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Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Our economy isn't built for the biological clock
Everyone should have the right to decide if and when they have children. Yet over the past 50 years, the United States has built an economy that increasingly works against fertility — demanding more years in school and longer hours at work for people, especially women, in the years when it is biologically easiest for them to have children, and concentrating wealth and income among those past their reproductive prime. As a result, American schools and workplaces are particularly ill-suited for supporting those who hope to start families earlier than average. 'If I were to complain about how society 'has wronged me as a woman,' it would be that it has treated my limited 'fertility time' with extreme disregard,' wrote Ruxandra Teslo, a genomics PhD student, recently on Substack. 'At each step of the way I was encouraged to 'be patient,' do more training, told that 'things will figure themselves out,' even when I wanted and could have speedrun through things.' The average age of a new mom is now 27.5, up from age 21 in 1970. I had no interest in having kids in my early twenties, but there are certainly reasons others might want that: Fertility decreases with age, and some find it easier to keep up with young children when they themselves are younger and have more energy. Others hope for larger families so may need to start conceiving earlier, or may prioritize making sure their own parents have many years to spend with grandkids. Of course, discussing reproductive timelines is fraught. Having others invoke the fact that women experience a decline in fertility with age feels intrusive and insensitive. And the conversation is even trickier today, when anti-abortion activists are pushing a conservative pro-baby agenda from the highest echelons of government and the Heritage Foundation is putting out literature blaming falling birth rates on too many people going to graduate school. (The evidence for that is very weak.) Yet it's precisely in such moments that progressive leaders should offer clear alternatives that both respect women's autonomy and ensure people can make less constrained choices. If mainstream feminism ignores the barriers to early parenthood, the right will be all too eager to fill the void. 'If the so-called feminists, as long as they play it by the elite rules, refuse to take seriously what [we] can do to support young families, then the right can move in and say, 'You might as well give up on your stupid ideas and career aspirations,'' marriage historian Stephanie Coontz told me. Not everyone wants to become a parent, but most women do still say they wish to have children one day. If we're serious about reproductive justice, then it's a mistake to ignore how our schools and workplaces have evolved to be broadly hostile to both fertility and parenthood. Having kids at a younger age is not inherently better — but for those who want to do it, the economy shouldn't be working against them at every step. Many women believe, correctly, that college and graduate education are important paths not only for their own financial well-being, but also to afford raising kids in a country that offers so little support to families. The idea that people can just up and abandon higher education to have kids, per the Heritage Foundation, isn't serious. 'We've just done so much to obscure the reality and to make it seem like, oh, moms are asking for too much, or they're postponing too long, or maybe they shouldn't be going to school so much,' said Jennifer Glass, a sociologist at University of Texas Austin who studies fertility and gender. 'What an idiotic thing to say. The only way that women can get wages that are at all comparable to what's necessary to raise a family is by getting a college degree.' Yet the US has built one of the longest, most expensive educational pipelines in the world. One reason many American students take longer to finish undergraduate degrees (or don't finish at all) is because of financial pressures that students abroad don't face. Nations like Germany, France, and Norway offer free or heavily subsidized university education, while others, including the UK and Australia, have manageable, easily navigable income-based repayment systems. American students are more likely to be juggling multiple jobs alongside coursework, stretching the time to graduation. The timeline stretches even longer for medical, legal, and doctoral degrees — tacking on years of extra training and credentialing that aren't required elsewhere. 'There's been an increase in the number of years of schooling that is totally unnecessary,' Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist and Nobel Prize winner, told me, pointing to, among other factors, the explosion of post-docs and pre-docs, plus pressure for applicants to acquire some work experience before even beginning their graduate studies. 'I went to graduate school immediately after college, and schools like UChicago and MIT had rules then that if you were there for more than four years, you paid tuition, so that incentivized people to finish,' she said. When educational timelines keep stretching with no structural support for parenting, the result is predictable: some people delay having children — or abandon those plans entirely. This isn't to say there are no parents on university campuses. There are roughly 3 million undergraduates — one in five college students — in the US today who have kids. But student parents are too often rendered invisible because most colleges don't collect data on them and harbor outdated assumptions about who even seeks higher education. 