Catholic adoption agency to close

The news is carrying a story today that the Catholic Adoption Agency is to close, this is after a long battle between the agency and the equality commission.

The main issue comes from the Agency refusing to allow adoption from same sex couples, this is an interesting topic as it directly brings religious freedom against anti-discrimination forces, personally I have no formal religion and therefore do not think that a same sex couple should be prevented from adopting as long as they can show they can give a stable and loving home, no different than any couple.

However I also feel that religions must be allowed the freedom to follow their teachings, and for the Catholic church this means not supporting same sex relationships. The equality commission have ruled though and so the Agency will close, I think in the long run however it will only be the children who lose out.

Do Men Work Harder Than Women? and is it Important?

There was an article a few days ago in the Telegraph saying that contrary to popular feminist ideology Men are more productive than Women.

I have to admit that I have always found the Feminist belief that all men are incapable of raising a child or completing any simple domestic chores, whilst women are taking high level buisness meetings whilst juggling a vacuum cleaner and baby to be at odds with my own world view, I have also struggled to understand men who expect everything done for them (And I am not stupid enough to not believe there are still many out there.) but for me, I love cooking, I enjoy washing the dishes (can't tell you why I just find it relaxing.) and my time looking after our daughter is some of my favourite time, although she did just bite my toe so maybe I should reconsider!

So I guess this survey came as no surprise, especially as it stated that men are only just slightly more productive, I would assume that another survey may find that women are only slightly more productive than men - As in my experience I would assume that both sexes in a marriage would (mostly) be equal partners. or maybe my wife and I are just strange!

Early morning lecture; Economic lntegration, Wages and Equality.

I decided to dig out some of my old university lectures on CD this morning to listen to on the way to work. It was an interesting lecture looking at the effects of trade liberalisation on the equality of outcome in developing countries.

The main thrust of the debate was around standard integration theory and it's application to debates of opening up trade into Latin America, this is a very interesting idea as it would appear that when trade in Mexico was liberalised it was assumed that the effect would be the same as other developing countries, however unlike East Asia Latin America does not have an excess of unskilled labour, instead it is a semi-skilled area.

In integration theory it is a widely accepted fact that the abundant resource benefits and the scarce resource losses out, in developed countries that means that the unskilled workers lose out and the skilled workers gain, and vice versa in East Asia, this is where, in developed states, taxation comes in to redistribute resources to the most vulnerable. In the developing country the burden falls on the better off who are much better able to diversify and adapt.

The problem with Mexico however is that they do not have an abundance of unskilled workers and as a result the unskilled workers lose out, and in a middle income country the taxation and administration system is not developed enough to cope.

Of cause as a strong believer in capitalism and its key role in removing inequality in the global market place I was delighted to discover that despite these miss calculations the percentage of people living in poverty still fell, just not by as much as expected.