Throughout history, societies have used socio-biological markers, such as gender and age, to assign social positions, prescribe gender and age-based roles, and distribute scarce resources. In the social sciences, scholars tended to look separately at how gender and age shaped the human experience, social roles, and resource allocation.

Adopted in 2000 by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Maternity Protection Convention (C183) set the minimum standards that need to be implemented worldwide in order for pregnant women and working mothers to be adequately protected in the labour market. Since its adoption, 39 countries have ratified the Convention. Georgia, an ILO member since 1993, has not yet done so.

Women are generally under-represented in political offices worldwide, and their under-representation becomes larger in more senior positions. In the first brief, the author reviews some recent academic literature in economics and political science on the likely causes of women’s under-representation. Broadly speaking, the literature has divided such causes into “supply-side” and “demand-side” factors.

In the past several months the world has been rocked by profound economic and social turbulence. The COVID-19 epidemic has forced many countries around the world into widespread emergency lockdowns. Economic activity plunged dramatically in February-March 2020, with rapid indicators showing strong contractions in retail, restaurant business, and passenger transport.

As the novel coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread around the world and has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, the next global economic recession is no longer an “if” or even a “when” event. Unfortunately, it is already upon us. In just the past few days.

The emergence of GVC, global value chains, around more than two decades ago transformed the way economists think about countries’ comparative advantage and specialization in production. It has also transformed the understanding of what it takes for a country to be successfully integrated into world trade networks and derive maximum benefit from global trade.