'Colleges and universities still cater to what is considered 'traditional students' — so 18- to 24-year-olds who are getting financial assistance from their parents,' said Jennifer Turner, a sociologist at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Student parents are far less likely to be receiving financial help from their own families than students of the same age and background without kids — and in general they're more likely to struggle to afford basic needs. But most campuses neglect their unique challenges and fail to provide them with resources like on-campus housing, kid-friendly spaces, and child care support. The Trump administration's new budget proposal calls for gutting the only federal program that helps student parents with child care. And while pregnant students are entitled to some federal protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title IX, in practice many students never even learn about them, or face intense stigma for using them. For graduate students in particular, there's no shortage of examples of students receiving both implicit and explicit signals to delay childbearing. Research found women were twice as likely as men to cite child care and parenting as reasons for leaving academia. Whether or not women want to have children in their early or mid-twenties, many feel they can't — because the career paths they pursue require longer routes to stability. Women are more often funneled into professions that demand extra time, whether through extended schooling, slower advancement, or the need to earn extra credentials to prove themselves. Many fields where women are concentrated, like education, social work, psychology, and nursing, require graduate training for higher-paying roles. In contrast, men are more likely to enter skilled trades or businesses where higher earnings are possible without advanced degrees. Goldin, the economist, pointed to the problem of the 'rat race equilibrium' — where individuals over-invest accumulating credentials not because doing so is intrinsically valuable, but because everyone else is doing the same. In this situation, falling behind the pack carries high costs. 'People want a great job, so they stay in graduate school 'too long.' Firms want the best lawyer, so they keep associates for 'too long.' I don't know what the optimal length is. But I do know that the addition of so many more years means that women will be more discouraged than will men,' she told me. These extended educational timelines feed directly into jobs that are also not designed to support parenting during a woman's prime childbearing years. Early-career workers typically earn less, have more precarious roles and rigid schedules, and often face more pressure to be fully available to employers to prove their commitment and worth. Some then move on to what Goldin calls 'greedy careers': Law firms, consulting companies, and hospitals that demand total availability, rewarding those who can work weekends and penalizing those who seek more predictable schedules. For many parents it's a double bind: the educational trajectories and high-paying jobs that make raising kids affordable are often the same ones with demands that make balancing family life nearly impossible. Fertility tech hasn't yet conquered the biological clock, but we did build this economy — which means we can rebuild it differently. Advocating for more efficient and more affordable education isn't a retreat from academic rigor, but a clear-eyed confrontation with institutions that remain indifferent at best to having children. The most forward-thinking places will see that compressed, focused educational paths aren't diluting standards, but respecting the fullness of human lives and creating systems where intellectual achievement doesn't demand reproductive sacrifice. Exactly how to help students manage timelines will vary. For those looking at careers in math and science, for example, there may be opportunities to take advanced courses in high school. Others would benefit from more financial aid, or using experiential learning credit, or enrolling in accelerated BA/MA programs. Some employers should be rethinking their mandates for college degrees at all. But even with educational reforms, parents would still face legal barriers that other groups don't. It's still legal in many cases to discriminate against parents in hiring or housing. Making parents a protected class would be a straightforward step toward making parenthood more compatible with economic security. Stronger labor regulations could also curb workplace coercion, and policies like those in Scandinavia — which allow parents to reduce their work hours when raising young children — could make it easier to balance kids with holding down a job. The rise of remote work offers additional paths forward, and expanding it could reduce the stark either/or choices many prospective parents face. And there are other policy ideas that could make parenthood more affordable even when people are early in their career. Other high-income countries offer parents monthly child allowances, baby bonuses, subsidized child care, and paid parental leave. The US could follow suit — and go further — by investing in affordable housing, reducing the cost of college, and decoupling health care from employment. For now, our current system abdicates responsibility. As Glass points out, while parents are paying more to have children, it's employers and governments that reap the benefits of those adult workers and taxpayers, without shouldering the decades-long costs of training and raising them. 'What no one wants to face is that 150 years ago, when everyone lived on farms, having children did not make you poor, but they do today,' said Glass. 'Children used to benefit their parents, they were part of the dominion of the patriarch, and when children did well the patriarch benefited. Now it's employers and governments who benefit from well-raised children.' I understand the reluctance to have these conversations. We don't want the government poking around in our bedrooms, especially when some lawmakers are already on a mission to restrict reproductive freedom. It's tempting to say policymakers and institutions should just shut up about any further discussion regarding having kids. But that's not serving people, either. Many other countries already confront these challenges with much more deliberate care. Honest conversations about fertility don't need to be about telling women when or whether to have children — they should be about removing the artificial barriers that make it feel impossible to have kids at different stages of life. This would all certainly be much easier if men stepped up to take these pressures more seriously. 'If men felt as compelled as women to take time off, if men were experiencing the same thing, I think we'd get a lot more creative,' said Coontz. We should continue investing in fertility technology, and expanding access to those options for people who want to delay childbearing or may need help conceiving. But IVF and egg freezing are never going to be the right tools for everyone, and people deserve the support to have children as they study and enter the workforce, too. Biology isn't destiny, but we shouldn't ignore it.
