Author: Awareness News

Ancient Wisdom, Modern Therapy: How Stoicism Shaped CBT

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We often hear that we cannot control what happens around us, but we can control how we react to it. This idea is one of the foundations of modern Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), developed in the 1960s by psychiatrist Aaron Beck. By addressing both thinking and behavioral patterns, CBT has as its final aim to help patients become their own therapists. Supported by extensive scientific evidence, CBT has been shown to improve quality of life and functioning. The treatment analyzes the relationship between emotion, behavior, and cognition, with an emphasis on automatic thoughts, cognitive distortions, and underlying beliefs. From many points of view, CBT was strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy.

Origins And Core Ideas Of Stoicism

Stoic philosophy, whose school was founded in Athens around 300 BCE by Zeno of Citium, takes its name from the painted porch (stoa poikilê) of the Athenian Agora. It became prominent in the Roman period with philosophers such as Seneca, Epictetus, and Hierocles. In the Imperial era, Stoicism was associated with several prominent public figures: Seneca served as an advisor to Emperor Nero, and Marcus Aurelius was himself Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 CE.

Stoic philosophy was conceived as comprising three interconnected parts: physics (phusikê), logic (logikê), and ethics (êthikê). The central claims of Stoicism are: (a) virtue, identified with rationality and with a combination of wisdom, self-control, justice, and courage, is both a necessary and sufficient condition for happiness; (b) all human beings are able to develop virtue and happiness; (c) the emotions and desires of adult human beings depend directly on their rational beliefs.

The third claim is the most relevant to psychology. For the Stoics, external events such as illness, loss, or criticism are not in themselves good or evil. Negative emotions do not derive from the external environment, but from our own irrational assumptions about it: each passion can be described as an opinion or judgment, an assent given to an impression that something is good or bad when it is not. Epictetus summarized this principle in the Enchiridion: “Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things” (5). If emotions follow from judgments, then examining and correcting those judgments becomes a way of changing the emotions themselves.

From Epictetus to Beck: The Road to CBT

Stoicism emphasized the therapeutic role of philosophy. In the words of Epictetus, “It is more necessary for the soul to be cured than the body, for it is better to die than to live badly” (Fragments, 32). According to Robertson and Codd (2019), however, its therapeutic concepts were largely neglected until the beginning of the 20th century, when a rational approach to psychotherapy began to emerge, and were then temporarily eclipsed by Freudian psychoanalysis. They regained popularity from the 1950s, when they influenced the work of Albert Ellis on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Ellis, who had read Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius in his youth, held that emotional disturbances are caused by our irrational beliefs about external events and not directly by the events themselves. Through Ellis’s writings, Beck was also influenced by the Stoic doctrine, and in 1976 he acknowledged that the philosophical underpinnings of cognitive therapy go back to the Stoics. CBT focuses on identifying and restructuring automatic thoughts and underlying beliefs, thus mirrors the Stoic idea that emotions can be changed by examining the judgments behind them.

Stoic Week: Putting Stoicism to the Test

Stoic Week, organized by Modern Stoicism and launched at the University of Exeter, is an international online and live project to test and practice Stoic exercises in order to measure their potential therapeutic effectiveness. Participants follow a daily program of exercises for seven days and complete well-being questionnaires before and after the week. Among those who completed the 2014 edition, average changes were as shown in Table 1.

Satisfaction with LifeFlourishingPositive emotionsNegative emotions
Average Change+16%+10%+11%-16%
Table 1: Impact of taking part in Stoic Week. Source: LeBon, T. (2014). Report on Exeter University “Stoic Week” 2014. University of Exeter.

Improvements of a similar magnitude were reported in the 2015, 2016, and 2017 editions, and the 2025 edition again reported gains across all major well-being measures. The element of Stoicism most associated with flourishing in the 2014 data was Stoic mindfulness, that is, continual attention to the nature of one’s own judgments and actions, a practice comparable to the monitoring of automatic thoughts in CBT.

What The Evidence Can (And Cannot) Tell Us

These results should be interpreted with caution. First, the data are self-reported and were collected without a control group, so the changes cannot be attributed with certainty to Stoic practice rather than to other factors. Second, participants are self-selected volunteers. Third, attrition is high: between 2014 and 2018 only 15% to 29% of those who began the program completed the final questionnaire (Figure 1), so improvements are measured only among those who persevered. The organizers themselves speak of “cautious confidence” regarding a causal link between Stoic attitudes and well-being, and acknowledge that further research is required (LeBon, 2014).

Figure 1: Share of Stoic Week participants who completed the final questionnaire, 2014–2018. Source: LeBon, T. (2018). Stoic Week 2018 report, part 3: Impact on well-being. Modern Stoicism.

More rigorous evidence is beginning to emerge. In a randomized study of 45 high worriers allocated to three training groups, one of them an active control group, MacLellan and Derakshan (2021) found significant effects of Stoic training on rumination and self-efficacy, although the small sample calls for replication. Moreover, Robertson and Codd (2019) note that Stoicism is a philosophy of life rather than a therapy, and that some clients may not share its core values.

Conclusion

Stoicism and CBT share a central premise: emotional distress depends less on events themselves than on the judgments we form about them. Historical accounts trace this idea from Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius to Ellis and Beck, and from them to modern cognitive therapy. Initiatives such as Stoic Week associate Stoic practice with higher self-reported well-being, in particular with fewer negative emotions, and early randomized evidence points in the same direction. However, the available data rely largely on self-reports, lack control groups, and suffer from high dropout, while controlled studies remain small. Stoicism can therefore be regarded as a promising philosophy of life whose therapeutic value still needs to be tested in larger controlled trials, rather than as a proven alternative to evidence-based treatments such as CBT.

Sources: American Psychological Association, APA Division 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology). (2017). What is cognitive behavioral therapy? American Psychological Association; Sellars, J. (2023). Stoicism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Corliss, J. (2024, June 5). What is cognitive behavioral therapy? Harvard Health Publishing; Chand, S. P., Kuckel, D. P., & Huecker, M. R. (2023). Cognitive behavior therapy. StatPearls Publishing; Robertson, D. J., & Codd, T. (2019). Stoic philosophy as a cognitive-behavioral therapy. The Behavior Therapist, 42(2); Epictetus. The Enchiridion (E. Carter, Trans.). The Internet Classics Archive, MIT; LeBon, T. (2014). Report on Exeter University “Stoic Week” 2014. University of Exeter; LeBon, T. (2017). Stoic Week 2017 report, part 3: The impact of Stoic Week and SMRT. Modern Stoicism; LeBon, T. (2018). Stoic Week 2018 report, part 3: Impact on well-being. Modern Stoicism; LeBon, T. (2025). Stoic Week 2025 report: Well-being, vitality, happiness. Stoicism Today; MacLellan, A., & Derakshan, N. (2021). The effects of Stoic training and adaptive working memory training on emotional vulnerability in high worriers. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 45, 730–744.

Margherita Ottavia Serafini

Private Credit: The Lending Market That Grew Outside The Banks

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A Loan Without A Bank

Imagine a mid-sized company that needs around a hundred million euros to buy a competitor or to finance a new project. Twenty years ago, it would most likely have borrowed from a bank: companies of this size were usually too small to issue bonds on public markets, so bank loans were their main way to borrow. Today, there is a good chance the company goes to an investment fund instead. The fund negotiates the loan directly, keeps it until it is repaid, and has no depositors behind it: its money comes from pension funds, insurers and other investors.

This is private credit, one of the fastest-growing sectors of global finance. This article explains what it is, why it grew so quickly, why it is so much larger in the United States than in Europe, and why regulators are following it closely.

What Is Private Credit?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) defines private credit as lending in which specialised non-bank financial institutions, such as investment funds, lend to companies. Unlike a bond, the loan is not traded on public markets. Unlike a traditional bank loan, it is not funded by customer deposits.

The typical borrower is a middle-market company. The US Federal Reserve describes these as firms with annual revenues between $10 million and $1 billion (often, according to the IMF, too large or risky for banks but too small for public debt markets), and notes that most private credit loans go to companies backed by private equity firms. According to the IMF, these borrowers tend to carry more debt than companies that borrow through leveraged loans or public bonds.

Almost all private credit loans have floating interest rates, so the cost for the borrower moves with central bank rates, instead of being fixed for the whole duration of the contract. Borrowers accept higher interest costs in exchange for speed, flexibility, and confidentiality, while investors receive higher returns. According to J.P. Morgan, direct lending returned about 9% a year between 2014 and 2024, compared with 5.5% for leveraged loans and 5.2% for high-yield bonds. The trade-off is liquidity, because these loans cannot easily be sold before they mature.

From Niche To Trillions

According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), outstanding private credit loans worldwide grew from around $100 billion in 2010 to over $1.2 trillion in 2024. The IMF estimated the market at about $2.1 trillion in 2023. However, the two figures measure different things: the BIS counts only loans already made and not yet repaid, while the IMF also includes money that investors have committed to funds but that has not yet been lent.

