Like much of the emerging labor force, my millennial mindset challenges many age-old taboos. I proudly embrace that “dirty word”— feminist . I don’t necessarily aspire to be humble . And yes, I talk openly about compensation with my close friends and coworkers. These conversations have opened my eyes to just how commonplace gender wage discrepancies still are — even in male-dominated fields where women, like the trailblazer who raised me, are pushing boundaries. This reality extends far beyond my inner circles. For women in Illinois, the gap is, on average, 84 cents for every dollar men earn and is even more pronounced for women of color. Simply breaking taboos won’t solve this problem, but upcoming legislation could — if employees and employers alike seize the opportunity. Beginning Jan. 1, Illinois will require businesses with 15 or more employees to include salary range and benefits in job postings. Gov. JB Pritzker signed this amendment to the Illinois Equal Pay Act in 2023, 20 years after the law’s original passage, aiming to eliminate gender wage discrimination. The law should enable job seekers to gain more wage information, expose pay inequities and address the persistent gender and racial wage gaps. Until last year, the Illinois gender wage gap was consistently wider than the U.S. average — which has barely budged in the past two decades. The state’s new law aligns with a growing national trend toward pay transparency, joining states like Colorado and California , which have shown that salary disclosures can help narrow wage gaps. A Chicago Mayor’s Women’s Advisory Council Report found COVID-19 exacerbated gender wage disparities, revealing structural inequities in the labor market. Stay-at-home orders, caregiving demands and job losses hit women, particularly Black women, the hardest. From 2019 to 2020, approximately 36,000 fewer women in Chicago were in the workforce, compared to just 11,000 fewer men. As Illinois recovers, transparency offers a crucial opportunity to rebalance economic security. Salary transparency-regulated states provide encouraging evidence. In Colorado, where similar legislation was introduced in 2021, transparency requirements prompted employers to assess and correct internal pay practices. This progress reduced Colorado’s gender wage gap more than three times faster than the national average. Transparent pay practices don’t just boost trust and morale — they reduce employee turnover by 30% and disrupt negotiating dynamics that have long worked against women. For employers, transparency represents an opportunity to promote pay equity while attracting top talent and gaining a competitive advantage in today’s job market. Critics argue that salary transparency laws could backfire, suggesting employers might post exaggeratedly wide salary ranges. However, the Illinois Equal Pay Act protects against abuse by requiring employers to reference actual ranges for equivalent positions. Workers can also file complaints with the Illinois Department of Labor . Of course, salary transparency alone isn’t a cure-all. Achieving gender pay equity demands systemic change, including shifts in workplace culture, dismantling implicit biases and overcoming persistent challenges that “traditional” social hierarchies pose to women’s socioeconomic advancement. A woman’s place can be in the boardroom! For a generation unafraid to challenge taboos, Illinois’ transparency law offers a tangible way to back conversations with action. If you’re an Illinois worker, remember, starting Jan. 1, all new job postings must include salary and benefits information. Workers should receive this before disclosing wage expectations, and prospective employers cannot ask about salary history. Companies should proactively review compensation structures to align with industry standards and be prepared to disclose ranges or face hefty fees . Awareness of these rights empowers women to negotiate confidently and demand fair pay. By embracing salary transparency, Illinois can level the playing field and reduce the state’s gender wage gap. While this legislation won’t close the gap overnight, it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. Transparency arms workers with information, and it’s time to take advantage of that power. Becca Herman is a Chicago native, a business operations manager and a master of public administration candidate at NYU Wagner. The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates. The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines . Get Opinions content delivered to your inbox.It’s become a popular talking point among some of President-elect Donald Trump’s most prominent supporters: The United States has an infertility problem. “Why are so many couples infertile?” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, asked in a September post on the social platform X. Dr. Casey Means, a former surgeon and health influencer who has advised Kennedy, has called infertility a “crisis.” And Trump himself has said he would task Kennedy with investigating “the decades-long increase in chronic health problems,” including infertility, or the medical inability to conceive. Like people in many other developed regions around the world, Americans are having fewer children now than before — a demographic trend that has alarmed some conservatives in particular. Some of that is likely a result of social and economic factors, like steep child care costs, housing prices and more people choosing to forgo starting families. But whether infertility is becoming more common is a different question, and a difficult one to answer conclusively. Still, researchers and doctors said they are worried about a few health trends unfolding in the United States that can affect fertility. How scientists track fertility