Vox
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Vox
Our economy isn't built for the biological clock
is a policy correspondent for Vox covering social policy. She focuses on housing, schools, homelessness, child care, and abortion rights, and has been reporting on these issues for more than a decade. Everyone should have the right to decide if and when they have children. Yet over the past 50 years, the United States has built an economy that increasingly works against fertility — demanding more years in school and longer hours at work for people, especially women, in the years when it is biologically easiest for them to have children, and concentrating wealth and income among those past their reproductive prime. As a result, American schools and workplaces are particularly ill-suited for supporting those who hope to start families earlier than average. 'If I were to complain about how society 'has wronged me as a woman,' it would be that it has treated my limited 'fertility time' with extreme disregard,' wrote Ruxandra Teslo, a genomics PhD student, recently on Substack. 'At each step of the way I was encouraged to 'be patient,' do more training, told that 'things will figure themselves out,' even when I wanted and could have speedrun through things.' The average age of a new mom is now 27.5, up from age 21 in 1970. I had no interest in having kids in my early twenties, but there are certainly reasons others might want that: Fertility decreases with age, and some find it easier to keep up with young children when they themselves are younger and have more energy. Others hope for larger families so may need to start conceiving earlier, or may prioritize making sure their own parents have many years to spend with grandkids. Of course, discussing reproductive timelines is fraught. Having others invoke the fact that women experience a decline in fertility with age feels intrusive and insensitive. And the conversation is even trickier today, when anti-abortion activists are pushing a conservative pro-baby agenda from the highest echelons of government and the Heritage Foundation is putting out literature blaming falling birth rates on too many people going to graduate school. (The evidence for that is very weak.) Yet it's precisely in such moments that progressive leaders should offer clear alternatives that both respect women's autonomy and ensure people can make less constrained choices. If mainstream feminism ignores the barriers to early parenthood, the right will be all too eager to fill the void. 'If the so-called feminists, as long as they play it by the elite rules, refuse to take seriously what [we] can do to support young families, then the right can move in and say, 'You might as well give up on your stupid ideas and career aspirations,'' marriage historian Stephanie Coontz told me. Not everyone wants to become a parent, but most women do still say they wish to have children one day. If we're serious about reproductive justice, then it's a mistake to ignore how our schools and workplaces have evolved to be broadly hostile to both fertility and parenthood. Having kids at a younger age is not inherently better — but for those who want to do it, the economy shouldn't be working against them at every step. Colleges need to support parents, pregnant students, and prospective parents Many women believe, correctly, that college and graduate education are important paths not only for their own financial well-being, but also to afford raising kids in a country that offers so little support to families. The idea that people can just up and abandon higher education to have kids, per the Heritage Foundation, isn't serious. 'We've just done so much to obscure the reality and to make it seem like, oh, moms are asking for too much, or they're postponing too long, or maybe they shouldn't be going to school so much,' said Jennifer Glass, a sociologist at University of Texas Austin who studies fertility and gender. 'What an idiotic thing to say. The only way that women can get wages that are at all comparable to what's necessary to raise a family is by getting a college degree.' Yet the US has built one of the longest, most expensive educational pipelines in the world. One reason many American students take longer to finish undergraduate degrees (or don't finish at all) is because of financial pressures that students abroad don't face. Nations like Germany, France, and Norway offer free or heavily subsidized university education, while others, including the UK and Australia, have manageable, easily navigable income-based repayment systems. American students are more likely to be juggling multiple jobs alongside coursework, stretching the time to graduation. The timeline stretches even longer for medical, legal, and doctoral degrees — tacking on years of extra training and credentialing that aren't required elsewhere. Related American doctors hate the health care system almost as much as you do 'There's been an increase in the number of years of schooling that is totally unnecessary,' Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist and Nobel Prize winner, told me, pointing to, among other factors, the explosion of post-docs and pre-docs, plus pressure for applicants to acquire some work experience before even beginning their graduate studies. 'I went to graduate school immediately after college, and schools like UChicago and MIT had rules then that if you were there for more than four years, you paid tuition, so that incentivized people to finish,' she said. When educational timelines keep stretching with no structural support for parenting, the result is predictable: some people delay having children — or abandon those plans entirely. This isn't to say there are no parents on university campuses. There are roughly 3 million undergraduates — one in five college students — in the US today who have kids. But student parents are too often rendered invisible because most colleges don't collect data on them and harbor outdated assumptions about who even seeks higher education. 