Countries with the Biggest Gender Disparities in their Workforces

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15 mins ago

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June 10, 2024 Graphics/Design:

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Countries with the Biggest Gender Disparities in Workforces

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

This graphic ranks the countries with the biggest gender disparities in their labor forces by contrasting the average male and female labor force participation rate and measuring the gap between them.

Data for this graphic is sourced from the World Bank, which aggregates 2023 International Labour Organization estimates.

ℹ️ A country’s labor force includes people aged 15+ who are working or actively looking for work in exchange for pay, profit, or shared production. Unpaid workers, family caretakers, students, and military personnel may be excluded from this count.
Ranked: Differences in Male and Female Labor Participation Rates

The top 10 countries with the highest discrepancies between male and female labor participation rates are Islamic nations:

RankCountryMale Labor Force
Participation Rate (%)Female Labor Force
Participation Rate (%)Gender Disparity
(In percentage points) 1🇦🇫 Afghanistan69564 2🇮🇶 Iraq721161 3🇵🇰 Pakistan812557 4🇴🇲 Oman883256 5🇮🇷 Iran711456 6🇾🇪 Yemen60555 7🇪🇬 Egypt711755 8🇩🇿 Algeria671750 9🇸🇾 Syria641450 10🇯🇴 Jordan631449 11🇲🇦 Morocco682049 12🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia803545 13🇮🇳 India773344 14🇧🇩 Bangladesh803743 15🇧🇭 Bahrain874443 16🇹🇳 Tunisia692742 17🇬🇹 Guatemala814140 18🇸🇩 Sudan682840 19🇱🇰 Sri Lanka723240 20🇰🇼 Kuwait864838 N/A🌍 World734924
Note: Figures rounded and based on International Labour Organization’s estimates as of 2023.

In countries such as Pakistan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, the male labor force participation rates are higher than the global average. Meanwhile the female participation rates are 50+ percentage points lower than the corresponding male rates, and 15-25 points below the global female average.

For the other countries in the top 10 by labor participation rate differential, the average male participation rate is also below the global average. This could indicate a lack of general economic opportunities with the nation.

Finally, India (#13), Guatemala (#17) and Sri Lanka (#19) are three countries in the top 20 with

US stocks close at record highs and oil climbs

US stocks closed at record highs, as traders began to turn their attention to two major economic events later this week.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 per cent, with utilities and energy sectors the benchmark index’s best-performing sectors. The Nasdaq Composite increased 0.4 per cent, with five Magnificent Seven stocks advancing.

Oil prices climbed. International benchmark Brent crude rose 2.5 per cent to $81.63 a barrel, its biggest one-day gain since March.

On Wednesday, traders will watch for US inflation data from May, and an interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve. Traders do not expect the US central bank to cut rates, but they will be paying close attention to an updated “dot plot”, which will provide guidance on Fed officials’ long-term outlook on interest rates.

Home equity is near a record high. Tapping it may be tricky due to high interest rates

Homeowners with mortgages have $17 trillion in home equity, near a record high, according to CoreLogic. Accessing housing wealth is difficult right now due to high interest rates, financial advisors said. Options for homeowners include a home equity line of credit, reverse mortgage and selling their house. Cultura Rm Exclusive/twinpix | Image Source | Getty Images

Home equity is near all-time highs. But tapping it may be tough due to high interest rates, according to financial advisors.

Total home equity for U.S. mortgage holders rose to more than $17 trillion in the first quarter of 2024, just shy of the record set in the third quarter of 2023, according to new data from CoreLogic.

Average equity per borrower increased by $28,000 — to about $305,000 total — from a year earlier, according to CoreLogic. Chief Economist Selma Hepp said that’s up almost 70% from $182,000 before the Covid-19 pandemic.

About 60% of homeowners have a mortgage. Their equity equals the home’s value minus outstanding debt. Total home equity for U.S. homeowners with and without a mortgage is $34 trillion.

