Good on Paper

In 1981, an estimated 44 percent of the global population lived in extreme poverty. In 2019, that number shrank to just 9 percent. We often think of poverty as a trap, but recent research shows it doesn’t have to be. The economist and co-founder of GiveDirectly, Paul Niehaus, explains how extreme poverty fell over the past 40 years and how it could be eliminated for good.  Further reading:  “How P...

The ’90s are sometimes described as the beginning of the postfeminist era. But if feminism died 30 years ago, who killed it? The Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert seeks to answer this question in her new book, Girl on Girl, and finds a likely suspect in the contemporaneous rise of internet pornography.  Further reading:  Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themsel...

Women now outnumber men on U.S. college campuses. There’s a common belief that the college gender gap has led to a decrease in marriage rates for college-educated women, but the economist Benny Goldman says the data just don’t support that narrative. Instead, shifts in educational attainment and marriage rates have had a much starker effect on non-college-educated women and low-earning men.  Furth...

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution designed a government that they hoped would be impervious to tyranny of the majority. What they didn’t spend much time worrying about was the reverse: a tyranny of the minority. The political scientist Steve Teles explains how very small minorities have come to dominate government and what should be done about it.  Further Reading:  “Minoritarianism Is Everywhe...

States are cracking down on online porn—but is it working? The researcher Zeve Sanderson explains how age-verification laws backfire, why teens outsmart them, and what that means for the future of internet regulation.  Further reading:  “Do Age-Verification Bills Change Search Behavior? A Pre-Registered Synthetic Control Multiverse,” by David Lang, Zeve Sanderson, et al.  “The Online Porn Free-for...

In the summer of 1975, white schoolchildren at some Louisville, Kentucky, public schools were faced with a choice: stay in the school system and undergo busing to integrate the schools, or leave the system entirely. A remarkable new study by the economist Ethan Kaplan shows that for students who stayed, busing had lasting effects on their political identities, making them more likely to identify a...

Researchers have suggested that lifestyle choices explain the remarkably high number of very old people living healthy lives in regions of the world known as “blue zones.” That research has spawned cookbooks, docuseries, and diets and turned blue zones into a household name. Today’s episode is a conversation with Dr. Saul Newman, who has upended the field by questioning the underlying data and res...

What do politicians really think of their voters? A new study looking at 11 different democracies finds that politicians hold an unflattering view of their constituents, while voters view themselves as thoughtful, policy-oriented decision makers. The political scientist Jack Lucas explains why politicians think voters are dumb and why they might be wrong.  Further reading:  “Politicians’ Theories...

Donald Trump won back the White House last year by stoking fears of scarcity. The zero-sum thinking of the right that says there aren’t enough houses or jobs to go around laid the groundwork for the forces of illiberalism currently at play in the federal government. In their new book, Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue that to combat the politics of scarcity, liberals at every level of...

Shaken baby syndrome has been discredited, criticized, and even classified as “junk science” by a New Jersey judge, so why is it often being treated as settled fact in hospitals and courtrooms? The neuroscience researcher Cyrille Rossant was plunged headfirst into the controversy of shaken baby syndrome, now called “abusive head trauma,” when his child was believed to have been shaken by a nanny....

As the second Trump administration dismantles federal DEI programs and removes trans Americans from the military, the crusade on “wokeness” seems to be a core focus of the president’s second term. In this encore episode, host Jerusalem Demsas speaks with the New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg about the end of wokeness and why we might miss it when it’s gone.  Get more from your favorite At...

If researchers could go back in time 100,000 years, they’d find at least three different types of humans walking the Earth. Today, only the dominant group, Homo sapiens, survives. The scientist Johannes Krause explains how new discoveries in paleontology and genetics help pinpoint the exact period in which human groups interbred. Understanding this timeline, he says, brings us closer to understand...

Why do governments educate their citizens? More than 200 years ago, Western regimes shifted the responsibility of education from the family to the state. The political scientist Agustina Paglayan argues that this transition happened not in pursuit of democratic ideals, but in the interest of social control.  Further reading:  Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education, by Agustina Pagla...

We’re often told that there’s “no room for politics at work,” and yet the workplace is one of the most politically segregated spaces in adult life. The Harvard economics researcher Sahil Chinoy explains the self-sorting happening at every stage of professional life and the trade-offs workers are willing to make in pursuit of ideological uniformity. Further reading:  “Political Sorting in the U.S....

Most gun deaths aren’t premeditated, so how can we stop gun violence before it happens? The University of Chicago economist Jens Ludwig makes the case for thinking differently about the source of America’s gun-violence problem.  Further reading:  Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence, by Jens Ludwig  Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman  Scarcity: Why Having To...

Seven years after the Supreme Court struck down a ban on state-sanctioned sports betting, a more complete picture of the downstream effects of legalization is starting to emerge. As some states see debt delinquency and problem gambling increase, the journalist Danny Funt explains why lawmakers took a gamble on sports betting in the first place.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you...

Government reform isn’t an exclusively partisan issue, so why does it seem to fall under the purview of Republicans? The researcher Jennifer Pahlka says Democrats need to “get in the game” of government reform and consider working with, instead of against, the aims of DOGE.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism...

Editor’s note: After this episode aired, MIT issued a statement raising concerns about the integrity of Aidan Toner-Rodgers's working paper “Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation,” and recommending that the paper be withdrawn. The open-access research repository arXiv, where the paper was originally posted, has removed it from its archive, citing “concerns about the...

What makes someone a NIMBY? The prevailing theory suggests that people support or reject new housing in their neighborhood based on what’s best for them personally. The political scientist David Broockman provides a different explanation—one based on people’s beliefs about important symbols such as cities or tall buildings, rather than self-interest. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices whe...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to lead the Department of Health and Human Services under President-Elect Donald Trump. He has said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” but Dr. Rachael Bedard, a pro-vaccine and left-leaning physician, says opponents should still seek common ground with him.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access t...

Are young men becoming radicalized? Could they be further to the right than even their fathers and grandfathers? These questions have yet to be answered definitively, but in some countries, electoral results and polls suggest that a meaningful group of young men may be finding a home in radical spaces. In this encore episode, host Jerusalem Demsas speaks to Dr. Alice Evans, a researcher at King’s...

The key idea behind democracy is that if politicians pass good policy, people will reward them with votes. But is that actually true? The political scientist Hunter Rendleman looked at what happened when governors extended a social-welfare benefit that has lifted millions of working-class Americans out of poverty. Share understanding this holiday season. For less than $2 a week, give a yearlong At...

New Zealand was in a major housing crisis. But then the Pacific nation actually took ambitious steps to address it. The researcher Eleanor West recounts the policy wins and political pitfalls of what happened—and what lessons the United States and other countries could learn.  Share understanding this holiday season. For less than $2 a week, give a yearlong Atlantic subscription to someone special...

Four years ago, the murder of George Floyd—and the international protests that followed—amplified calls to defund or abolish the police. But what do we actually know about the relationship between policing and public safety? Share understanding this holiday season. For less than $2 a week, give a yearlong Atlantic subscription to someone special. They’ll get unlimited access to Atlantic journalism...

Last year, nearly half of childless adults under 50 told the Pew Research Center that they didn’t want kids. As the birth rate in the United States continues to decline, the philosopher Anastasia Berg wanted to know: Where is this ambivalence coming from? Share understanding this holiday season. For less than $2 a week, give a yearlong Atlantic subscription to someone special. They’ll get unlimite...