'Colleges and universities still cater to what is considered 'traditional students' — so 18- to 24-year-olds who are getting financial assistance from their parents,' said Jennifer Turner, a sociologist at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Student parents are far less likely to be receiving financial help from their own families than students of the same age and background without kids — and in general they're more likely to struggle to afford basic needs. But most campuses neglect their unique challenges and fail to provide them with resources like on-campus housing, kid-friendly spaces, and child care support. The Trump administration's new budget proposal calls for gutting the only federal program that helps student parents with child care. And while pregnant students are entitled to some federal protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title IX, in practice many students never even learn about them, or face intense stigma for using them. For graduate students in particular, there's no shortage of examples of students receiving both implicit and explicit signals to delay childbearing. Research found women were twice as likely as men to cite child care and parenting as reasons for leaving academia. The financial fears are not irrational Whether or not women want to have children in their early or mid-twenties, many feel they can't — because the career paths they pursue require longer routes to stability. Women are more often funneled into professions that demand extra time, whether through extended schooling, slower advancement, or the need to earn extra credentials to prove themselves. Many fields where women are concentrated, like education, social work, psychology, and nursing, require graduate training for higher-paying roles. In contrast, men are more likely to enter skilled trades or businesses where higher earnings are possible without advanced degrees. Goldin, the economist, pointed to the problem of the 'rat race equilibrium' — where individuals over-invest accumulating credentials not because doing so is intrinsically valuable, but because everyone else is doing the same. In this situation, falling behind the pack carries high costs. 'People want a great job, so they stay in graduate school 'too long.' Firms want the best lawyer, so they keep associates for 'too long.' I don't know what the optimal length is. But I do know that the addition of so many more years means that women will be more discouraged than will men,' she told me. These extended educational timelines feed directly into jobs that are also not designed to support parenting during a woman's prime childbearing years. Early-career workers typically earn less, have more precarious roles and rigid schedules, and often face more pressure to be fully available to employers to prove their commitment and worth. Some then move on to what Goldin calls 'greedy careers': Law firms, consulting companies, and hospitals that demand total availability, rewarding those who can work weekends and penalizing those who seek more predictable schedules. For many parents it's a double bind: the educational trajectories and high-paying jobs that make raising kids affordable are often the same ones with demands that make balancing family life nearly impossible. We can structure society differently Fertility tech hasn't yet conquered the biological clock, but we did build this economy — which means we can rebuild it differently. Advocating for more efficient and more affordable education isn't a retreat from academic rigor, but a clear-eyed confrontation with institutions that remain indifferent at best to having children. The most forward-thinking places will see that compressed, focused educational paths aren't diluting standards, but respecting the fullness of human lives and creating systems where intellectual achievement doesn't demand reproductive sacrifice. Exactly how to help students manage timelines will vary. For those looking at careers in math and science, for example, there may be opportunities to take advanced courses in high school. Others would benefit from more financial aid, or using experiential learning credit, or enrolling in accelerated BA/MA programs. But even with educational reforms, parents would still face legal barriers that other groups don't. It's still legal in many cases to discriminate against parents in hiring or housing. Making parents a protected class would be a straightforward step toward making parenthood more compatible with economic security. Stronger labor regulations could also curb workplace coercion, and policies like those in Scandinavia — which allow parents to reduce their work hours when raising young children — could make it easier to balance kids with holding down a job. The rise of remote work offers additional paths forward, and expanding it could reduce the stark either/or choices many prospective parents face. And there are other policy ideas that could make parenthood more affordable even when people are early in their career. Other high-income countries offer parents monthly child allowances, baby bonuses, subsidized child care, and paid parental leave. The US could follow suit — and go further — by investing in affordable housing, reducing the cost of college, and decoupling health care from employment. For now, our current system abdicates responsibility. As Glass points out, while parents are paying more to have children, it's employers and governments that reap the benefits of those adult workers and taxpayers, without shouldering the decades-long costs of training and raising them. 'What no one wants to face is that 150 years ago, when everyone lived on farms, having children did not make you poor, but they do today,' said Glass. 'Children used to benefit their parents, they were part of the dominion of the patriarch, and when children did well the patriarch benefited. Now it's employers and governments who benefit from well-raised children.' It's not feminist to ignore this I understand the reluctance to have these conversations. We don't want the government poking around in our bedrooms, especially when some lawmakers are already on a mission to restrict reproductive freedom. It's tempting to say policymakers and institutions should just shut up about any further discussion regarding having kids. But that's not serving people, either. Many other countries already confront these challenges with much more deliberate care. Honest conversations about fertility don't need to be about telling women when or whether to have children — they should be about removing the artificial barriers that make it feel impossible to have kids at different stages of life. This would all certainly be much easier if men stepped up to take these pressures more seriously. 'If men felt as compelled as women to take time off, if men were experiencing the same thing, I think we'd get a lot more creative,' said Coontz.