The jump in home equity is largely due to a runup in home prices, Hepp said.

Many people also refinanced their mortgage earlier in the pandemic when interest rates were “really, really low,” perhaps allowing them to pay down their debt faster, she said.

“For the people who owned their homes at least four or five years ago, on paper they’re feeling fat and happy,” said Lee Baker, founder, owner and president of Apex Financial Services in Atlanta.

Baker, a certified financial planner and a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council, and other financial advisors said accessing that wealth is complicated by high borrowing costs, however.

“Some options that may have been attractive two years ago are not attractive now because interest rates have increased so much,” said CFP Kamila Elliott, co-founder of Collective Wealth Partners and also a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council.

That said, there may be some instances in which it makes sense, advisors said. Here are a few options.

Home equity line of credit Grace Cary | Moment | Getty Images

A home equity line of credit, or HELOC, is typically the most common

CNBC

GameStop shares slide 16% following Friday’s 40% sell-off

GameStop shares fell more than 16% on Monday. GameStop released its earnings report days ahead of schedule, reporting that sales dropped 29% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, meme stock champion Keith Gill hosted his first livestream in a few years Friday. Keith Gill, a Reddit user credited with inspiring GameStop’s rally, during a YouTube livestream arranged on a laptop at the New York Stock Exchange on June 7, 2024. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

GameStop shares fell more than 16% on Monday as the meme stock extended Friday’s sell-off sparked by a dismal earnings report and an uninspiring livestream from Roaring Kitty.

The video game company’s stock declined to just below $24 apiece on Monday after falling nearly 40% on Friday alone. GameStop released its earnings report days ahead of schedule, reporting that sales dropped 29% in the first quarter. GameStop also announced it was selling an additional 75 million shares.

Meanwhile, meme stock champion Keith Gill hosted his first livestream in a few years Friday. He revealed that he did not have any institutional backers and the GameStop positions he had shared in screenshots were his only bets. Gill also reiterated his previous investing thesis and offered little new reasoning behind his large stake.

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Michael Pachter, GameStop analyst at Wedbush, said he remains skeptical that the company could result in any meaningful turnaround after multiple failed strategies recently.

“We cannot see how GameStop adds any value by operating any new businesses, particularly not now after its entire C-suite was either terminated or chose to depart,” he said in a note.

Pachter noted that GameStop’s prior strategy to be like Amazon was “an abject failure” as three former Amazon executives it hired to pursue the strategy left the company. Then, its plan to sell NFTs fell apart after it partnered with the now-defunct FTX, he added.

The analyst thinks that any boost GameStop got from Gill could turn out to be short-lived.

“We suspect that [Friday’s] live stream from influencer Keith Gill (Roaring Kitty) will keep shares elevated long enough to the company to complete its [at-the-market share offering], but with no clear strategy, we suspect the share price will once again begin to descend and approach our new price target,” Pachter said.

CNBC

Opinion: The elements for a big stock market drop are aligning. Here’s why investors shouldn’t panic

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. Brendan McDermid | Reuters

When is the next stock market crash taking place?

It’s a question I get asked often since I wrote “A History of the United States in Five Crashes – Stock Market Meldowns That Defined a Nation.” Until now, I’ve always been able to counsel that stock market crashes are comfortingly rare events that only occur when elements align, and that a crash is unlikely in the near future. Is this still the case? Let’s discuss.

It’s always helpful to examine the elements that foster a crash. The first is a frothy stock market.

It is no accident that the first modern stock market crash, the Panic of 1907, occurred after the biggest two-year rally in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The benchmark gained 95.9% from 1905 to the end of 1906. The crash in 1929 occurred after the second-largest two-year rally ever, up 90.1%  from 1927 to 1928. More recently, the S&P 500 was up 43.6% for the year on Aug. 25, 1987, and the largest crash in history occurred 38 trading days later wiping away all those gains and more.

