother in the sense of taking care of your kids, spending time with them, right? (Rewald)

“Do any of you want to address Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent comment about who is a mother? She was talking to a stepmother–Randi Weingarten, president of the teachers’ union–and Greene said the only person who is a mother is the one who gave birth. (Babic)

And speak of the Devil(ess)... up jumped MTG with her latest proposal to solve gender issues, abortion, icky gay people and uppity minorities: split up America between the red states and the blue states. And if the leftouts in either America complain, well, let’s just start a second Civil War!

Vociferating on the Sean Hannity show on Fox, Greene personally claimed that she didn’t want a civil war, “...but that the country was moving towards one and action needs to be taken.”

As if borrowing K-Mac’s lingo from the concurrent and conjugal debt ceiling crisis, MTG proclaimed that: "The last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war. No one wants that — at least everyone I know would never want that — but it's going that direction, and we have to do something about it," she said.

We got another Janet Yellin here! (Business Insider, Attachment Sixteen)

Posting to Twitter back on Presidents’ Day, she had rationalized the proposal as a “national divorce”, describing her plan as “"a legal agreement to separate our ideological and political disagreements by states while maintaining our legal union."

Howsoever tempting it may be to a baffled and beleaguered Deep State searching for a way out of its debt crisis, few Democrats concurred with MTG and even some Republicans like Utah Governor Spencer Cox called the plan “destructive and wrong and—honestly—evil."

"We don't need a divorce,” he proposed, instead, “we need marriage counseling,"

And the B.I. also included a slight update upon another MAGAminx, Lauren Boebert, who once told women in rocky marriages that they just need to start 'chasing Jesus' to solve their marital issues. Now she's getting divorced.

Among the provisions of the North Carolina veto override, one has been hailed (albeit in whispers) by feminists and liberals... the obligation of working fathers to either take care of, at least, pay child support payments to the mother of a fetus which they would otherwise have supported aborting. (If paternity, however, can be proven and the deserting parent located and sanctioned... the legal complications will be significant and – perhaps as a posthumous tribute to Jerry Springer or the assorted paternity court “reality” shows populating dayting television – and vexing.) The ranks of working single mothers are already high and... should House Speaker Kevin Mac’s “red line” ultimatum (below)to either compel recipients of the various forms of financial aid now in effect... welfare, food stamps, HUD subsidies and the like... to work for their charity or let the economy debt ceiling collapse and crash... there will be many, many more of them.

Childcare (and its cost) will become at issue here if any debt ceiling compromise honors K-Mac’s red line.

The circumstances, among women in poor nations and within the lower income strata of better off, predominantly Western countries like the United States, are... to use the buzzword of the media at the moment... dire.

As on most other issues of import as to the future of Don Jones, Dawn Jones and all the little American Joneses (born or yet unborn) the blue state liberals and Democrats have been weak and wishy-washy or obsessed with symbolic nomenclature and trivia which red state conservatives (MAGA or not) are happy to foster as potentially swaying the undecided, but disgusted, swamp of moderates to their faction. Finding hate, distraction and aggression to be a winning formula, they find themselves facing a Presidential contest between former President Donald Trump, just being himself, and others (notably yet-undeclared Florida Governor Ron DeSantis) trying to out-Trump the Trumpster and poach the ivory tusks off what would, but for the determination of the tiny “woke” blue belles, be a dead elephant in November, 2024, with a corresponding hardening of partisanship that has led to calls from some (like good ol’ MTC – Above) to restart a Second Civil War... this time within, as well as between... the national, state and local partisans.

While embattled conservatives like Trump and his McCarthy-ite copycat George Santos are busily proclaiming themselves to be broomstick-riding victims of liberal witch-hunters (the victim mentality being both objective, obsessive reality and subjective indicator of the failings of democracy in America, if not the West) the MAGAbase (itself failing to see the hypocrisy of the inter-party partisanship) is counting on the Left to do what it does best... self-destruct or compromise away its principles. The resolution, if any, of the debt ceiling crisis (now being covered extensively in the media) may be proof of the porridge, especially if the hostage takers can win concessions like cutting Social Security and Medicare.

The world, and politics, are full of unintended consequences. Zealots might have cause to ponder the jubilation, then jaundice, then opposition of Anna Jarvis in that Time-piece by Olivia Waxman ( Above and Attachment Two) entitled “The Surprisingly Sad Origins of Mother's Day” as closes like this...

“Antolini believes that fighting with other people for full credit for starting Mother’s Day was a key factor in Jarvis’ “bitter ending”... to end up “broke, blind, and in a sanitarium.”

She died in 1948, and was buried next to her mother.

UPDATES, this morning...

Nebraska banned the procedure, but it was a wimpy ban, only effective after twelve weeks and with provisions for rape, interest and the mother’s health. Eight women in Texas have sued over that state’s more extreme anti-abortion stance which does not account for rape, incest or the mother’s health; one woman reporting she had to travel to Colorado to abort an anencephalitic fetus (that would have been born without a brain). Perhaps a future Congressman?

	May 15 – May 21, 2023
Monday, May 15, 2023 Dow: 33,39.60	Mother’s Day has come and gone, and now it’s National Police Week. Beau Wilson of Farmington, NM doesn’t respect either women or police officers or, in fact, anybody; shooting 9 people (including two cops) and killing three (including a 97 year old woman) totally randomly before the boys in blue gun him down and save New Mexicans the expense of a trial. (Subsequent investigation reveal that he @ ). Blue boxes, on the other hand, aren’t getting much respect either – being routinely broken open and mail stolen by organized criminals; the disorganized, going postal, committing armed robberies and the occasional murder of mail carriers. (Authorities are posting and broadcasting warnings about “washings” – checks made out to deserving parties having the names and amounts “washed” clear with common household chemicals, then filled in by the thieves.) Border crisis not as “dire” as expected with daily crossings down from 6,200 to 4,200 but Gov. Abbott (R-Tx) continues busing the unwanted into blue states and cities, with Denver the newest destination. New York converts the “iconic” Roosevelt Hotel into a shelter for the lucky; the unlucky are to be housed in school gymnasiums sparking outrage among frightened parents. Angry bat-wielding constituent breaks into the home of Rep. Gerry Connelley (D-Va) with an alleged bomb, but is subdued by the police. The batman is said to have a history of mental illness, as does Mister Wilson (above). Eighth horse dies at Churchill Downs, no suspects nor motive discovered.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 Dow: 33,012.14	It’s National Barbecue Day. President Joe, preparing to go for the sushi in Japan with the G-7, finally meets with Speaker Kevin Mac and some others – calling the meeting “productive”. K-Mac scoffs, reiterates his demand for spending cuts as Americans’ credit card debt (see below) approaches one trillion – up 19.2% this year and engendering a whole new bucket of scams and 150 corporate CEOs beg the politicians to settle. Ukraine continues routing the Russian invaders with the help of American Patriot missiles which shoot down 25 of Putin’s incoming “raining down” on Kyev, including more of their “invincible” hypersonics. President Zelenskyy’s European Vacation garners support from Germany and, not to be left out, France and the U.K. Sources call the Russian defeat and retreat from Bahkmut “bitter”. Barack Obama goes on CBS and says his family life is better than the Presidency. And then he becomes one of five hundred Americans banned from entering Russia. Even better, not bitter. Virginia’s batman, meanwhile, is indicted for attempting to batter Congressman Connelly with his bat while, in caves across America, chiropterologists warn that millions of bats are dying of bat fungus – which augurs a summer plague of mosquitoes and the plagues that they carry.
Wednesday, May 17, 2023 Dow: 33,420.77	Off to Japan goes President Joe after dirtying up his “clean” debt ceiling bill a little, evoking weak statements from K-Mac that a solution is now “possible”. Biden also cancels his side trips to New Guinea and Australia as the Speaker redraws his “red line”, still insisting that assorted recipients of Federal aid work for their handouts, details still foggy. Social Security for the over-90 crowd? Cancer patients on Medicare? America waits for Joe’s return and more developments. Home Depot reports first quarter losses. Home invader targets National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and the Secret Service investigates the utter lack of security. “Reckless” paparazzi chase Harry and Meghan throught the streets of New York in a chase reminiscent of that which killed Princess Di. Harry accuses persons unnamed of trying to kill them. No arrests. Strange criminal arrested after stealing the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland. Cannes Film Festival begins and Americn producers announce a Golden Bachelor show for the elderly aspirants. Idiots are displaying their paychecks and bill statements on TikTok – except in Montana, the first state to ban the Chinese company... for everybody!
Thursday, May 18, 2023 Dow: 33,535.91	Montana becomes the first state to ban Tik Tok, for everyone. A First Amendment legal tussle is expected. Fines and jail terms are mandated for promoters, influencers and the such, but the government is careful to say that 9 year old obsessive watchers of funny video clips will not be prosecuted, even if they are consuming Communist China propaganda. Other state legislatures and judiciaries are buy with other bans and prohibitions and laws. Texas makes vaguely worded “medical care” for transgenders illegal (the “Let ‘em die!” bill). South Carolina does their neighbors to the north by criminalizing abortion after six weeks. Walgreens pays a $250M settlement in San Francisco for opioid prescriptions while Deutsche Bank settles with Jeffrey Epstein victims for a bargain $35M. And one for defendants – SCOTUS unanimously rules that social media sites are not responsible for crime committed by their users. And there are new news flashes in old cases... Elizabeth (Theranos) Holmes loses her last appeal and must report to prison on May 30^th. No bail for leaker Jack Texiera, indictments for bride-killing drunk driver and Farmington NM mass shooter, as well as for Fentanyl Mom, who poisoned hubby then wrote a book about grief for children. NYPD blames Meg and Harry for inciting paparazzi to reckless pursuit because... well... they ar Meg and Harry.
Friday, May 19, 2023 Dow: 33,426.83	President Joe in Japan where he talks the talk with the G-7 and will meet with a wandering President Z., also there to secure a deal to have Ukrainian pilots trained on F-16 fighter jets, to be supplied later, maybe. It’s a pivot for the President, but he holds firm on the debt ceiling and honors three sisters... 100, 97 and 96... who survived Hiroshima. Their recipe for longevity: “Eat rice.” Back in the USA, Republican Congressthings are holding firm too, as default “looms”... some even upping their demand, in line with Donald Trump’s appeal to the base that default is a good thing. New York City pivots too... their plan to house migrants bused in from Texas in school gymnasiums so outrages parents that Mayor Adam quickly relocates them to the “historic” Midtown Hotel, which joins the “iconic” Roosevelt as a shelter. And Alabama pivots on legislation to ban the Chinese government from owning real estate, eliminating the ban on Chinese people owning property – whereupon the bill passes, 26-7. And SCOTUS votes 7-2 to convict (dead) Andy Warhol of plagiarizing photographers of (dead) Prince. And Trump gets another Republican challenger for 2024... not the anticipated Saint Ron, but Tim Scott (the black Senator from South Carolina, not Rick Scott, the cut Social Security and Medicare Senator from Florida).
Saturday, May 20th, 2023 Dow: (Closed)	President Joe, still in Japan, having postponed his meetings with the Asia-Pacific leaders but adding a surprise confab with Ukraine’s President Z, is accused by K-Mac of strengthening his opposition to any spending cuts, thereby “crushing” any hopes to avoid a default which, the Speaker insists, either happens over the weekend or not at all. (He also insinuates that Biden is either planning, or should plan to remain in Tokyo forever and not to return to an America which will blame him for the “looming” default. Also in Japan, Zelenskyy predicts “peace will come” but celebrates, nonetheless, as Biden pivots on his denial of F-16 figher jets, agreeing to at least begin training for Ukrainian pilots (a process that will take several months). And, on or about Mother’s Day, one migrant mom blames America for dening medical care for her dying eight year old, while one American mom is accused of leaving her baby in a plastic bag to die in the woods and a father, getting into the act, kills Mommy in New Jersey on Mother’s Day. NASA contracts with Blue Origin to develop lunar landing gear for the proposed moonshot. Back on Earth, the busiest air travel day of the year (Memorial Day) finds the airlines struggling with shortages of pilots and support staff as well as escalating violence from psychotic parents and violent weather including a volcano in Mexico and heavy rains that provoke delays and cancellations. Park managers and rangers also warn that more rain leads to more rattlesnakes.
Sunday, May 14th, 2023 Dow: (Closed)	On his last day in Japan, President Joe embraces President Z. and showers him with $325M in weaponry including tanks, guns, ammo and promises to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s, to be provided later as Russia declares victory in conquering Bakhmut’s rubble while Biden agrees to meet K-Mac when back tomorrow Freedom caucus renews calls to slash or eliminated social security and Medicare, “progressives” call for higher taxes on billionaires and Janet Planet renews “dire” default warnings. At home, challengers Tim Scott declares and St. Ron aims for Wednesday; Nikki Haley welcomes both and says “we’ll be waiting” while more polls show Trump easily winning the primary and election. In Belfast, the Catholic Sinn Fein wins legislative control. Partisans hit the Sunday talkshows – DeSantis saying polls lie and Trump can’t win restoration, liberals cite Republican conspiracy to win in 2024 by defaulting, crashing the economy and blaming Biden. CBS accuses the Pentagon of inflating said economy by gouging on domestic and Ukraine-bound military hardware. Hiroshima survivors condemn all wars while Uvalde nears its first annivsary amidst duelling gun controllers and mental health reformers.
Debt ceiling be damned – the Dow and Don were up for the week, mostly as a consequence of the new foreign trade numbers showing that the U.S.A. exported more and imported less by a widely significant margin (perhaps edging into the area of statistical overreach as our trade deficit sinks back towards zero. Less visible but perhaps more timely – government revenues experienced a rare decline while spending has slowed, but not enough to mollify MAGA Congressthings; not to mention the new military expenditures that will go to Ukraine. A note: if default that results in bounced checks for seniors, gumment contractors (not necessarily a bad thing, according to growing media reports of Pentagon gouging), for pensions (including V.A. payments) and for soldiers in the field... that will be an especially bad thing, with the added humiliation of occurrence over Memorial Day weekend. (Thanks for your service, here’s an IOU!) And the bottom 90% of the Joneses facing not only increased mortgage bills but potential job losses and safety net shreddings will have to petition the Lords of Phynance with prayers that some version of the plague moratorium on foreclosures and evictions can be approved (despite inklings that the Freedom Caucus may be scheming to engender massive malaise and hatred of President Joe in advance of 2024 by tossing millions out onto the street so as to confiscate their homes and sell them off to a few well-connected speculators and rent the habitable apartments out as AIR BnBs to... well that’s a problem, because if default does occur, most foreigners will be losing money too...

