ey.com (17.04.2024) Today, humanity is experiencing a paradigm shift and transitioning to a new era. We live in a world where every person’s well-being – the happiness of the body and mind – is impacted by social environments born of numerous changes, including an aging and increasingly diverse society, changes to how and where we work, and outbreaks of emerging diseases. This changing panorama is raising people’s interest in well-being technology, as well as its value and importance.

bbc.com (08.04.2024) People are living longer, and daily life is getting more expensive. It may be time to rethink the timeline for leaving the workforce. Handing in your proverbial badge as a sexagenarian has been the goal for many workers around the world: turning 65 would open a golden portal to retirement. Yet increasingly, the idea of stepping away from the workforce in your 60s doesn't seem realistic – or even sensible – for many people, especially now. Some major financial figureheads agree.

ipsnews.net (05.04.2024) Climate change is exacerbating inequalities between and within countries, disproportionately affecting poor households in rural areas. In fact, we know that more than half of the resources of the poor – a large part of whom are small-scale farmers – are lost due to climatic hazards. This has negative impacts on the incomes of these people and their ability to meet their essential needs, including food.

SundayWorld.com (05.04.2024) Up to 800,000 workers will be automatically enrolled into a pension scheme for the first time under new legislation published today. Workers who have no occupational or private pension and would have otherwise been solely reliant on the State Pension upon retirement will have access to the scheme under the bill. Employees aged between 23 and 60 years old, who earn over €20,000 per year and who are not already paying into a pension scheme, would automatically be enrolled.

theportugalnews.com (30.03.2024) Heather Humphreys, the minister for social protection, has outlined her plan to implement the much-anticipated pension auto-enrolment programme for workers. Under the plan, businesses would match employee contributions with an additional €3, meaning that the State will contribute €1 for every €3 an employee contributes to their pension account. Workers between the ages of 23 and 60 who are not currently registered in a pension plan will be enrolled automatically.

forbes.com (20.03.2024) Africa is the most youthful continent, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa under age 30. With high fertility rates and objections to birth control, the youth population will continue to grow. Investing in young people is important for the continent’s transformation, but Africa also needs to prepare for a growing older population that will present new issues in the decades ahead. By the end of this century, Africa will be home to almost 40% of the world’s population, including a 15-fold growth in older adults, from 46 million today to 694 million.

economist.com (21.03.2024) Most European countries have been making parental leave more generous since the 1980s. The eu sets a statutory minimum of 14 weeks leave for mothers and, since 2022, two weeks for fathers. But many member states offer leave that is much longer: the average across the eu is 21 weeks for women and three weeks for men, but lengths vary wildly. Paternity leave has been changing the most. Nordic countries were the first to introduce it by statute. Sweden had in 1974 introduced shared paid leave that could be taken by either parent; it now amounts to 69 weeks.

finance.yahoo.com (12.03.2024) Governments across Asia—in Singapore and Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul—are facing a crisis: plummeting birth rates. For several decades now, people in East Asian economies have had fewer and fewer children. Last year, South Korea beat its own record for having the world’s lowest birth rate, reporting 0.72 births per woman for 2023, down from 0.78 in 2022. Singapore reported 0.97 births per woman, the first time the rate has fallen below one. Japan has one of the world’s oldest populations, with a median age of 49.5.

blogs.worldbank.org (12.12.2023)  In Mali, the Jigisemejiri Emergency Social Safety Net Program is protecting the poorest and most vulnerable rural households from the impact of economic shocks and other crises. Since the program’s launch in 2013, the Government of Mali, with support from the World Bank including IDA grants of $122.4 million total, has provided cash transfers to more than 103,000 households to enable them to meet their urgent needs while investing in their children’s human capital and building their resilience to shocks. 

consilium.europa.eu (11.03.2024) EU employment and social affairs ministers confirmed the provisional agreement reached on 8 February 2024 between the Council’s presidency and the European Parliament’s negotiators on the platform work directive. This EU legal act aims to improve working conditions and regulate the use of algorithms by digital labour platforms. The directive will make the use of algorithms in human resources management more transparent, ensuring that automated systems are monitored by qualified staff and that workers have the right to contest automated decisions.