The second element for a potential crash is rising interest rates. It was the Federal Reserve that pushed short term interest rates from 1% in May 2004 to 5.25% in September 2006 and unsettled the shadow economy — while making stocks less attractive as you could make a decent return with no risk by buying T-bills.

The third element is some newfangled financial contraption that injects leverage into the financial system at the worst possible time. In 1987, it was the ill-named portfolio insurance — which was really just a scheme to sell stocks or stock index futures in increasing numbers as the market fell. In 2008, it was mortgage-backed securities and their metastatic offspring such as collateralized debt obligations, collateralized loan obligations and credit default swaps. During the 2010 Flash Crash it was naïve algorithmic trading and the even more naïve institutional users who again failed to think about capacity issues.

The most capricious element is a catalyst. That often has nothing to do with financial markets. In 1907, it was the San Francisco earthquake. During the Flash Crash, it was turmoil in the euro zone that nearly resulted in the collapse of the common European

CNBC

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Southwest Airlines, GameStop, Advanced Micro Devices and more

Ranked: The Countries Most Dependent on Agricultural Exports

Published

59 mins ago

on

June 10, 2024 Graphics/Design:

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Ranked: The Countries Most Dependent on Agricultural Exports

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Between 2019 and 2021, agricultural products accounted for more than one-third of the total value of global commodity exports. This graphic ranks the most agriculturally-export-dependent countries in the world, using data from UN Trade & Development (UNCTAD).

For this graphic we have only included countries where agricultural products represent more than 75% of its total exports. Resource dependency can make a country vulnerable to economic shocks via price fluctuations.

Ranked: Countries that Rely Heavily on Agricultural Exports

In Micronesia, a staggering 98% of all its exports are agricultural, of which 89% are fish in various forms. In fact, five of the top 10 countries are small island nations in the Pacific. Four of them also have fish as their top agricultural export.

Below is a more extensive list showing countries whose agricultural products make up more than 60% of their total exports. Also listed: their most-valued agriculture export in 2022, sourced from the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

RankCountry% of Merchandise
Exports From
AgricultureTop Agricultural
Export (2022) 1🇫🇲 Micronesia98%🐟 Fish 2🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau94%🌰 Cashew Nuts 3🇲🇼 Malawi93%🚬 Raw Tobacco 4🇸🇧 Solomon Islands89%🌲 Rough Wood 5🇲🇻 Maldives88%🐟 Fish 6🇻🇺 Vanuatu86%🐟 Fish 7🇰🇮 Kiribati84%🐟 Fish 8🇹🇴 Tonga82%🐟 Fish 9🇺🇾 Uruguay79%🐄 Bovine Meat 10🇪🇹 Ethiopia77%☕ Coffee 11🇳🇿 New Zealand77%🥛 Milk 12🇦🇷 Argentina76%🌱 Soybean Meal 13🇬🇲 Gambia75%🥜 Groundnuts 14🇧🇿 Belize75%🍬 Sugar 15🇼🇸 Samoa69%🥥 Coconut Oil 16🇵🇾 Paraguay68%🌱 Soybeans 17🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire67%🍫 Cocoa Beans 18🇸🇴 Somalia67%🐑 Sheep & Goats 19🇦🇫 Afghanistan65%☁️ Raw Cotton 20🇸🇾 Syria63%🫒 Pure Olive Oil 21🇸🇩 Sudan62%🌿 Sesame Seeds 22🇧🇯 Benin61%☁️ Raw Cotton 23🇨🇫 Central African Republic60%🌲 Rough Wood

Maldives, in the Indian ocean, is also within the top 10. Its top agricultural export is also fish. Interestingly, the Observatory of Economic

ESMA Tackles Greenwashing with New Tool

The EU watchdog plans to ramp up scrutiny of sustainable financial products, warning providers not to make “unsubstantiated” claims.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has developed a new tool that will enable it to better identify cases of greenwashing in the investment management industry. In a new report, the watchdog said it had recently increased its analytical efforts to detect mismatches between green claims and actual investment…

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