Vinjeru Mkandawire

speaker

63 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 28 Jul

Vinjeru Mkandawire’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Economist Podcasts · Burning questions: a more fire-prone world · 28 Jul 2026 podcast

I mean, few women, I think, truly aspire to the aesthetic endorsed by trad wives.

But researchers at King's College in London wrote a report on how they think the online appeal of homemade bread and linen aprons actually reflects women's frustration with the demands of modern work.

It's less an ideological return to tradition and more a plea for balance.

So they think it is a nostalgia.

It's actually a warning sign.

So talking of warning signs, what's all of this doing to the gender pay gap?

When it comes to the gender pay gap, that's opening up again.

In the U.S., the gender pay gap widened for two years in a row in 2024 and 2023.

The gap has occasionally suffered annual setbacks, but this marked the first consecutive two-year decline in 60 years.

It's also widened in Canada, it's widened in France, in Switzerland, and in the UK, the gap widened for women in their 40s.

Well, COVID is partly to blame.

The pandemic did set women back on equal pay.

So disproportionate numbers of low-wage female workers losing their jobs during the pandemic may have artificially narrowed the gender pay gap.

And some of that reasoning widening of the gap may reflect those women piling back into the workforce.

But the GAP's expansion half a decade after lockdowns ended suggests that there's something else at play.

So the difficulty finding childcare is another potential culprit.

But we talk a lot about the cost of childcare, but not enough about the quality or availability, particularly if you're dealing with long waiting lists and staff shortages.

Germany, for instance, is considered to have affordable childcare, but it still lacks more than 300,000 nursery places for children under three.

And at the same time, many companies are dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Does anyone care?

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