Because It Helps Us Understand (and Change) Our Society

May 29, 2026 by Wendy Naus

It would be hard not to notice that we are living in a world of increasing inequality. According to data collected by the Federal Reserve, the share of the nation’s wealth owned by the top one percent of U.S. wealth holders increased almost 50 percent, from 22.8 percent in 1989 to 31.9 percent at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, the gap between high and low earners has also been expanding. One widely used measure is the ratio of wages of workers at the 90th percentile of the earnings distribution to those at the 10th percentile (the 90-10 gap). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 90-10 gap was 3.7 in 1979 and grew to 5.0 by 2014, roughly where it is today.

This widening gap helps us understand why robust economic growth has not translated into more positive views about the economy. GDP per capita, the conventional scorecard of economic performance, has more than doubled since the mid-1980s. But, because of the growing income gap, this prosperity has not been widely shared. For example, adjusted for inflation, the real compensation of production workers today is no higher than it was in 1979 (see MeasuringWorth.com). This marks a major shift. In the 100 years from 1879 to 1979, the compensation of production workers grew at roughly the same rate as GDP per capita.

These facts both help us to understand our experience of the modern economy and raise a whole host of questions. Why are the fruits of economic growth increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few? Have there been other times when there has been a similar level of inequality? What can we learn from past experiences? What will happen in the future?

Because It Makes Informed Democracy Possible

November 19, 2019 by Wendy Naus

Einstein said famously, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” It gives scientific optimists like me encouragement that great thinkers have concluded it is possible to understand the world, that the world is not chaotic, senseless, and inscrutable. In the empirical world there is a means for determining which of two ideas, explanations, or choices is more likely to be true. Through observation, experiment, and analysis there is a path to reliable knowledge. By going down that path we can gain knowledge that is more and more reliable. If only more people realized this! This is not only, as in Einstein’s words, mysterious that it should be so; it is also astounding. And this is comforting, because it also appears to be true that with reliable knowledge one can improve the human condition, reduce suffering and affliction, and ennoble human life. This is the testament of science. Science, the greatest intellectual development of the past half millennium, brings many material advances, but the greatest gift of science is the idea of science itself.

I suppose some would say I am going off the deep end in idle philosophy, but it seems to me very empowering in a practical sense to know how useful the well-developed practices and standards of science (social science and the scientific techniques of other disciplines) are for resolving many differences of opinion. How very empowering it is to know that there can be and is progress toward a self-consistent and improving understanding of people and things.

Because It Helps to Address Graduate Unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa

April 23, 2019 by Wendy Naus

Social scientists are actively involved in working with government officials, academics, the private sector, NGOs and policy officials to understand as well as develop solutions to address the current challenges of graduate unemployment and under employment in sub-Saharan Africa. This is a problem that is close to home for me as an African scholar and a social scientist who undertakes research that has application to social policies and development. I have been keen on understanding and investigating the factors that allow these patterns of unemployment to persist given the enormity of its impact on individuals, households, communities and countries across the continent.

Understanding Sub-Saharan Africa’s Unemployed Graduate Youth Crisis

Sub-Saharan Africa has the fastest growing youth population in the world, with 60 per cent of its population under 24 years old. Harnessing their capability would require increased and focused investments in education, to ensure a healthy labor force that is capable of meeting the demands of our current local and globalized job markets. The International Labour Organization (ILO) suggests that the youth (15–24 years) unemployment outlook for the major economies of the African region remains quite mixed, ranging from 1.8% in Benin to 54.4% in South Africa. ILO further reveals that working poverty rates among youth in sub-Saharan Africa was nearly 70 per cent in 2016, translating into 64.4 million working youth living in extreme or moderate poverty (less than $3.10 per day). According to the same source, the number of poor employed youth has unfortunately risen by as much as 80% over the past 25 years. Many sub-Saharan African countries are experiencing a youth bulge with some having up to 80% of the population under 35 years. Given the region’s emerging demographic projections, this problem will not go away anytime soon. It is my view that for university graduates to effectively contribute to their respective national economies, and address the current youth unemployment crisis, there should be employment initiatives and approaches to transition them to formal employment.