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

See a further explanation of categories here…

ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

CATEGORY	VALUE	BASE	RESULTS			SCORE		OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS
INCOME	(24%)	6/17/13 & 1/1/22	LAST	CHANGE	NEXT	LAST WEEK	THIS WEEK
Wages (hrly. Per cap)	9%	1350 points	5/15/23	+0.42%	6/23	1,434.50	1,434.50	https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   28.62 nc
Median Inc. (yearly)	4%	600	5/15/23	+0.02%	5/29/23	607.53	607.65	http://www.usdebtclock.org/   35,850
Unempl. (BLS – in mi)	4%	600	5/8/23	+2.94%	6/23	670.92	670.92	http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/  3.4
Official (DC – in mi)	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.02%	5/29/23	275.06	275.11	http://www.usdebtclock.org/      5,788
Unofficl. (DC – in mi)	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.04%	5/29/23	285.17	285.30	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    11,211
Workforce Particip. Number Percent	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.022% +0.006%	5/29/23	303.17	303.19	In 161,880 Out 99,694 Total: 261,574 http://www.usdebtclock.org/  61.886
WP % (ycharts)*	1%	150	2/27/23	+0.16%	5/23	151.19	151.19	https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.60 nc
OUTGO	15%	Biggest jump: used cars
Total Inflation	7%	1050	4/17/23	+0.4%	6/23	995.88	991.90	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.4
Food	2%	300	4/17/23	nc	6/23	278.78	278.78	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0 0
Gasoline	2%	300	4/17/23	+3.0%	6/23	254.40	246.77	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm    +3.0
Medical Costs	2%	300	4/17/23	-0.1%	6/23	296.37	296.67	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     -0.1
Shelter	2%	300	4/17/23	+0.4%	6/23	279.37	278,25	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm    +0.4
WEALTH	6%
Dow Jones Index	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.38%	5/29/23	273.65	274.69	https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 33,426.63
Home (Sales) (Valuation)	1% 1%	150 150	5/1/23	-3.60% +3.49%	6/23	139.61 273.83	134.58 283.40	https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M):  4.28 Valuations (K):  388.8
Debt (Personal)	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.064%	5/29/23	275.34	275.16	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    73,937
NATIONAL	(10%)
Revenue (trilns.)	2%	300	5/15/23	-0.68%	5/29/23	384.68	382.05	debtclock.org/       4,614.5 4,583
Expenditures (tr.)	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.02%	5/29/23	339.53	339.47	debtclock.org/       6,041 042
National Debt tr.)	3%	450	5/15/23	+0.145%	5/29/23	425.23	424.61	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    31,749 795 (The debt ceiling was 31.4)
Aggregate Debt (tr.)	3%	450	5/15/23	+0.07%	5/29/23	419.72	419.43	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    96,180 246
GLOBAL	(5%)
Foreign Debt (tr.)	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.055%	5/29/23	343.85	344.05	http://www.usdebtclock.org/   7,287 283
Exports (in billions)	1%	150	4/24/23	+1.99%	6/23	156.02	159.13	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 251.2 256.2
Imports (bl.)	1%	150	4/24/23	+0.41%	6/23	169.79	170.48	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 321.7 320.4
Trade Deficit (bl.)	1%	150	4/24/23	-9.81%	6/23	281.03	308.61	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 70.5 64.2
SOCIAL INDICES (40%)
ACTS of MAN	12%							+1965
World Affairs	3%	450	5/15/23	+0.2%	5/29/23	449.92	450.82	G-7 (formerly G-8 before Russian expulsion) leaders hail Zelenskyy, talk the talk and eat the sushi in Japan. “America’s Children Act” lobbies for “documented dreamers” being allowed to stay in America. (But “America – US” or the Americas?) Republican-linked Sinn Fein wins Northern Irish elections.
Terrorism	2%	300	5/15/23	+0.4%	5/29/23	288.72	289.87	CIA reportedly sending videos to anti-Putin dissidents in Russia, urging them to revolt. Rotsa ruck! Saboteurs are blowing up military and secret apps within Russia.
Politics	3%	450	5/15/23	+0.2%	5/29/23	472.08	473.02	Turkish semi-dictator Erdogan faces Presidential runoff election while former President Obama expresses relief that he’s out of office and can devote more time to his family. John Durham, Trump-appointed prober, calls Steele dossier more Deep State hate. Sen. Tim Scott (R-NC) joins 2024 field; DeSantis on hold as he escalates Disney feud, motivating the Mouse to cancel billion dollar project and its 2,000 jobs and just plain shutter its $5.000/night space theme hotel because people aren’t quite that stupid.
Economics	3%	450	5/15/23	-0.2%	5/29/23	430.91	430.05	Don Jones’ credit card debt, approaching One Trillion dollars, is up 19% and engendering scams ranging from check washing to fake financial online advice social media, not all from Nigerian princes. Bankruptcy fingers Vice Media and Buzzfeed. Home Depot wobbling after bad Q1. Target loses 763M to shoplifters who force closing of Office Depot and Whole Foods franchises. But online and casino gambling enjoy record profits. Biggest home price drop in decades is cancelled out by inflated mortgage rates.
Crime	1%	150	5/15/23	-0.1%	5/29/23	259.17	258.91	Home invader avoids secret service security and breaks into home of National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Strange criminal busted for stealing the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland. Ordinary criminals kill 10 year old in D.C., drunk truck driver kills seven in Oregon.
ACTS of GOD	(6%)
Environment/Weather	3%	450	5/15/23	-0.1%	5/29/23	415.17	414.75	Heavy rains in Italy ruining wine prospects and flooding Bologna, wildfires in Alberta, Canada, send smoke south from Rockies to New England. Sierra snow expected to delight skiers until the Fourth of July while Bakersfield bakes at 102°; ten die as freezing temperatures plague Northeast.
Disasters	3%	450	5/15/23	-0.4%	5/29/23	440.76	439.00	Hot air balloon crashes in Virginia. No Chinese spies jump out. Little leaguer falls out of bunk bed, breaks skull, parents consulting lawyers. Volcanos strike Mexico and Mt. Etna, Italy’ 7.7 EQ causes tsunamis menacing Pacific islands. 12 killed, many more injured in Salvadoran soccer stampede.
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX			(15%)
Science, Tech, Educ.	4%	600	5/15/23	+0.1%	5/29/23	624.10	624.72	Florida’s robocallers targeted by FCC, to much applause. Florida’s Gov. Ron fires a gaggle of liberal college professors. AI scientists speculate on technology and political ads. Idiots displaying their paychecks and banking info for fun on Tik Tok make banning it redundant – Montana’s “penalties for users” dilemma being self-explanatory.
Equality (econ/social)	4%	600	5/15/23	+0.5%	5/29/23	611.18	614,24	Jacksonville elects first female Mayor, first female Commander steers Space X tourist flight to ISS. Martha Stewart strikes a blow for the elderly by appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition and “Bachelor” franchise planning a “Golden Bachelor” spinoff. Alabama legislature takes up bill to ban all Chinese from owning any property in the state, but has to amend it to specify Chinese government agents (in blimps?) to get it passed 26-7.
Health	4%	600	5/15/23	-0.2%	5/29/23	469.68	468.74	Author Cristy Harrison (The Wellness Trap) says sugary juices will KILL YOU! as will artificial sweeteners (W.H.O.), while tainted eyedrops kill four and blind many more and schools are banning evil chocolate milk. Wanna be safe? Elderly Hiroshima survivors (above) counsel: “Eat Rice!” 620K Arc airbags (mostly Fords) recalled for “exploding and spraying shrapnel” and GM recalls 670K for unsafe car seats. But Target takes the trophy, burning five million candles that burn customers.
Freedom and Justice	3%	450	5/15/23	nc	5/29/23	463.14	463.14	With crime rampant, DA in ultra-liberal SF chooses not to prosecute a security guard at Walgreen’s who kills an armed robber, outraging pro-crime lobby. Michael Jackson impersonator gets funeral sendoff from Al Sharpto as family calls for vengeance upon vigilante strangler who denies he’s a white supremecist. Companies settling various lawsuits include Wells Fargo and Marriott Hotels (excessive fees), Deutsche Bank (for Jeff Epstein link) and SCOTUS finds (dead) Andy Warhol plaigerized (dead) Prince.
MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX					(7%)
Cultural incidents	3%	450	5/15/23	+0.3%	5/29/23	491.45	492.92	Cannes filmfest opens with tribute to Michael Douglas. Among movies that will never play Cannes, Guardians rule galactic B.O. but face competition from a summer of sequels and mashups (Batman and Flash, @ and @, Little Mermaid II (cartoon to live action), Spiderverse (live action to cartoon), Indiana Jones III, Top Gun III, Fast and Furious X, etc. etc. Striking Writers’ Guild says it will not picket the Tonys. Underdogs Denver (leading Lebron and LA) and Miami (leading Boston) rattle NBS semis, Britney Griner returns to WNBA, National Treasure wins the Preakess after stablemate euthanized. RIP rassler Billy Graham, triple threat (NFL, actor, activist) James Brown, Andy Work@, Smiths bassist, former Rep. Marion Berry (@-Ar).
Misc. incidents	4%	450	5/15/23	+0.2%	5/29/23	479.27	480.23	Long delays in passport processing infuriate travelers. “Reckless” paparazzi chase Harry and Megan in NYC. Harry compares them to his mother’s killer; NYPD says its their fault for being famous. Oscar Meyer “Wienermobile” renamed “Frankmobile” (drawing comparisons to “@”, the monster and the Pope!). Four shot in bad biker bar brawl, but good bikers hit the road to raise money for charity.

The Don Jones Index for the week of May 15^th through May 21^st, 2023 was UP 24.51 points

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

ATTACHMENT ONE – From the Old Farmer’s almanac

THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF MOTHER'S DAY

How Mother's Day Became a Holiday

By Heidi Stonehill May 4, 2023

Mother’s Day actually began as a women’s movement to better the lives of Americans. Its forgotten origins spring from two lifelong activists who championed efforts toward better health, welfare, and peace. Know your Mother’s Day history—and get inspired. 

WHO INVENTED MOTHER’S DAY?

The creation of a national Mother’s Day is primarily attributed to three women: Ann Reeves Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe, and Ann’s daughter, Anna M. Jarvis.

Ann Reeves Jarvis

Known as “Mother Jarvis,” Ann Reeves Jarvis was a young Appalachian homemaker who taught Sunday school lessons. She also was a lifelong activist who, in the mid-1800s, had organized “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in West Virginia to combat unsanitary living conditions. Reeves Jarvis was concerned about the high infant mortality rate, especially pervasive in Appalachia, and wanted to educate and help mothers who needed it the most.

During the Civil War, Mother Jarvis had also organized women’s brigades, encouraging women to help without regard for which side their men had chosen. After the war, she proposed a Mothers’ Friendship Day to promote peace between former Union and Confederate families.

Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe was a famous poet and reformer. During the Civil War, she volunteered for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, helping them to provide hygienic environments for hospitals and to ensure sanitary conditions during the care of sick and wounded soldiers. In 1861, she authored the famous Civil War anthem, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which was first published in February 1862.

Around 1870, Julia Ward Howe called for a “Mother’s Day for Peace” dedicated to the celebration of peace and the eradication of war. As expressed in what is called her “Mother’s Day Proclamation” from 1870, Howe felt that mothers should gather to prevent the cruelty of war and the waste of life since mothers of mankind alone bear and know the cost.

Howe’s version of Mother’s Day was held in Boston and other locations for about 30 years, but died a quick death in the years preceding World War I.

Nothing new happened in this department until 1907, when Miss Anna M. Jarvis, of Philadelphia, took up the banner.

Anna M. Jarvis

After her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died in 1905, Miss Anna Jarvis from Philadelphia wished to memorialize her mother’s life and started campaigning for a national day to honor all mothers. “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life,” Ann Jarvis once said. “She is entitled to it.”

Anna’s ideas were less about public service and more about simply honoring the role of motherhood and the sacrifices made in the home. She bombarded public figures and various civic organizations with telegrams, letters, and in-person discussions. She addressed groups large and small. At her own expense, she wrote, printed, and distributed booklets extolling her idea.

Why Mother’s Day in the U.S. is in May

In May of 1907, Anna memorialized her mother’s lifelong activism with a memorial service held at the Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, where Anna’s mother had taught. The following year, on May 10, a Mother’s Day service was held at that same church to acknowledge all mothers. Thus was born the idea that the second Sunday in May, be set aside to honor every mother, whether living or deceased.

Her efforts came to the attention of the mayor of Philadelphia, who proclaimed a local Mother’s Day. From the local level, she went on to Washington, D.C. The politicians there knew a good thing when they saw it and were quick to lend verbal support.

While West Virginia was the first state to officially adopt the holiday, others followed suit. Proclamation of the day by the various states led Representative J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama and Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas to present a joint resolution to Congress that Mother’s Day be observed nationwide. The resolution was passed by both houses.

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill designating the second Sunday in May as a legal holiday to be called “Mother’s Day”—dedicated “to the best mother in the world, your mother.” For the first few years, the day was observed as a legal holiday, but in absolute simplicity and reverence—church services were held in honor of all mothers, living and dead.

A Bittersweet Legacy

According to many sources, Anna simply wanted to honor her mother, claiming that her mother was the originator of the real Mother’s Day.  As the holiday went mainstream, she was dismayed to see it become more commercialized with the sending of greeting cards and flowers; she also didn’t even want the holiday promoted by women’s organizations, charitable foundations, or public health reformers to raise money—somewhat ironic considering her mother’s public health mission. In 1948, Anna Jarvis died in a sanitarium in a state of dementia.

Mother’s Day Today

Mother’s Day endures and evolves. Just as Mother’s Day was the creation of multiple women, the modern Mother’s Day celebrates the varied roles of mothers today. We commemorate the many ways mothers have fought to better the lives of their children, from social welfare to non-violence. We also honor the way mothers have raised and nurtured their children with love and courage.

ATTACHMENT TWO – From Time

THE SURPRISINGLY SAD ORIGINS OF MOTHER'S DAY

BY OLIVIA B. WAXMAN UPDATED: APRIL 25, 2018 12:28 PM EDT | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: MAY 11, 2017 12:00 PM EDT

Perhaps it’s appropriate that the day on which Americans celebrate mothers has an odd set of parents: President Woodrow Wilson is usually seen as the “father” of Mother’s Day — for signing a proclamation on May 9, 1914, declaring the second Sunday of May “a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country” — while copywriter Anna Jarvis is usually seen as the “mother” of Mother’s Day, for creating the movement that led to the proclamation.

It was on May 10, 1908, that Jarvis sent 500 white carnations to Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in her hometown of Grafton, W.Va., in honor of her late mother Ann. That date, on which she also held a celebration in Philadelphia, where she lived at the time, is considered to be America’s first Mother’s Day celebration. In 2018, Mother’s Day will be marked on Sunday, May 13.

But Jarvis wasn’t the only person to try to start a holiday dedicated to mothers.

One notable person who might also have a claim to that fame: Jarvis’ own mother, had come up with such an idea in the mid-19th century. Her vision for Mother’s Day, however, looked very different from the gift-centric holiday of modern times.

It’s not that Anna Jarvis concealed the fact that she got the idea from her mother. As she spread the word about the holiday, she always traced it back to the moment when, in 1876, she heard her mother recite the following prayer after teaching a Sunday School lesson: “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life.” When her mother died in 1905, she vowed to fulfill that dream.

But what the elder Jarvis had probably had in mind was something different than what her daughter eventually brought to reality. Evidence suggests that the original idea was for a “Mothers’ Day” — a day for mothers, plural, not a day for one’s own mother — on which mothers would get together for a day of service to help out other mothers who were less fortunate than they were, according to Katharine Lane Antolini, an assistant professor of history and gender studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College and author of Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for the Control of Mother’s Day.

Why would the elder Jarvis have focused her idea for a commemoration of motherhood on this idea of community service? The reason was a tragic one.

Her experience of motherhood had been infused with sadness. Of the 13 children that she bore, only four lived to adulthood. Her story was not uncommon; an estimated 15 to 30% of infants in that Appalachian region died before their first birthday throughout the 19th and early 20th century, largely due to epidemics that were spread by poor sanitary conditions, according to Antolini’s book. In 1858, while she was pregnant for the sixth time, Jarvis enlisted the help of her brother Dr. James Reeves, who was involved in treating victims of the typhoid fever epidemic, to try to improve the situation. They organized events at which doctors were invited to lead discussions with local mothers on the latest hygiene practices that could keep their children healthy. They called the events Mothers’ Day Work Clubs.

Bottom of Form

But when it came time for Jarvis to lead the charge for a national day for mothers, she left behind that idea of educating mothers. Perhaps it was because she was not a mother herself, Antolini suggests, and thus, “she couldn’t be a leader for a holiday that encourages mothers to be socially active.”

In addition, she may have thought a more uplifting tone would be easier to market broadly. “She didn’t want it to be turned into a beggars’ day,” says Antolini. “She thought even poor mothers were rich if they had their kids’ love.”

As the popularity of the holiday spread, several other people came forward to claim they had been the first to start celebrating mothers.

For example, around the same time Ann Jarvis started Mother’s Day Work Clubs to stop babies from dying prematurely, “Battle Hymn of the Republic” writer Julia Ward Howe had started a “Mother’s Peace Day,” inspired by the Civil War and subsequent Franco-Prussian War, on which mothers supported antiwar efforts so that their sons wouldn’t die prematurely. And city leaders of Henderson, Ky., argued that Mary Towels Sasseen should get credit for starting a day to honor mothers all the way back in 1887, at which point Sasseen was a 24-year-old school principal. She would even curate a book of songs, poems and readings for schools that wanted to organize tributes to mothers. And if you asked the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the organization would say Mother’s Day started in 1904 with its member Frank Hering, a football coach and Notre Dame faculty member, who required students to write a note to their mothers once a month.

Antolini notes that some historians also point out the paradoxical timing of Jarvis’ version of Mother’s Day taking hold at the beginning of the 20th century: people had been talking about the idea for decades, but the holiday got national attention just at a time when more women were beginning to get jobs outside the home, and some experts see the embrace of a celebration of motherhood as a backlash against that change.

In any case, when it came to championing the idea, Jarvis proved that she definitely deserved the credit. Her advertising background probably helped, Antolini argues. By 1912, she had quit her job in the industry and started Mother’s Day International Association. Partnerships with florists and a successful letter-writing campaign to state governors helped the holiday get recognized at the state and eventually federal level.

And for someone who started such a happy day, her life ended in a sad way. Her Mother’s Day campaign was funded primarily by her inheritance, and she came to resent the the fact that florists and candy makers were making lots of money from the idea without crediting her. Jarvis came to feel that the day was being used as “a means of profiteering,” as the New York Times reported on May 18, 1923.

Antolini believes that fighting with other people for full credit for starting Mother’s Day was a key factor in Jarvis eventually ending up “broke, blind, and in a sanitarium.”

She died in 1948, and was buried next to her mother.

ATTACHMENT THREE – From Slate

AMERICA’S MOTHERS ARE SUCKERS. AND I SAY THAT WITH LOVE.

Mother’s Day is a celebration that inspires its purported honorees to reflect on the very nature of a consolation prize.

BY TESS WILKINSON-RYAN MAY 14, 2023 5:45 AM

In 1948, Anna Jarvis died in a sanitarium in Pennsylvania after a long and fruitless campaign to excise Mother’s Day from the American calendar. She had in fact founded Mother’s Day herself four decades earlier, even convincing President Woodrow Wilson to officially proclaim a national observance on the second Sunday of every May. Soon after that success, a dismayed Jarvis began to lobby against what she saw as the deep betrayal of commercialization. “The telegraph companies with their ready-made greetings, the florists with their high-pressure campaigns and the awful prices, and the candy manufacturers and greeting card manufacturers have made a lucrative racket out of my ideas,” she complained, furious that Americans were placating their mothers with chocolates instead of respect.

I have been a mother since 2007, but for the first 13 years of parenthood, my husband and I mostly abided by what I thought of as our mutual nonproliferation treaty with respect to parent holidays. May 2020 was different. I gathered my family (I mean, gathered was our default mode at the time, but I at least made everyone look up from their screens) and announced that Mother’s Day was back on the family calendar, and I expected some fuss to be expended. We were all home, worried and tetchy; the social contract had been breached and it really felt like moms had been left holding the bag. The pandemic laid bare an American predicament: When a society insists that caring is for suckers, someone has to play the fool. Or, as a headline in the New York Times put it: In an emergency, “Americans Turned to Their Usual Backup Plan: Mothers.”

