Speech on Glass Ceiling, Feminism, Emerging Economies and Catch Up Effect

This speech covers the topics of Glass Ceiling, Feminism, Emerging Economies and Catch Up Effect. It explains the concepts of each topic and their importance in today's world.

SPEECH

GLASS CEILING
Glass ceiling is perhaps the most widely
known and discussed phenomenon in
today’s world. It is a metaphorical term that
is commonly used to describe the unseen
barrier that divides a part of the population
from improving beyond a certain point.
Do anyone of you know when this term was
first used and where? Yes, it was first used
in the Wall Street Journal in 1986 by two
reporters.

Now, we all know that this is widely used in
the context of women who are high
achievers. In fact, it was a term first coined
by feminists.
In fact, all these women have been
exposed to problems of harassment, glass
ceilings and a huge list of gender based
problems. It is the virtue of staying honest
and true to the chosen path which has
driven these women continuously and
helped them in achieving what they all they
wanted to achieve.

Another thing that I think we all need to
earn and exercise everyday is the
distribution of our work by setting targets.
This can be done properly by setting a
proper time-table and framework. It is
equally important for them to be indifferent
to mentalities posed by others

FEMINISM
Feminism is the practice of advocacy of
rights of women based on grounds of
equality of the sexes. It is dependent on a
number of opinions, beliefs, practices and
stereotypes. There are actually many
perspectives related to this issue and it is
being addressed will increased concern
currently all over the world. This is
experienced and witnessed in various
aspects including political, economic and
social realms of life.

These situations have led to feminism
being addressed as a revolution slowly and
I don’t know if you are aware of this but
there are various types of feminism
depending on which various issues are
addressed related to the stereotyped
problems I just discussed.

Socialist feminism for example deals with
inequalities that exist in the social realm
and respect. It relates to the capitalist
issues and raises concern about the
question of women staying at home and
not being able to earn for themselves like
men are able to. This has been reduced to
substantial levels as we all know in today’s
world.

The next type of feminism is reformist
feminism in which the legislative aspects of
feminism are correlated along with
radicalism to actually bring about pragmatic
changes in the systems. It is mainly
concerned with bringing about changes
faced by the middle class women as well as
women in the lower realms of society who
are not exposed to enough opportunities so
that they can overcome the problems of
gender gap and achieve their dreams.

I think that it is the best form of feminism
because it is the type of feminism that
causes changes to happen. The last form of
feminism is radical feminism wherein,
problems related to the dominance of male
over female by using their physical or
psychological oppression happens.

EMERGING ECONOMIES
As we all know, we are gathered here to
discuss the concepts of emerging
economies. What do we understand by the
term emerging? It can be understood to be
gradually arising or improving , right? And
what are economies essentially?

The systems that run the livelihoods of
citizens and also en sure the running of
nations at large by generation of gross
domestic product (GDP) and revenue
generation. So now, if I have to answer I
posed earlier, emerging economies are
countries or nations that are more
developed than the developing countries
but are not as strong as developed
countries. Can you name some of the
emerging economies? The five largest
emerging economies in today’s world are
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

These are commonly known as the BRICS countries as
they are increasingly improving the situation in their
countries in terms of economy by increasing the amount
of globalisation the countries are essentially involved
with.
Hence, as you all can guess, that these countries are
increasingly becoming attractive in terms of areas of
foreign direct investment. This is for the obvious reason
that investing in these areas will cause huge amounts of
returns at correct times if the investments are done in a
scientific way and by that I mean after rigorous
research and analysis of the sector or the industry
where the investment is being done.

However, as these are emerging economies, there
are a lot of risks associated with investments in
these areas. Effectively it becomes important to
keep valid back up plans and inventory ready
before investing in these economies so that the
situation is safe. Because of increase in the total
amount of foreign direct investment in these areas
there has also been an increase in the total
amount of employment generation in these
countries. This will in turn help in increasing the
per capita income generation in these countries
and economies at large.

This is because the return amounts for the
investors in these areas are larger than
average investment returns. The powerhouse
of emerging economies are China and India
together as these countries constitute 40% of
the world’s labour force and population. I think
it is very astonishing but true that these two
economies have experienced a total economic
output of $32.6 trillion together which is much
higher than the economic output that has been
for either the European Union or the United
States in the year 2017.

So now the question how can we be sure that the
investments that we will be doing are safe and are
definitely going to yield average returns if not great
returns. This has to be done by diversifying the
investments done. If you invest in many different
sectors or ventures you might end up winning all or
some but not losing all. This is a technique that we
all end up using consciously or unconsciously don’t
we? This will again cause the saving rates for us to
increase and hence investment in these countries
will lead to increased revenue generation.


Catch Up Effect
You all must be curious as we have all
gathered about a very interesting concept
which is Catch Up Effect. Now, please don’t
feel it is a complicated concept. It is really
easy as you only need to understand the
concept of convergence, that is, the
method by which developing countries try
to fasten their speed of development so
that their income levels match with the
income generation levels and capacities of
the developed countries.

This is easier for the developing countries
to do because of the generation of higher
per capita incomes as compared to the
already developed countries. Now it is
possible that many of you are thinking now
is it possible that developing countries can
have growth rates higher than the already
developed countries.

The possibilities of growth in the
developing countries are way more than
that in already developed countries and so
the catch up effect occurs. Try to
understand it this way – the returns to
capital for developing countries will
inevitably be higher than the returns to
capital in developed countries. This is so
because the technology levels in the
developed and developing countries are
different.

The developed countries are already used
to the advanced technological levels and
when these highly advanced and innovated
technological skills are applied and used in
the developing countries, these countries
having higher growth opportunities grow
way more than the developed countries.

Now, please note that the amount of catch
up varies from one developing country to
another. This is so because there are a
number of factors that affect the
opportunities and growth rates of different
countries which can be social, political or
even institutional. In fact, this is an
empirically proven fact. So the GDP
generation rates of developing countries
start to match with the developed
countries’ GDP.

However, you should know that the catch
up effect does not even in the regular
course of the development but requires a
great happening in a nation like an
invention, discovery or huge investments
from other countries in the form of Foreign
Direct Investment.

Lives of people, income levels and even
the infrastructural basis of these countries
get bettered because of the increased
growth rates and opportunities in these
countries. So as the phenomenon of catch
up effect occurs, the individuals of the
country are able to shift their focus from
problems of surviving to problems of
increased capacity development and
potential usage. The catch up effect thus is
indeed a miraculous phenomenon

It has been occurring across a large
number of developing countries. Few
countries have been able to use this and
grow at levels higher than the other
developing countries. These countries are
now termed as emerging economies.

Currently, Russia, China, India, Brazil and
South Africa are the largest emerging
economies in the world with some of these
countries together having income
generation higher than that of the
European Union or the United States at
large. Catch up effect is thus an important
economic concept.