Figure 1: Total volume of outstanding private credit loans by region (BIS, March 2025)

Two developments after the 2008 financial crisis explain much of this growth. First, as the BIS puts it, “post-crisis banking regulation likely reduced banks’ willingness to lend to risky firms.” Second, a long period of very low interest rates pushed pension funds and insurers to look for higher returns. Private credit funds stepped into the space that banks had left.

Why America Dominates

The BIS calculates that the United States accounts for over 87% of outstanding private credit, while Europe (excluding the United Kingdom) accounts for about 6% and the United Kingdom for about 3 to 4%. Canada accounts for most of the remainder.

One reason is the structure of corporate finance. European companies rely much more on bank loans than American ones. According to the Banque de France, debt securities such as bonds made up only 10% of the debt financing of European non-financial companies in 2024, compared with 28% in the United States. In the euro area, private credit funds managed roughly €100 billion in 2025, according to the European Central Bank (ECB), and around 70% of the private credit received by euro area companies comes from funds based outside the euro area.

The Warning Signs

In 2024, the IMF reported that more than one-third of private credit borrowers had interest costs exceeding their current earnings, and that private loans are valued using risk models (often updated only once per quarter) rather than market prices, which makes losses harder to see. The report concluded that “immediate financial stability risks from private credit appear to be limited”, but called for closer supervision because of limited data on leverage and on the links between funds, banks and investors.

In autumn 2025, two US bankruptcies brought these concerns into the headlines. In September, Tricolor, a subprime car lender, and First Brands, an auto parts supplier, collapsed. US prosecutors allege that both had pledged the same assets to more than one lender, and that First Brands had over $9 billion in liabilities but only $12 million in cash. First Brands’ founder and his brother were charged with fraud in January 2026, and the defendants are presumed innocent. JPMorgan lost $170 million on Tricolor, and its CEO Jamie Dimon warned: “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more.” Both companies also borrowed from banks and through invoice financing (a mechanism of selling unpaid invoices for cash in advance), so no single lender could easily see how much they really owed. Still, the ECB describes them as defaults linked to private credit markets, and they increased scrutiny of lending outside the traditional banking system.

Pressure In 2026

Pressure in 2026 came first from investors asking for their money back. BCRED, Blackstone’s private credit fund, is not listed on a stock exchange: investors can only sell their shares back to the fund, which normally buys back up to 5% of its shares per quarter because its loans cannot be sold quickly. In the first quarter, requests reached 7.9%, and Blackstone met them all, helped by $400 million from the firm and its employees. In the next two quarters, they rose to about 10%, and the fund applied the 5% limit. This is exactly the liquidity risk the IMF warned about in 2024: funds holding loans that cannot be sold quickly, while offering regular withdrawals, can face more exit requests than they are able to meet.

Figure 2: Share of loans to software (blue) and other technology and business services (orange), by type of credit (J.P. Morgan, March 2026)

Loan values have also declined: a Reuters analysis of 44 US business development companies (BDCs) found that their portfolios were valued at 97.57% of cost at the end of June 2026, down from 99.25% at the end of 2025. Markdowns were most frequent among loans to software companies, whose business models could be disrupted by artificial intelligence, and private credit is particularly exposed to this sector: about 21% of listed BDC loans go to software companies, against 14% for leveraged loans and 5% for high-yield bonds (Figure 2). Defaults, however, remain moderate: according to J.P. Morgan, the private credit default rate was about 2.5% in March 2026, broadly in line with historical norms. In Europe, direct exposures are limited: the ECB estimates that euro area insurers hold about €211 billion in private credit (2.3% of their assets), banks €62.5 billion (0.2%) and pension funds €52 billion (1.4%). Besides, it judges that private credit alone is unlikely to threaten euro area financial stability at present.

Figure 3: Direct exposures of euro area entities to private credit and leveraged debt markets
(ECB, May 2026)

Conclusion

Private credit has grown from a niche into a major source of financing for mid-sized companies, especially in the United States, filling part of the space that banks left after 2008. Its main advantages are speed, flexibility, and higher returns; its costs are lower transparency and liquidity. The industry still expects the sector to grow: in a PwC survey of more than 120 private credit managers conducted in early 2026, over 80% expected their allocations to increase over the following year, and PwC’s base case forecast is that the market could grow from over $2 trillion in 2026 to $3.4 trillion by 2030. However, as the BIS points out, private credit has not yet gone through a full credit cycle, which is why regulators continue to follow it closely.

Sources

International Monetary Fund (IMF); Bank for International Settlements (BIS); Federal Reserve; European Central Bank (ECB); Banque de France; J.P. Morgan Private Bank; PwC; U.S. Department of Justice; Reuters; Morningstar; Banking Dive

Theme: Finance

Riccardo Ruggeri

Writer

The Return Of The Strike: Why Workers Are Walking Out Worldwide

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On October 17, 2026, the city hall of Limoges burned. In Marseille, dozens of shops were looted. In Paris, the Marianne statue, France’s symbol of the Republic, was graffitied and tear gas hung over the boulevards. By the end of the night, 1,800 people had been arrested and over 500 police officers and firefighters were injured. Between 550,000 and 800,000 people had taken to the streets across France. This was not a revolution. It was a receipt, presented with interest, for years of eroded wages, record fuel prices, and a government asking ordinary people to fund a €54 billion austerity program while TotalEnergies paid record dividends.

France is the most dramatic flashpoint, but it is not alone. Across the world in the autumn of this year, workers and citizens are mobilizing at a rate not seen in decades, from the banking halls of Mumbai to the transport hubs of Rome; from the factory floors of Istanbul to the classrooms of Los Angeles. This is not a coincidence. It is the predictable economic consequence of years of real-wage erosion, and in the most acute cases, it is no longer stopping at the picket line.

By 2025/2026, the OECD reported that real wages in advanced economies remained, on average, 4.2% below their early-2021 levels. The International Labour Organization’s Global Wage Report confirmed that real hourly earnings had grown by just 0.1% worldwide over the preceding twelve months. Workers had been patient. Now, they are mobilizing.

Figure 1. Global Civil Unrest Index, Q1 2021 / Q2 2026. Source: Verisk Maplecroft Civil Unrest Index 2026; IWA-RFC Congress Report, August 2026.

GLOBAL PHENOMENON WITH LOCAL FACES

The data from Verisk Maplecroft’s Global Civil Unrest Index tells the story visually: the index hit a six-year high in Q2 2026, driven not only by geopolitical tensions but by organized labor action. The breadth of the strike wave is striking in itself. It spans industries, banking, transport, manufacturing, education, healthcare, and continents. Each country has its own trigger, but the underlying economics are the same.

In India, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), representing employees of the State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, and Bank of India, announced an indefinite strike beginning October 26, 2026. Their demands: a revised wage structure, a five-day working week, and opposition to performance-based pay schemes that they argue undermine job security. This is no fringe movement; these are the backbone institutions of one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

In Italy, the strike calendar for October 2026 alone reads like a sector-by-sector indictment of wage stagnation. Milan’s ATM public transport workers struck on October 9; a general regional strike across Tuscany shut down rail, local transport, and contractors on October 14; national school staff walked out on October 16 demanding a 20% pay increase and an end to precarious fixed-term contracts; and a nationwide general strike of public and private employees is called for October 30. Earlier in the year, a national transport strike on January 31 had already paralyzed airports, railways, and urban transit, with union federations CGIL and UIL citing wage erosion from years of inflation. In Germany, a country not typically associated with industrial unrest, 1.5 million working days were lost to strikes, the highest figure since 2015, as the powerful IG Metall and Verdi unions pressed employers in automotive and public services for above-inflation settlements.

Turkey presents perhaps the most extreme case. With inflation running above 58%, the TÜRK-İŞ confederation mobilized 600,000 public sector workers in strikes that began in August 2025 and continued into 2026. Even nominal wage increases of 40% failed to keep up with the pace. In Argentina, major unions called a nationwide strike in February 2026 against President Milei’s austerity program. In the United States, the Boeing machinists’ strike saw 33,000 workers walk out, and education workers staged rolling actions in Los Angeles and several other cities.

Figure 2. Nominal wage growth vs CPI inflation vs real wage growth by country, 2025/2026. Source: OECD Employment Outlook 2025/2026; ILO Global Wage Report; national statistics offices.

THE ECONOMICS BEHIND THE UNREST

The chart above makes the financial logic of the strike wave immediately legible. In every country shown, nominal wages have failed to outpace inflation, sometimes dramatically so. Real wage growth is negative or near-zero across the board in advanced economies, and catastrophically negative in Turkey. Workers are not demanding raises out of greed; they are demanding the restoration of purchasing power they have already lost.