Four years after Anna Jarvis died, sociologist Erving Goffman published a short essay on rackets that she might have liked. It had a killer title, too: “On Cooling the Mark Out.” In a criminal enterprise, he explained, one guy has to be a “cooler,” the person whose job it is to convince the victims of scams or extortions that they should not put up a fuss. “In the terminology of the trade, the mark may squawk, beef, or come through. From the operators’ point of view, this kind of behavior is bad for business,” he wrote. Goffman was ultimately interested less in the mafia than the metaphor, observing that when people are exploited, the world has predictable ways of convincing them to go along. “Sometimes the mark is ‘kicked upstairs’ and given a courtesy status such as ‘Vice President,’ ” he observed. “In the game for social roles, transfer up, down, or away may all be ‘consolation prizes.’ ”

From Jarvis on down, Mother’s Day is a celebration that inspires its purported honorees to reflect on the very nature of a consolation prize: on who is being consoled, and why they need it. Some thoughts are fleeting—the illusory spa day once again swapped out for brunch with the in-laws—and others more existential. As the daily work of COVID precautions has ebbed over the last year, the sense of breach has nonetheless flowed. Instead of reproductive rights, or affordable child care, or safe schools, mothers in 2023 can have the constitutional right to travel (maybe), a breast pump, and a pamphlet on active shooter drills to practice at home.

Which brings me to the mother/sucker. According to the marketing materials, becoming a mother is a cultural achievement, a self-actualization that secures one’s place in the community. The promise of motherhood in the abstract is a promise of love, obviously, but also of status. Moms get a lot of reverential lip service to that end—literally, even: “You talk to your mother with that mouth?” The depth and richness of the intrinsic rewards of motherhood are real; I have two children, and they are the core fact of my adult life, and the center of my moral universe. But the social and political rewards, paid out erratically in Hallmark cards and IOUs, come up consistently short. Every mom thanked for being “such a saint” knows the whisper of “sucker” trails quietly behind.

This phenomenon is of particular interest to me, because for the last 15 years, I have been researching and writing about the complicated relationship that Americans have with the prospect of playing the fool. By some accounts, the research on feeling suckered offers a consistent story across behavioral domains: the sharp aversion to being conned is a cultural imperative and a motivational force. But I meant it when I said that the American relationship with playing the sucker is complicated—and one inexorable complication is women with children. American society has always relied on its “backup plan,” namely, the willingness of tens of millions of mothers to make concessions again and again without ever walking away from the bargaining table.

A ready array of cultural narratives promise that achieving motherhood has recognized and rewarded social value, so it’s counterintuitive to think about mothers as low-status—especially considering the suspicion with which women without children are often treated. But the social science evidence suggests that attributions of foolishness are endemic to motherhood. In 2004, three social psychologists published an article called “When Professionals Become Mothers, Warmth Doesn’t Cut the Ice.” They had randomly assigned research subjects to read a scenario about either Kate or Dan, a telecommuting worker from New Jersey. Subjects read that Kate or Dan was a consultant with an MBA and six years of experience. Depending on which version of the study they saw, the subjects also learned that Kate or Dan was a new parent.

The researchers wanted to know how parenting status would affect perceptions of Kate or Dan. They asked participants to rate each profile on a series of traits related to competence (capable, efficient, skillful) and warmth (good-natured, sincere, trustworthy), and to answer questions about whether they would want to hire and promote the consultant.

The results? When Dan had a child, he was seen as just as competent as before, but now warmer. When Kate had a child, she too was rated as warmer, but the softening came with a price. The increased attributions of kindness brought slightly decreased attributions of competence. The mere fact of parenthood made her seem less capable and efficient—and, as a result, significantly less hirable or promotable, a finding that did not hold true for men.

But wait, it gets worse! Attributions of incompetence actually come full circle: Being a mother makes you seem worse at being a consultant, but being a woman makes you seem worse at being a parent. In a separate study of perceptions of “parenting effectiveness,” psychologists found that even when mothers get credit for doing more physical and emotional caretaking, their parenting is still more likely to be judged as wanting as compared to similarly situated fathers. All of that credit adds up to very little purchasing power, respect-wise. There is a reason that the go-to psychoanalytic trope is “Tell me about your mother.” Moms! They’re always doing it wrong!

One of my favorite jokes, and surprisingly apropos, is from a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.
Calvin is negotiating with his neighbor, Susie, whom he has asked to dare him to eat a worm; she has provisionally agreed, and the question is whether he is going to be paid up front or only on completion. She tells him it’s on completion or no deal, and he grumbles, “Man, you’d think the guy eating the worms would be calling the shots.”

“Usually, if you’re calling any shots at all, you’re not eating worms,” she replies.

When I returned to teaching after my second maternity leave, I took a borrowed breast pump into my office—my private office, with a lock on the door, literally the best-case pumping scenario—to embark on a new chapter of work/life balance. It was there that I caught a glimpse of what I can only describe as a deep existential disrespect. As I unpacked the parts, I was overcome with certainty that no one would ever, ever ask my husband or my male colleagues to do anything like pumping. Removing my shirt at work, and then hooking myself up to a machine, but maybe checking my email at the same time so I’m still productive, but also discreetly, because it’s a little gross to people? Ah, I see, I’m eating the worms.

The breast pump is a lifesaver, literally and figuratively, for many nursing parents and their children. It is a genuine scientific advance—but it’s not for mothers per se; it’s a way for them to do two kinds of labor at once. (As with Mother’s Day itself, there is a real sense that the moms might benefit, but capitalism always wins.) Nonetheless, there is a shared understanding that these pumping mothers are supposed to offer their service with a beatific smile, or a quick eyeroll at most. Adrienne Rich, feminist poet and essayist, wrote of early motherhood, “Patriarchy would seem to require not only that women shall assume the major burden of pain and self-denial for the furtherance of the species, but that a majority of that species—women—shall remain essentially unquestioning and unenlightened.”

Rich, mother of three sons, wryly took stock of one affectionate jab while traveling in France.“Vous travaillez pour l’armee, madame?”—Do you work for the army, ma’am?

There are online social media empires devoted to the exposition of basic social facts of American motherhood, not to mention the whole history of feminist theory. But in the everyday, it can feel hard to articulate the crux of the hustle. Even the mildest protest gets a disingenuous rebuke: “Are you saying you don’t love your children???” (I am literally never saying that. The kids are the best part. But in my limited experience, if you’re arguing that you do love your children, you’ve already lost control of the narrative.) Or, less hostile but more rhetorically plausible: “You’re the one who wanted kids so badly. You chose this.”

Indeed, in the United States, motherhood is a social good until women ask for support, at which point motherhood is a personal choice. In a surprising array of contexts, women are accused of leveraging parenting status to extract everything from better shifts at work to American citizenship. They might use pregnancy to trap a man. They might use paternity claims to procure child support. They might have children just for the extra welfare benefits. In other words, there is widespread suspicion that women might cynically use the moral imperative of motherhood to sucker others into paying their way.

These cultural parenting questions—who gets policed, who gets the benefit of the doubt, who gets credit, who gets blame—are even more stark at the intersection of gender, gender identity, parenting status, class, and race. Women of color are subject to more oppressive reproductive control and are more likely to be separated from their children by the state. For many years, the rhetoric of welfare has been a set of racist warnings about women, especially Black women, scheming against the working righteous by having children. As my colleague, sociologist and legal scholar Dorothy Roberts, wrote in 1993, “Underlying the current campaign against poor single mothers is the image of the lazy welfare mother who breeds children at the expense of taxpayers in order to increase the amount of her welfare check. In society’s mind, that mother is Black.” She was not speaking abstractly; in the mid-1990s, Clinton’s welfare reform permitted states to impose family caps on benefits on the apparent theory that poor mothers were having extra children specifically to work the system. The saintly matriarch takes up a lot of space in the cultural imagination, but the accusation that, Actually, women will use their reproduction to game the system does the dirty work.

I am not the first person to complain about a mother’s work—never done!—or to point out the double standards for men and women raising children. But the specific saints/schemers innuendo is a rhetorical choice with an underappreciated social function: it warns us who deserves trust, or disdain, or pity, or rejection. When mothers are martyrs who agreed to the raw deal, or scammers just trying to get “special favors,” their claims can be safely ignored without stepping off the moral high ground.

There are quotidian delights and deep joys in motherhood that I could not have fathomed, intrinsic rewards beyond what I hoped. So it seems petulant to say that I’m annoyed that I only got these amazing kids when I was under the impression I’d also be getting, like, a status upgrade. Executive Platinum Parent. But if anyone’s asking, yes, thanks, that would be great. In the pre-flight lounge they’d ideally be serving guaranteed paid parental leave and affordable child care, not to mention reproductive freedom.

I know that I have been extraordinarily privileged, not only in the range of parenting choices available to me but in the fact that motherhood was achievable, and that it was a wanted and welcome status. That has never been true for everyone, and the Dobbs decision has ensured that it is true for fewer people this year than last. I am lucky that I get to experience my parenting choices as intentional, and I am vain enough to also think of them as moral. But there is a sucker’s puzzle at the heart of mothering. I am party to a set of parenting deals that I believe I should take, that I know I will take again. I’d like better options, but I’ll keep coming back either way. As such, I’m a perfect mark. Fool me once, twice, three times—who’s counting?

Partially adapted from FOOL PROOF by Tess Wilkinson-Ryan. Copyright © 2023 by Tess Wilkinson-Ryan Published by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins. Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

ATTACHMENT FOUR – From Options.org

HOW TO CELEBRATE IN A WAY THAT INCLUDES ALL LGBTQ FAMILIES

Families today don’t all look the same, like they did in 1950s TV shows—and that’s a good thing. More children than ever are being raised by single parents, adoptive parents, same-sex parents, or in blended families. They all deserve respect and support. Some, like LGBTQ families, might feel excluded on Mother’s Day. Here’s how you can help them feel seen and supported if they want to be included.

Understand how children in LGBTQ families might feel

Gender-specific events—like father-daughter dances at school or a holiday like Mother’s Day—can feel different to different families. This can be especially hard for teens and younger children, who don’t always like to feel different. If there is a Mother’s Day activity at school, for example, kids being raised by two dads might feel like they don’t belong. This is especially true if they aren’t out to friends or teachers about their family structure. Some may use Mother’s Day as an opportunity to speak up about what their family looks like—but others might keep quiet to blend in with the crowd. Amanda Hopping-Winn, chief program officer at the Family Equality Council, recommends that we not assume every family has a mother and a father, period.

Acknowledge how LGBTQ families celebrate—or don’t

LGBTQ couples may choose to celebrate one, both, or neither parent on Mother’s Day. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Transgender parents may not celebrate according to traditional gender norms. If you have an LGBTQ family in your life and you’re unsure about wishing them a happy Mother’s Day, ask if and how they celebrate instead of making assumptions. According to Hopping-Winn, “LGBTQ parents tend to have some tradition around the holidays, whether we honor one parent on Mother’s Day or a surrogate, birth parent, or donor. Like many other situations, we have to be intentional about how we celebrate.”

It’s also worth remembering that it often takes LGBTQ families longer to have children than a typical heterosexual couple. As Hopping-Winn says, “Whether it be via surrogacy, adoption, foster care, or assisted reproductive technology, it generally takes longer to form our families. Mother’s Day can be a challenging time for these families, as it can be for anyone struggling to become parents. It reminds us of the family we so desperately desire but have not yet achieved.”

How you can be an ally to the LGBTQ families in your life and your school community

As Hopping-Winn states, “There is sometimes a sense of burden having to always explain ourselves, our families, and our needs. These holidays tend to be platforms for visibility and speaking out. Be proud of your family and talk about them. The more we hear about different kinds of families, the more inclusive we’ll become.” But building a broader definition of what it means to be a family shouldn’t be the responsibility of LGBTQ families alone. We can all help. Choose toys and books with diverse characters. Talk to your children about all types of families. Teach them to respect one another’s differences, and be a good role model, too. If a child asks if a family can have two moms, say yes. Remind them that families come in different combinations, but what matters is that the kids are cared for and loved.

What ALL families can do to make Mother’s Day more inclusive

Friends and family can be supportive of an LGBTQ family by honoring how they choose to spend the holiday. They can put an emphasis on all of the loving relationships a child has instead of a specific relationship they may not have. Any parent can talk to schools about planned Mother’s Day or gendered activities—not only LGBTQ parents. Another way to include all families is to ask store managers for gender-neutral or otherwise inclusive holiday cards. If you see some at your card store, let them know you appreciate it.

What schools can do make Mother’s Day more inclusive

Some schools have decided to have a gender-neutral Parents’ Day or Family Day instead of Mother’s and Father’s Days. If you work at a school that chooses to celebrate Mother’s Day, do what you can to be inclusive of all kinds of families:¹

1. Use their words when talking about their families. Ask students in LGBTQ families for direction and follow their lead.

2. Talk about all kinds of families. Not every family has one mom and one dad. Make it safe to celebrate any supportive relationship a child has. Provide books in the classroom that show different kinds of families.

3. Avoid gender stereotypes in younger children’s crafts. Steer away from cards with flowers for mom or ties for dad, for example.

4. Talk to older students about gender stereotypes. Ask about the qualities that mothers and fathers have or the roles they often play and why these have been culturally assigned to each gender. Ask if either a mom or dad could have these qualities or fill these roles.

5. Don’t let a child be alone. If your school has a Mother’s Day event where mothers come in, make sure no child is alone while others have a family member present. Make sure someone—maybe a teacher or administrator—can be there to support that child.

6. Remember that some children have lost a parent or don’t have a relationship with them. Mother’s Day could be a painful reminder of this loss and bring up a lot of difficult emotions if you’re planning a craft or activity. Reach out to their parent or guardian and ask what makes the most sense for that child. They could make the craft for another adult they are close to.

ATTACHMENT FIVE – From U.S. News and World Report

WHERE STATE ABORTION LAWS STAND WITHOUT ROE

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Here’s what that means for each state.

By Julia Haines, Kaia Hubbard, and Christopher Wolf May 18, 2023, at 1:41 p.m.

Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that established a constitutional right to an abortion up until the fetus can survive outside of the womb, was the law of the land for nearly 50 years. But in June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the almost half-century old precedent.

EXPLAINER: 

What is Roe v. Wade?

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was a challenge to a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that experts say stands in direct opposition to what the Supreme Court decided in Roe – that states may not ban abortion prior to fetal viability, which is generally understood by experts to mean between 22 and 24 weeks of pregnancy. But in a 6-3 decision, the conservative supermajority on the high court sided with Mississippi, upholding its ban in a massive reversal of precedent.

With the high court’s ruling, the decision has returned to the states, and in many cases, the issue is already heading back to court. While legislators have worked to introduce a number of new restrictions and bans over the last year, questions over the legality of these new laws has meant many are blocked from taking effect while they’re debated in state courts. Therefore, the new landscape is volatile, and the evolving situation has meant that access to abortion in some states is restricted, in part, by complexity alone.

Meanwhile, state-level laws and debates over medication abortion have become the new battlefront for 2023. In January 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized a rule change allowing pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens to begin offering abortion pills in qualifying states. The move could increase access to the pills at both physical stores and online pharmacies, and has sparked legal questions, particularly in the most restrictive states. An analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, found that medication abortion – often a two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol – accounted for more than half of all facility-based abortions in 2020.

Legal debates over access to abortion medication were elevated to the Supreme Court on April 14, after two conflicting rulings on separate cases were both issued a week earlier. In one case, a Texas federal judge ruled that the FDA overlooked “legitimate safety concerns” when approving mifepristone, and ruled that access to the drug be suspended. In the other, a Washington state federal judge ruled that the FDA cannot restrict access to the drug in any of the 17 states that sued to expand access.

The U.S. Supreme Court intervened to block the Texas ruling in its entirety, meaning access to mifepristone will not be immediately affected or further restricted. The case will go back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which began hearing oral arguments May 17.

If mifepristone is taken off the market, medication-assisted abortion will remain available through misoprostol-only regimens, which are said to be somewhat less effective than the two-drug combination. Abortion rights advocates are also challenging state-level restrictions on access to abortion pills in both North Carolina and West Virginia. In early May, abortion clinics in Virginia, Montana and Kansas filed a lawsuit in additional attempts to preserve access to the drug.

A recent poll found that there is widespread confusion about the legality of medication abortion.

Here’s where things stand in states as of May 18, 2023, and how state policy is expected to change, according to the Guttmacher Institute:

(See charts and graphs of state-by-state protocols here.)

ATTACHMENT SIX – From World Population Review

Infant mortality rate is a population-related metric that monitors the deaths of newborn (and sometimes unborn) children. It is typically expressed as the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births. In countries where infant mortality is high, it can often be attributed to one or more of the following factors: poverty, malaria, malnutrition, undeveloped infrastructure, and/or inadequate health care. Notably, these are all common concerns in underdeveloped, least developed, and developing countries. Many countries with high infant mortality rates also have high birth rates and fertility rates.

Around the world, the top causes of infant mortality include neonatal encephalopathy (problems with brain function due to lack of oxygen during birth), infections, complications of preterm birth, lower respiratory infections, and diarrheal diseases. The most frequent causes of death among infants that are only a few days old are different than those among older infants. Overall, the collective global infant mortality rate has significantly decreased in recent decades, dropping from approximately 140 per 1,000 live births in 1950-55 to 52.8 in 2000 and on to 27.4 in 2020.