Zawya
a day ago
- Business
- Zawya
Oman achieves remarkable progress in several global indices
Muscat: The National Competitiveness Office has released the third annual report on Oman Competitiveness 2024, highlighting the Sultanate's performance in various global indicators. The report reveals that Oman has achieved remarkable progress in several global indices. The most notable leap was in the Environmental Performance Index, where Oman climbed 94 places, securing the 55th rank out of 180 countries. Additionally, Oman has been ranked first globally in several sub-indicators, including marine protection stringency, growth rate of black carbon emissions, and bottom-trawl fishing within the exclusive economic zone. Oman also advanced 39 spots in the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index, reaching the 56th rank globally. The country's economy is now classified as 'moderately free,' compared to its previous status as 'mostly unfree.' This improvement is reflected in higher scores in key sub-indicators such as government spending (rising from 59.4 to 70.8 out of 100), investment freedom (from 60 to 70 out of 100), and financial freedom (from 50 to 60 out of 100). Among the most notable advancements is the Network Readiness Index, where Oman moved up four positions, ranking 50th globally. The country excels in sub-indicators such as government promotion of investment in emerging technologies (ranked 9th globally), gender gap in internet usage (ranked 11th globally), and ICT skills in education (ranked 23rd globally). According to the Future Growth Index, Oman scored 50.59 out of 100, surpassing the global average. Furthermore, Oman ranked first globally in sub-indicators such as ICT capital (in US dollars) and electricity access in rural areas. In Global Governance Indicators, Oman made progress in most categories, particularly those aligned with Oman Vision 2040. The country recorded 70.2 out of 100 in the Rule of Law Index, 66.5 in Regulatory Quality, and 62.2 in Government Effectiveness. Dr. Salim bin Abdullah Al Sheikh, spokesperson for the Ministry of Economy, emphasised that the National Competitiveness Office continues to monitor Oman's position in key international rankings. He noted that these indicators receive global attention from thousands of individuals and organisations. Speaking to Oman News Agency, Dr. Al Sheikh stated: "The office is actively working with national teams to strengthen Oman's position in global indices through various programs and initiatives, while addressing challenges that may arise." Oman's continued efforts in improving competitiveness reflect its commitment to achieving sustainable economic and developmental progress on a global scale. The report aims to increase awareness among the local community about international rankings, serving as a reference for government and private institutions, as well as researchers interested in Oman's positioning compared to other nations. It also identifies the most advanced countries in specific indicators to guide efforts in enhancing Oman's competitiveness. © Muscat Media Group Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
He is the strongman who inspired Trump – but is Viktor Orbán losing his grip on power?
On a sunny April afternoon in Budapest, a handful of reporters crowded around the back entrance of the Dorothea, a luxury hotel tucked between a Madame Tussauds waxworks museum and a discount clothing store in the city's walking district. Most had spent hours outside the hotel, hoping to confirm reports that Donald Trump Jr was inside. News of his visit had leaked two days earlier, but much of his agenda remained shrouded in secrecy, save for a meeting with the Hungarian foreign minister. Reports had also circulated of a closed-door speech the US president's eldest child and Trump Organization executive was slated to give on bridging governments to the private sector at the five-star hotel reportedly owned by the son-in-law of Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Few other details emerged from the visit. But it was a hint of the outsized role that this small central European country, home to 9.6 million people, is playing in the US's political conversation. Trump and those around him have long talked up Orbán's Hungary, depicting it, in the words of one Hungarian journalist, as a sort of 'Christian conservative Disneyland'. The veneration of its alliance of populism and Christianity has persisted, even as the country plunges in press freedom rankings, faces accusations of no longer being a full democracy, and becomes the most corrupt country in the EU. As Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank that produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump's second term, once put it: 'Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model.' Orbán, the prime minister who once described Hungary as a 'petri dish for illiberalism', has been lauded by Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon as 'Trump before Trump'. The US vice-president, JD Vance, once characterised Orbán's purge of gender studies in academia as a model to be followed. The US president last year called him a 'very great leader, a very strong man'. He added: 'Some people don't like him because he's too strong. It's nice to have a strong man running your country.' Since Trump began his second term in January, the adoration has seemingly turned to emulation at a frenzied pace. Trump, like Orbán before him, has seized on state powers to pursue rivals, embraced dark rhetoric to demonise political opponents and purge 'wokeness' from institutions, in what analysts described as the Orbánisation of America. For rights groups, journalists and activists in Hungary who have long pushed back against the steady erosion of rights by arguably the modern world's most successful populist leader, the parallels are eerie. Over the past 15 years they have challenged a playbook that has now gone global, turning them into a singular source on how Americans – and others around the world – can fight back in the face of democratic backsliding. 