According to Mexican legend, there are three types of death: The first occurs when all bodily functions cease and the soul leaves the body; the second occurs when the body is interred, returning one’s physical shell to the earth; and the final, most definitive death, occurs when no one remembersContinue Reading
Regular readers will know I take a keen interest in the regulatory role of the Appointed Actuary. See my previous posts here, here and, most recently, here. This week APRA released a consultation package with proposals on how the role should be changed to make the role fit better into the regulatoryContinue Reading
When I’m looking for inspiration for a post, I occasionally wander through the ABS website. If you’ve never tried it – have a look! It’s amazing what you can find there. So the Actuaries Digital editorial team asked me when I was going to post about the census. Sadly theContinue Reading
One of my most visited posts is about the likelihood of ships disappearing without a trace. Sadly it is getting renewed attention because a huge Korean cargo ship has disappeared off the coast of South America. So far only two of the 24 crew members have been found. It is trueContinue Reading
Last week Ross Gittins wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that the decades long drift from public to private schools has ended. Figures released by the Bureau of Statistics last month show that 65 per cent of our 3.8 million students went to public schools in 2016, the same proportion asContinue Reading
It was International Women’s Day this week, which The Economist celebrated with the release of their annual glass-ceiling index. The index looks at a combination of factors including female share of senior managers, share of company directors, cost of childcare, and the level of paid leave for fathers. As usual, theContinue Reading
In Julia Lessing’s recent post, she analysed the likely reasons for the gender pay gap between men and women, and concluded that based on available evidence, at least some of it is due to discrimination. But what else is behind it? This week’s post looks at the Carer Pay gapContinue Reading
I’ve written my usual annual roundup of my non fiction reading here. My two favourites were The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis. Whatever book he turns his hand to he seems to find something interesting to say. In this case, I was sceptical, as I felt the definitive way to readContinue Reading
In this guest post, Julia Lessing analyses the statistics on remuneration for actuaries – is there a gap between men and women? Certainly the headlines suggest there is a gap, as evidenced by an article sent to me by at least five people. But what is causing it? Julia goesContinue Reading
Today’s book review is Weapons of Math Destruction, How big data increases inequality and threatens Democracy, by Cathy O’Neil. Cathy O’Neil is a data scientist, with a PhD in mathematics, who blogs here. She has built models, and also tried to deconstruct them for those affected by them. This book is aContinue Reading