Ten Countries with the Highest Infant Mortality Rate (UNICEF 2020 - deaths per 1,000 live births):

1. Sierra Leone — 80.10

2. Central African Republic — 77.50

3. Somalia — 72.72

4. Nigeria — 72.24

5. Lesotho — 69.88

6. Chad — 67.40

7. DR Congo — 63.79

8. South Sudan — 63.34

9. Guinea — 61.99

10. Mali — 58.77

Top 10 Countries with the Lowest Infant Mortality Rate (UNICEF 2020 - deaths per 1,000 live births):

1. Iceland — 1.54

2. San Marino — 1.56

3. Estonia — 1.65

4. Slovenia — 1.76

5. Norway — 1.79

6. Japan — 1.82

7. Singapore — 1.85

8. Finland — 1.88

9. Montenegro — 1.95

10. Sweden — 2.15

Infant mortality in the United States

Infant mortality in the United States is predominantly caused by congenital disabilities, pre-term birth and low birth weight, maternal pregnancy complications, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and injuries (such as accidental suffocation). The mortality rate in the United States was 5.44 in 2020. This rate was 50th among the 195 countries and territories measured, and significantly higher than in dozens of other developed countries such as Sweden (2.15), Japan (1.82), and Australia (3.14).

Upon examination, however, the discrepancy between the U.S. and other countries appears largely due to country-to-country differences in the way infant mortality statistics are compiled. Infant mortality is defined differently in different countries, and the U.S. definition is notably broader than that of most other countries.

For example, the United States Center for Disease Control defines "infant death" as any death of an infant that takes place between the start of pregnancy (conception) through the child's first birthday. On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) includes only those children who die during pregnancy or the first 42 days (approximately six weeks) after birth. The fact that the United States' window of inclusion is 323 days (approximately 10.5 months) longer very likely contributes significantly to the United States' higher infant death totals. (A similar distortion can be seen in Sweden's sexual assault statistics.)

Additionally, some countries do not consider a child an infant until birth, and so do not include deaths that occur during pregnancy (stillborn, miscarriages, etc.) among their infant mortality rate totals. As a result of these varying definitions, while any infant mortality rate above 0.0 is worthy of concern, the rate in the U.S. is likely less dire compared to rates in other countries than it initially appears to be.

Country	Deaths per 1,000 live births (UNICEF 2020)	2023 Population
Sierra Leone	80.1	8,791,092
Central African Republic	77.5	5,742,315
Somalia	72.72	18,143,378
Nigeria	72.24	223,804,632
Lesotho	69.88	2,330,318
Chad	67.4	18,278,568
Dr Congo	63.79	102,262,808
South Sudan	63.34	11,088,796
Guinea	61.99	14,190,612
Mali	58.77	23,293,698
Equatorial Guinea	58.28	1,714,671
Liberia	58.15	5,418,377
Ivory Coast	57.88	28,873,034
Benin	56.54	13,712,828
Pakistan	54.15	240,485,658
Burkina Faso	52.82	23,251,485
Mozambique	52.77	33,897,354
Guinea Bissau	51.4	2,150,842
Mauritania	49.02	4,862,989
Angola	48.34	36,684,202
Cameroon	48.34	28,647,293
Comoros	47.23	852,075
Djibouti	47.18	1,136,455
Haiti	46.66	11,724,763
Yemen	45.71	34,449,825
Niger	45.61	27,202,843
Afghanistan	44.97	42,239,854
Togo	44.36	9,053,799
Zambia	41.66	20,569,737
Sudan	39.92	48,109,006
Kiribati	39.21	133,515
Burundi	38.64	13,238,559
Zimbabwe	37.93	16,665,409
Eswatini	37.42	1,210,822
Timor Leste	36.52	1,360,596
Madagascar	36.26	30,325,732
Turkmenistan	36.1	6,516,100
Botswana	36.08	2,675,352
Ethiopia	35.37	126,527,060
Laos	35.34	7,633,779
Papua New Guinea	35.23	10,329,931
Myanmar	35.05	54,577,997
Gambia	34.74	2,773,168
Tanzania	34.72	67,438,106
Ghana	33.02	34,121,985
Republic Of The Congo	32.98	6,106,869
Uganda	31.86	48,582,334
Dominica	31.69	73,040
Kenya	31.15	55,100,586
Gabon	30.69	2,436,566
Rwanda	30.27	14,094,683
Namibia	30.14	2,604,172
Eritrea	29.69	3,748,901
Malawi	29.02	20,931,751
Senegal	28.85	17,763,163
Tajikistan	28.35	10,143,543
Dominican Republic	27.87	11,332,972
India	27.01	1,428,627,663
South Africa	25.78	60,414,495
Marshall Islands	25.52	41,996
Bangladesh	24.32	172,954,319
Nauru	23.85	12,780
Guyana	23.78	813,834
Nepal	23.59	30,896,590
Bhutan	23.18	787,424
Fiji	23.03	936,375
Cambodia	22.05	16,944,826
Saint Lucia	22.02	180,251
Iraq	21.32	45,504,560
Vanuatu	21.07	334,506
Venezuela	21.06	28,838,499
Niue	20.97	1,935
Philippines	20.95	117,337,368
Micronesia	20.85	115,224
Bolivia	20.72	12,388,571
Guatemala	20.06	18,092,026
Indonesia	19.55	277,534,122
Algeria	19.46	45,606,480
Tuvalu	18.74	11,396
Syria	18.45	23,227,014
Azerbaijan	17.32	10,412,651
Vietnam	16.7	98,858,950
Egypt	16.65	112,716,598
Solomon Islands	16.58	740,424
Paraguay	16.18	6,861,524
Morocco	16.02	37,840,044
Suriname	15.7	623,236
Kyrgyzstan	15.67	6,735,347
Palau	15.67	18,058
Trinidad And Tobago	14.83	1,534,937
Mauritius	14.8	1,300,557
Samoa	14.62	225,681
Grenada	14.53	126,183
Tunisia	14.29	12,458,223
Palestine	14.2	5,371,230
Honduras	13.94	10,593,798
Nicaragua	13.79	7,046,310
Mongolia	13.22	3,447,157
Brazil	13.13	216,422,446
Jordan	12.92	11,337,052
Saint Vincent And The Grenadines	12.92	103,698
Sao Tome And Principe	12.74	231,856
Saint Kitts And Nevis	12.58	47,755
Uzbekistan	12.46	35,163,944
Moldova	12.46	3,435,931
Panama	12.34	4,468,087
Seychelles	12	107,660
Mexico	11.77	128,455,567
North Korea	11.6	26,160,821
Jamaica	11.43	2,825,544
Barbados	11.38	281,995
Colombia	11.35	52,085,168
Ecuador	11.15	18,190,484
Iran	11.14	89,172,767
El Salvador	11.08	6,364,943
Bahamas	10.53	412,623
Belize	10.03	410,825
Peru	9.95	34,352,719
Tonga	9.81	107,773
Armenia	9.74	2,777,970
Brunei	9.64	452,524
Libya	9.53	6,888,388
Kazakhstan	8.92	19,606,633
Albania	8.76	2,832,439
Georgia	8.23	3,728,282
Turkey	8.13	85,816,199
Argentina	7.61	45,773,884
Kuwait	7.58	4,310,108
Thailand	7.41	71,801,279
Malaysia	7.38	34,308,525
Ukraine	6.94	36,744,634
Costa Rica	6.73	5,212,173
Oman	6.45	4,644,384
Cook Islands	6.32	17,044
Saudi Arabia	5.99	36,947,025
Lebanon	5.97	5,353,930
Sri Lanka	5.92	21,893,579
Bahrain	5.79	1,485,509
Chile	5.77	19,629,590
Romania	5.63	19,892,812
Malta	5.63	535,064
United Arab Emirates	5.62	9,516,871
Maldives	5.52	521,021
China	5.47	1,425,671,352
United States	5.44	339,996,563
Antigua And Barbuda	5.38	94,298
Uruguay	5.32	3,423,108
North Macedonia	5.2	2,085,679
Bulgaria	5.14	6,687,717
Bosnia And Herzegovina	4.95	3,210,847
Qatar	4.93	2,716,391
Serbia	4.87	7,149,077
Slovakia	4.69	5,795,199
Canada	4.38	38,781,291
Russia	4.36	144,444,359
Cuba	4.08	11,194,449
New Zealand	3.93	5,228,100
Croatia	3.87	4,008,617
Poland	3.74	41,026,067
United Kingdom	3.62	67,736,802
Netherlands	3.58	17,618,299
Greece	3.58	10,341,277
Switzerland	3.52	8,796,669
France	3.45	64,756,584
Belgium	3.44	11,686,140
Latvia	3.44	1,830,211
Hungary	3.36	10,156,239
Australia	3.14	26,439,111
Denmark	3.13	5,910,913
Germany	3.1	83,294,633
Austria	2.97	8,958,960
Israel	2.9	9,174,520
Portugal	2.73	10,247,605
Spain	2.71	47,519,628
Lithuania	2.68	2,718,352
Ireland	2.62	5,056,935
South Korea	2.59	51,784,059
Italy	2.47	58,870,762
Monaco	2.46	36,297
Andorra	2.38	80,088
Czech Republic	2.32	10,495,295
Luxembourg	2.28	654,768
Cyprus	2.25	1,260,138
Belarus	2.19	9,498,238
Sweden	2.15	10,612,086
Montenegro	1.95	626,485
Finland	1.88	5,545,475
Singapore	1.85	6,014,723
Japan	1.82	123,294,513
Norway	1.79	5,474,360
Slovenia	1.76	2,119,675
Estonia	1.65	1,322,765
San Marino	1.56	33,642
Iceland	1.54	375,318

Sources: Infant mortality rate 2020 - UNICEF Data Warehouse

List of countries by infant and under-five mortality rates - Wiki

COUNTRY COMPARISON :: INFANT MORTALITY RATE

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – From UNICEF

MATERNAL MORTALITY DECLINED BY 34 PER CENT BETWEEN 2000 AND 2020

Maternal mortality refers to deaths due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth. From 2000 to 2020, the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) declined by 34 per cent – from 342 deaths to 223 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UN inter-agency estimates. This translates into an average annual rate of reduction of 2.1 per cent. While substantive, this is about one third of the 6.4 per cent annual rate needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.

Though there has been significant progress in reducing global MMR between 2000 and 2015, the numbers have been stagnant when averaging rates of reduction between 2016 and 2022. In most regions, the rate of reduction stalled and in Western Europe and North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean, MMR increased over the 2016-2022 period.

Progress, however, is possible, but concerted action will be needed. A small number of countries have achieved an annual rate of reduction of 15 per cent or more in the last 20 years, bringing them closer or past their target reduction rates to meet global goals. UNICEF, World Health Organization and other partnering agencies are working closely with country governments and other partners to accelerate progress in maternal and newborn health. Through joint targets developed by the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) and Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) groups, new strategies are being developed to ensure that every pregnant girl and woman receives essential interventions, including four or more antenatal care visits, childbirth assisted by a skilled birth attendant, and that both she and her newborn receive postnatal care within two days of birth. By increasing attention and investment, working collaboratively with governments, communities, and families, and focusing on the areas of greatest need, significant improvements can be seen in maternal health coverage and equity. Levels of maternal mortality

The number of women and girls who died each year from complications of pregnancy and childbirth declined from 451,000 in 2000 to 287,000 in 2020. These improvements are particularly remarkable in light of rapid population growth in many of the countries where maternal deaths are highest. Still, almost 800 women are dying each day from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, which is equivalent to one every two minutes.

There are large inequalities in maternal survival between regions of the world and countries within those regions. In 2020, sub-Saharan Africa had 545 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births as compared to 4 in Australia and New Zealand. In fact, sub-Saharan Africa alone accounted for 70% of global maternal deaths in 2020.

Progress has stalled, and has been uneven. Regions with the highest burden of maternal mortality will require additional attention and investment to accelerate the rate of reduction. Improvements will be needed in both access and quality, for antenatal care, delivery, and postpartum care. Partnerships between political and community leaders, the health system, and other stakeholders will be needed to reach global goals and reduce these inequities.

Causes of maternal death

Maternal death can be caused directly by postpartum haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and hypertensive disorders, pregnancy-related infections, and complications of unsafe abortion, as well as indirectly by pre-existing medical conditions aggravated by the pregnancy.

The complications leading to maternal death can occur without warning at any time during pregnancy and childbirth. However, some can be screened and prevented. That is why UNICEF and the partnering organizations are working to ensure that monitoring and identifying high risk pregnancies through antenatal care are available for every pregnant girl and woman.

Most maternal deaths can also be prevented if births are attended by skilled health personnel such as doctors, nurses or midwives. As complications require prompt access to quality obstetric services, these skilled health personnel, who are regularly supervised and have the proper equipment and supplies, can avert maternal death by providing life-saving drugs such as antibiotics, blood transfusions, caesarean sections, and other surgical interventions.

The causes of maternal death are mostly preventable

There are many social, economic, and environmental factors which influence the risk of maternal mortality. This includes social determinants of health, such as income, education, and environmental exposures; access to high-quality health care with sufficient numbers of competent, skilled providers, equipment, and medication; gender norms that devalue women and girls and limit their access to sexual and reproductive health care; and external factors such as political instability, conflicts, and climate change. These factors require intersectoral collaboration to improve maternal health and well-being at every stage.

Lifetime risk of maternal death

The lifetime risk of maternal death is the probability that a 15-year-old girl will die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth over her lifetime; it takes into account both the maternal mortality ratio and the total fertility rate (average number of births per woman during her reproductive years under current age-specific fertility rates). Thus, in a high-fertility setting, a woman faces the risk of maternal death multiple times, and her lifetime risk of death will be higher than in a low-fertility setting. Similar to maternal mortality ratio, the lifetime risk of maternal death varies largely across countries. In 2020, the lifetime risk of maternal death in low income countries as a whole was 1 in 49, compared to 1 in 5,300 in high-income countries. Among regions, women in sub-Saharan Africa face the highest lifetime risk (1 in 41), which is approximately 268 times higher than in Western Europe (1 in 11,000).

The lifetime risk of maternal death ranges from 1 in 5,300 in high income countries to 1 in 49 in low income countries

Lifetime risk of maternal death: 1 in X

By region/group:

West & Central AfricaSub-Saharan AfricaEastern & Southern AfricaSouth AsiaLatin America & CaribbeanMiddle East & North AfricaEast Asia & the PacificEastern Europe & Central AsiaNorth AmericaEurope & Central AsiaWestern Europe01,0002,0003,0004,0005,0006,0007,0008,0009,00010,00011,00012,0001 in 271 in 411 in 711 in 3201 in 5701 in 6601 in 8401 in 2,9001 in 2,9001 in 4,5001 in 11,000

Download data

By income group*:

Low income countriesLower middle income countriesUpper middle income countriesHigh income countriesWorld01,0002,0003,0004,0005,0006,0007,0008,0009,00010,00011,00012,0001 in 491 in 1601 in 1,4001 in 5,3001 in 210

Download data

Source: WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank, Trends in Maternal Mortality: 2000 to 2020, WHO, Geneva, 2023.

*Income groups refer to World Bank income c

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – From AJMC

US RANKS WORST IN MATERNAL CARE, MORTALITY COMPARED WITH 10 OTHER DEVELOPED NATIONS

By Gianna Melillo Dec 3, 2020

Among 11 developed countries, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate, a relative undersupply of maternity care providers, and is the only country not to guarantee access to provider home visits or paid parental leave in the postpartum period, a recent report from The Commonwealth Fund concluded. Compared with any other wealthy nation, the United States also spends the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care.

Maternal deaths have been increasing in the United States since 2000, and although 700 pregnancy-related deaths occur each year, two-thirds of these deaths are considered to be preventable.

In an issue brief, researchers assessed maternal mortality, maternal care workforce composition, and access to postpartum care in 10 high-income nations and compared findings with the United States. Data from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom were gleaned from 2020 health statistics compiled by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. US data were taken from the CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), maternal mortality is defined as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.”

Overall pregnancy-related mortality in the United States occurs at an average rate of 17.2 deaths per 100,000 live births. Leading causes of death include cardiovascular conditions, hemorrhage, and infection. However, in the Netherlands, Norway, and New Zealand, that rate drops to 3 or fewer women per 100,000.

More than 50% of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States occur after the birth of the child, or post partum. Any death within 1 year of the end of pregnancy due to a pregnancy complication or a death during pregnancy is classified as a pregnancy-related death. Deaths that occur within 1 week post partum (19% of all maternal deaths) are largely attributed to severe bleeding, high blood pressure, and infection.

When it comes to care providers, the United States and Canada “have the lowest overall supply of midwives and obstetrician-gynecologists (OB-GYNs) — 12 and 15 providers per 1000 live births, respectively,” whereas all other countries have a supply that is between 2 and 6 times greater.

Midwives differ from OB-GYNs in that they help manage a normal pregnancy, assist with childbirth, and provide care during the postpartum period. In contrast, OB-GYNs are physicians trained to identify issues and intervene should abnormal conditions arise. OB-GYNs typically only provide care in hospital-based settings.

The role of midwives has been found to be comparable or preferable to physician-led care in terms of mother and baby outcomes and more efficient use of health care resources. WHO recommends midwives as an evidence-based approach to reducing maternal mortality.

According to the American College of Nurse Midwives, the “US maternity workforce is upside down relative to patient needs.” Although OB-GYNs outnumber midwives in the United States and Canada, in most other countries the inverse is true.

“Midwives provide most prenatal care and deliveries in the U.K. and the Netherlands— countries considered to have among the strongest primary care systems in Europe. Dutch midwives also deliver home births, which represent 13% of all births, the highest rate of any developed countries,” the report reads.

Midwife services are not uniformly covered by private insurance plans in the United States, whereas both midwifery and obstetrician care services are covered by universal health insurance in some other countries.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicaid programs are required to cover midwifery care, but “the supply of providers is often so low that beneficiaries are often unable to access these services.” State licensure laws, restrictive scope-of-practice laws, and rules requiring physician supervision of midwives may all contribute to the low supply of midwives in the United States. Medicaid also currently covers 43% of all deliveries in the United States but only extends coverage for a maximum of 60 days post partum.