'Sometimes it might seem kind of tempting to say: 'OK, we're just going to make this compromise, and it might go away,'' said András Kádár of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a Budapest-based NGO. 'But the Hungarian example shows that they always go one step further; we always hit new rock bottoms. It's very important to fight every inch and bit of this process.' Much of what Orbán is doing follows in the footsteps of Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Russia's Vladimir Putin, he said. But one crucial difference explained why Hungary had captured imaginations in the US, Kádár said. 'It's unprecedented in the sense that you have a full-fledged democracy … in the heart of the European Union, which very consciously chose to go this way.' In the course of Orbán's 15-year rule, there is little his government hasn't tinkered with. After targeting judges and recasting electoral policy to make it harder to oust his party, universities were purged of gender studies courses and public institutions were put under the control of Orbán loyalists. His critics have accused him of using state tenders to line the pockets of loyalists and of wielding state subsidies to reward pro-government media outlets and starve critical media. Some of the weakened media outlets were later snapped up by entrepreneurs loyal to Orbán and transformed into government mouthpieces, with his Fidesz party and its loyalists now estimated to control 80% of the country's media. Throughout it all – in an echo of a strategy that would later be replicated in the US – there was one constant. 'This whole process has been going on behind this smoke screen of hate propaganda, with different targets,' said Kádár, pointing to Orbán's targeting of Brussels and the EU as well as migrants. 'Then they say we need all these powers, these unchecked and uncontrolled powers to protect the people from those enemies inside and outside.' When it comes to the US, many in Budapest highlighted the differences in how things were playing out. 'Compared to what's happening in the United States, here it was rather slow,' said Péter Krekó, the director of the Political Capital Institute thinktank. 'So here it's more like the frog boiling in the water model, while in the United States, I think it's a coup, practically.' Hungary's transformation, however gradual, has been striking. At the start of the 21st century, the country was a regional leader when it came to the quality of democratic institutions and their independence. It is now the region's worst performer democratically, after what Krekó described as the 'Hungarian propaganda machine' drilled the government's line into people. 'It's all over the country, on every billboard, radio spots, on TV. It's an Orwellian campaign, but on many topics it can shape public opinion very efficiently.' What had emerged was a country where the notion of who belongs had been recast, said Ádám András Kanicsár, a journalist and LGBTQ+ activist. 'The government has an idea of who is a proper Hungarian and who is not,' he said. 'And in the last 15 years, this picture has been narrowed down more and more. Right now, you are a proper Hungarian if you have two children, you are white and Christian and have a job, and are living in a happy marriage. And this is the only way to be a good Hungarian.' This year Orbán and his backers banned all public LGBTQ+ events. Looking back, Kanicsár said the community had long been too passive in asserting their rights. Although the government's ban led many in the community to speak up, they were now on the defensive, explaining why their hard-won rights needed to be protected, rather than pushing for advances such as same-sex marriage. 'They have the narrative now,' he said, referring to the government. 'We can't bring new topics to the table.' The government's most recent amendment also enshrined the recognition of only two sexes in Hungary's constitution, wiping out the identities of people such as Lilla Hübsch. 'Basically my existence right now is unconstitutional, which is kind of crazy,' said the trans activist as she joined Kanicsár at a bustling coffee shop in Pest, the part of the capital that flanks the eastern bank of the Danube. For Kanicsár, it was a reminder of how many in Hungary – and around the world – had long assumed progress was inevitable. 'It's a big mistake. We think that history is a narrow line upwards, that we are always getting better and better, more liberal, more democratic,' he said. 'But we can always lose it. And if you have it and you lose it, it can be really hurtful.' The banning of Budapest Pride, just as it was gearing up to celebrate its 30th anniversary, was a poignant example. 'If you have these rights, don't take them for granted. Cherish them, talk about them and protest for them, because there are always new people who have to hear your message.' When the Guardian visited Budapest last month, sitting down with people in offices, coffee shops, and dining rooms, a note of hope threaded through many interviews. With elections slated for spring 2026, Orbán is facing an unprecedented challenge from a former member of the Fidesz party's elite, Péter Magyar. Several recent polls suggest that, if the trend continues, Orbán could lose his grip on power. 'For the first time in 15 years, there is a serious contender,' said Péter Erdélyi, the founder of the Budapest-based Center for Sustainable Media. With hope, however, comes risk: now was, he said, a dangerous moment for anyone perceived to be standing in Orbán's way. This year the prime minister said he would 'eliminate the entire shadow army' of foreign-funded 'politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs and political activists', suggesting he could go further than previously used tactics such as smear campaigns, relentless audits and physical intimidation by Fidesz supporters. Orbán's party seemingly made good on the threat when it put forward legislation that would give authorities broad powers to, in the words of one rights organisation, 'strangle and starve' NGOs and independent media it sees as a threat to national sovereignty. The draft law, said Transparency International, marked a 'dark turning point' for Hungary. 