Friday, August 31, 2012

Week in Review: Top reads for your long weekend

With the long weekend upon us, we'd like to share some articles that caught our eye -- and should make for good reading during a lazy summer afternoon. We hope you have a great Labor Day and enjoy time with friends and family!


Good: Why Are Women More Interested in Going to College Than Men? More women than men have been going to college since the 1980s. Since 1996, more women have been graduating. Last year, U.S. Census data revealed that women now earn more graduate degrees. And, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics, the trend of women dominating higher education is set to continue.

Fox Business: World Food Prices Climb as Drought Hurts Crops World food prices jumped 10% in July as this year's drought parched croplands in the United States and Eastern Europe. Africa and the Middle East are particularly vulnerable, but so are people in other countries where the prices of grains have jumped abruptly.

New York Times: An Attack on Grameen Bank, and the Cause of Women The Bangladeshi government’s most recent action not only threatens the bank’s independence, it challenges the ownership rights of millions of poor women who control 97 percent of the shares of the Grameen Bank, and whose collective savings (about US$1.4 billion) finance its operations. It's a powerful blow against an institution that has flourished and helped millions of poor people, largely because it's in the hands of women.

The Atlantic: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff' Millennials are shifting their spending from tangibles (cars and homes) to intangibles (education and access to data), but they're not alone. In today's data-driven economy, the business sector is moving along the same tangible-to-intangible path as this generation, perhaps at an even faster pace.

Looking for more good reading? Check out the Kive Fellows Blog at fellowsblog.kiva.org.