Career
Recently, the head of the new equality watchdog warned that the extension of maternity leave may be sabotaging women’s careers, with some employers thinking twice about offering jobs or promotion. This ‘unintended consequence’ of the focus on maternity leave has raised more complications in the attempt to close the career gap.
The ‘glass-ceiling’ is still very much in evidence in the UK today, as a mere 4% of executive directors and only 20% of MPs are women.[14] Whilst girls outperform boys at school, by the time women leave education a gap has already developed in the pay they receive for their work.[15] Contrary to the widely held view that childbirth and time out of the workplace for other reasons are the major explanation for the gender pay gap, recent research has shown that within 3 years of leaving university, women are paid on average £1,000 less per year.
A key aspect of promoting equality for women is to ensure that each individual is able to make the choices which are most appropriate for them, including the choice about how to raise their family. To encourage flexibility and real choice, access to well paid part-time working is an important element.
- How can we ensure that equality legislation does not adversely impact on women’s chances of employment or promotion? What role could shared parental leave play in the solution?
- How can we create pathways back into work after a child break? Should parents be ‘forced’ back into work by the welfare system?
- How can we best enable mature women to get back into the labour market after a long break?
- How can we enable parents to spend the time they want to with their children? How do today’s working norms affect parent-child quality time?
- How can we encourage more women, particularly those from non-white backgrounds, to put themselves forwards for the ‘top’ positions in our society – MPs, senior barristers, executive directors and the top echelon of positions in business.
- How can we encourage more girls to do traditionally ‘male’ subjects at school? How can we encourage boys to do traditionally ‘female’ subjects?
- Do working class women face particular challenges in terms of achievement, promotion and opportunities available to their peers?
[14] http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/documents/representation%20-%20April%202006.doc
[15] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/nov/06/gender.highereducation
February 19th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Q35. As a working-class graduate in the workplace I have found numerous challenges coming my way, some I have been able to deal with whilst others have been a real struggle.
One particular situation at work may illustrate this - I work as an assistant but am the same age as another English graduate who is very much further ahead in her career. She couldn’t get funding for her MA but had the money to do it anyway. As I am on a fixed term contract I would never have that opportunity coming my way. I do not have any spare money to take an MA. This is also an issue when I apply for other jobs…I have asked for feedback and actually been told I was unsuccessful due to a lack of an MA.
Various other things disadvantage me in the workplace which may or may not be to do with my economic background.
I grew up with both parents unemployed. I never receive career’s advice from my parents and am sometimes even encouraged to earn less to get benefits such as housing benefit,etc.
Also, mental ill health as a result of my father’s ill health which was indirectly related to unemployment has deeply affected me at work. My ability to cope with stress is, I believe, a consequence of my low economic background and physical abuse I suffered as a child. My father was violent towards my mother, and, while I know this issue transcends class, I believe poverty and domestic violence are a lethal combination and will impact profoundly on attitudes towards men who may be in positions of middle-class power and authority over me at work.
However, very often it is the attitudes that are perceived by me in other people that create obstacles. Whether class discrimination is what I am perceiving is almost too complicated to investigate…how would I know?
I have found many middle-class women who do not have a degree seem to have much more confidence than me at work. Whether they have been to private school or not is irrelevant. They expect achievement and get it.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
As a male from a working class background, I would agree with Jo’s views. It must be much more difficult in today’s environment than it was in mine when there was a skills shortage and the need for skills took priority over preference based on social likeness.
One issue I have with diversity in the UK is that discrimination is defined by either body type or religious belief. So, we have ended up in a society where exclusion because you think, see the world differently, and have different aspirations is OK provided that it cannot be construed as discrimination.
This lack of diversity filters through to Lib Dem policy which is often targeted to benefit the middle class ‘haves’ rather than the excluded ‘have nots’ in society. In my view, this lack of diversity is a contributor to the depth and length of the financial crisis, ie the sub-prime mortgage crisis would not have been so big without the domination of the home ownership culture to the exclusion of other views.