'It is designed to crush dissent, silence civil society, and dismantle the pillars of democracy,' the organisation said. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee issued a similar warning. 'If this bill passes, it will not simply marginalise Hungary's independent voices – it will extinguish them,' said thhe co-chair Márta Pardavi. The situation in Hungary had been made more complicated by Trump's ascension to the White House, said Erdélyi. 'The US government, almost regardless of who occupied the White House, was a moderating force on authoritarians pretty much everywhere but certainly in central Europe,' he said. 'And the new White House, of course, is not only not interested in being that, but it is also turning away from the transatlantic relationship or multilateralism in general.' Magyar's swift rise has shaken Hungarian politics, according to Miklós Ligeti of Transparency International Hungary, who credited the politician and his movement, Tisza, for catapulting corruption to the top of Hungarians' concerns. Through his savvy use of social media and rallies that have drawn thousands, Magyar has repeatedly linked underperforming public services such as healthcare and schools to the country's soaring levels of corruption. 'Now people start to understand that the serious underfunding of these two services is somehow linked to the fact that the government is spending taxpayers' money on the enrichment of certain business entrepreneurs who have good ties with the government,' said Ligeti. While Orbán and his party had long been able to deflect criticism by pointing to the country's strong economy, this was no longer the case, sparking questions as to how they keep their grasp on power, said Márton Gulyás, a left-leaning political commentator who helms Partizán, the country's most-watched political YouTube channel. 'I think right now they are in a very dangerous phase, mostly because of the tremendous problems in the economy,' he said. 'They're losing money heavily on debt, inflation is still high, food prices are still high and wages have stagnated.' He said the unprecedented political challenge has been heightened by new models of journalism that had learned to evade Orbán's heavy hand, from Gulyás's YouTube channel, which employs 70 people, and independent outlets such as 444, Telex, and Among them was András Pethő, who left his newsroom a decade ago after it became evident the publisher was under growing pressure to toe the government line. When he cofounded the investigative media outlet Direkt36, he knew the model had to be different. 'We set up this organisation in a way that would be more resilient against these kinds of pressures,' said Pethő as he drove to Szombathely, a small city in the west of Hungary where Direkt36 was screening a documentary on the lavish business dealings linked to Orbán's family since he took power. The event was an example of how journalists are forging direct, grassroots connections with audiences across Hungary. 'We don't have investors, we don't have a corporate owner, because we saw that that's how pressure is exerted,' Pethő said. In recent years there have been many warnings about the Hungarian government's erosion of democracy. In 2018, it was accused of trying to 'stop democracy' after it passed a law criminalising lawyers and activists who help asylum seekers. Four years later, members of the European parliament backed a report outlining why Hungary could no longer be considered a full democracy. Most recently, a delegation of EU lawmakers called on Hungary to return to 'real democracy' after a visit to the country. Although Hungary may serve as a model of sorts for the US, many in Budapest questioned whether the same impact was possible across the Atlantic. 'I think the intention is similar,' said Erdélyi of the Center for Sustainable Media. But Hungary's economy relies heavily on outside forces; it is not a global superpower. 'It's easy to centralise here because there's not that much stuff to centralise.' The sentiment was echoed by Zoltán Ádám, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences. 'Once you build a two-thirds majority in parliament, you are basically ruling the world in this country,' he said. 'So you can introduce a monarchy or make Viktor Orbán's uncle the champion of whatever sports competition – I'm joking, but it's just half a joke.' This majority allows Orbán and his backers to rewrite the country's laws at will to serve their own political purposes. 'This is a fully controlled country to a large extent,' said Ádám. 'This is not totalitarian in the 20th-century sense, this is not a Bolshevik or a fascist system, but all the major institutional actors in the country are actually controlled by the government.' In the US, in contrast, the federal nature provided a built-in system of checks and balances that should protect the country against this sort of threat, said Ádám. 'Trump doesn't control the governor of Massachusetts or the state house of California.' Others questioned how Hungary had come to be seen as a model for the US. 'It's funny because this is a narrative that was built up by Viktor Orbán's circles,' said a former Fidesz politician who left the party decades ago after becoming disillusioned with Orbán's leadership. 'It's a story that was sold to the Americans,' said the former politician, who asked not to be named, referring to reports that have alleged that the Hungarian government spent millions of euros on intermediaries tasked with selling the US a specific image of Orbán and Hungary. 