In defence of women who work

Mar 8 2010 by Karen Dent, The Journal

TODAY is the International Women's Day, a global celebration of the achievements of women which has been an annual event since 1911.

There is a sound argument to suggest that things have come a long way since the first call for women’s right to vote in 1869 by British MP John Stuart Mill.

In 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. Women in other countries did not enjoy this equality and campaigned for justice for many years. In the UK the right was first given in 1918 for women over 30. Women did not achieve equal voting rights with men until 1928 and were not allowed to sit in the House of Lords until the 1958 Life Peerages Act. It’s not that long ago.

Things are still, of course, far from equal. Looking at positions of power in business, politics or just about any aspect of society, women are still considerably under-represented and moves toward equal pay are woefully slow with the current pay gap standing at over 16%.

There have, of course, been areas of progress too, particularly in participation in work. In the early 1970s there were just over nine million women in paid employment, that figure now stands at over 13.5 million; whereas the figure for male employment in the UK has remained pretty static at around 15.3-15.5 million. It is important to quantify this growth in employment rate terms, male employment falling in the period from 90% to around 75% and female employment growing from 56% to 70% of the labour force.

There are other distinctions too, women are far more likely to be underemployed than men – 5.8 million women work part-time, compared to 1.9 million men. For many this suits, allowing them to juggle the disproportionate distribution of caring responsibilities, but for many it doesn’t and around 600,000 part-time women workers want full-time work compared to 450,000 men working part-time.

The sectoral split of male and female employment is perhaps the most critical feature as we anticipate a post-election period of significant public spending cuts. The most recent data shows that there are around 5.75 million women working in the public sector compared to 2.5 million men. In the North East, the percentage of male employment in the public sector is around 18% compared to 46% of female employment in the region. Any public sector job cuts will, therefore, fall disproportionately heavily on women. In an area like the North East, where there is already relatively high levels of male unemployment, this could be a real double-whammy.

Kevin Rowan, regional secretary, Northern TUC