..to be worried that 1/3 of women aren’t in employment and economically vulnerable?

[windygallows]

ONS stats (latest from 2013) state that women of working age (16-64) only 67% are in the labour market, therefore 33% of women not in employment. That’s 1/3! Moreover of the 67% working, 42% of them work part time.

So that means it breaks down like this:
Women 16-64
Not in employment – 33%
Working part time – 28%
Working full time – 39%
Total - 100%

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/alldatausedinthewomeninthelabourmarketreport

Now I know there are a million reasons for these stats from women’s role as primary childcare provider to challenges women face finding flexible working, the glass ceiling, lower paid roles for women. I get it. And many on MN will inevitably remind me about the beneficial role women obvs make outside the labour market, from voluntary work to caring. And that work is not the be all and end all. And nor am I advocating for a life of constant work either.

But what these stats mean on the most basic, practical level is that the MAJORITY of women probably cannot cover their cost of living (either they don’t have an income or a limited income through pt work) and are probably reliant on someone for their sustenance – a partner, a parent, the government, family savings, their savings. This means the majority of women are economically vulnerable. Wouldn’t you say so?

Of course there will always be anomalies to this rule - the highly paid IT consultant who will say she can survive on her part-time salary or the woman with a trust fund. But these people are outside the norm. These stats tell me that the majority of women need someone else to support them financially. It’s scary!

PS - As an aside In 1959 52.9% of women were in the labour market and it’s now 67% - not a hugely dramatic difference

IcedPurple

But taking yourself out of the labour market and making yourself dependent on a man is a highly risky thing to do.

Well, tell all of us with disabled children, how to be financially independent and juggle no specialist childcare after school and in the school holidays; 3 appointments a week; dealing with maybe 40 professionals and agencies; implementing speech therapy?OT/physio programmes, helping with all the tasks DC can't do like get dressed that NT children of their age can do, studying the law of education, community care, Deprivation of Liberty, Mental Capacity Act.....?

All the parents of SEN children on the SEN boards and I would be very grateful to know, because many of us can't cope with just being a parent and having to fight every agency for every single bit of help or input, while the agencies lie, cheat and bully us to try and save as much money as they can, regardless of the long term costs to DC, the siblings and our own health?

Want2bSupermum I still feel guilty that I prefer to work rather than be with the kids all the time, the narrative is very much focused on the economic value of work as in that’s the only need. I love my children & want the best for them but I also have hopes & aspirations for myself & want something that’s just mine if that makes sense. I’m not saying my way is right but it’s what I want.

Great post @Worriedmom

I think I'll be encouraging my dd not to have kids...career and independence are much easier to achieve without the messy little buggers!

It’s true that taking time out of the workforce to raise a family is a risk financially, but money is only one aspect of many when you are deciding how to structure your life.

If you have a strong desire to nurture your children and guide their development, have a lot of quality time with your spouse, minimize stress, have a well-organized and comfortable home, and free time to pursue hobbies/education/helping others then the financial risk may well be worth it.

While it’s true that you see women that suffer if their partner leaves them, it’s equally common to see women that are at their breaking point because they never get to rest. They don’t get to see their children enough, their marriages suffer, and they are constantly running from one emergency to the next.

Everyone weighs up the risks differently because they operate with different value systems. It’s not necessarily short-sighted to take a break from/give up your career. It can be carefully considered and deemed the best option.

saltpans I know exactly what you mean. My elder two are both autistic, high functioning, so nowhere really 'fits'. We spend a fortune on childcare, lawyers etc.

Honestly, best thing I did for me was to keep working. It's the only thing I do for me and I get about an hour a day break while I sit on the bus commuting to work. I love that I have financial security that should DH stop working, get sick etc, I earn enough to keep the wheels turning. I'm lucky to live in America and the support for the disabled is so much better than it in the UK. Still we drop about $35k a year in childcare, soon to rise to $50k as their needs change and I need homework help, and don't talk to me about legal fees.

Adding it all up your work earns you about $80k a year which is about £60k. It's wrong that the government doesn't see it that way.

caniget Don't let them get to you. In 10 years from now you will be set financially, your DC will be fine, they will have parents who can both advise them on their choices and should anything happen to your OH it won't be as nearly catastrophic to your family in terms of financially.

Want2besupermum

Thanks. I think it is extremely naive of IcedPurple to think all women carers in the UK are just going to walk away from caring for our relatives, because she can sort our lives out in 5 minutes and all we need to do is take her financial advice, as if none of us can weigh up the family situation ourselves!

I have amassed far more in my savings, equity and pension since I ceased being in employment than I did while I was in it. And it’s not via a rentier route.

Work isn’t the path to prosperity it used to be.