Furthermore, in some states, appeals courts have ruled to end Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide a number of health services to low-income women, including pregnancy services such as postpartum care.

Postpartum care, including home visits by midwives, also improves mental health and breastfeeding outcomes among new mothers and is associated with reduced health care costs. Some Medicaid beneficiaries can receive these services in the United States, but all other countries included in the report guarantee at least 1 visit within 1 week of birth.

A recent cross-sectional analysis of nearly 600,000 commercially insured childbearing individuals found that the prevalence of suicidal ideation and intentional self-harm (suicidality) occurring in the year preceding or following birth increased substantially from 2006 to 2017.¹

In 2006, suicidality prevalence was estimated at 0.2% per 100 individuals and rose to 0.6% per 100 individuals in 2017, whereas diagnoses of suicidality with comorbid depression or anxiety increased from 1.2% in 2006 to 2.6% in 2017 (per 100 individuals for both). Over the course of the study period, younger, non-Hispanic Black, and lower-income individuals experienced larger increases in suicidality.

“Policy makers, health plans, and clinicians should ensure access to universal suicidality screening and appropriate treatment for pregnant and postpartum individuals and seek health system and policy avenues to mitigate this growing public health crisis, particularly for high-risk groups,” the authors of that analysis wrote.

In the United States, non-Hispanic Black women are more than 3 times more likely to have a maternal death than White women. Non-Hispanic Black women are also significantly more likely to have a severe maternal morbidity event at the time of delivery.

Importantly, these numbers reflect official tallies of maternal morbidity in the United States and do not account for undocumented pregnant women, many of whom postpone prenatal care and give birth at home in response to recent immigration enforcement policies.

When it comes to paid maternity leave, the Commonwealth Fund report found the United States was the only high-income country that does not guarantee paid leave to mothers after childbirth. All other 10 countries guarantee at least a 14-week paid leave time from work while several provide more than a year of maternity leave.

Despite these bleak trends, some gains have been made to improve maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States. The passing of the ACA helped women gain access to maternity care in that it mandated coverage for free preventive services, expanded Medicaid eligibility, offered premium subsidies for low-income women, and provided coverage for young women.

But the authors noted that more changes need to be enacted to reverse these trends which disproportionately affect women of color. Solutions include strengthening postpartum care, guaranteeing paid maternity leave, and working to close the racial disparity gap in this population.

“Addressing systemic racism so that Black and Indigenous people are not at risk when they are pregnant is critical to reducing U.S. maternal mortality, while offering paid maternity leave to all birthing people would contribute to their health and the health of their babies, as well as strengthen the financial security of families,” wrote Laurie Zephyrin, MD, and Roosa Tikkanen of The Commonwealth Fund in STAT News.

“The U.S. is clearly willing to invest in health care, yet it does not invest enough in its birthing people…When it comes to maternal health care, it is time we started investing wisely to ensure that no one dies a preventable death while bringing life into the world.”

Reference

1. Admon LK, Dalton VK, Kolenic GE, et al. Trends in suicidality 1 year before and after birth among commercially insured childbearing individuals in the United States, 2006-2017. JAMA Psychiatry. Published online November 18, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.3550

ATTACHMENT NINE – From Wiki (2020)

Maternal death, also called maternal mortality, is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes." The maternal mortality ratio, on the other hand, is the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. The maternal mortality ratio is used as a criterion for the quality of medical care in a country. The global rate is 211 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017 (2017 or latest available year for some countries).^[2]

· Note: Year listed indicates latest available data as of that year. Year can vary by country.

· Row numbers are static. Other columns are sortable. This allows ranking of any column.

Maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births...

Location	2000^[1]	2017^[1]	2020^[3]^[4]
East Asia and Pacific	114	69
Eswatini	521	437
Europe and Central Asia	27	13
European Union	10	6
High income	11	11
Latin America and Caribbean	96	74
Low and middle income	378	231
Low income	854	460
Lower middle income	424	253
Middle East and North Africa	96	57
Middle income	302	183
Maldives	44	19
North America	12	18
South Asia	395	163
Sub-Saharan Africa	870	534
Upper middle income	67	41
World	342	211	n/a
Belarus	22	2	1.1
Norway	6	2	1.7
Poland	7	2	2
Iceland	6	4	2.7
Israel	7	3	2.8
Australia	7	6	2.9
Malta	9	6	2.9
North Macedonia	13	7	3
Seychelles	53	53	3.3
Czech Republic	7	3	3.4
Spain	5	4	3.4
Japan	9	5	4.3
Netherlands	13	5	4.3
Germany	7	7	4.4
Slovenia	12	7	4.5
Sweden	5	4	4.5
Italy	4	2	4.6
Denmark	8	4	4.7
Belgium	8	5	4.8
Croatia	11	8	4.8
Slovakia	8	5	4.8
Ireland	7	5	5
Turkmenistan	29	7	5.1
Austria	6	5	5.2
Estonia	29	9	5.2
Bosnia and Herzegovina	17	10	5.7
Montenegro	12	6	6.2
Luxembourg	10	5	6.5
New Zealand	12	9	7
Bulgaria	19	10	7.1
Kuwait	10	12	7.2
Switzerland	7	5	7.4
Singapore	13	8	7.5
Qatar	14	9	7.6
Greece	3	3	7.7
France	10	8	7.9
South Korea	17	11	8.1
Albania	23	15	8.3
Finland	6	3	8.3
Lithuania	17	8	8.7
United Arab Emirates	6	3	9.3
United Kingdom	10	7	9.8
Romania	54	19	10
Serbia	13	12	10
Canada	9	10	11
Portugal	10	8	12
Kazakhstan	61	10	13
Russia	56	17	14
Chile	31	13	15
Hungary	16	12	15
Bahrain	27	14	16
Saudi Arabia	24	17	16
Egypt	64	37	17
Oman	20	19	17
Tajikistan	53	17	17
Turkey	42	17	17
Ukraine	35	19	17
Latvia	34	19	18
Uruguay	26	17	19
Palestine	70	27	20
Antigua and Barbuda	44	42	21
Grenada	38	25	21
Lebanon	28	29	21
Malaysia	38	29	21
United States	12	19	21
Costa Rica	40	27	22
Iran	48	16	22
China	59	29	23
Armenia	43	26	27
Trinidad and Tobago	81	67	27
Georgia	31	25	28
Sri Lanka	56	36	29
Thailand	43	37	29
Syria	26	31	30
Uzbekistan	41	29	30
Puerto Rico	26	21	34
Tunisia	66	43	37
Fiji	51	34	38
Barbados	50	27	39
Cuba	46	36	39
Mongolia	155	45	39
Azerbaijan	47	26	41
Jordan	70	46	41
Cape Verde	118	58	42
El Salvador	73	46	43
Brunei	28	31	44
Argentina	66	39	45
Kyrgyzstan	79	60	50
Panama	91	52	50
Maldives	125	53	57
Mexico	55	33	59
Samoa	88	43	59
Bhutan	423	183	60
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	80	68	62
Ecuador	122	59	66
Cyprus	14	6	68
Peru	144	88	69
Morocco	188	70	71
Paraguay	194	129	71
Brazil	69	60	72
Honduras	85	65	72
Libya	70	72	72
Saint Lucia	86	117	73
Federated States of Micronesia	154	88	74
Colombia	94	83	75
Iraq	79	79	76
Kiribati	136	92	76
Bahamas	75	70	77
Algeria	161	112	78
Nicaragua	162	98	78
Philippines	160	121	78
Mauritius	59	61	84
Vanuatu	140	72	94
Guatemala	161	95	96
Suriname	221	120	96
Jamaica	77	80	99
India	370	145	103
Dominican Republic	80	95	107
North Korea	139	89	107
Guyana	231	169	112
Solomon Islands	245	104	122
Bangladesh	434	173	123
Vietnam	68	43	124
Laos	544	185	126
Tonga	77	52	126
Mozambique	798	289	127
South Africa	160	119	127
Belize	89	36	130
Zambia	528	213	135
São Tomé and Príncipe	179	130	146
Pakistan	286	140	154
Bolivia	331	155	161
Indonesia	272	177	173
Nepal	553	186	174
Myanmar	340	250	179
Yemen	301	164	183
Botswana	262	144	186
Papua New Guinea	249	145	192
Timor-Leste	745	142	204
Equatorial Guinea	454	301	212
Namibia	348	195	215
Comoros	444	273	217
Cambodia	488	160	218
Angola	827	241	222
Gabon	380	252	227
Djibouti	507	248	234
Tanzania	854	524	238
Rwanda	1160	248	259
Venezuela	119	125	259
Senegal	553	315	261
Ghana	484	308	263
Burkina Faso	516	320	264
Ethiopia	1030	401	267
Sudan	667	295	270
Republic of the Congo	739	378	282
Uganda	578	375	284
Eritrea	1280	480	322
Haiti	437	480	350
Zimbabwe	579	458	357
Malawi	749	349	381
Madagascar	559	335	392
Togo	489	396	399
Cameroon	886	529	438
Mali	836	562	440
Niger	813	509	441
Sierra Leone	2480	1120	443
Gambia	932	597	458
Mauritania	834	766	464
Ivory Coast	704	617	480
Burundi	1010	548	494
Benin	520	397	523
Kenya	708	342	530
Democratic Republic of the Congo	760	473	547
Guinea	1020	576	553
Lesotho	614	544	566
Afghanistan	1450	638	620
Somalia	1210	829	621
Liberia	894	661	652
Guinea-Bissau	1210	667	725
Central African Republic	1280	829	835
Nigeria	1200	917	1047
Chad	1420	1140	1063
South Sudan	1730	1150	1223

ATTACHMENT TEN – From the Quora Peanut Gallery

THE TOPIC – Why is Belarus the world’s safest nation for maternal health?

In Belarus, many people, including women, do not view the unequal status of women as a social injustice. As a result women's rights are widely seen as not important. Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko is repeatedly accused of misogynistic or sexist remarks and behavior which denigrate the dignity of women.

Some respondants:

From PR:

Belarus certainly has some problems but basic healthcare in that country (and that covers very well maternity and child health) is universal, inexpensive and paid for by taxation. It is another matter with hospital and specialist care, however. But this access to universal basic care is the most likely reason for Belarus having an infant mortality rate of 2.8 per 1,000 and the USA having a rate of 5.8 per 1,000.

From LM:

Why do 33 nations have a lower infant mortality rate than the US despite routinely giving infants the most vaccines of any nation and access to nutrition, health care, and sanitary conditions?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/

You cite access to health care and nutrition as if it’s a given. Access to health care and good nutrition is very irregular in the US. A lot of women actually get no prenatal care because they simply cannot afford it. And you must know that some kids have never eaten vegetables except french fries.

From KY:

Belarus has good healthcare system. We here in Ukraine go to Belarus for complex surgeries, such as transplantation.

From JS:

Does the United States have the lowest infant mortality rate among countries with universal healthcare?

NO it does not (the U.S. also doesn’t have Universal Healthcare… yet!) (See chart on site)

From BE:

Does the fact that the United States's infant mortality rate is 4.38 per 1000 births prove that it's the greatest country in the world?

Of the OECD countries the US ranks 33rd out of 36!

America's Health Rankings | AHR

State-by-state study of our nation's health. See the strengths, challenges, and overall rank of each state, based on key health measures.

https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/reports/2019-annual-report/international-comparison

From TK:

Why does the United States have the highest maternal mortality rate in the entire developed world, when we have advanced technology, state-of-the-art hospitals, and highly educated health care professionals?

The women who die can’t afford the advanced technology, state-of-the-art hospitals, and highly educated health care professionals.

It’s not rocket science, it’s money.

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN - From globaleconomy.com

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK AROUND THE WORLD

(Measured from worst down to first)

Bottom of Form

Countries	Maternal mortality, 2017	Global rank	Available data
Chad	1140	1	2000 - 2017
Sierra Leone	1120	2	2000 - 2017
Nigeria	917	3	2000 - 2017
C.A. Republic	829	4	2000 - 2017
Somalia	829	5	2000 - 2017
Mauritania	766	6	2000 - 2017
G.-Bissau	667	7	2000 - 2017
Liberia	661	8	2000 - 2017
Afghanistan	638	9	2000 - 2017
Ivory Coast	617	10	2000 - 2017
Gambia	597	11	2000 - 2017
Guinea	576	12	2000 - 2017
Mali	562	13	2000 - 2017
Burundi	548	14	2000 - 2017
Lesotho	544	15	2000 - 2017
Cameroon	529	16	2000 - 2017
Tanzania	524	17	2000 - 2017
Niger	509	18	2000 - 2017
Eritrea	480	19	2000 - 2017
Haiti	480	20	2000 - 2017
DR Congo	473	21	2000 - 2017
Zimbabwe	458	22	2000 - 2017
Swaziland	437	23	2000 - 2017
Ethiopia	401	24	2000 - 2017
Benin	397	25	2000 - 2017
Togo	396	26	2000 - 2017
R. of Congo	378	27	2000 - 2017
Uganda	375	28	2000 - 2017
Malawi	349	29	2000 - 2017
Kenya	342	30	2000 - 2017
Madagascar	335	31	2000 - 2017
Burkina Faso	320	32	2000 - 2017
Senegal	315	33	2000 - 2017
Ghana	308	34	2000 - 2017
Eq. Guinea	301	35	2000 - 2017
Sudan	295	36	2000 - 2017
Mozambique	289	37	2000 - 2017
Comoros	273	38	2000 - 2017
Gabon	252	39	2000 - 2017
Burma	250	40	2000 - 2017
Djibouti	248	41	2000 - 2017
Rwanda	248	42	2000 - 2017
Angola	241	43	2000 - 2017
Zambia	213	44	2000 - 2017
Namibia	195	45	2000 - 2017
Nepal	186	46	2000 - 2017
Laos	185	47	2000 - 2017
Bhutan	183	48	2000 - 2017
Indonesia	177	49	2000 - 2017
Bangladesh	173	50	2000 - 2017
Guyana	169	51	2000 - 2017
Yemen	164	52	2000 - 2017
Cambodia	160	53	2000 - 2017
Bolivia	155	54	2000 - 2017
India	145	55	2000 - 2017
Papua N.G.	145	56	2000 - 2017
Botswana	144	57	2000 - 2017
Pakistan	140	58	2000 - 2017
S.T.&Principe	130	59	2000 - 2017
Paraguay	129	60	2000 - 2017
Venezuela	125	61	2000 - 2017
Philippines	121	62	2000 - 2017
Suriname	120	63	2000 - 2017
South Africa	119	64	2000 - 2017
Saint Lucia	117	65	2000 - 2017
Algeria	112	66	2000 - 2017
Solomon Isl.	104	67	2000 - 2017
Nicaragua	98	68	2000 - 2017
Domin. Rep.	95	69	2000 - 2017
Guatemala	95	70	2000 - 2017
Kiribati	92	71	2000 - 2017
North Korea	89	72	2000 - 2017
Micronesia	88	73	2000 - 2017
Peru	88	74	2000 - 2017
Colombia	83	75	2000 - 2017
Jamaica	80	76	2000 - 2017
Iraq	79	77	2000 - 2017
Libya	72	78	2000 - 2017
Vanuatu	72	79	2000 - 2017
Bahamas	70	80	2000 - 2017
Morocco	70	81	2000 - 2017
St. Vincent & ...	68	82	2000 - 2017
Tr.&Tobago	67	83	2000 - 2017
Honduras	65	84	2000 - 2017
Mauritius	61	85	2000 - 2017
Brazil	60	86	2000 - 2017
Kyrgyzstan	60	87	2000 - 2017
Ecuador	59	88	2000 - 2017
Cape Verde	58	89	2000 - 2017
Maldives	53	90	2000 - 2017
Seychelles	53	91	2000 - 2017
Panama	52	92	2000 - 2017
Tonga	52	93	2000 - 2017
El Salvador	46	94	2000 - 2017
Jordan	46	95	2000 - 2017
Mongolia	45	96	2000 - 2017
Samoa	43	97	2000 - 2017
Tunisia	43	98	2000 - 2017
Vietnam	43	99	2000 - 2017
Ant.& Barb.	42	100	2000 - 2017
Argentina	39	101	2000 - 2017
Egypt	37	102	2000 - 2017
Thailand	37	103	2000 - 2017
Belize	36	104	2000 - 2017
Sri Lanka	36	105	2000 - 2017
Fiji	34	106	2000 - 2017
Mexico	33	107	2000 - 2017
Brunei	31	108	2000 - 2017
Syria	31	109	2000 - 2017
China	29	110	2000 - 2017
Lebanon	29	111	2000 - 2017
Malaysia	29	112	2000 - 2017
Uzbekistan	29	113	2000 - 2017
Barbados	27	114	2000 - 2017
Costa Rica	27	115	2000 - 2017
Palestine	27	116	2000 - 2017
Armenia	26	117	2000 - 2017
Azerbaijan	26	118	2000 - 2017
Georgia	25	119	2000 - 2017
Grenada	25	120	2000 - 2017
Puerto Rico	21	121	2000 - 2017
Latvia	19	122	2000 - 2017
Moldova	19	123	2000 - 2017
Oman	19	124	2000 - 2017
Romania	19	125	2000 - 2017
Ukraine	19	126	2000 - 2017
USA	19	127	2000 - 2017
Russia	17	128	2000 - 2017
Saudi Arabia	17	129	2000 - 2017
Tajikistan	17	130	2000 - 2017
Turkey	17	131	2000 - 2017
Uruguay	17	132	2000 - 2017
Iran	16	133	2000 - 2017
Albania	15	134	2000 - 2017
Bahrain	14	135	2000 - 2017
Chile	13	136	2000 - 2017
Hungary	12	137	2000 - 2017
Kuwait	12	138	2000 - 2017
Serbia	12	139	2000 - 2017
South Korea	11	140	2000 - 2017
Bosnia & Herz.	10	141	2000 - 2017
Bulgaria	10	142	2000 - 2017
Canada	10	143	2000 - 2017
Kazakhstan	10	144	2000 - 2017
Estonia	9	145	2000 - 2017
New Zealand	9	146	2000 - 2017
Qatar	9	147	2000 - 2017
Croatia	8	148	2000 - 2017
France	8	149	2000 - 2017
Lithuania	8	150	2000 - 2017
Portugal	8	151	2000 - 2017
Singapore	8	152	2000 - 2017
Germany	7	153	2000 - 2017
North Macedonia	7	154	2000 - 2017
Slovenia	7	155	2000 - 2017
Turkmenistan	7	156	2000 - 2017
UK	7	157	2000 - 2017
Australia	6	158	2000 - 2017
Cyprus	6	159	2000 - 2017
Malta	6	160	2000 - 2017
Montenegro	6	161	2000 - 2017
Austria	5	162	2000 - 2017
Belgium	5	163	2000 - 2017
Ireland	5	164	2000 - 2017
Japan	5	165	2000 - 2017
Luxembourg	5	166	2000 - 2017
Netherlands	5	167	2000 - 2017
Slovakia	5	168	2000 - 2017
Switzerland	5	169	2000 - 2017
Denmark	4	170	2000 - 2017
Iceland	4	171	2000 - 2017
Spain	4	172	2000 - 2017
Sweden	4	173	2000 - 2017
Czechia	3	174	2000 - 2017
Finland	3	175	2000 - 2017
Greece	3	176	2000 - 2017
Israel	3	177	2000 - 2017
UA Emirates	3	178	2000 - 2017
Belarus	2	179	2000 - 2017
Italy	2	180	2000 - 2017
Norway	2	181	2000 - 2017
Poland	2	182	2000 - 2017

Economic outlook around the world

Definition: Maternal mortality ratio is the number of women who die from pregnancy-related causes while pregnant or within 42 days of pregnancy termination per 100,000 live births. The data are estimated with a regression model using information on the proportion of maternal deaths among non-AIDS deaths in women ages 15-49, fertility, birth attendants, and GDP measured using purchasing power parities (PPPs).