This matters for macroeconomics in ways that go beyond labor relations. When a critical mass of collective bargaining agreements is renegotiated upward to compensate for past inflation losses, the risk of a wage-price spiral re-emerges. Central banks, which have spent the last three years fighting inflation with higher interest rates, now face a new threat: that successful strikes could embed inflation expectations into multi-year wage contracts, making their job considerably harder. The European Central Bank and the Bank of England have both flagged “wage catch-up dynamics” as a key upside risk to their inflation forecasts for 2026/2027.

There is also a productivity dimension. Strikes are costly, not just for employers, but for whole economies. Industries disrupted by strike action face output gaps, supply chain delays, and investor uncertainty. In Germany, where the automotive sector is already grappling with the structural transition to electric vehicles and increased Chinese competition, sustained industrial action adds another layer of vulnerability at a critical moment.

Yet the same economists who worry about strike-driven inflation also acknowledge the structural argument for higher wages. Decades of data show that labor’s share of national income has been declining in most advanced economies since the 1980s. The post-pandemic inflation shock simply made the gap visible to workers in a way that annual wage statements had obscured. In this sense, the strike wave is not just a symptom of the current moment; it is a delayed reckoning with structural trends that have been building for a generation.

Figure 3. Working days lost to strikes per 1,000 employees, selected countries, 2022/2026. Source: ETUI Collective Bargaining Newsletter 2026; national labour ministries; Allwork.Space, April 2026.

WHAT THE NUMBERS TELL US

The third chart tracks working days lost per 1,000 employees across key economies over three moments in time: 2022, 2024, and 2026. The trend is unmistakable. Germany, Italy, India, and Turkey all show sharp upward trajectories into 2026. Turkey’s figure is exceptional in magnitude, but the directional story is consistent everywhere. Even the USA, where union density has fallen to historic lows and the legal framework for strikes is more restrictive than in Europe, show a meaningful increase, reflecting the resurgence in organizing across sectors like logistics, tech support, and manufacturing.

France is the starkest illustration of what happens when the strike mechanism alone fails to produce results. What began in September 2026 as student protests over teacher shortages and crumbling school infrastructure rapidly merged with broader cost-of-living fury, record diesel prices at €2.41 per liter, a poverty rate hitting 15.4% (its highest on record), and GDP growth forecast at just 0.4% for the year. The government of Prime Minister Lecornu, meanwhile, is pursuing €54 billion in budget cuts while France’s 2026 deficit stands at 5.4% of GDP, the highest in the eurozone.

On October 17, an estimated 550,000 to 800,000 people took to the streets nationwide. The march was largely peaceful, but violence followed: city hall in Limoges was set on fire, dozens of shops were looted in Marseille, the Marianne statue in Paris was graffitied, and over 1,800 people were arrested. More than 500 police and firefighters were injured. Human rights lawyers described some protesters’ injuries, including a lost hand and a broken jaw. CGT-led strikes at TotalEnergies refineries had already begun days earlier, with workers pointing to the company’s record dividend payouts as their real wages fell. President Macron is expected to address the nation, but with a divided Parliament and 2027 elections approaching, the political space for concession is narrow.

The echoes of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) of 2018/2019 are deliberate and explicit. The trigger then was also fuel prices and a perceived tax system that protected capital while squeezing workers. The difference in 2026 is that the movement has been broader from the start; students, unions, retirees, and industrial workers are marching together. On November 5, all five major union confederations: CFDT, CGT, FO, UNSA, and FSU, have called a nationwide day of action, a unity that is itself historically rare. France is no longer a country on the edge of unrest; it is at the center of it.

CONCLUSION

The global strike wave of 2025/2026 is best understood as an economic correction mechanism, workers and citizens using the leverage available to them to reclaim purchasing power lost during the inflationary surge. Where governments and employers have not responded, the pressure has escalated beyond organized labor into the streets. For finance students and market observers, the implications are concrete: France’s unrest has already pushed its ten-year bond yields above 4.5%, their highest since 2008, as markets price in political risk alongside fiscal risk. Watch Italy’s upcoming general strike for signals about the Meloni government’s fiscal room to manoeuvre; watch France for whether the coalition of all five major unions holds; watch India’s banking sector negotiations as a test for one of the world’s most systemically important financial systems; watch Turkey as the cautionary extreme of what inflation and wage conflict left unresolved ultimately produce.

“Workers do not go on strike because they are irrational. They go on strike because the alternative, accepting a permanent reduction in living standards, is worse.” The economics of 2026 are proving that statement right.

The return of the strike is not a crisis of labor relations. It is a crisis of distribution, and it will not be resolved until the gap between wages and prices is closed. How that closure happens, and who pays for it, will shape monetary policy, corporate earnings, and political landscapes for years to come.

Sources

ILO Global Wage Report 2026; OECD Employment Outlook 2025/2026; Verisk Maplecroft Civil Unrest Index 2026; ETUI Collective Bargaining Newsletter 2026; IWA-RFC Congress Report August 2026; Allwork.Space Strike Activity Trends April 2026; The Economic Times on the UFBU bank strike October 2026; Reuters on Turkish workers’ strikes 2025/2026; Financial Times on Germany strikes 2026; Quotidiano Nazionale on Italian strike calendar October 2026; Al Jazeera on the Paris protests October 18 2026; The Nation on France’s cost-of-living crisis September 28 2026; Sortiraparis on Paris strikes October 8 2026; ECB Economic Bulletin 2026; Bank of England Monetary Policy Report August 2026

Rebecca Fratello

Unfinished Business: Women and the Persistence of Machismo

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Reading time: 6 minutes

Introduction

It is somewhat obvious to conclude that in only a century, women´s power and role in society has suffered a complete revolution in most countries worldwide. A century ago, most European countries still didn´t allow women the full rights, the freedom to open a bank account, travel, and sign a contract without a man´s permission. Today, women lead governments, win Nobel Prizes, and outnumber men in universities. So, it is tempting to conclude that, looking at the big picture, the fight for more equality is over. However, the data states that the road from legal exclusion to real equality in opportunities and social treatment is still long and arduous.

From Legal Exclusion to Formal Equality

The twentieth century rewrote women’s place in public life. Suffrage, access to education, the right to work and to own property, and control over their own bodies, through the spread of contraceptive methods, for instance, changed what women could expect from life. Progress is measurable. The World Economic Forum has tracked it for two decades, and its 2026 report finds that the global gender gap is now 69.2% closed, the narrowest since measurement began. Among the economies tracked by 2006, the parity score rose from 64.2% to 69.4%. However, not every gap has evolved the same way. Education (96.9%) , health and survival (96.2%) are nearly at parity. Women have won the classroom. What they have not won is the boardroom, the cabinet or the pay slip.

Figure 1: Suffragettes carrying “Votes for Women” placards to announce a public meeting at Essex Hall, London, early twentieth century.

Work and Money: the Invisible Ceiling

Even where the law guarantees equal treatment, the economy rarely delivers it. Economic participation and opportunity are only 61.7% of the way to parity. The reasons are well documented. Economist Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize for this research, shows how the pay gap persists because workplaces reward availability at all hours, a demand that falls hardest on those who also do the caring. Women are still the ones who do much of the housework, stay at home with their children when they get sick, dress them, and go with them to the doctor when they´re sick. In Portugal, females do the triple of house chores relatively to man. From the last generation to the newest one, the role of the father in their children’s daily lives has barely changed. Female caregivers are still the ones whose careers are most affected by parenthood. After maternity, women ´s salaries tend to stagnate, while men´s are independent of fatherhood. Furthermore, women still earn 16% less than men in Portugal and are a minority in positions of power and decision-making (only 6% worldwide).

Figure 2: La Grande Odalisque, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1814.

Politics: Power Remains the Hardest Frontier

Political empowerment is the dimension furthest from parity. It stands at just 22.1%. The UN’s latest Gender Snapshot concluded that women hold 27.4% of national parliamentary seats, and local government representation has stalled at 35.6%. Women also preside over fewer than 20% of the highest courts. Besides, inside the United Nations, nearly eight in ten peace processes in 2025 lacked women negotiators or mediators. Curiously, the UN states that when women perform leading roles, gender-responsive policies are prioritized and progress follows across all development goals.

The same report finds that, globally, around one in three gender-equality institutions have been weakened, and one in four has faced budget cuts. Bilateral aid for gender equality fell 13% between 2023 and 2024, and funding for women’s rights organizations fell 28%. UN Women describes an organized backlash against women’s and girls’ rights. The WEF agrees that progress is fragile, with gains reversing in some areas.

Violence: the Most Extreme Expression

Frequently, machismo does not express itself in subtle ways. Physical and verbal violence is still more directed at women in romantic relationships. Nearly one in three women worldwide has experienced partner or sexual violence. Around 230 million women and girls alive today have survived female genital mutilation.  The belief that women’s bodies and choices are open to male control still leads to domestic abuse, femicide, and street and online harassment.

