Atlas Assignment: United States

The topics for the United States are migration, working for wages, and lesbian rights. According to the Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, United States is categorized as one of the main migrant receiving countries. A long time ago, my parents had wanted to immigrate to the United States because of the promise of high paying jobs, and that hard work will pay off. That is one of the reasons why the United States attracts so many people from the Eastern countries like China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, etc.   People from the Philippines or Indonesia immigrate to Hong Kong to work as domestic workers, taking care of the family's needs or caring for the children. Hong Kong is hence one of the main migrant receiving countries. The residents in Hong Kong are heavily reliant on the source of domestic workers from south-east asia. Back to the United States, we try to attract tech workers by giving them priority when they apply for visas. Needless to say, a lot of America's population is based on immigrants, with more and more people coming each day. That makes our economy based off of immigrants working as well, which brings me to the next topic, working for wages. According to the Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, 50-59% of women in the U.S work for wages. The number is actually low because the illiteracy rate in the U.S is only 10%. 90% of women in the U.S are literate, but around 40% are not working for wages. That means 40% are not working at all or are care-giving for their child or doing unpaid domestic work. The number is still higher than countries in the middle east, where an average of less than 30% of women work for wages. In countries where even leaving the house will require permission from the male at home, it is understandable. The status of women in those countries are extremely low, and they must always abide by their male partner's directions. 
The war over legalizing gay marriage in San Francisco have been extremely long and rough. Now looking at the map on the Penguin Atlas of Women in the World on page 27, it is comforting to see that most large countries like the United States, South America, Russia, Asia, Australia, Europe, have no laws in place that criminalize homosexuality. That means most people in those countries are accepting various people from the queer population, and that they too have rights to married and be in a family like every other person.