Undocumented Immigrants in Israel

The Israeli population is growing more slowly than the Palestinian population and this has created labor shortages in Israel that were once met by Palestinians, but since the intifada, the New York Times reports that Israel has imported workers from elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, and is now facing the problems of illegal immigrants, human trafficking, and the exploitation of foreign workers. This adds a whole new demographic dimension to the human drama in this volatile region.

World Population Day

The 11th of July was World Population Day, as declared by the UNFPA. The United Nations is emphasizing the importance of responding to the census as we move into a new decade of census-taking, whereas USAID naturally emphasizes the family planning programs that it supports as a way of empowering couples to have no more children than they want. This is probably as close as either organization wants to get to endorsing anything that might be thought of as a population policy.

Porcelain parity

For most of human history, people went to the “bathroom” by squatting in the brush somewhere, and for this it did not matter much whether you were male or female. But in modern urban settings we need plumbing facilities to accommodate the different needs of males and females and The Economist has reported on the world wide efforts to level of public bathroom facility playing field (what it calls “porcelain parity”) for men and women around the world—all as part of the move toward improved gender equity.