Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. Mr. Schleicher is an expert in the field of education and is also a special guest in our blog series about the development of #skills21 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This blog was written jointly with Leonardo Ortiz Villacorta who is Vice President of International Partnerships at Code.org. Code.org is a non-profit organization, dedicated to expanding access to computer science to all students in all schools, with an emphasis on increasing the participation of women and underrepresented groups.
The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting lives and economies. The World Bank estimates global GDP losses of US$12 trillion over 2020-2021, implying a US$500 million benefit to ending the pandemic just one month sooner. In this context, we need access to a safe and effective vaccine on a faster schedule than ever before achieved for a new disease. This will require significant private and government resources. A recent publication shows the considerable gains of accelerating access to a COVID-19 vaccine. Learn more in this article.
We explore the effects of a randomly assigned conditional cash transfer in Honduras (Bono 10000) on early childhood development. We find significant impacts on cognitive development in children 0-60 months, with an average effect size of 0.13 SD. We show differential impacts by type of transfer: 0-5-year-old children from families receiving the “health” transfer, which targeted families with 0-5-year-old children only, benefited significantly from the program, whereas 0-5 year-olds in families receiving the “education” transfer, which targeted 6-18 year-olds, perceived no benefit.
Migration between Mexico and the US has seen a sharp reversal. Since 2007 more Mexicans are returning home relative to those who are migrating to the United States. In light of recent research that finds that migrants have positive effects on
Nearly one quarter of El Salvador's population resides abroad as a result of historically high levels of violence, which have led to increasing family disintegration and many children being left behind in country of origin. Parental migration can have both positive and negative consequences on children left behind, where there are opposite forces taking place simultaneously. Remittances sent by migrant parents can increase financial resources previously unavailable which can be invested toward children's health and education.
Does immigration affect crime or beliefs about crime? We answer this question in the context of Chile, where the foreign-born population almost tripled in five years. To identify a causal effect, we use two strategies: a two-way fixed effects model at the municipality level and a 2SLS model, which is based on immigration toward destination countries other than Chile. First, we show that immigration increases concerns about crime and public security.
Latin America and the Caribbean is the fastest-aging region in the world. In three decades, one in four people will be over 60 years old. This irreversible trend will disproportionately affect women. Why? The existing supply of formal long-term care services is insufficient to meet the demand; therefore, the vast majority of people receive care from the women in their family informally.
Dr. Maria Garrido is the Principal Research Scientist and Adjunct Faculty at the Information School at University of Washington. Dr.
More than 8 million older people are dependent on long-term care in Latin America and the Caribbean. These people are not able, on their own, to perform at least one basic activity of daily living, such as bathing or showering, eating, using the toilet, dressing, getting around a room, or getting in and out of bed. In this region, care dependence affects 12% of people over age 60 and almost 27% of people over age 80.