Researchers use a few metrics to examine fertility and infertility, and each offers a slightly different picture of the current landscape in the United States. Fertility rate: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measures the general fertility rate as the total number of live births in a year per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44. In 2023, the most recent year of data available, the fertility rate in the United States was around 54 births per 1,000 women of reproductive age — what appears to be a historic low. Another way researchers look at fertility is using the total fertility rate, which estimates the average number of children a woman is expected to have during her reproductive years. In 2023, the total fertility rate in the United States was a little more than 1.6 births per woman, lower than the roughly two births per woman documented in 2001. Birthrate: The CDC calculates birthrate by dividing the number of live births over the course a year by the total population. In 2022, for example, there were 11 births for every 1,000 people. In 1995, that number was 14.8 per 1,000 people. Like the fertility rate measures, this metric demonstrates that Americans are having fewer children. But none of these statistics help differentiate between people who have decided not to have children and those who want to do so but are unable to conceive. “The intention to become pregnant is extremely, extremely difficult to measure — it’s something we do not keep track of at a population level,” said Jorge E. Chavarro, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who researches infertility. Infertility: The CDC tracks this by assessing the number of married women between the ages of 15 and 49 who report having had unprotected sex for at least a year without becoming pregnant. This metric excludes women who have been surgically sterilized. Infertility rates have appeared relatively stable over the past several decades, with the latest data from 2015 to 2019 showing that 2.4 million married women of reproductive age were infertile. That data presents an incomplete picture, however. Not everyone who is trying to conceive is married, and not everyone with fertility issues is attempting to have a child in a given year. Another key factor is called impaired fecundity, or difficulty in either getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to live birth. The CDC has found that the percentage of women between the ages of 15 and 49 with impaired fecundity rose to 13.4% between 2015 and 2019, compared with around 10% of women between the ages of 15 to 44 reporting impaired fecundity in 1995. Even with this incomplete picture of fertility, some researchers say they are monitoring a few health trends that could be affecting it. People are having children later in life More people are choosing to have children later in life. In 2021, the average age at which U.S. women had their first child was 27.3, which the CDC has said was a record high. And the number of American women older than 40 who are giving birth has steadily increased over the past few decades. With this shift comes an increased risk of fertility issues. Age is the factor that most influences fertility, doctors said. The older a couple is, the greater the chance they will struggle to conceive. Female fertility starts to decline gradually around age 32, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and then falls more significantly after age 37. Male fertility tends to start declining around age 35, as men produce fewer sperm, and as their sperm become less viable. Obesity rates are rising Obesity rates have steadily risen in the United States; a recent paper found that nearly three-quarters of adults in the country are now overweight or obese. Obesity can impact ovulation in women, said Dr. Mary Rosser, the director of Integrated Women’s Health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Obesity is also closely connected to polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, which causes women to ovulate irregularly, or in some cases not at all. Research suggests that between 70% and 80% of women with PCOS have infertility, and women with the condition are also more likely to miscarry. Excess weight has also been linked to lower sperm quality in men. Sexually transmitted infections have climbed Several sexually transmitted infections, including chlamydia and gonorrhea, can affect fertility. STIs have been on the rise in the United States for decades, although some have plateaued in recent years. The CDC has pointed to a number of factors that drove rates up for years, including reduced condom use and closures of clinics that test for and treat the infections. Chlamydia and gonorrhea, in particular, can both lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and damage the fallopian tubes if they go untreated, Rosser said. STIs often don’t cause symptoms, which means they are frequently not treated in time to stop them from affecting fertility. Chemicals are cause for concern. A wealth of research has found a link between reproductive health issues and exposure to harmful chemicals and substances found in personal care products, air pollution, plastics, pesticides and even food. Some of these compounds, like phthalates and bisphenol A, or BPA, are known as endocrine disrupters. This is because they can interfere with the function of our hormones, which are produced by the endocrine system. Endocrine disrupters have been tied to infertility, both in women and in men, said Tracey Woodruff, director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco. Even very low levels of exposure to endocrine disrupters can increase the risks of reproductive health issues, she said. But scientists are not sure how this translates to an individual’s fertility. “You’re not going to be able to remove an endocrine disrupter and then everybody gets pregnant,” said Dr. Vasiliki Moragianni, the medical director at the Johns Hopkins Fertility Center. (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM.) Researchers are also trying to understand whether some people might be particularly susceptible to endocrine disrupters at certain points in their lives, such as during puberty, said Genoa Warner, an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and environmental science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. (END OPTIONAL TRIM.) Experts said more research is needed, given that most people are exposed to these substances every day, and that they are practically impossible to avoid.