'They sold it in a very smart way because they used American terms that don't have much sense in Hungary,' she said. 'So like 'gender war', 'woke' – there's no 'woke' issue in Hungary. Hungary is much more behind in terms of progressivism than the United States … Hungary's not even a multicultural country; it's very homogenous in every sense.' For 15 years she has watched Orbán tighten his grip on power. The longer it went on, the greater Orbán's motivation would be to cling to power at any cost, she warned. 'The system only works for them if they are in power, because they create their own rules. They know that all the rules will change if they lose power.' Her comments came days before it emerged that Hungarian officials had asked the European parliament, for the third time, to lift Magyar's immunity as an MEP. Magyar described it as an attempt by Orbán and his party to levy false charges against him and block him from running in next year's elections. The Hungarian government was approached for comment for this article, but a representative cited time constraints and declined to meet. The possibility of speaking with someone from a government-linked institute was then floated, before the Guardian was told that they would have no time to speak either in person or over the phone. Just how much Orbán and his party's views line up with those of his counterparts in the US remains a matter of debate. Orbán had long cultivated an image of himself as a stalwart of conservative values, using it as a cover to ease his access to the US administration, said the investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi. 'Orbán just uses this as a smokescreen,' he said. 'I think he just invented these pro-family, anti-migration policies; it's something that he can advertise as a common denominator among all of the conservative groups in the world.' 'But in reality, what makes Orbán really powerful and interesting … is everything that is going against the US Republican values and policies,' he added, pointing to Hungary's full state control of certain industries and Orbán's heavy reliance on Chinese industry and technology and Russian fossil fuels. In recent weeks, analysts have warned that Orbán's ties to Trump could begin to work against him if the US president's tariffs hurt the country's economy. If Orbán's hold on power were to be weakened by Trump, it would be a tremendous irony, said Panyi. 'It could be Orbán's tragedy. That by the time that all the stars align when it comes to foreign policy, by the time he reaches that level where he can legitimately claim that his comrades are on the rise and there's a far-right wave and he's been spearheading it, at least ideologically, that by that time his domestic support is crumbling.'
Observer
2 days ago
- Business
- Observer
Oman achieves remarkable progress in global indices
MUSCAT: The National Competitiveness Office has released the third annual report on Oman Competitiveness 2024, highlighting the Oman's performance in various global indicators. The report reveals that Oman has achieved remarkable progress in several global indices. The most notable leap was in the Environmental Performance Index, where Oman climbed 94 places, securing the 55th rank out of 180 countries. Oman has also been ranked first globally in several sub-indicators, including marine protection stringency, growth rate of black carbon emissions and bottom-trawl fishing within the exclusive economic zone. Oman also advanced 39 spots in the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index, reaching the 56th rank globally. The country's economy is now classified as 'moderately free,' compared to its previous status as 'mostly unfree.' This improvement is reflected in higher scores in key sub-indicators such as government spending (rising from 59.4 to 70.8 out of 100), investment freedom (from 60 to 70 out of 100), and financial freedom (from 50 to 60 out of 100). Among the most notable advancements is the Network Readiness Index, where Oman moved up four positions, ranking 50th globally. The country excels in sub-indicators such as government promotion of investment in emerging technologies (ranked 9th globally), gender gap in Internet usage (ranked 11th globally), and ICT skills in education (ranked 23rd globally). According to the Future Growth Index, Oman scored 50.59 out of 100, surpassing the global average. Furthermore, Oman ranked first globally in sub-indicators such as ICT capital (in US dollars) and electricity access in rural areas. Dr Salim bin Abdullah al Shaikh In Global Governance Indicators, Oman made progress in most categories, particularly those aligned with Oman Vision 2040. The country recorded 70.2 out of 100 in the Rule of Law Index, 66.5 in Regulatory Quality, and 62.2 in Government Effectiveness. Dr Salim bin Abdullah al Shaikh, spokesperson for the Ministry of Economy, emphasised that the National Competitiveness Office continues to monitor Oman's position in key international rankings. He noted that these indicators receive global attention from thousands of individuals and organisations. Speaking to Oman News Agency, Dr Al Sheikh stated: "The office is actively working with national teams to strengthen Oman's position in global indices through various programmes and initiatives while addressing challenges that may arise." Oman's continued efforts in improving competitiveness reflect its commitment to achieving sustainable economic and developmental progress on a global scale. The report aims to increase awareness among the local community about international rankings, serving as a reference for government and private institutions, as well as researchers interested in Oman's positioning compared to other nations. It also identifies the most advanced countries in specific indicators to guide efforts in enhancing Oman's competitiveness. — ONA