Education and Sexual Roles

Sexuality remains deeply influenced by machismo and patriarchal norms. Men are often praised for having multiple sexual partners, while women risk being labelled promiscuous for the same behavior. Female masturbation and the use of sexual toys are still frequently taboo. These discrepancies might lead to girls repressing their sexuality and having less knowledge about their own bodies and pleasure. This might translate into numbers, since men reach orgasm in 95% of their heterosexual sexual relations and women in only 65% of them. However, this last number almost reaches 90% in lesbian sexual relations. Besides, women are still more pressured by society to conform to a certain body image. Female body hair, cellulite, and stretch marks still stir when they exist.

Figure 3: “Woman in white dress”, by Eugene Seagull.

Why Machismo Persists

WEF’s Saadia Zahidi notes that economies at every income level have made progress, so the barrier is not a lack of resources. Philosopher Kate Manne argues that misogyny works less as hatred than as enforcement: it polices women who step outside expected roles. That helps explain why powerful women often draw harsher judgement than men in the same positions, and why gains can be reversed when political winds change. Inequality also does not fall evenly. Race, class, migration status and disability change how sexism is lived, and the women furthest from power often face its sharpest edges.

Conclusion

Women today have rights, education and opportunities their great-grandmothers could not have imagined, and that deserves recognition. But, at the current pace, the UN estimates gender equality is 171 years away, and none of the targets of its gender-equality goal are on track for 2030. Machismo has not disappeared; it has changed form, moving from explicit laws into norms, budgets, boardrooms, algorithms and silences. Naming it, measuring it, and refusing to treat it as settled is the first step toward closing the gap

Sources: World Economic Forum, UN Women (Gender Snapshot 2026), WAM, The National, IISD SDG Knowledge Hub, Deccan Chronicle, NBER, Saatchi Art

Júlia Lobão

Writer

Buddhist Economics and Modern Capitalism 

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Modern economies are built around growth. Countries want higher GDP, companies want higher profits, and consumers are encouraged to buy more. This model has achieved a great deal. It has supported technological progress, expanded global trade, and helped lift millions of people out of extreme poverty. 

However, it has also created serious problems. Climate change, overconsumption, burnout, and inequality show that growth can come with major costs. This raises the question: should economic growth always be treated as the main goal? 

Buddhist economics offers a different way of thinking. It does not reject capitalism, markets, or development. Instead, it asks what the economy is supposed to serve. From this perspective, economic activity should support human well-being, meaningful work, community, and environmental balance, not growth for its own sake. 

Figure 1: Relationship between GDP per capita and self-reported life satisfaction, 2024. 

The Achievements and Problems of Modern Capitalism 

Any serious discussion of Buddhist economics must recognize what capitalism has achieved. Market competition has helped drive innovation, technology, and global trade. Economic growth has also helped reduce poverty. Since the 1990s, extreme poverty has fallen sharply, partly because of market-based growth and international trade. 

Still, capitalism can damage the well-being it claims to improve. Consumer culture has created a constant desire to buy more. Advertising, social media, and changing trends encourage people to replace products long before they need to, creating waste in areas such as fashion and electronics. 

The workplace shows a similar problem. Many economies are more productive than ever, yet many workers experience stress, exhaustion, and burnout. A society can produce more while still leaving people overworked and dissatisfied. This is one of the contradictions Buddhist economics tries to address. 

As E. F. Schumacher wrote in Small Is Beautiful: “The economy should serve people. People should not serve the economy.” 

Schumacher and Buddhist Economics 

The modern idea of Buddhist economics is closely linked to E. F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, published in 1973. Schumacher argued that conventional economics made a mistake by treating labour mainly as a cost and consumption mainly as a benefit. In reality, work can provide purpose and a way to contribute to society. At the same time, consumption does not automatically create happiness, especially once basic needs have been met. 

This connects to the Buddhist idea of “right livelihood.” In economic terms, right livelihood means that work should help people develop their abilities, support the community, and provide a dignified life. Work that harms people, communities, or the environment should not be considered successful only because it is profitable. 

Another important idea is “enoughness.” Modern economies often assume that more is always better, more income, production, consumption, and growth. Buddhist economics challenges this assumption. It suggests that after a certain point, having more may create stress, waste, and environmental damage instead of improving life quality. 

This idea is supported by happiness economics. Research associated with Richard Easterlin suggests that once people reach a certain level of income and security, extra income has a weaker effect on life satisfaction. Growth matters most when it helps people meet real needs. Beyond that point, its benefits become less clear. 

Figure 2: The Easterlin Paradox: beyond a moderate income threshold, further wealth yields diminishing gains in reported well-being. 

Where These Ideas Are Already Being Tested 

Some Buddhist economic principles are already being used, directly or indirectly, in different parts of the world. 

Japan is an interesting case because it challenges the idea that slow GDP growth always means social failure. For decades, Japan has had weaker growth than many developed economies, yet it still performs well in life expectancy, safety, infrastructure, and social stability. Japanese culture also includes ideas that connect with Buddhist economics. Ikigai, often translated as a sense of purpose, reflects meaning in daily life. Mottainai, linked to regret over waste, reflects respect for resources. Japan is not a perfect example, but it shows that a society can value purpose, balance, and stability while still being a major advanced economy. 

Iceland provides another useful example. Between 2015 and 2019, it tested shorter working hours for thousands of employees. Many workers moved from a 40-hour week to around 35 or 36 hours, without losing pay. In many workplaces, productivity stayed the same or improved, while workers reported less stress and better work-life balance. This challenges the idea that longer hours always mean better economic results. 

Bhutan is probably the clearest example of Buddhist economics in national policy. Since the 1970s, Bhutan has used Gross National Happiness, or GNH, to guide development. Instead of judging progress only through GDP, GNH considers health, education, culture, environment, time use, well-being, and community life. Bhutan’s approach asks whether development genuinely improves people’s lives, rather than only whether it increases income. 

What Could Be Applied? 

Many Buddhist economic ideas already appear in mainstream economics and business. ESG investing, for example, considers environmental, social, and governance factors alongside financial returns. 

Another example is the circular economy. Instead of designing products to be used briefly and thrown away, circular models aim to repair, reuse, and recycle materials. This reflects the Buddhist concern with avoiding waste and respecting limited resources. 

There is also growing interest in moving beyond GDP as the main measure of national success. Indexes such as the OECD Better Life Index, the UN Human Development Index, and the World Happiness Report measure progress more broadly, including health, education, life satisfaction, inequality, and environmental quality. 

These approaches do not require countries to abandon capitalism. They suggest that markets need better goals and limits. Economic activity can still involve innovation, trade, and profit, but it should be guided by a wider understanding of well-being. 

Criticisms and Limitations 

Buddhist economics also has weaknesses. The first problem is that modern welfare states often depend on economic growth. Healthcare, pensions, education, and public services require tax revenue. If growth slows too much, governments may struggle to fund these systems, especially in countries with older populations. 

The second problem is measurement. GDP is limited, but it is clear and easy to compare across countries. Happiness, well-being, and life satisfaction are harder to measure because they can be influenced by culture, expectations, and personal circumstances. 

The third problem is competition. A company that reduces working hours, pays higher wages, or limits environmental damage may face higher costs than competitors that do not. This means some principles may only work widely if governments create shared rules or countries cooperate internationally. 

These criticisms do not mean Buddhist economics should be ignored. They show that it must be applied carefully. The point is not to stop growth, but to think more clearly about when growth helps, when it causes harm, and how economies can focus more on people’s real needs. 

The Purpose of the Economy 

The most important contribution of Buddhist economics is that it asks what growth is for. If the purpose of an economy is human flourishing, then GDP alone is not enough. People also need meaningful work, time to rest, stable communities, fair opportunities, and a healthy environment. 

Capitalism has produced enormous wealth and innovation. But its current form also encourages overconsumption, overwork, and environmental damage. Buddhist economics does not offer a complete replacement for capitalism. However, it reminds us that economies are tools, not ends in themselves. 

The lesson taken from this article is not that societies should stop developing, but that development should be judged by whether it genuinely improves human life. Buddhist economics is not a rejection of capitalism, but a challenge to make it more humane and sustainable. 

Sources 

Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. 

World Bank. (2024). Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024. 

Our World in Data. (2024). Self-reported life satisfaction vs. GDP per capita. 

Easterlin, R. A., McVey, L. A., Switek, M., Sawangfa, O., & Zweig, J. S. (2010). The happiness–income paradox revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Autonomy & Alda. (2021). Going Public: Iceland’s Journey to a Shorter Working Week. 

OECD. (2024). Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index. 

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. Gross National Happiness. 

OECD. Better Life Index. 

UNDP. Human Development Index / Human Development Reports..   

Theme: Economics 

Margarida Ferreira

Writer

The Confidence Gap: Why High-Achieving Women Still Doubt Themselves

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On imposter syndrome, the roots of self-doubt, and what the research actually tells us.

by Luisa Tabatabai & Mariella Staby,
Community Research Team, Nova Women in Business

She has the degrees, the title, the track record. Her colleagues respect her. Her results speak for themselves. And yet, somewhere between the meeting room and the mirror, she wonders: Does anyone know I don’t really belong here?

