Equal Futures was born out of the collaboration and innovation of researchers around the world over the past two decades, as well as the immense contributions of our civil society partners and advisory boards. For over 10 years, Equal Futures’ cofounders–Dr. Amy Raub, Nicholas Perry, and Aleta Sprague–worked together at the WORLD Policy Analysis Center at UCLA, which was the largest independent center quantitatively mapping public policies, examining those policies’ impacts on health and economic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries, and working with partners to mobilize the evidence and drive action at national scale. Founded by Dr. Jody Heymann, WORLD worked with leaders, policymakers, and civil society groups engaged in work across 110 countries on all continents, helping advance evidence-based policy changes affecting hundreds of millions of lives.

Highlights of WORLD’s work between 2015-2024 include:

• Publishing two landmark global analyses of laws and policies that matter to gender equality: No Ceilings in 2015, a collaboration with the Clinton and Gates Foundations and the Economist Intelligence Unit that provided a groundbreaking assessment of global progress and gaps in realizing the rights of women and girls 20 years since the Beijing Declaration, and Equality Within Our Lifetimes in 2023, a comprehensive examination of how countries can realize gender equality in the economy, from banning child marriage to guaranteeing paid family leave.

• Launching at the United Nations headquarters the first comprehensive global data on the equal rights of people with disabilities in education and employment, reaching an audience of high-level leaders and decision-makers from governments around the world, intergovernmental agencies, disabled persons’ organizations, and other civil society organizations.

• Uncovering how policy design choices determine whether there is equitable and adequate access to family and medical leave in the US, while also building and sharing research evidence that advocates have used to advance paid leave policies in at least nine states.

• Producing some of the first rigorous, causal evidence on what works to improve early childhood outcomes and advance gender equality at scale in sub-Saharan Africa, using data on millions of households to measure the impacts of national policy changes on childhood nutrition,  reproductive health, and employment of mothers with young children, among other outcomes.

• Developing the most comprehensive global policy data on aging and working in partnership to advance an international convention on older persons’ rights, which would fill a longstanding gap in human rights law and address critical areas reflected in WORLD’s data such as discrimination against older people in the workforce, pensions and income support in old age, and support for older persons as both caregivers and care recipients.

WORLD was preceded by the Project on Working Families at Harvard University and the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University, both founded by Dr. Jody Heymann. Each of these initiatives developed some of the first global databases of laws and social policies that matter to health and equality, beginning with a focus on work conditions and caregiving and then expanding to topics including constitutional rights, non-discrimination, poverty, education, child labor and child marriage, environmental policy and others. Dr. Heymann also helped launch the Maternal and Child Health Equity (MACHEquity) initiative, which in turn became the Public Policy and Population Health Observatory (3PO). Now directed by Dr. Arijit Nandi, 3PO uses quasi-experimental methods to examine the impact of policies on health and health inequalities. 

The Equal Futures team is indebted to the many researchers, students, and practitioners who have contributed to the development of globally comparative policy data and the rigorous methods for using that data to measure policy impact. We are also immensely appreciative of the time and insights provided by the leaders and experts from civil society, academia, the philanthropic sector, intergovernmental organizations, government, and the judiciary who served on WORLD advisory boards.

While they are too numerous to all name here, among those who played an invaluable role in advancing this work within the past decade are the following WORLD team members: Ashley Armstrong, Megan Arthur, Tina-Marie Assi, Magdalena Barrera, Pragya Bhuwania, Rachel Bleetman, Bijetri Bose, Erin Bresnahan, Adèle Cassola, Alison Earle, Daniel Franken, Alison Earle, David Godfrey, Laurel Grzesik-Mourad, Nicolás de Guzmán Chorny, Kate Huh, Judy Jou, Isabel Latz, Jessica Looze, Alfredo Martin, Mike McCormack, Clare McKenzie, Kristen McNeil, Gonzalo Moreno, Callie Moriyasu, Kristen Mosher, Brianna Pierce, Corina Post, Milad Pournik, Kristen Savage, Parama Sigurdsen, Pam Stek, Sheleana Varvaro-Toney, Elise Vaughan Winfrey, Willetta Waisath, Marissa Watkins, Ross Weistroffer, and Elizabeth Wong. Above all, we are deeply grateful to Jody Heymann for her leadership and mentorship.