How to watch ‘ChiefsAholic: A Wolf in Chiefs Clothing,’ Prime Video’s new true-crime sports documentaryBlack Friday is here, more or less, with early Black Friday deals being highly abundant at this time. One pair of such deals is for Sony’s quite legendary XM5 line, with both the headphones and earbuds being on sale. In fact, a Best Buy early Black Friday deal got me to buy the earbuds and complete my collection. As a self-described “audiophobe” (I crave silence the way others crave deep bass beats), I’ve been tempted by Sony’s WF-1000XM5 after experiencing the peace and quiet of the WH-1000XM5 headphones. And at their current price of $230, which is $70 down from the usual $300, they were an easy pickup for me. But, with the WH-1000XM5 — the headphones that consistently sit at the top or our best headphones list — down to $300 from a usual price of $400, are the WF-1000XM5 really the best deal for you to pick up at the moment? As someone who owns them both, I’m going to give you the case for picking out each pair. Why you should buy the WH-1000XM5 The WH-1000XM5 are a mainstay in the headphones world. For someone like me who wants to have peace and quiet on a regular basis, they’re pretty much effortless. I just slide them over my ears, tap a button, and all is peaceful again. From the crowded Best Buy where I first tried them on I was able to tune out the vast majority of the store’s chatter within seconds. Their ease of use and convenience has spilled over into my entertainment regimen too, however. With an easy pair of taps you can start and stop media. This means that I can go grab a drink or some food while a YouTube video plays and — if something interesting happens that I want to see as well as hear — pause it remotely via my headphones. These are easy, convenient, comfy headphones and (as mentioned in our WH-1000XM5 review ) they sound great when playing music and have very robust EQ controls to get you the precise sound you want. The one thing they don’t do well, however, is active work. Sweating, drizzles outdoors, and wet hands from doing dishes are all no-nos around your WH-1000XM5s, but its still all good so long as you know their limitations. At their current price of just $300 I would be a bit envious of anyone just buying these now, as I paid closer to $350 during a Prime Day sale last year. Why you should buy the WF-1000XM5 For anyone wondering why I highlighted how instant the WH-1000XM5’s utility came to me, the WF are the answer. With the earbuds, you’ll need to work to get a solid fit. Trying all of the eartips on, twisting in and out of ears, using the app to test how good your fit is, and so on can take some time, especially if you’re picky about the silence levels. I’ll also use this point to mention that the tap controls on the WF-1000XM5 will feel quite familiar to WH-1000XM5 users, but they have a tendency to go off when you’re inserting and removing the earbuds from your ears. Turn them off briefly when doing your initial setup. However, when all is said and done and you do get the right fit, the noise cancelation is quite good and, of course, the sound is right. On my second day of owning them, I wore my WF-1000XM5s while building the wooden shelf you can see them displayed on in the image above while playing very light music. It wasn’t until after I was done that I noticed there was some fairly loud YouTube watching going on in the next room. And, with the buds (but not the case) being IPX4 water resistant, I know there will be other new things I’ll do with my WF-1000XM5. I got mine for $230 and I’m pretty happy that I did. You can find yours by tapping the button below. Conclusion: Should you buy the WH-1000XM5 or WF-1000XM5 for Black Friday? Having worn both of Sony’s XM5 styles, I feel pretty confident that most people will feel most satisfied with the WH-1000XM5 headphones. Both my own experience and customer review ratings point to them being the better experience, even if it isn’t by a lot. That being said, the WF-1000XM5 are $70 cheaper at this time and you can still get an excellent noise isolation experience, especially if you boost it by playing some music (which you probably were going to do anyhow). The WF-1000XM5 are for sure the value play, and if you’re a bargain hunter there’s no way you won’t feel pleased with yourself getting them for $230, at least until next sales cycle when they might get closer to $200. With some water-resistance, they can go many places the WH-1000XM5 cannot, too, adding to the value. The WH-1000XM5 headphones are fantastic but the WF-1000XM5 earbuds sure have their place. Of course, this all brings us to one question: Why not both? While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend buying both until you’ve at least tried one out, if you have the WH-1000XM5 now is a great time to pick up the WF-1000XM5. And, likewise, if you have the WF-1000XM5 now is similarly a great time to pick up the WH-1000XM5. Though they have similar aims, they’re different enough tools and owning both doesn’t feel like complete overkill. It’s kind of like having a wedge and a driver in your golf club bag, to use a horrible sports metaphor. Finally, be sure to check and compare these to our listings of Black Friday Bose headphones deals , Black Friday Beats headphones deals , and Black Friday AirPods deals to get more perspective on price and availability this deals season.Mourinho best summed up how quickly a footballer’s career can come and go – Amorim may now have that chat with RashfordGame-changing holiday gifts for building fires, printing photos, watching birds and more
