SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

SDG 8 aims to promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, as well as full and productive employment and decent work for all. Employment can offer us a way to contribute to the economic prosperity of our families and others. Sometimes people can’t find work or are discriminated against because of their identity or ability. In many impoverished areas, adults and children are exploited or forced to do work in dangerous and underpaid situations to support their families. Targets that will help meeting this goal includes generating creative work that motivates people to fulfill their potential, jobs that ensures natural resources are respected and protected, and that work is safe for people of all abilities and origins.

You might also be able to align your teaching to this SDG if you want your students to be able to:

  • Describe concepts of sustainable economic development, productive employment and decent work.
  • Explore the relationship between employment and economic growth.
  • Articulate and address inequalities between labour force and management, owners and stakeholders can lead to poverty and civil unrest.
  • Justify fair wages, equal pay for equal work and labour rights from their employers and government regulators .
  • Reflect on their individual rights and clarify their needs and values related to work.
  • Develop and evaluate ideas for sustainability-driven innovation and entrepreneurship.

You might consider having your students reflect, share, act in some of these ways:

  • Learn about the cycle of poverty within your own community, province, country and internationally and understand the interconnected relationship of the global market and its workforce. Support an aspect of this by campaigning for equal rights, equal pay, smaller wage gaps and more. The Saskatchewan dashboard has current employment statistics for the province and WorkSafe Saskatchewan highlights statistics about safety in the workplace.
  • Vote with your dollar. Support fair working conditions and workers’ rights by supporting companies whose treatment of their workers is fair and just. A way to do this is buying fair trade products. Look for the label and ask the places that you buy from to support them too. Learn how and where products are made and if they use child labour or exploitative working conditions to source their raw materials.
  • Learn the laws. Protect yourself and your community by learning about your rights as a worker. Share what you know with your community and find out more about labour inequalities in your community. Education is key to ensure safe working environments and decent work.

Some curricular connections and questions for students might be:

Media- How are labour issues reported in the media?Environment – How can we improve the impacts on our environment through the jobs we have?Poverty, wealth, and power – How does wage and employment relate to the poverty cycle?

Indigenous Peoples – What are the labour issues impacting Indigenous people and communities?

Peace and conflict – How can we address civil unrest caused by unfair working conditions and low wages?

Oppression and genocide – In what ways can people exercise their right to work and fair pay?

Gender politics – How can we improve gender parity in employment?

Social justice and human rights – What are the rights of workers and how can we spread the word? How did the labour movement form in Saskatchewan and western Canada?

Health and biotechnology – How can people working in dangerous occupations improve their working conditions?

 

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Embedding Sustainable Development Goals in Teaching and Learning Copyright © by Aditi Garg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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