This is imposter syndrome. For high-achieving women, it is not a character flaw or a passing phase. It is a documented, pervasive pattern with measurable consequences for careers, organisations, and ambition itself.

Where It Begins

The term “imposter phenomenon” was coined in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, who studied 150 high-achieving women in the United States. Each had been formally recognised for her professional and academic success. And yet, despite the external validation, nearly all struggled to internalise their accomplishments, attributing their achievements to luck, timing, or the inability of others to see through them. What Clance and Imes identified was not simply low self-esteem. It was something more specific: a persistent disconnect between objective achievement and subjective self-perception. Success, no matter how documented, failed to silence the internal voice insisting it was undeserved.

Decades later, this phenomenon remains stubbornly persistent, and its roots, research suggests, run earlier and deeper than the workplace.

The Confidence Gap Begins in Education

One underappreciated strand of the research traces the confidence gap to the classroom itself, long before professional life begins. A landmark study by Colbeck, Cabrera, and Terenzini (2001), published in The Review of Higher Education, examined how teaching practices shape students’ professional self-perceptions and found that the effect is not gender-neutral. Even when controlling for academic performance, women consistently emerged from higher education with lower professional confidence than their male peers. The implications are significant: the gap is not simply about what students learn, but about how educational environments communicate to students, particularly women, whether they belong.

This early erosion of professional confidence creates compounding disadvantages that follow women into their careers. Carlin, Gelb, Belinne, and Ramchand (2018), writing in Business Horizons, document one of its most consequential effects: women are significantly more likely than men to withdraw from a job application if they believe they lack even one listed qualification — whereas men routinely apply despite perceived skill gaps. The result is a self-imposed filter on ambition that costs both women and the organisations that might have hired them.

The Research: More Than Anecdote

For a long time, imposter syndrome was treated primarily as an individual problem, something to be managed through therapy or mindset coaching. More recently, large-scale data has told a more structural story.

A 2024 meta-analysis published in Current Research in Behavioral Sciences, drawing on 115 effect sizes and over 40,000 participants, confirmed what Clance and Imes originally proposed: women experience imposter syndrome more frequently and more intensely than men. The findings were consistent across academic, professional, and healthcare settings and spanned participants in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Research from Cornell University adds another dimension. Studies there found that men tend to overestimate their abilities and their performance, while women consistently underestimate both, even when their actual output is equivalent in quality and quantity. The performance gap is not real. The confidence gap is.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, in their influential 2014 Atlantic essay and subsequent book The Confidence Gap, argue that success correlates as closely with confidence as it does with competence and that the natural consequence of chronically low confidence is inaction: opportunities not pursued, hands not raised, promotions not sought.

Eagly  and  Johnson’s  foundational  1990  meta-analysis  across  162  studies in Psychological Bulletin adds important nuance here. Their research found that while women and men do not differ significantly in task-oriented leadership effectiveness in organisational settings, women consistently tended toward more democratic and participative leadership styles. This matters in the context of the confidence gap: women’s collaborative, consensus-building approach to leadership is genuinely effective, yet it may be less visible, less self-promoting, and therefore less likely to be recognised without deliberate institutional attention.

High Achievement Offers No Immunity

One of the more unsettling findings in this space is that professional success does not dissolve self-doubt, it can intensify it.

A 2020 KPMG study surveyed 750 high-performing executive women, all within one or two steps of the C-suite, representing over 150 organisations. Three-quarters reported having personally experienced imposter syndrome at some point in their careers. Nearly half said their feelings of self-doubt stemmed from never having expected to reach the level of success they had achieved. Eighty-one percent believed they placed more pressure on themselves not to fail than their male counterparts did.

Data from the Survey Center on American Life paints a similar picture at a broader scale. Among young working women, more than half reported feeling “not good at their job” at least once or twice in a single week, compared to 46% of young men. Strikingly, educational attainment offered little protection: college-educated women reported higher rates of self-doubt than women with less formal education, reinforcing the conclusion that credentials alone do not build internal confidence.

Beyond the Boardroom: The Confidence Gap Across Domains

The consequences of the confidence gap extend well beyond career advancement. Research published in Management Science in 2025 by Bucher-Koenen, Alessie, Lusardi, and van Rooij, drawing on a carefully designed survey experiment, found that what appears to be a substantial gender gap in financial literacy is, to a meaningful degree, a confidence gap in disguise. When women were given no option to answer “I don’t know,” they frequently chose the correct answer. The researchers estimated that approximately one-third of the observed financial literacy gender gap is explained not by a genuine knowledge deficit, but by women’s lower confidence in their own financial knowledge. Both knowledge and confidence, they found, independently predict stock market participation, meaning that underconfidence has measurable economic consequences for women’s long-term wealth accumulation.

The picture is consistent across sectors. A 2025 qualitative study by Khan, Jamil, Muhammad, and colleagues, published in BMC Health Services Research, examined the experiences of women in healthcare leadership in Pakistan. Despite comprising a substantial majority of the academic medicine faculty, women remain severely underrepresented in leadership positions. Among the key barriers identified were not only structural and cultural obstacles, unsupportive work environments, the double burden of domestic and professional responsibilities, but also internalised lack of confidence and self-doubt, even among women who had already achieved significant professional recognition.

A Systemic Problem Wearing a Personal Mask

There is a real risk in framing imposter syndrome purely as an internal condition, one that women must diagnose and fix within themselves. Increasingly, researchers and organisational psychologists are pushing back on this framing.

Not everyone agrees that imposter syndrome is the right lens through which to view women’s self-doubt. In a widely discussed 2021 Harvard Business Review essay, Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey argued that the concept itself does more harm than good, not because the experience is fictitious, but because naming it “syndrome” locates the problem inside the woman rather than inside the institution.

Their critique is pointed: telling women they have imposter syndrome, and coaching them to overcome it, places the burden of repair on the people least responsible for the conditions that created the self-doubt in the first place. Tulshyan and Burey further emphasise that for women of colour, the framing is especially inadequate, their hesitation and guardedness in professional spaces is often not a cognitive distortion but an accurate read of environments where they face compounded racial and gender bias simultaneously. Tulshyan and Burey do not dispute that women experience profound self-doubt; they dispute that the solution is psychological rather than structural.

Corporate environments were largely designed by and for a narrow demographic. Women, particularly women of colour, often operate as minorities in rooms where the informal rules, communication norms, and pathways to recognition were built without them in mind. The self-doubt they experience does not arise in a vacuum. It is, in many cases, a rational response to genuinely ambiguous signals: environments where their competence is more frequently questioned, where their successes receive less attribution, and where the costs of visible failure are perceived to be higher. As the PMC literature on imposter syndrome in academic medicine has documented, the phenomenon is associated with reduced career planning, less ambition-seeking behaviour, and lower likelihood of pursuing leadership at the precise moments when confidence and decisive action matter most.

Carlin and colleagues (2018) are explicit about the organisational dimension: closing the confidence gap is not solely women’s responsibility. Organisations benefit materially when they actively discourage the equation of low confidence with low competence, build mentoring structures that apply equally to women, and create cultures where women’s contributions are attributed accurately and visibly.

The Confidence Curve and What It Requires

Not all the findings point in one direction. Research from Zenger Folkman shows that women’s confidence grows more steeply with age and experience than men’s, suggesting that the gap, though real, is not fixed. With time, with meaningful mentorship, and with organisations that create conditions for women to see their impact reflected back to them, the internal narrative can shift. But that observation also contains an implicit cost: the opportunities lost in the early and middle years, the ideas not shared, the roles not applied for, the negotiations not entered. Confidence that arrives late still arrives after its most consequential moments have passed.

The evidence from education (Colbeck et al., 2001), from business leadership (Carlin et al., 2018; Kay C Shipman, 2014), from healthcare (Khan et al., 2025), from finance (Bucher-Koenen et al., 2025), and from psychology (Clance & Imes, 1978; meta-analysis, 2024) converges on the same conclusion: the confidence gap is real, it is cross-sector, and it is costly. Closing it requires more than encouraging women to believe in themselves. It requires examining and rebuilding the educational and professional environments that make self-doubt so rational in the first place.

Conclusion

by Giulia Randon,
Head of Arts&Culture, Nova Awareness Club

What perhaps matters most, beyond statistics and research findings, is the reminder that a person’s value can never be reduced to their achievements, productivity, or moments of failure. The way we perceive ourselves should not fluctuate entirely according to success or inadequacy, because human worth exists independently from performance.

In many ways, the very existence of doubt can also reflect awareness. The more we grow, learn, and understand ourselves, the more questions naturally emerge. Perhaps insecurity is not always a sign of weakness, but sometimes the consequence of complexity, sensitivity, and intelligence itself. What truly matters is ensuring that these doubts do not turn into self-destruction, but instead become the starting point for building a stronger and more conscious sense of self-worth.