ATTACHMENT TWELVE – From the World Population Review

GENDER EQUALITY BY COUNTRY 2023

See website here for charts, graphs and map of the world’s equality updateable by year

Gender equality, the concept that everyone should be treated equally regardless of their genetic or chosen gender, is an issue of both human dignity and respect. Many experts believe that gender equality across categories including education, employment, health, politics, and economic participation is not only a cultural responsibility, but a necessary and crucial part of the healthiest, most optimized economies. Sustainable development goals and other economic targets are often unachievable if half of a country’s population is hampered by restricted opportunities. In order to improve gender equality, many governments are implementing policies that provide talent development, diversify the leadership pool, and provide support to families and caregivers of every gender.

Global Gender Gap Index 2021

The World Economic Forum compiles and releases the Global Gender Gap Index every year. This report measures the extent of gender-based gaps among four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment, then gives each country a ranking between 0.000 (or 0%, the lowest possible gender equality) and 1.000 (100%, the highest possible gender equality). The analyses of each country are intended to serve as a basis for designing effective measures for reducing gender gaps. The 2021 edition of the Global Gender Gap Index studied and ranked 156 countries and territories around the world.

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Gender Equality (2021 World Economic Forum)

1. Iceland — 89.2%

2. Finland — 86.1%

3. Norway — 84.9%

4. New Zealand — 84.0%

5. Sweden — 82.3%

6. Namibia — 80.9%

7. Rwanda — 80.5%

8. Lithuania — 80.4%

9. Ireland — 80.0%

10. Switzerland — 79.8%

The top ten countries for gender equality include four Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden; as well as their European neighbors Ireland, Switzerland, and Lithuania (the lone Eastern European country); the Asian Pacific country New Zealand; and two Sub-Saharan African countries, Rwanda and Namibia. Iceland retained its number one spot for the 12th year in a row, rising more than a full percentage point to 89.2%.

The 2021 report found that global gender parity actually decreased from 68.6% in 2019 to 68.0% in 2020, due in large part to the global ripple effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based upon current progress, the WEF predicts it would take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide. The largest current gender gap appears in the Political Empowerment category, which widened by 2.4%, a concern supported by statistics such as the fact that 81 countries have never had a female head of state.

The second-largest gap appears in the Economic Participation and Opportunity category. The proportion of women among skilled professionals increased, and wage equality inched forward slightly—both positive developments—however, significant wage disparity persists, and the percentage of females in leadership roles remains imbalanced. Females also seem to have been more likely to lose jobs as a result of the pandemic and slower to regain those jobs once pandemic-related restrictions were lifted.

Educational Attainment gaps are relatively small on average (95% closed globally), with 37 countries achieving true gender parity, and the gap in Health and Survival is also 96% closed. While these percentages are encouraging, the report notes that both also seem stalled, with the last few percentage points seemingly just out of reach. Gender parity also varies significantly from one global region to another.

Global Regions with the Highest and Lowest Gender Parity:

Rank	Country	Gender Parity
1	Western Europe	77.6%
2	North America	76.4%
3	Latin America & Caribbean	71.2%
4	Eastern Europe & Central Asia	71.1%
5	East Asia and Pacific	68.9%
6	Sub-Saharan Africa	67.2%
7	South Asia	62.3%
8	Middle East & North Africa	60.9%

10 Countries with the Least Gender Equality (and Largest Gender Gaps):

1. Afghanistan — 44.4%

2. Yemen — 49.2%

3. Iraq — 53.5%

4. Pakistan — 55.6%

5. Syria — 56.8%

6. DR Congo — 57.6%

7. Iran — 58.2%

8. Mali — 59.1%

9. Chad — 59.3%

10. Saudi Arabia — 60.3%

World results...

Country	Gender Equality Index 2021	Economic Opportunity	Education	Health	Political Power
Iceland	89.2%	84.6%	99.9%	96.4%	76%
Finland	86.1%	80.6%	100%	97%	66.9%
Norway	84.9%	79.2%	100%	96.4%	64%
New Zealand	84%	76.3%	100%	96.6%	63%
Sweden	82.3%	81%	99.6%	96.2%	52.2%
Namibia	80.9%	79.4%	100%	98%	46.3%
Rwanda	80.5%	72.6%	95.7%	97.4%	56.3%
Lithuania	80.4%	80.8%	99.8%	98%	42.9%
Ireland	80%	73.3%	99.8%	96.4%	50.4%
Switzerland	79.8%	74.3%	99.2%	96.4%	49.4%
Germany	79.6%	70.6%	99.7%	97.2%	50.9%
Nicaragua	79.6%	59.8%	100%	97.8%	60.6%
Belgium	78.9%	70.9%	100%	96.8%	48%
Spain	78.8%	69.9%	99.8%	96.5%	49.1%
Costa Rica	78.6%	62.4%	100%	97.3%	54.5%
Philippines	78.4%	79.5%	99.9%	97.9%	36.2%
France	78.4%	71%	100%	97%	45.7%
South Africa	78.1%	65.8%	99.4%	97.9%	49.3%
Serbia	78%	71.6%	99.8%	96.9%	43.7%
Latvia	77.8%	82.2%	100%	97.6%	31.3%
Austria	77.7%	66.5%	100%	97%	47.3%
United Kingdom	77.5%	71.6%	99.9%	96.6%	41.9%
Portugal	77.5%	74.6%	99.2%	97.2%	39%
Canada	77.2%	74.1%	100%	96.8%	38.1%
Albania	77%	74.8%	99.9%	95.6%	37.7%
Burundi	76.9%	85.5%	89.6%	97.9%	34.5%
Barbados	76.9%	83.7%	99.1%	96.8%	27.8%
Denmark	76.8%	73.6%	100%	96.4%	37.1%
Moldova	76.8%	81.1%	99.6%	98%	28.6%
United States	76.3%	75.4%	100%	97%	32.9%
Netherlands	76.2%	71.3%	100%	96.2%	37.5%
Mozambique	75.8%	65.5%	90.4%	98%	49.4%
Belarus	75.8%	84%	99.9%	97.7%	21.6%
Mexico	75.7%	59%	99.7%	97.5%	46.8%
Argentina	75.2%	63.9%	100%	97.7%	39%
Laos	75%	91.5%	96.5%	97.5%	14.6%
Trinidad And Tobago	74.9%	70.3%	99.4%	98%	31.9%
Cuba	74.6%	63%	99.8%	97.3%	38.2%
Bulgaria	74.6%	73.8%	99.1%	97.9%	27.5%
Jamaica	74.1%	76.8%	100%	96.8%	23%
Slovenia	74.1%	80.3%	100%	97.7%	18.4%
Ecuador	73.9%	67.5%	99.7%	96.8%	31.8%
El Salvador	73.8%	63.4%	99.2%	98%	34.7%
Panama	73.7%	73.1%	99.4%	97.3%	25.2%
Croatia	73.3%	66.6%	99.5%	97.8%	29.4%
Estonia	73.3%	75.4%	100%	97.5%	20.1%
Zimbabwe	73.2%	76.3%	97.7%	98%	21%
Georgia	73.2%	70.5%	100%	97.7%	24.5%
Montenegro	73.2%	74.8%	99.8%	97%	21.2%
Australia	73.1%	70%	100%	96.8%	25.8%
Eswatini	72.9%	79.7%	99.2%	98%	14.7%
Suriname	72.9%	70.3%	99.3%	96.9%	25.2%
Guyana	72.8%	63.8%	98.4%	98%	31%
Singapore	72.7%	74.9%	99%	96.3%	20.8%
Zambia	72.6%	80.4%	93.8%	98%	18%
Luxembourg	72.6%	69.1%	100%	96.5%	24.7%
Colombia	72.5%	70.8%	100%	97.5%	21.6%
Madagascar	72.5%	75.4%	98.2%	96.5%	20%
Bahamas	72.5%	85.7%	100%	98%	6.4%
Israel	72.4%	70.5%	100%	96.4%	22.7%
Bolivia	72.2%	59.5%	98.1%	96.2%	35.2%
Italy	72.1%	60.9%	99.7%	96.5%	31.3%
Peru	72.1%	62.9%	98.1%	96.4%	31%
Bangladesh	71.9%	41.8%	95.1%	96.2%	54.6%
Uganda	71.7%	69.2%	89.8%	98%	29.6%
Chile	71.6%	61%	100%	97%	28.3%
Honduras	71.6%	72.1%	100%	96.4%	17.9%
United Arab Emirates	71.6%	51%	98.7%	96.3%	40.3%
Mongolia	71.6%	76.9%	99.3%	98%	12.2%
Botswana	71.6%	79.9%	100%	98%	8.4%
Cape Verde	71.6%	76.1%	97.2%	98%	15.2%
North Macedonia	71.5%	64.7%	97.7%	97%	26.7%
Ukraine	71.4%	73.2%	100%	97.8%	14.7%
Poland	71.3%	70.5%	99.6%	98%	17.1%
Bosnia And Herzegovina	71.3%	60.8%	96.7%	97.4%	30.2%
Slovakia	71.2%	68.2%	100%	98%	18.4%
Czech Republic	71.1%	66.2%	100%	97.8%	20.3%
Thailand	71%	78.7%	99.2%	97.8%	8.4%
Kazakhstan	71%	72.8%	99.5%	97.5%	14.1%
Russia	70.8%	76.7%	100%	98%	8.5%
Tanzania	70.7%	70.3%	92.1%	97%	23.5%
Cyprus	70.7%	69.4%	99.8%	96%	17.7%
Malta	70.3%	65.6%	100%	96.5%	19.2%
Paraguay	70.2%	67.2%	99.8%	97.4%	16.4%
Uruguay	70.2%	69%	100%	98%	14%
Vietnam	70.1%	76.5%	98.2%	94.5%	11.3%
Romania	70%	72.3%	99.7%	98%	10%
Venezuela	69.9%	61.7%	99.8%	98%	19.9%
Dominican Republic	69.9%	64.6%	100%	98%	17.2%
Belize	69.9%	74.9%	99.1%	98%	7.5%
Lesotho	69.8%	64.7%	100%	98%	16.5%
Brazil	69.5%	66.5%	100%	98%	13.8%
Liberia	69.3%	71.7%	83.9%	96.2%	25.5%
Kenya	69.2%	67.2%	92.9%	97.5%	19.3%
Cameroon	69.2%	70.6%	88.5%	97.3%	20.2%
Ethiopia	69.1%	56%	85%	97.1%	38.2%
Greece	68.9%	67.2%	99.4%	96.6%	12.3%
Indonesia	68.8%	64.7%	97%	97.1%	16.4%
Azerbaijan	68.8%	74.8%	99.6%	93.9%	6.9%
Hungary	68.8%	66.9%	99.3%	98%	11.2%
South Korea	68.7%	58.6%	97.3%	97.6%	21.4%
Senegal	68.4%	55.4%	88.8%	96.7%	32.7%
Cambodia	68.4%	72.9%	91.9%	97.8%	11.1%
Nepal	68.3%	63%	89.5%	96.5%	24.1%
Togo	68.3%	78.7%	78.2%	97.9%	18.5%
China	68.2%	70.1%	97.3%	93.5%	11.8%
Myanmar	68.1%	65.7%	97.5%	98%	11.3%
Kyrgyzstan	68.1%	64.6%	99%	98%	10.8%
Mauritius	67.9%	60%	99.2%	98%	14.4%
Brunei	67.8%	72.2%	99.2%	96.5%	3.1%
Malaysia	67.6%	63.8%	99.4%	97.2%	10.2%
Fiji	67.4%	56.8%	99.7%	97.2%	16%
Armenia	67.3%	65.5%	99.8%	95%	9.1%
Malawi	67.1%	62.4%	91.5%	98%	16.4%
Sri Lanka	67%	54.7%	98.8%	98%	16.7%
Ghana	66.6%	59.8%	95.1%	97.8%	13.5%
Guinea	66%	83.9%	68%	96.6%	15.7%
Angola	65.7%	64.6%	75.9%	97.6%	24.5%
Japan	65.6%	60.4%	98.3%	97.3%	6.1%
Guatemala	65.5%	56%	96.9%	97.9%	11.2%
Sierra Leone	65.5%	71.3%	86%	96.6%	8.3%
Benin	65.3%	81.4%	73.3%	97.3%	9.3%
Burkina Faso	65.1%	68.9%	87.3%	97.8%	6.6%
Tajikistan	65%	57.4%	94.2%	96.9%	11.2%
Tunisia	64.9%	44.5%	97%	96.9%	21.2%
Gambia	64.4%	60.7%	89.1%	96.8%	11.2%
Maldives	64.2%	49.1%	100%	95.5%	12.1%
Egypt	63.9%	42.1%	97.3%	96.8%	19.6%
Bhutan	63.9%	55.6%	95.4%	96.3%	8.2%
Turkey	63.8%	48.6%	97.5%	96.7%	12.3%
Jordan	63.8%	53.8%	99.1%	95.7%	6.6%
Lebanon	63.8%	48.7%	96.4%	97%	12.9%
Ivory Coast	63.7%	66.4%	82.8%	97.9%	7.6%
Papua New Guinea	63.5%	68.4%	89.5%	95.9%	0%
Algeria	63.3%	45.6%	96.6%	95.8%	15.1%
Bahrain	63.2%	51.8%	98.5%	95.9%	6.6%
Niger	62.9%	67.3%	72.6%	96.4%	15.5%
Nigeria	62.7%	68.7%	80.6%	96.7%	4.7%
India	62.5%	32.6%	96.2%	93.7%	27.6%
Vanuatu	62.5%	57.6%	94.7%	97.5%	0%
Qatar	62.4%	50.4%	99%	94.8%	5.3%
Kuwait	62.1%	49.8%	99.7%	96.8%	2.2%
Morocco	61.2%	40.7%	95.6%	96.1%	12.6%
Oman	60.8%	45.3%	97.7%	96.1%	4.1%
Mauritania	60.6%	44%	87.9%	95.7%	14.7%
Saudi Arabia	60.3%	39%	98%	96.4%	7.7%
Chad	59.3%	69.3%	58.9%	97%	11.8%
Mali	59.1%	47.5%	75.7%	95.9%	17.2%
Iran	58.2%	37.5%	95.3%	96.3%	3.6%
Dr Congo	57.6%	57.1%	65.8%	97.6%	9.9%
Syria	56.8%	28.5%	95.3%	96.5%	6.7%
Pakistan	55.6%	31.6%	81.1%	94.4%	15.4%
Iraq	53.5%	22.8%	80.7%	96.8%	13.6%
Yemen	49.2%	28.2%	71.7%	96.8%	0.1%
Afghanistan	44.4%	18%	51.4%	95.2%	13.2%

ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN – From Wiki

An earlier survey, by: THE GENDER INEQUALITY INDEX

The Gender Inequality Index (GII) is an index for measurement of gender disparity that was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). According to the UNDP, this index is a composite measure to quantify the loss of achievement within a country due to gender inequality. It uses three dimensions to measure opportunity cost: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation. The new index was introduced as an experimental measure to remedy the shortcomings of the previous indicators, the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), both of which were introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report.

