Labour Conditions from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe
This week’s gold star goes to the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy and the Harvard School of Public Health. Their newly launched site, Raising the Global Floor, is a superb online database of labour practices in 190 countries.
This is how the researchers explain their objectives: “We set out to examine a series of working conditions that affect workers’ ability to meet health and welfare needs, which could be analyzed in a comparable way across countries. We focused on the daily lives of working men and women, their ability to continue to earn a living when special needs arose, and their capacity to care for their families on a routine basis.”
The site is well executed, easy to navigate, and thorough. You can compare labour policies for up to five countries at a time, view global maps, or read country summaries.
These are the policy areas covered by Raising the Global Floor:
- Work schedules and hours
- Paid leave from work
- Sick leave
- Pregnancy, birth, or adoption
- Leave for children’s needs
- Care for elderly and disabled family members
This is a great resource for those needing to compare labour practices or for policy wonks who like to see how countries stack up. Beware: this is a sticky site. Once in, you may never get out.
LINK: Raising the Global Floor