And while research often highlights differences in the way confidence manifests across genders, these reflections ultimately speak to something deeply human and universal. People are inherently different from one another, in personality, experience, emotion, and perception, and it is precisely this diversity that gives richness both to human relationships and to collective environments. The goal, then, is not uniformity, but the creation of spaces where vulnerability does not diminish value, and where uncertainty can coexist with growth.

Perhaps true confidence is not the absence of fragility, but the ability to carry it without allowing it to define our worth.

In collaboration with:

Community Research Team, Nova Women in Business

Luisa Tabatabai & Mariella Staby

References

Bucher-Koenen, T., Alessie, R., Lusardi, A., C Van Rooij, M. (2025). Fearless woman: Financial literacy, confidence, and stock market participation. Management Science, 71(9), 7414–7430.

Carlin, B. A., Gelb, B. D., Belinne, J. K., C Ramchand, L. (2018). Bridging the gender gap in confidence. Business Horizons, c1(5), 765–774.

Clance, P. R., C Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247.

Colbeck, C. L., Cabrera, A. F., C Terenzini, P. T. (2001). Learning professional confidence: Linking teaching practices, students’ self-perceptions, and gender. The Review of Higher Education, 24(2), 173–191.

Current Research in Behavioral Sciences meta-analysis (2024). Gender differences in impostor phenomenon: A meta-analytic review. Current Research in Behavioral Sciences.

Eagly, A. H., C Johnson, B. T. (1990). Gender and leadership style: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 108(2), 233–256. Kay, K., C Shipman, C. (2014). The confidence gap. The Atlantic, 14(1), 1–18.

Khan, K. I., Jamil, B., Muhammad, M., Mohsin, S., Khan, A. H., C Javed, M. Q. (2025). Gender inequality in healthcare leadership: The challenges women face in breaking through the glass ceiling. BMC Health Services Research, 25(1), 190.

KPMG LLP. (2020). Advancing the future of women in business: A KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit report.

Survey Center on American Life. (2023). Despite professional successes, many women still experience imposter syndrome.

Tulshyan, R., C Burey, J. (2021). Stop telling women they have imposter syndrome. Harvard Business Review. Zenger Folkman. (2024). The confidence gap in men and women: How to overcome it.

The shadow of fast fashion 

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 Over the course of history, the evolution of technology and methods of production has enabled humans to evolve from mere animals to creatures with the most complex societies and activities ever performed by living beings. We did not just find easier ways to collect what nature could give us; we started manipulating those resources for our own good. Nowadays, practically all the items we interact with every day, from food to buildings and clothes, have been touched by industrial processes or made from scratch. Humanity chose to live in a world constructed by its own kind. 

Despite all the benefits that the industrial revolution brought, such as increasing productivity and reducing production costs, it has always carried a shadow: the exploitation of its workers. In western countries, the cradle of industrialization, a history of labor abuses like excessive working hours, negligible salaries, and nonexistent vacations has long been fought by unions and non-governmental organizations, and therefore has been reduced or annihilated. This is one of the reasons given to explain the relocation of factories of European and North American brands to the Global South. The crimes that are condemned in our pro-Human Rights societies have strategically migrated to other parts of the planet, like Asia, Africa, and South America.  

 In our daily lives, we see the result of workers’ suffering in those areas: our cheap, easily accessible clothing. Indeed, the garment and textile industries are among the most prone to exploiting their employees. They employ about 100 million people worldwide, of whom around 80% are women. Only 1% to 2% earn a salary that allows the coverage of the basic living costs like housing and food. This happens, in part, so that the profit margins of the companies are the highest possible, due to extremely low production costs. In countries like China, Vietnam, or Bangladesh, there is a hunt for those who are in such precarious living conditions that they accept some of the worst labor conditions seen today.  

 Asia is home to about 75% of the world’s garment and textile workforce, in which the majority produces for fast fashion brands like Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, H&M, and Mango. A recent report by International Amnesty has concluded that in countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan, anti-union movements take place to repress recent protests by those who ask for better living conditions. A strategic alliance between brand and industry leaders, as well as miserable laws and inefficient organizations to protect workers in those countries, leads to a trap in which employees are caught, destined for poverty. This way, it also becomes simpler for the Western companies to blame the national policies of the countries where they install their factories for poor labor rules and therefore exonerate themselves of human rights violations.     

In Bangladesh, the garment sector represents 16% of GDP and 84% of exportations; however, 91% of the workers do not receive a salary good enough to buy the necessary food for their families. Besides, approximately 25% suffer abuse by their superiors, including sexual abuse, the majority of whom are, of course, female. 

 India is especially characterized by the vulnerability of women. Since many are home garment workers, they are not recognized as employees by law and therefore are not eligible to receive pensions and other benefits. Furthermore, both genders face highly discrimination due to their caste and social class. At the same time, increasing restrictions on workers’ ability to form and join independent trade unions have caused union numbers to decline significantly. In regions such as Delhi, complicated administrative procedures and the refusal to register unions have greatly weakened workplace union membership. 

 The Chinese workforce also faces severe difficulties. The north-western province of Xinjiang is the homeland of the Muslim minority Uyghur, who produces 80% of the Chinese cotton and 20% on a global level. The cotton of one in five products worldwide, including clothing, originates from their plantations and factories. However, these products are stained with crimes against humanity. The Chinese government has created forced labor camps to aggregate almost two million citizens of this and other religious minorities, with the justification to combat extremism. There, children are separated from their families and re-educated to lose all connections with their culture and become work machines. The employees sleep in cells, where sexual violence and female sterilization have been reported by the UN. Some of the almost uncountable brands that still take advantage of this mass forced labor are Polo Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, IKEA, Nike, Adidas, Zara, and Victoria´s Secret.  

 Additionally, more than leading to human rights violations, the garment industry, especially the fast fashion one, causes huge environmental damage. Consumers today buy 60% more clothes than they did in 2000, while keeping garments for only half as long. This culture of overconsumption generates enormous waste: a truckload of textiles is either burned or sent to landfills every second. Besides, the fashion industry produces more than 92 million tons of textile waste annually and consumes approximately 79 trillion liters of water every year. The production of a single cotton shirt requires around 2,700 liters of water, which is enough to satisfy one person’s drinking needs for two and a half years. Additionally, synthetic fibers such as polyester release microplastics into oceans and waterways, contributing to marine pollution. 

 All this production and waste largely contribute to climate change. Several reports estimate that fashion is responsible for around 10% of global carbon emissions, surpassing international aviation and maritime shipping combined. The production of one pair of jeans can emit as much carbon dioxide as driving a car for over 80 miles. Clothing production has nearly doubled in the last 15 years, driven by rapid fashion trend cycles and mass consumption.  

 More recently, non-governmental organizations started to spread more awareness about the catastrophic impacts of the fashion industry. Slow fashion and secondhand clothing have more marketing than a few years ago. However, an actual transaction to sustainable production and consumption cycles is still a utopian dream. Garments that weren´t made based on the exploitation of nature and workers are usually extremely rare and above the monetary costs that common citizens can afford daily. This is why only a complete revolution in the consumption patterns and impulses of the youngest generations in developed countries, allied with a transformation of the production methods themselves, can, indeed, make a difference for the better.   

Sources 

Júlia Lobão

Writer

Black Gold in Flames: How the Iran War Is Reshaping Global Oil Markets 

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On February 28, 2026, U.S. and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran, triggering a conflict that sent shockwaves far beyond the Middle East. Within days, one of the world’s most critical energy arteries,  the Strait of Hormuz, was declared closed by Iranianforces, causing what the International Energy Agency (IEA) has defined as the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”  

Oil prices have reached levels not seen in years and inflationary pressures are mounting globally. To understand how bad this crisis actually is, one must first understand the centrality of the Strait of Hormuz to the global energy system. 

The Strait of Hormuz: The World’s Most Critical Chokepoint 

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway, barely 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, separating Iran from Oman. Yet through this sliver of ocean flows roughly 27-30% of the world’s maritime crude oil and petroleum trade, along with significant volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Any disruption here is felt almost immediately in markets from Tokyo to London. 

Starting on March 4, 2026, Iranian forces declared the Strait “closed,” threatening and attacking on vessels attempting transit. Oil-producing nations of the Gulf (Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) saw their collective output drop by at least 10 million barrels per day by mid-March. QatarEnergy, the world’s largest LNG exporter, declared force majeure on all its contracts as tankers could not leave the Gulf.  

To notice is that Asian economies together receive around 84% of crude oil and 83% of LNG transiting the Strait, hence being the ones most exposed. 

Figure 1: The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 30% of the world’s seaborne oil trade passes. Source: Forbes. 

A Shock Without Precedent: Price Surges and Market Volatility 

Oil markets have not been a stranger to geopolitical shocks.  

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Brent crude surged past $100 per barrel as markets priced in the risk of supply disruptions from one of the world’s largest energy producers. That spike, dramatic as it was, didn’t last long. 