ORIGINS

As international recognition of the importance of eliminating gender inequality was growing, the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) were introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report. The GDI and GEM became the primary indices for measuring global gender inequality for the United Nations Human Development Reports. The GDI and GEM faced much criticism for their methodological and conceptual limitations.^[2][3]

Beneria and Permanyer have explained that the GDI and GEM are not measurements of gender inequality in and of themselves. The GDI is a composite index which measures development within a country then negatively corrects for gender inequality; and the GEM measures the access women have to attaining means of power in economics, politics, and making decisions. Both of which Beneria and Permanyer claim are inaccurate in clearly capturing gender inequality.^[4] According to the UNDP, the GDI was criticized for its inability to accurately measure gender inequality for its components being too closely related to the Human Development Index (HDI), a composite measure of human development used by the UNDP.^[5]

Thus, the differences between the HDI and GDI were small leading to the implication that gender disparities were irrelevant to human development. The UNDP also claims that both the GDI and GEM were criticized because income levels had a tendency to dominate the earned income component, which resulted in countries with low income levels not being able to get high scores, even in cases where their levels of gender inequality may have been low. The GEM indicators proved to be more relevant to developed countries than less-developed countries. With international growing concern for gender equality, the participants of the World Economic Forum in 2007, among others, recognized that the advancement of women was a significant issue that impacted the growth of nations.^[6]

As of 2006, the World Economic Forum has been using the Gender Gap Index (GGI) in its Global Gender Gap Reports, which ranks countries according to their gender gaps, in an attempt to better capture gender disparities.^[7] Beneria and Permanyer criticize the GGI for only capturing inequality in certain aspects of women's lives therefore making it an incomplete measure of gender inequality.^[4]

Given the amount of criticism the GDI and GEM were facing, the UNDP felt that these indices did not fully capture the disparities women faced. In an attempt to reform the GDI and GEM, the UNDP introduced the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in the 2010 Human Development Report.^[5] The new index is a composite measure which, according to the UNDP, captures the loss of achievement due to gender inequality using three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation. The GII does not include income levels as a component, which was one of the most controversial components of the GDI and GEM. It also does not allow for high achievements in one dimension to compensate for low achievement in another.^[5]

DIMENSIONS

There are three critical dimensions to the GII: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation. The dimensions are captured in one synthetic index, as to account for joint significance. According to the UNDP, none of the measures in the dimensions pertain to the country's development and therefore a less-developed country can perform well if gender inequality is low. The UNDP considers the dimensions complementary in that inequality in one dimension tends to affect inequality in another. Therefore, the GII captures association across dimensions, making the index association-sensitive, and ensuring that high achievement in one dimension does not compensate for low achievement in another dimension.^[8]

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

Permanyer notes that the GII is a pioneering index, in that it is the first index to include reproductive health indicators as a measurement for gender inequality.^[3] The GII's dimension of reproductive health have two indicators: the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR), the data for which come UNICEF's State of the World's Children, and the adolescent fertility rate (AFR), the data for which is obtained through the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, respectively. With a low MMR, it is implied that pregnant women have access to adequate health needs, therefore the MMR is a good measure of women's access to health care. The UNDP expresses that women's health during pregnancy and childbearing is a clear sign of women's status in society.^[8]

A high AFR, which measures early childbearing, results in health risks for mothers and infants as well as a lack of higher education attainment. According to the UNDP data, reproductive health accounts for the largest loss due to gender inequality, among all regions.^[8]

EMPOWERMENT

The empowerment dimension is measured by two indicators: the share of parliamentary seats held by each sex, which is obtained from the International Parliamentary Union, and higher education attainment levels, which is obtained through United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Barro-Lee data sets.^[9] The GII index of higher education evaluates women's attainment to secondary education and above. Access to higher education expands women's freedom by increasing their ability to question and increases their access to information which expands their public involvement.^[8]

There is much literature that finds women's access to education may reduce the AFR and child mortality rates within a country.^[6][10] Due to data limitations the parliament representation indicator is limited to national parliament and excludes local government or other community involvement. Although women's representation in parliament has been increasing women have been disadvantaged in representation of parliament with a global average of only 16%.^[8]

LABOR MARKET PARTICIPATION

The labor market dimension is measured by women's participation in the workforce. This dimension accounts for paid work, unpaid work, and actively looking for work. The data for this dimension is obtained through the International Labour Organization databases. Due to data limitations women's income and unpaid work are not represented in the labor market dimension of GII.^[9] In the absence of reliable earned income data across countries, the UNDP considers labor market participation a suitable substitute for economic aspects of gender inequality.^[2]

CALCULATIONS

The metrics of the GII are similar in calculations to the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), which was also introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report, and can be interpreted as a percentage loss of human development due to shortcomings in the included dimensions. The value of GII range between 0 and 1, with 0 being 0% inequality, indicating women fare equally in comparison to men and 1 being 100% inequality, indicating women fare poorly in comparison to men. There is a correlation between GII ranks and human development distribution, according to the UNDP countries that exhibit high gender inequality also show inequality in distribution of development, and vice versa.^[8]

The GII is an association-sensitive, responsive to distributional changes across dimension,^[3] composite index used to rank the loss of development through gender inequality within a country.^[8] The GII measures inequalities by addressing the shortcomings of other measures through aggregate strategy using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) in order to avoid aggregation problems.^[6] There are five steps to computing the gender inequality Index.^[8]

Step 1: Treating zeros and extreme values: The maternal mortality rate is truncated systematically at minimum of 10 and maximum of 1,000. The maximum and minimum is based on the normative assumption that all countries with maternal mortality ratios above 1,000 do not differ in their ability to support for maternal health as well as the assumption that all countries below 10 do not differ in their abilities. Countries with parliamentary representation reporting at 0 are counted as 0.1 because of the assumption that women have some level of political influence and that the geometric mean can not have a 0 value.

Step 2: Aggregating across dimensions within each gender group, using geometric means: Aggregating across dimensions for each gender group by the geometric mean makes the GII association-sensitive.^[8] The maternal mortality rate and the adolescent fertility rate are only relevant for females the males are only aggregated with the other two dimensions.

Step 3: Aggregating across gender groups, using a harmonic mean: To compute the equally distributed gender index the female and male indices are aggregated by the harmonic mean of the geometric means to capture the inequality between females and males and adjust for association between dimensions.

Step 4: Calculating the geometric mean of the arithmetic means for each indicator: Obtain the reference standard by aggregating female and male indices with equal weight, and then aggregating indices across dimensions.

Reproductive health is not an average of female and male indices but half the distance from the norms established

Step 5: Calculating the Gender Inequality Index: To compute the GII compare the equally distributed gender index from Step 3 to the reference standard from Step 4.

CHANGES IN 2011 CALCULATIONS

According to the UNDP there was a minor calculation change to the 2011 Gender Inequality Index from the 2010 index used. The maternal mortality ratio was calculated in the Gender Inequality Index at 10 even though the range of GII values should be between 0 and 1. To correct this the maternal mortality ratio is normalized by 10, which generally reduced the values of the GII.

RANKINGS

As there is no country with perfect gender equality, all countries suffer some loss of human development due to gender inequality. The difference in dimensions used in the GII and HDI means that the GII is not interpreted as a loss of HDI, but has its own rank and value separate from the HDI.^[5] The GII is interpreted as a percentage and indicates the percentage of potential human development lost due to gender inequality. The world average GII score in 2011 was 0.492, which indicates a 49.2% loss in potential human development due to gender inequality.^[9] Due to the limitations of data and data quality, the 2010 Human Development Report calculated GII rankings of 138 countries for the year 2008. The 2011 Human Development Report was able to calculate the GII rankings of 146 countries for the reporting year 2011.^[11]

The 2019 rankings for all scored countries based on UNDP GII data are:

GII Rank	HDI Rank	Country	GII Value
1	2	Switzerland	0.025
2	1	Norway	0.038
3	11	Finland	0.039
4	8	Netherlands	0.043
4	10	Denmark	0.043
6	7	Sweden	0.045
6	14	Belgium	0.045
7	23	South Korea	0.047
8	26	France	0.049
9	4	Iceland	0.058
10	22	Slovenia	0.063
11	23	Taiwan	0.064
12	23	Luxembourg	0.065
12	11	Singapore	0.065
14	18	Austria	0.069
14	29	Italy	0.069
16	25	Spain	0.070
17	19	Japan	0.075
18	38	Portugal	0.079
19	16	Canada	0.080
20	6	Germany	0.084
21	33	Cyprus	0.086
21	29	Estonia	0.086
23	2	Ireland	0.093
24	14	New Zealand	0.094
25	8	Australia	0.097
26	19	United Kingdom	0.109
26	48	Montenegro	0.109
28	35	Poland	0.115
29	32	Greece	0.116
29	43	Croatia	0.116
31	31	United Arab Emirates	0.118
31	53	Belarus	0.118
33	14	Israel	0.123
34	34	Lithuania	0.124
35	64	Serbia	0.132
36	27	Czech Republic	0.136
37	82	North Macedonia	0.143
38	73	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.149
39	85	China	0.168
40	28	Malta	0.175
41	37	Latvia	0.176
42	69	Albania	0.181
43	45	Qatar	0.185
44	51	Kazakhstan	0.190
45	39	Slovakia	0.191
46	17	United States	0.204
46	90	Moldova	0.204
48	56	Bulgaria	0.206
49	42	Bahrain	0.212
50	52	Russia	0.225
51	40	Hungary	0.233
52	74	Ukraine	0.234
53	64	Kuwait	0.242
54	81	Armenia	0.245
55	43	Chile	0.247
56	105	Libya	0.252
56	40	Saudi Arabia	0.252
56	58	Barbados	0.252
59	62	Malaysia	0.253
60	47	Brunei	0.255
61	49	Romania	0.276
62	55	Uruguay	0.288
62	106	Uzbekistan	0.288
62	62	Costa Rica	0.288
65	95	Tunisia	0.296
65	117	Vietnam	0.296
67	70	Cuba	0.304
68	60	Oman	0.306
68	54	Turkey	0.306
70	125	Tajikistan	0.314
71	99	Mongolia	0.322
71	74	Mexico	0.322
73	88	Azerbaijan	0.323
73	67	Trinidad and Tobago	0.323
75	46	Argentina	0.328
76	61	Georgia	0.331
77	58	Bahamas	0.341
78	66	Mauritius	0.347
79	104	Tonga	0.354
80	79	Thailand	0.359
81	111	Samoa	0.360
82	95	Maldives	0.369
82	120	Kyrgyzstan	0.369
84	93	Fiji	0.370
85	124	El Salvador	0.383
86	86	Ecuador	0.384
87	79	Peru	0.395
88	101	Jamaica	0.396
89	126	Cape Verde	0.397
90	86	Saint Lucia	0.401
90	72	Sri Lanka	0.401
92	160	Rwanda	0.402
93	114	South Africa	0.406
94	57	Panama	0.407
95	84	Brazil	0.408
96	92	Lebanon	0.411
97	110	Belize	0.415
98	107	Bolivia	0.417
99	129	Bhutan	0.421
100	132	Honduras	0.423
101	83	Colombia	0.428
101	128	Nicaragua	0.428
103	91	Algeria	0.429
104	107	Philippines	0.430
105	97	Suriname	0.436
106	130	Namibia	0.440
107	103	Paraguay	0.446
108	116	Egypt	0.449
109	102	Jordan	0.450
110	142	Nepal	0.452
111	121	Morocco	0.454
112	88	Dominican Republic	0.455
113	137	Laos	0.459
113	70	Iran	0.459
115	122	Guyana	0.462
116	100	Botswana	0.465
117	144	Cambodia	0.474
118	147	Myanmar	0.478
119	113	Venezuela	0.479
119	127	Guatemala	0.479
121	107	Indonesia	0.480
122	151	Syria	0.482
123	131	India	0.488
124	185	Burundi	0.504
125	173	Ethiopia	0.517
126	143	Kenya	0.518
127	181	Mozambique	0.523
128	119	Gabon	0.525
129	150	Zimbabwe	0.527
130	168	Senegal	0.533
131	159	Uganda	0.535
132	148	Angola	0.536
133	135	Sao Tome and Principe	0.537
133	133	Bangladesh	0.537
135	138	Ghana	0.538
135	154	Pakistan	0.538
137	146	Zambia	0.539
138	170	Sudan	0.545
139	165	Lesotho	0.553
140	163	Tanzania	0.556
141	153	Cameroon	0.560
142	174	Malawi	0.565
143	138	Eswatini	0.567
144	149	Republic of the Congo	0.570
145	167	Togo	0.573
146	123	Iraq	0.577
147	182	Burkina Faso	0.594
148	158	Benin	0.612
148	172	Gambia	0.612
150	175	Democratic Republic of the Congo	0.617
151	157	Mauritania	0.634
152	170	Haiti	0.636
153	162	Ivory Coast	0.638
154	189	Niger	0.642
155	182	Sierra Leone	0.644
156	175	Liberia	0.650
157	169	Afghanistan	0.655
158	184	Mali	0.671
159	188	Central African Republic	0.680
160	187	Chad	0.710
161	155	Papua New Guinea	0.725
162	179	Yemen	0.795

TOP TEN COUNTRIES

The ten highest-ranked countries in terms of gender equality according to the GII for 2008,^[8] 2011,^[11] and 2012.^[12]

2018 rank and value, source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-5-gender-inequality-index-gii.

2018: 9th is Iceland, 10th is Republic of Korea.

Ranking of other countries worth noting: Canada is no. 18, Australia is no. 25, China is no. 39 and United States is no. 42.

Country	GII Rank (GII value) 2018	GII Rank 2012	GII Value 2012	HDI Rank 2012	GII Rank 2011	GII Value 2011	GII Rank 2008	GII Value 2008
Netherlands	4 (0.041)	1	0.045	4	2	0.052	1	0.174
Sweden	2 (0.040)	2	0.055	7	1	0.049	3	0.212
Denmark	2 (0.040)	3	0.057	15	3	0.060	2	0.209
Switzerland	1 (0.037)	4	0.057	9	4	0.067	4	0.228
Norway	5 (0.044)	5	0.065	1	6	0.075	5	0.234
Finland	7 (0.050)	6	0.075	21	5	0.075	8	0.248
Germany	19 (0.084)	7	0.075	5	7	0.085	7	0.240
South Korea	7 (0.048)	8	0.08	7	8	0.078	8	0.198
France	8 (0.051)	10	0.083	20	10	0.106	11	0.260
Belgium	6 (0.045)	9	0.068	*	*	*	*	GHS

Countries not included^[13][14][edit]

Country	GII Rank 2012	GII Value 2012	HDI Rank 2012	GII Rank 2011	GII Value 2011	GII Rank 2008	GII Value 2008
Republic of China (Taiwan)	2	0.053	23	4	0.061	4	0.223

Bottom ten countries[edit]

The ten lowest ranked countries in terms of gender equality according to the GII for 2008,^[8] 2011,^[11] and 2012.^[12]

2018 rank and value, source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-5-gender-inequality-index-gii.

Country	GII Rank (GII value) 2018	GII Value 2012	HDI Rank 2012	GII Rank 2011	GII Value 2011	GII Rank 2008	GII Value 2008
Yemen	162 (0.834)	0.747	160	--	--	--	--
Afghanistan	143 (0.575)	0.712	175	141	0.717	134	0.797
Niger	154 (0.647)	0.707	186	144	0.724	136	0.807
Congo	156 (0.655)	0.681	186	142	0.710	169	0.814
Liberia	155 (0.651)	0.658	174	139	0.671	131	0.766
Central African Republic	159 (0.682)	0.654	180	138	0.669	132	0.768
Mali	158 (0.676)	0.649	182	143	0.712	135	0.799
Sierra Leone	153 (0.644)	0.643	177	137	0.662	125	0.756
Mauritania	150 (0.620)	0.643	155	--	--	--	--

Criticisms

Although the GII is a relatively new index that has only been in use since 2010, there are some criticisms of the GII as a global measurement of gender inequality. The GII may inadequately capture gender inequality and leave out important aspects or include unnecessary dimensions. The GII is a complex indicator with many components that are difficult for some to interpret or calculate.

Complexity[edit]

Klasen and Schüler as well as Permanyer argue that the complexity of the GII will make it difficult to interpret or understand for the professionals who would likely want to make use of it because so many non-linear procedures are applied to the data.^[3][15] Permanyer believes that simplicity is required in order for analysts, policy-makers, or practitioners to convey a clear message to the general public.

Klasen and Schüler claim that the GII is meant to represent a loss of human development, but the standard against which the losses are measured is not stated anywhere, unlike the GDI where the losses were measured against the HDI, making the HDI represent perfect equality.^[15] The UNDP explains that the complexity of the calculations are needed in order to maintain an association-sensitive measure, but Permanyer argues that alternative indices that are much less complex have also shown to be association sensitive.

ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN – From OECD

WHY OECD COUNTRIES MUST STEP UP EFFORTS TO BOOST GENDER EQUALITY

Despite progress in recent years, women and girls still face disadvantages and barriers in most spheres of social and economic life. OECD countries must do more – explore our latest publication.

This new publication analyses developments and policies for gender equality, such as gender mainstreaming and budgeting, reforms to increase fathers’ involvement in parental leave and childcare, pay transparency initiatives to tackle gender pay gaps, and systems to address gender-based violence. It extends the perspective on gender equality to include foreign direct investment, nuclear energy and transport.

Advancing gender equality is not just a moral imperative; in times of rapidly ageing populations, low fertility and multiple crises, it will strengthen future gender-equal economic growth and social cohesion.

