The Progressive

Credit Crunch - It's a (white) man's world?

Think of the main British players (decision makers, analysts, media commentators etc.) on how to deal with the effects of the credit crunch: Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Mervyn King, David Blanchflower, Vince Cable, George Osborne, Ken Clarke, Robert Peston, Evan Davis, Martin Woolf, Will Hutton, Larry Elliot...  It's hardly a list notable for its diversity is it?  Whilst there are a few notable exceptions (including Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper), it is generalyy the case that the tops of economics, finance and banking are overwhelmingly dominated by white men.  This is not an exclusively British phenomenon -   I'm not sure exactly how many of the G12 or EU finance ministers are women, but I'd hazard a guess it's a very small minority.  It certainly compares unfavourably with the world of foreign affairs - where Hillary Clinton is taking over at a State Department previously headed up by Madeleine Albright and Condi Rice, whilst Margaret Beckett became the first woman to be the Foreign Secretary in the UK.   Perhaps this reflects gender stereotyping - woman are good at touchy-feely diplomacy, but leave the tough number-crunching to the hard-headed men.   To my knowledge, we are still waiting for the first woman head of the Federal Reserve, the first woman Govenor of the Bank of England or the first woman Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Of course, if the decisions are still being made overwhelmingly by white men, the effects of the credit crunch are felt by a much more diverse section of the population.  Women or BME workers are noticeably better represented in the groups whose jobs at risk from the HBOS/Lloyds TSB merger, or in the families who will find their homes repossessed.   Politically, how women voters evaluate the government's performance in helping people through the recession will be critical to the outcome of the next election.  To "get it right" it is vital that the government listens to womens' concerns.  This is why it was so important for Labour to take positive action to get more women elected to the government benches, and why it is so important that a Speaker's Conference will be reviewing how the rest of Parliament can be made to look more like the kind of society we live in.  It is why Labour's treasury team was right to fast-track increases in child-benefit, to help working families through this difficult period.  But at the same time, if government welfare reforms are seen as coercing women with young children into work, forcing them onto an already overcrowded job market (at a time when employers are looking to reduce staffing) or punitively cutting back on benefits, it will hardly reassure the electorate that Labour is putting fairness at the heart of its economic recovery plan.  Yes, provide information and support to give every assistance where women seek to improve their employability.   Likewise, with female life-expectancy greater than that of their male counterparts, and with low interest rates wiping out income from savings,  the prospect of council tax hikes would disproportionately hit women of pensionable age.  The thrusting young city-boys on the trading floors, the grey-beards in the banking industry, and the "masters of the universe" who run the global economy might have got us into this mess - but now it's time for other voices to be heard.   Labour would be well advised to listen. 

Why childcare is so important for women's equality

Last night’s Progress debate on the women’s vote was instructive for those people who are gloomy that women are reverting to type and swarming back to the Conservatives. Julia Clark from Ipsos-MORI told us that in fact women’s satisfaction with Cameron is pretty low at 0 or –1. In particular, women in focus groups raised the hypocrisy of Cameron on his bike trailed by chauffeur episode and the fact that as an Etonian, he doesn’t seem to be particularly in touch with their lives. Many of the speakers, who included Meg Munn and Tessa Jowell, exhorted us to keep thinking positive and highlight the many excellent things the government has driven through which benefit women. But the fact is that even though women aren’t switching to the Tories, they aren’t particularly enamoured with Labour either and one of the reasons which was highlighted again and again in the meeting was the problems women face in accessing high quality, affordable childcare.

This is underlined by a report out today by PricewaterhouseCoopers which cites the increasing cost of childcare as being responsible for a 40% fall in women holding senior management positions in FTSE 350 companies in the last five years. The other explanation, which the report authors suggested could be a factor, is a growth in the number of women who want to become entrepreneurs thereby ditching the traditional corporate ladder model. While it’s tempting to think that women who strike out on their own are a symbol of the ‘new economy’ of sole traders selling their ‘knowledge’ and reaping the financial, and flexible working, benefits, it’s also important to highlight the pitfalls. As a freelancer myself, I know the dangers of taking on too much work. Your employer can’t physically see you in the office every day and it’s easy to forget the sheer amount of time that goes into managing your own accounts, stationery etc.

On top of that, women miss out on the corporate pension, storing up poorer times in their old age. They are unlikely to have recourse to a union to guarantee them fair wages, and the opportunity for collective bargaining is non-existent. If you’re working on your own you also often lose out on the sociable aspects of the working environment. While it’s true that you have the joys of being your own boss, you also don’t have colleagues to bounce ideas off, and you have to work harder to keep your industry knowledge up to date. If you have children, work and home life can merge, making life more stressful not less. This is why the Government must make the provision of affordable, high quality childcare a reality, rather than just an ambition. Senior women shouldn’t be forced into taking the option of setting up on their own – they should have the same opportunity to become entrepreneurs as men, i.e. when they are ready and if it’s in the interests of their career.

And of course none of this is as difficult for those women who don’t have the opportunity to work in a FTSE 350 company in the first place. With a typical nursery place having risen by 27% in the last five years according to the Daycare Trust, poorer women may not have the choice of working at all. It is obvious that this is something the next leader of the Labour party will have to make a priority if we are going to guarantee that the progress women have made in the workplace isn’t going to go backwards, and to ensure that mothers who up until now haven’t had the opportunities of working, do so in the future.