The 2026 Iran war, instead, has produced a shock of an entirely different magnitude. As the chart below illustrates, the current price surge has already eclipsed the Russia-Ukraine spike in both speed and scale. 

As the Strait closed and Gulf output collapsed, prices climbed relentlessly. March 2026 saw one of the largest single-month oil price jumps ever recorded: Brent gained 51% in a single month, peaking at nearly $120 per barrel. By late April, with peace negotiations stalled and the Strait still functionally closed, Brent briefly touched $126, a four-year high not seen since the most acute phase of the Russia-Ukraine energy crisis. 

Figure 2: Brent crude oil price per barrel (US$), 2021–2026. The chart highlights two defining shocks: the 2022 Russia-Ukraine spike and the steeper, faster surge following the US and Israel attack on Iran in February 2026. Source: Bloomberg / BBC News, data to 30 Apr 2026. 

But it is not only price levels that make these two events different. The 2022 shock was driven by fears of reduced Russian supply, which the market eventually adapted to through rerouted trade flows. The 2026 crisis saw the physical closure of a chokepointthrough which there is no realistic alternative route for most Gulf producers. 

“The market hasn’t seen the full impact of that yet. There’s more to come if the strait remains closed.”  

Darren Woods (CEO of Exxon Mobil, May 1, 2026) 

Ripple Effects: The Global Economy Under Pressure 

The impact of this supply shock extends well beyond gasoline prices. Inflation and stagflation risk have moved to the top of the agenda for central banks. Analysts have forecast that if disruptions persist, global inflation could rise by up to 0.8 percentagepoints, with the risk of stagflation, a combination of slow growth and rising prices, for major economies. The United Nations Secretary-General warned that if the war continues throughout 2026, the world will “confront the specter of a global recession,” addingthat “the consequences are not cumulative – they are exponential.” 

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states themselves have not been spared. Over 80% of the region’s caloric intake is imported via the Strait, and by mid-March roughly 70% of food imports were disrupted, creating a concurrent grocery supply emergency. This adds a wider humanitarian dimension to what began as an energy crisis. 

Figure 3: Crude oil and condensate exports through the Strait of Hormuz by destination country (Q1 2025). China alone accounts for 37.7% of total flows, followed by India (14.7%), South Korea (12.0%), and Japan (10.9%) Source: Visual Capitalist / U.S. Energy InformationAdministration (EIA). 

The Philippines became the first country to declare a national energy emergency on March 24, 2026, importing 98% of its oil from the Middle East. Nepal restricted gas cylinder refills. Myanmar imposed alternate-day driving rules. Aviation has beenseverely disrupted across flight corridors linking Africa, Asia, and Europe.  

Meanwhile, the crisis has created stark divides: the United States, as the world’s largest oil producer, saw crude and petroleum exports surge to nearly 12.9 million barrels per day in April 2026, while oil-importing nations in Asia and Africa bore the heaviest burden. 

Looking Ahead: What Comes Next? 

As of early May 2026, the situation remains deeply uncertain. Brent crude is trading around $108–$112 per barrel, lurching with every twist in diplomatic negotiations conducted through Pakistani mediators. Commodity Context founder Rory Johnston has cautioned that even a sustained reopening of the Strait would trigger only a temporary price relief, as supply chain bottlenecks, infrastructure damage, and production outages would likely anchor Brent in the $80–$90 range, well above pre-crisis levels, for the foreseeable future. 

The damage to LNG infrastructure compounds the problem. Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex, struck by Iranian missiles on March 18, faces an estimated 3 to 5 years of repair work, sending LNG spot prices in Asia up by over 140%. With strategic petroleumreserves being drawn down and commercial inventories depleted, Exxon’s Woods has warned that prices may need to rise further to curb demand once those buffers run out. 

The crisis has also injected new urgency into the debate around energy security and the green transition.  

As the chart above makes clear, oil markets remain acutely vulnerable to geopolitical disruption. Whether the lesson is finally taken seriously may prove to be one of the most consequential legacies of the 2026 Iran war. 

Sources 

CNBC; Bloomberg; Forbes; CBS News; Congressional Research Service; BBC News; Reuters; Visual Capitalist; U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Rebecca Fratello 

Writer

DJ Systems and DJ Types 

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There’s a tendency to treat DJ setups as preference. Vinyl if it’s about authenticity, controllers if it’s about convenience, DVS if it’s somewhere in between. The assumption is that the core skill stays the same and the equipment just changes how it’s executed. 

In practice, that’s not what happens. 

Each system trains different habits. Not in a philosophical way, but in very concrete, repeatable situations: how tracks are started, how timing is handled, how mistakes are corrected, how quickly decisions are made. After a few months, those differences stop being technical and start becoming instinctive. The same person, using a different setup long enough, would not mix in the same way. 

On Vinyl, Timing Never Settles 

With vinyl, even a clean mix isn’t stable. Two tracks that sound aligned will slowly drift apart. It’s not dramatic, but it’s constant. That means timing isn’t something that gets “fixed” once – it’s something that has to be maintained the entire time the tracks are playing together. 

In practical terms, that leads to constant small adjustments. A slight push on the record to speed it up, a gentle drag to slow it down, a quick touch to bring things back into place. None of these are big corrections. Most of them are barely visible, but they happen continuously. 

This builds a very specific skill: noticing drift early. Not when it’s already obvious, but when it’s just starting. After a while, it becomes possible to feel when a track is moving ahead or falling behind before it’s clearly audible. 

It also changes how transitions are approached. Because there’s no visual reference for phrasing, structure is learned through repetition. Tracks are recognized by how they unfold, not by where they sit on a screen. Starting a track at the right moment becomes a matter of internal timing, not external alignment. 

Mistakes take longer to fix. If a track is brought in too early or slightly off, the correction happens gradually. There’s no instant reset. That makes hesitation less useful – waiting doesn’t provide more certainty. Decisions tend to be made earlier and then adjusted in real time if needed. 

With DVS, Timing Can Be Checked Instead of Felt 

DVS setups keep the turntables but add a screen with information: waveforms, beat grids, cue points. The physical interaction stays the same, but timing no longer has to rely entirely on hearing. 

If a mix feels slightly off, it’s possible to glance at the waveform and see it. If phrasing is uncertain, it can be confirmed visually. The system provides a second layer of feedback that wasn’t there before. 

This changes how decisions are made. Instead of committing based only on what is heard, there is the option to verify first. Transitions can be delayed slightly until things are clearer. The timing of drops and breakdowns becomes easier to anticipate. 

The benefit is control. Mistakes are caught earlier. Alignment can be corrected faster. Larger music libraries become manageable because tracks can be searched and previewed quickly. 

At the same time, the reliance on internal timing decreases. When information is available, it gets used. The ear is still active, but it’s no longer the only reference point. 

Another shift happens in how attention is distributed. On vinyl, most of the focus sits on the mix itself. With DVS, attention is split between the decks and the screen – managing the current transition while scanning for what comes next. The skill becomes not just mixing, but handling multiple inputs without losing track of what’s playing. 

On Controllers, Timing Becomes an Action, not a Process 

Controllers and CDJs take the digital side further. Timing is structured and visible. Beat grids show alignment. Cue points mark exact entry moments. Tracks can be started precisely on beat without manual adjustment. 

This removes the need for continuous correction. Instead of keeping two tracks aligned, the focus shifts to starting them correctly. Once they’re in, the system keeps them together. 

That turns timing into something discrete. A track is either started at the right moment or not. There’s less in-between. The process becomes: prepare, then execute. 

This allows for speed. Transitions can happen faster because less time is spent adjusting. It also allows for more complex techniques – looping sections, layering tracks, jumping between cue points – all of which depend on precise timing that would be difficult to maintain manually. 

The trade-off is that small timing adjustments are no longer part of the process. There’s no need to constantly monitor alignment, so that skill doesn’t develop in the same way. Instead, the focus shifts toward structuring the set and choosing the right moment to act. 

Preparation Starts Before the Set 

One of the biggest differences in digital setups is how much happens before playing. 

Tracks are organized in advance. Cue points are set. Sections are marked. Playlists are built for different situations. Part of the work is done away from the decks, deciding how tracks might fit together before they’re ever played. 

This changes the role of memory. On vinyl, knowing a track means remembering how it sounds and when things happen. On digital systems, some of that knowledge is stored externally. It’s visible on the screen, ready to be used. 

During the set, this speeds things up. Instead of recalling details, they can be recognized instantly. The focus shifts from remembering to navigating. 

That also changes the feeling of the set itself. It’s less about discovering what works in the moment and more about choosing between options that were already prepared. 

Mistakes Behave Differently Depending on the Setup 

The way mistakes play out has a direct effect on how risks are taken. 

On vinyl, fixing a mistake takes time. If two tracks fall out of sync or a transition is poorly timed, the correction is gradual and often noticeable. This makes mistakes more expensive and encourages more careful decisions. 