Key Documents

· Report on the Implementation of the OECD Gender Recommendations (June 2022)

· Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls: : Guidance for Development Partners (May 2022)

· Tax Policy and Gender Equality: A Stocktake of Country Approaches (February 2022) 

· Towards Improved Retirement Savings Outcomes for Women (March 2021) 

· Changing Laws and Breaking Barriers for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia (November 2020)

· Women at the core of the fight against the COVID-19 crisis (April 2020)

· SIGI 2019 Global Report - Transforming Challenges into Opportunities (March 2019)

· Is the Last Mile the Longest? Economic Gains from Gender Equality in Nordic Countries (May 2018)

· The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle (September 2017)

· OECD Report on the Implementation of the OECD Gender Recommendation (June 2017)

· OECD Report to G7 Leaders on Women and Entrepreneurship (May 2016)

· OECD recommendation - Gender equality in public life (Dec. 2015)

· OECD recommendation - Gender equality in education, employment and entrepreneurship (May 2013)

GENDER WAGE GAP

Employees, Percentage, 2022 or latest availableSource: Earnings: Gross earnings: decile ratios

Data table for: Gender wage gap, Employees, Percentage, 2022 or latest available
Location ▾	▾ Latest
Argentina	6.250
Australia	9.875
Austria	12.157
Belgium	1.173
Brazil	9.091
Bulgaria	2.555
Canada	16.667
Chile	8.596
Colombia	3.188
Costa Rica	5.204
Croatia	7.575
Cyprus	21.127
Czech Republic	11.519
Denmark	4.994
Estonia		20.430
European Union (27 countries)		10.628
Finland		15.979
France		15.047
Germany		14.203
Greece		5.909
Hungary		12.350
Iceland		12.901
Ireland		8.284
Israel		24.319
Italy		8.716
Japan		22.114
Korea		31.065
Latvia		23.953
Lithuania		9.021
Malta		11.094
Mexico		12.500
Netherlands		13.231
New Zealand		6.667
Norway		4.601
OECD - Total		11.933
Poland		8.691
Portugal		11.717
Romania		5.755
Slovak Republic		11.700
Slovenia		8.195
Spain		3.716
Sweden		7.246
Switzerland		13.803
Türkiye		9.981
United Kingdom		14.349
United States		16.864

ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN – From Oxfam

HOW SHOULD WE FEEL ABOUT MOTHER'S DAY?

May 12, 2023 Posted by Rebecca Rewald,  Sarah Tuckey,  Dr. Kaitlyn Henderson

In anticipation of Mother’s Day on May 14, we convened a group of women at Oxfam who have expertise around gender, care, and labor policies—as well as feelings about being a woman in the world today. It was a fascinating and illuminating conversation about a holiday with deep, complicated, and emotional roots.

Mary Babic
I think it's fair to say that Mother's Day has become a weird cultural touch point for us all. I do like the history of Mother's Day in the US, which has to do with anti-militarism–but it has obviously mutated into something that's about commercialization and sort of the sanctification of what it means to be a mother. So I wonder how you all feel about it now.

Sarah Tuckey
I want to comment on the fascinating transition of what Mother’s Day was–that it was to recognize the sacrifices of mothers who are sending their children off to war–and what it is now-a day where we sort of valorize the idea of the woman who does it all. It's like we've contained motherhood in this concept that is so unattainable–and we've erased any sort of idea of the sacrifice of what it takes to be a mother.

But what does Mother's Day mean now? I see a lot of moms saying, for Mother's Day, I just want to get away from my family. I want a day off, I want to go to the spa. Whereas, when fathers have Father's Day, there's the intention for them to do something with their kids.

Mary Babic
The distinction between Mother's Day and Father's Day is fascinating; my daughter, now 21, often remarks when she sees a man with little kids, wondering that that’s still not the norm; it's moms who are constantly having the relationship with the little kids–either at home or even in a care facility; it's still a woman's role.

Kaitlyn Henderson
As a kid, for Mother's Day, our gift would be alleviating some of the care responsibilities–and I had never really thought about that till you just said that, Sarah. Our gift would be: we will cook dinner, we will do the cleaning. And for Father's Day, it would be like we're going to do an activity.

I have friends who feel like it's a day that recognizes the societal pressure to reproduce. And the idea that if you do not do so as a woman, you are not fulfilling your purpose of existence. It has become a very gendered highlighting of what women's role “is supposed to be” in society.

Mary Babic
I've gotten several emails from online vendors warning me about Mother's Day, and saying you can opt out of our messaging on this–so at least the commercial world is starting to recognize that it can be a very difficult time for a lot of people.

Do any of you want to address Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent comment about who is a mother? She was talking to a stepmother–Randi Weingarten, president of the teachers’ union–and Greene said the only person who is a mother is the one who gave birth.

Sarah Tuckey
In my mind, it relates to reproductive rights. These people are saying you are not a mother unless you have carried a child within your body and given birth (in whatever manner).

And it’s fascinating because it's just another comment in a larger narrative that is saying to women that your sole purpose is to create life–particularly if you are a white, upper-middle-class woman, your job is to have children in this country. So that's just really sickening. Because she's just adding so much negativity to that conversation.

Mary Babic
There is an argument that the pro-life movement is racist, that they want to compel white women to have more babies.

Sarah Tuckey
A lot of what motherhood is like truly is suffering, on various levels. From my own experience, the moment you have a kid, you live two truths all the time. You have so much love for a tiny little thing, but also so much fear and so much sadness, because they're constantly growing up and they're constantly changing in front of you.

My daughter used to say the word “dappydoo” instead of open when she wanted something opened. And it was my favorite thing. But she said it for like two weeks, and now she says open. And I miss that. Do I want that back? Yes. But I'm so happy that she's developing language.

So it's this strange feeling of love/pain all at once. I think motherhood brings that out. It's like you can see that love and pain are two sides of the same coin.

And it’s those kinds of things that are not recognized by Mother's Day. No one is out there saying, “Thanks for being up all night with your toddler while the dad is asleep in the bed.” That’s the kind of thing that is erased by today’s Mother's Day–that deep suffering that is also something you would completely do again. I would get up with her a million times and hold her and help her fall back asleep–but oh God, I’m tired.

Mary Babic
I do also share your sense of loss–every time my kids went from being one stage in their development to another, I would miss the previous ones so much. Like I really miss my two-year-old kids. But now they're adults, and it's a different relationship, and they're gone forever

Kaitlyn Henderson
I've heard so much about people saying, especially for the birthing parent, that one of the big components of becoming a parent is losing your identity; you become subsumed into being a parent, and that becomes like primary. And I've even heard people say that they need to mourn the loss of who they were as they shift into this new person.

Sarah Tuckey
It was really stark in the early days. I firmly believe this country needs to give the people who go through the act of carrying and then birthing a child at least six months off from everything. Your body takes forever to heal. It never really looks the same again.

And your hormones are absolutely on a roller coaster–especially the first six weeks. I've never cried so much in my life. I've also never laughed so much.

I came across the word matrescence after giving birth. And I was like, yes. People talk about how you go through a really big change called adolescence: you're a child, then you make this huge transition. Your hormones are on a roller coaster. You're doing all these things and you become an adult and you learn about who you are that way.

People are calling it matrescence because it's so similar. Your chemistry changes, and your brain rewires. And we don’t talk about it–another part of this narrative where we don't talk about the suffering and the transformation of motherhood. We just highlight the good stuff in order to keep the society we want to keep.

I noted recently that I don't know what my style is anymore. All I wear is stretchy things. And it's partly because it's easy and quick, and I don't mind if things get spilled on me. But it's also because it's stretchy and comfortable and my body’s different. I don’t really know what to do with it.

You know, they want to tell you to bounce back, but I don’t think that happens in so many ways. I think people take a long time to figure out who they are.

Mary Babic
The best emotional characterization of having a child I’ve heard is that it's your heart walking around outside your body–and you never get over that. Your mind is always on your well-being of your kids, and sometimes it's joyful, and sometimes it's really painful, because you feel everything that they feel, whatever they're going through.

To talk a little bit about our work at Oxfam, it’s shocking to me that our country does not guarantee paid leave after you give birth. It splits your body in two. It completely changes your body. It takes months to recover. If you're breastfeeding, you're just this sort of wet, dreamy, sleepless presence–it's this enormous physical commitment. And that we don’t respect that or accommodate it in any way just undermines this whole idea of Mother's Day and saying, We honor mothers and what they do–because there's just no way.

And to speak to the inequality aspect around women in low wage jobs–they just are not guaranteed any kind of leave. We have just denied the humanity and dignity of this huge swath of our population. And they are disproportionately women of color, and from immigrant and refugee communities, and we don't see them as people and as parents. It's just stunning.

Kaitlyn Henderson
I've been reading Caring for America, which is the history of federal funding for caregivers, and the creation of the home caregiving system. The ways in which home caregivers were excluded from federal policy is very aligned with the work that we're doing–but it also brings to mind the history of Mother's Day as honoring the sacrifice of women sending their sons to war.

The book does a very good job of recognizing the ways in which Black women, Black mothers were excluded from any consideration of any federal policy, because a lot of the federal policies that created our social safety net system (such as Social Security and unemployment) were in order to keep white mothers at home caregiving, and allow white men to be the primary breadwinner. But at no point was the motherhood of Black women respected or acknowledged, despite how they were often heads of households and the primary breadwinners

It's interesting thinking about the history of whose motherhood has been respected in this country. And especially if we're thinking about the history of enslavement where motherhood was never respected for Black women, despite the fact that enslaved status followed the status of the mothers. You know, it was like motherhood was used against Black women for such a long time.

And even if you think about the 20th century and the labor, not just of giving birth, but also the labor of family, of earning an income—they were never respected the same. And then of course we see that long legacy today in terms of which workers have access to things like paid leave.

And in which communities is the maternal mortality rate the highest? and the infant mortality rate the highest? And these are so intrinsically connected. It really goes back to the ways that we don't actually respect motherhood in this country. It’s just performative.

We not only don't respect the physical nature of what it is to give birth, we don't respect the care responsibilities that women hold. We don't respect or celebrate the fact that a lot of mothers are primary breadwinners. We don’t respect and celebrate motherhood in a way that is tangible and realistic. Aside from a day when you maybe will cook for someone or give them a card.

Mary Babic
I do wonder if you have any more thoughts about the fact that for generations, as our economy has industrialized and urbanized, it's all been built on the unit of a household where the kids are raised, and the elderly are cared for, and the labor is completely uncompensated. And that is the bedrock that the whole machine runs on–they make more workers, and the workers go to work, but it’s unrecognized and unpaid. Do you think there's any way forward to actually recognize, value, and compensate that kind of care work?

Kaitlyn Henderson
I think one of the things that we are suffering from here is the fact that so many policies in the United States were built on the assumption of a very specific type of household where there is a male breadwinner and there is a woman who can provide care–maybe she works and maybe she doesn't. But in general, things like unemployment were built around a male breadwinner, Social Security was built around a male breadwinner. Minimum wages, everything you can imagine, was built with the framework of a nuclear household where there is a male breadwinner.

Because of that framework, nothing will function the way it should function today, when we are trying to really consider the roles of many people in the working society. Until we intentionally consider a different structure, we will be replicating these systems: where women's responsibilities–whether it's caregiving inside or outside of the home–are valued a little bit less. I think there needs to be a fundamental shift in how we consider what families are, and the roles that people hold as people.

But there are so many ways to do that—for example, paid leave. Even when men have access to family leave, they don't always take the full amount because there's this sort of internalized notion that they don't need to, or that they need to be the breadwinner. So many of our systems were created to support the financial well-being of male breadwinners, right? The assumption is that the financial well-being of the male breadwinner will then trickle down to the family, and he will take care of the needs of the family through his income.

Rebecca Rewald
There are obviously many proposed pieces legislation that would fix a lot of these issues. For example, universal child care, and a more robust long term care system. Not to mention that we've had some of these programs in place in the past. We had universal child care during World War Two; and at one point, Congress that would have enacted universal child care, but it got vetoed by President Nixon.

I do think that because of organizers who have pushed the Biden administration to focus on care work, it’s probably the first time in history it's gotten to this point where we are acknowledging as a nation the importance of this work–how critical it is to underpinning our economy and also our general well-being.

So universal child care, long term care-these policies would outsource caregiving and allow families to do that, which I, which is great and something we support. But I often think about, what if we had policies that allow people to do their own caregiving, right? For example, what if we lived in a society where one parent could make enough money to sustain a family of four? Then, one of the parents could stay home if they wanted to take care of their kids. But we’re nowhere near that. We have families where both parents are working, and it's still not enough money.

I just I think about kind of how a more people-centered economy, how labor policies, wage policies could facilitate caregiving and could sort of recognize and value it. Now we just want people to be able to survive.

But it could be something bigger – it could be that people have the option to stay home and care for an aging relative or whatever.

I do think there's this world beyond what we're even talking about now that I think we should hold on to.

Kaitlyn Henderson
The irony is that there's a framework for that via Social Security, specifically for people with disabilities and or the elderly. It should be better (for example, home health aides need to be paid more); but there is a framework.

But that framework just doesn't apply to people with young children under the age of five.

Which is what's very interesting–that the federal government has a system where they will subsidize and or give direct payments to people for care work, but not if you have children under the age of five.

I would really love for us to really reframe a conversation around the respect for women who are the primary breadwinners–whether partnered or not, whether they have children or not. How we can better create systems to support that, such that if there are caregiving responsibilities in your home– whether for children or for a home or for a partner or for an elder–there are systems that are in place to help facilitate that and to respect the labor that it takes.

By creating these new systems we are undoing the patriarchal social decisions that were made in the past in a really productive way, and honoring the work of women that is so often erased or disrespected or undervalued.

Rebecca Rewald
I think one of the ironies around the ways in which policies have been designed is that they actually speak to the identity of being a mother, but not the practice.

And I think about the most underserved women in the US, who are not able to “mother” because they work three jobs. Even the act of mothering has become a privilege because you have the time and resources to do it. So many women have given birth and have children, but they don't actually get to be mothers in the fullest sense because of all of these other burdens that they have on them.

So there's a lot to question about Mother's Day and what we're actually celebrating.

Sarah Tuckey
I've been thinking a lot about the privilege I have as a mother right now. Just going through my recent experiences with sleep deprivation–I'm able to have conversations with my colleagues and say, can we reschedule this? I just need to rest, and I get to recuperate from the tough nights.

I have the privilege of being able to reset myself so that when my family comes home at the end of the day, I can be the best mother I can be. Thinking about just as Rebecca said, the mother who is up all night with her kid because they're sick and then they have to go and do what? Shift one here and then shift two over here. They're not going to be in a good mental state.

When we have different tiers of employment, and you have better healthcare with this job and no healthcare with this job, you’re going to see the compound benefits for a person who has the better job.

It's just so basic.

Mary Babic
I think a lot about this story of a farm worker who left her kid at home and took the video monitor to the field with her so she could see what her kid was up to during the day. And a lot of the poultry workers we talked to went back to work like a day after they'd given birth. It's just relentless, and if you're the primary breadwinner, you cannot afford to not show up.

Rebecca Rewald
And that's particularly ironic with the abortion stuff, right? They've made it harder for you not to give birth, but it's still really hard to actually be a mother in the sense of taking care of your kids, spending time with them, right? Being sort of mentally able to do that. So it's like the definition of motherhood only focuses on the birth part and not the stuff after.

_____________________________________________

After this interview, someone posed the question to the group, What would be your vision of an ideal Mother’s Day? Everyone agreed it would be great if our society cared less about Mother's Day itself, and more about a broader context where all moms are supported through robust, helpful public policies.

Thanks to the women who participated in this discussion! For a bit more about Oxfam’s work in support of caregivers, please refer to this story.

ATTACHMENT SIXTEEN – From the Business Insider

MTG DEFENDS HER CALL TO SPLIT UP THE US BY SAYING THE COUNTRY IS MOVING TOWARDS ANOTHER CIVIL WAR: 'WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT'

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene defended her position that the US should be split up into separate "red" and "blue" states by saying another civil war is looming.

The far-right Republican appeared on Fox News on Tuesday, where host Sean Hannity questioned her about her position, and how division in the US could be healed without a split.

Greene responded by saying that she doesn't want a civil war, but that the country was moving towards one and action needs to be taken.

"The last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war. No one wants that — at least everyone I know would never want that — but it's going that direction, and we have to do something about it," she said.

Greene also claimed that everyone she talks to is "sick and tired and fed up with being bullied by the left, abused by the left, and disrespected by the left."

"Our ideas, our policies and our ways of life have become so far apart that it's just coming to that point," she added.

Greene posted a message on Twitter on Monday, Presidents' Day, calling for a "national divorce."

"We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government," she said.

She described it not as a civil war but "a legal agreement to separate our ideological and political disagreements by states while maintaining our legal union."

Hannity on Tuesday asked Greene if she believed that there could be a working relationship between the left and right, or if there was a "growing move" towards a split because the "divide is so deep."

Greene responded by saying she thinks "this is a much bigger movement than most people in Washington even realize."

She added that the response to her message "should tell people a lot."

As of Wednesday morning, her tweet had 77,000 likes and 10,400 retweets.

Greene's initial comments were heavily criticized by Democrats and some Republicans.

Utah's Republican governor said in a tweet that Greene's "rhetoric is destructive and wrong and—honestly—evil."

"We don't need a divorce, we need marriage counseling," Gov. Spencer Cox said. "And we need elected leaders that don't profit by tearing us apart."

White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson, meanwhile, told the Daily Beast that "Congresswoman Greene's comments are sick, divisive, and alarming to hear from a member of the House Oversight and Homeland Security Committees."

AND a FINAL NOTE FROM THE B.I.

Lauren Boebert once told women in rocky marriages that they just need to start 'chasing Jesus' to solve their marital issues. Now she's getting divorced.