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November 23, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked trusted source written by researcher(s) proofread by Steve Fletcher, The Conversation On March 2, 2022, delegates to the UN environment assembly adopted an ambitious resolution to develop the text of a new treaty by the end of 2024 to end plastic pollution. With 24 days of formal negotiation between almost 200 countries completed, spread over meetings in Peru, France, Kenya and Canada, the fifth and final negotiation meeting is about to take place in Busan, South Korea. This is crunch time. Agreement must be found or the opportunity to take global action to tackle plastic pollution might be lost. I have studied international action to tackle plastic pollution for the past decade. During this time, I have witnessed remarkable growth in plastic waste —an estimated 400 million tons is thrown away every year. Plastic pollution is now ubiquitous . The issue of plastic pollution has moved up the public and political agenda in a way few could have predicted. Global action has always been the missing piece of the picture, as the plastics economy transcends national boundaries, and actions in one jurisdiction, while locally beneficial, tend not to address global pollution patterns. To tackle plastic pollution, a shift in the entire plastics economy is needed. This should focus on reuse and refill schemes , which reduce the need for new plastic products and the substitution of plastics with other materials that are less polluting or harmful. With my team of policy researchers, I have attended the last three plastics treaty negotiation meetings as an observer to gauge progress towards a global treaty . For the most part, progress has been slow, largely because of delaying and blocking tactics by a few countries that depend on fossil fuel industries. Lobbying from the petrochemical industry frustrates progress further. Given the tight timescale to agree the treaty, I worry that no agreement will be reached. Three priorities Final negotiations must include three things. An immediate priority is to agree on the rules governing how decisions are taken in the negotiations between member states, known as the "rules of procedure." At present, decisions are taken by consensus, meaning all delegations must agree before a decision is reached. Given the entrenched positions of some countries, consensus-based decision-making is unlikely to yield rapid agreement because the positions of some nations are so far apart. The rules of procedure needs to include a voting mechanism so that when there is decisive agreement between most nations, a decision can be taken and progress can be made, when consensus cannot be reached. The second critical issue is finance. Plastic pollution is a challenge most acutely faced by low- and middle-income countries . The plastics treaty is only likely to be effective if there's adequate funding for countries most affected by plastic pollution to take action. As witnessed in the climate debate , finance is incredibly contentious and raises critical questions. That includes who will pay for the problems plastic pollution has already caused and the new measures to tackle plastic pollution, plus how supporting countries can best provide necessary technology and training. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matter— daily or weekly . The role of the private sector is also significant in the plastics economy, and discussions are underway about innovative options for private finance to support treaty implementation. For the treaty to be credible, agreement on the broad terms of a finance mechanism for treaty implementation is essential. The treaty must also focus on actions most likely to reduce plastic pollution. There is clear evidence that reducing the production of primary plastic polymers reduces plastic pollution most efficiently and effectively. Plastic is made at such a rate that it is impossible for waste management systems to keep up. So a treaty that focuses on waste management will not reduce plastic pollution significantly enough. Only putting the brake on plastic production will stop the inundation of plastic waste. There are, of course, many other important elements to agree on during negotiations. Criteria must be set to identify problematic, unnecessary and avoidable plastics that companies should stop making. Problematic plastics have harmful effects on human health or the environment, so any chemicals of concern must be removed from plastic materials and products. Unnecessary plastics are those with a function that is deemed non-essential, while avoidable plastics have an essential function but could be replaced by a non-plastic alternative. Subsidies on virgin plastics that make single-use products so financially attractive need to be stripped away. Any changes in the plastics economy that this treaty create need to benefit workers in the informal waste sector too. This week is critical for the world's relationship with plastics. People and planet depend on it. Provided by The Conversation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 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