On digital systems, mistakes are easier to hide. A track can be re-cued instantly. A loop can extend a section to buy time. Alignment can be fixed quickly. Because the cost is lower, it becomes easier to experiment. 

This doesn’t just affect outcomes – it affects behavior. The same DJ is likely to take more risks on a system where recovery is quick than on one where mistakes linger. 

Track Selection Changes with the System 

The way music is chosen also shifts. 

With vinyl, the number of available tracks in a set is limited. Each one tends to be well known, played multiple times, understood in detail. Selection is constrained, but intentional. 

With digital systems, the limitation disappears. Hundreds or thousands of tracks can be accessed. Selection becomes faster, but familiarity with each track may be shallower. 

This leads to different strengths. Vinyl DJs often rely on deep knowledge of fewer tracks. Digital DJs rely on quickly filtering through many options to find what fits the moment. 

What Actually Changes 

The basic task stays the same: choosing what to play next and when to bring it in. 

What changes is everything around that decision. How much information is available. How quickly can a mistake be fixed. How much can be prepared in advance. Whether timing is something that has to be maintained or something that can be executed once and left alone. 

Those differences shape how the decision is made. Not just what gets played, but how confidently, how quickly, and under what conditions. 

The Setup Trains the DJ 

After enough time, the equipment stops feeling like a separate thing. The focus shifts to the music, the flow of the set, the reaction of the room. But by then, the system has already done its work. 

It has trained certain responses. When to act, how to correct, how much to rely on instinct versus information. It has defined what feels natural under pressure. 

So the difference between vinyl, DVS, and controllers isn’t just technical. It’s practical. Each one builds a different kind of consistency, a different kind of confidence, and a different way of handling the same moment – deciding what comes next and committing to it. 

Teresa Catita

Editor and Writer

“Years And Years”: The Series That Predicted World Future 

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Image 1- The Lyons family  

Broadcasted in 2019, the television series Years and Years functioned less as traditional science fiction and more as a sociological simulation. By extrapolating the geopolitical, technological, and economic data available at the end of the 2010s, the series constructed a near-future timeline that closely mirrors the stark reality of the 2020s. To ground these macro-level global crises, the narrative anchors itself to the Lyons family, an ordinary household whose members serve as micro-level case studies. Over a span of fifteen years, the series documents the family’s diverging reactions as they are directly impacted by unfolding historical events, experiencing everything from financial displacement and political radicalization to technological assimilation and refugee advocacy. Through a comparative analysis of the series’ fictional timeline and our contemporary global situation, it becomes evident that the broadcast was highly predictive. It successfully forecasted events such as the war in Ukraine, the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, a second term for Donald Trump, and the sweeping rise of global populism. By analysing its correlation to our current reality, we can learn from the Lyons family’s reactions to these unprecedented societal shifts. 

The Statistical Rise of Global Populism 

Image 2- Emma Thompson as Vivienne Rock 

In Years and Years, the character Vivienne Rook embodies the rapid ascent of modern populist movements. Initially dismissed as a fringe, controversial entertainer, Rook leverages anti-establishment rhetoric and unfiltered broadcasting to bypass traditional political decorum, ultimately being elected Prime-Minister of the United Kingdom and securing immense executive power. When cross-referenced with real-world political data from the late 2010s through the 2020s, this fictional trajectory accurately mirrors the measurable global shift toward populist leadership. Data collected by prominent political science organizations, such as the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the Pew Research Centre, demonstrates a verifiable surge in populist electoral success during this period. The fictional trajectory mirrors reality: between 2018 and 2023, right-wing populist movements successfully transitioned from the political fringe to securing executive power in nations such as Italy, Argentina, and the Netherlands, while maintaining immense, disruptive electoral influence in the United States and France. Rather than an isolated anomaly, this trend reflects a broader, systemic reaction against globalization, economic stagnation, and institutional distrust. The narrative uses the Lyons family to illustrate how a populace fractures in response to this political shift. Rosie Lyons serves as the target demographic for populist messaging, feeling economically marginalized, she enthusiastically embraces Rook’s blunt, anti-establishment rhetoric, demonstrating how populism capitalizes on working-class disenfranchisement. Conversely, Edith Lyons represents fierce ideological resistance, dedicating herself to actively exposing the human rights abuses enacted by Rook’s administration. Perhaps most critically, the matriarch Muriel and her grandson Stephen illustrate the mechanics of complicity. Muriel’s attributes Rook’s rise to the everyday apathy and consumerism, small actions that most of society adopted that in the long run turned helped building this scenario. While Stephen’s eventual employment managing Rook’s secret immigration detention centres demonstrates how personal financial ruin can drive educated citizens to collaborate with extremist policies.  

Image 3- Pew Research Center study demonstrating the predicted rise of populism 

Geopolitical Escalation: The War in Ukraine 

Continuing the analysis of the Lyons family, the series uses their experiences to map the human cost of severe geopolitical instability, most notably predicting the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In the narrative, Daniel Lyons’ relationship with Viktor, a Ukrainian refugee fleeing persecution and conflict, serves to bring the abstract concept of war directly into the domestic sphere of an ordinary British family. Written in 2018 and aired in 2019, the show depicted a Russian military incursion into Ukraine that subsequently triggers a catastrophic, continent-wide displacement. When analysing geopolitical events from February 2022 onward, the series’ timeline stands as a strikingly accurate forecast of the massive humanitarian fallout that occurred.According to empirical data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the real-world invasion displaced millions of citizens within weeks, closely mirroring the systemic European border crises and overwhelmed infrastructure depicted on screen. The show correctly anticipated that the ripple effects of such a conflict would not remain localized but would instead fundamentally alter international immigration policies and border security protocols across the continent. As noted in international security analyses following the real-world invasion: “The sudden displacement caused by the 2022 escalation created the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War, exposing the fragility of modern international asylum frameworks.” Furthermore, we can, on the micro-level analysis, watch the different approaches used by some members of the family to illustrate polarized societal responses to such crises. Daniel Lyons represents direct humanitarian empathy, his relationship with Viktor, a Ukrainian refugee fleeing persecution, highlights the desperate and often fatal lengths individuals endure to circumvent broken immigration systems. With a much different approach, his sister Rosie represents the growing societal apathy and distrust toward immigrants. Her character illustrates how economic disenfranchisement can lead ordinary citizens to embrace isolationist policies and reject global humanitarian responsibilities. Both these characters represent with precision the currentpolarized debate of this topic around the world. 

Technological Assimilation: Artificial Intelligence 

Finally, the series utilizes the youngest generation of the Lyons family to examine the profound sociological impact of exponential technological advancement. The character of Bethany embodies the concept of “transhumanism”—a growing desire to transcend the physical body by integrating cybernetic implants and, ultimately, uploading human consciousness to the cloud. Concurrently, the broader societal backdrop of the show depicts widespread economic anxiety as advanced algorithms rapidly displace traditional cognitive labour and professional services, this is an example that happened with the character Celeste, since her job as an accountant was taken by Artificial Intelligence. While full digital consciousness remains theoretical, the series’ depiction of severe workforce automation and the normalization of human-computer interfacing perfectly mirrors the explosive, disruptive growth of the modern Artificial Intelligence sector. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Reportand data from the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Index, the real-world integration of generative AI (such as Large Language Models) has accelerated at an unprecedented rate since 2022, threatening millions of white-collar roles previously thought immune to automation. Furthermore, actual advancements in neurotechnology, such as successful clinical trials for brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink, demonstrate that the biological-technological merger desired by Bethany is actively transitioning from speculative fiction into medical reality. As highlighted in recent technological labour analyses, “The current acceleration of generative algorithms represents a fundamental restructuring of the global workforce, wherein cognitive automation will rapidly displace traditional roles while simultaneously demanding new, untested frameworks for human-machine integration.” 

Ultimately, Years and Years transcends typical speculative fiction by operating as a data-driven sociological forecast. Through the grounded experiences of the Lyons family, the series provided a highly accurate, predictive model of the 2020s. The show successfully demonstrated that the cascading crises of our current decade, the surge of populist governments, the humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine, and the disruptive integration of Artificial Intelligence, were not sudden anomalies, but the inevitable results of measurable 2019 data trends. By treating the series as a historical case study rather than mere entertainment, we can observe that predictive media serves as a vital tool for societal awareness. The polarized reactions of the Lyons family illustrate a deeply fractured society, yet they also highlight humanity’s inherent, relentless capacity for adaptation. While the societal norms we accept as common today may become entirely unrecognizable in the years ahead, the series proves that we are never truly flying blind, we can always catch a glimpse of what is approaching. The true warning of Years and Years is not that the future is predetermined, but that it is actively unfolding in the present, visible to anyone willing to critically observe the shifting realities of our society. 

Sources: 

  • Years and Years TV series- BBC 

Guilherme Mendonça  

Writer