Yes, many women probably are financially vulnerable but there hasn't been a time in history when they were less vulnerable. It's a work in progress. I get paid more for three days a week than a lot of people do for full time, but it took me 15 years to find something that wasn't either well paid but full on and stressful, part time but not really, or part time and low paid. Part time and interesting well paid jobs are not the norm. If we want a better and more equal society will full employment we need this to be the norm. But most companies just want to squeeze their employees until the pips squeak.

There is also a greater problem IMO that a lot of households are economically vulnerable and in poverty. Not to mention the 5000 odd rough sleepers, and thousands more people in temporary accommodation.

Even with work I'd still be screwed. If I hadn't married DH I'd probably still be living in my old bedroom at my parents house watching my life pass me by.

It depresses the hell out of me and I feel I was sold a lie when told to work hard, pass exams as you will get a good job.

want2b I had exactly the same when I returned to work full time. ' isn't it a shame you had to come back full time' no! It wasn't a shame....I love my job! I'm proud of my achievements!
My DH worked at the same organisation at the time so I use to ask them if they'd asked mr blaa the same question. You can guess the answer!

Christmas, it's true work isn't always the path to prosperity but can I ask how you've done well financially through not working? And please say it's not through a man.

On a class level, the majority of working age women either working pt or not at all is a massive issue. If women are not physically in the workplace how can we influence it? If we’re all at home ‘happy’ with our lot, where’s the incentive for society to change to enable flexible working and better quality affordable childcare?

The difficulty with this, of course, is that it can be a catch 22 situation. There are women who are not able to be in the workplace now and won't be able to until/unless flexible working, better childcare etc are available, so meanwhile there's no way of them having this influence you speak of.

I must admit as well, speaking as a part time worker who could do more hours and has chosen not to, I'm not willing to structure my life in a way that I don't want in order to facilitate other women in the workplace. If we're being honest. And I'm a feminist. I assist in other ways, in that I am part time and conspicuously very good, so that shows employers that they can get a great deal of value from employees who are not full time. But spending more than about 15-25 hours a week working when I have the choice not to, no. Not doing that.

Yes I’m also wondering about the one or two posters who tell us they’ve amassed more money, have better pensions and savings since they stopped being in employment.

Cmon, let us into the secret

you're ignoring that women are physically/emotionally different and driven by different things to men, you're not a feminist. Blame society and the patriarchy for leaving women vulnerable because they're guilty of doing what women have been doing for thousands of years

aint

There is nothing physical about women that predisposes them to housework- the physical nature of the work is actually more suited to the higher muscle mass men have. Women are needed to bearstfeed but this is only a minority of women, only for a short time and does not preclude full time employment.

Women are in no way emotionally different to men with regards to caring. Women are socially pressurised by society and patriarchy to assume these roles but there is no congenital advantage.

Women’s ‘drive’ as you call it is socially constructed and it is feminist to recognise that. I’m a little confused why you think feminism is about limiting women to the servitude of men.

Also it’s a patriarchal myth that women have ‘for thousands of years’ been homemakers rather than workers.

Women have always been the providers for their families. In hunter gatherer societies most of what sustained people was what women gathered not what men hunted. Also these roles were more divided by age than sex. Go and read some anthropology to learn why the ‘female homemaker’ role is very specific to 20th century western societies and is not the historical or global norm.

So quoting statistics and pointing out the problems is pretty easy. What do you intend to do OP? Surely it's up to each individual how to live their life?

I wouldn't be satisfied just enabling someone else, no matter how much it benefitted me

The point you’re missing here is that you make entirely different decisions when you have children. I’d have said the same as you; but when we had kids, looking at our situation in the round, the best thing for them and for us as a family was for DH to work and me to stay at home.

This is such a patronising, passive aggressive thread. In a similar vein, I could start one, oiled with fake concern - AIBU to worry that children being in full time childcare is a massive social experiment? Look at the high levels of mental illness in Scandinavian countries.....oooh, will nobody think of the children?

People make the best decisions for them and for their families based on their circumstances at the time. End of. The decisions you make as a childless, single person are likely to be enormously different (not better or worse, but very different) from those you make in the context of a family.

I agree with you OP. I found it harder to get back in to the workplace after a gap (for raising kids, alone, single parent). It was harder than escaping my x.

Although I don't know how else I could have done it differently as I couldn't earn enough to pay for childcare for two.

We need more part time roles for both sexes and we need childcare to be like roads, schools, hospitals, so that parenthood isn't something that costs women so much more than it costs men.

I certainly have had huge satisfiaction from working full time since 1983 without a break even for the 5 babies and it's done a huge amount of good all round from being good for the children to the benefits that flow from my work = financial (all 5 children have / will graduate student loan/ debt free and willl have help towards housing) neve rmind the countless people I have helped over 35 years and I hope another 20 + years to come.

Hub asked how someone could have got money when not working. First of all it might be from the husband and then they invest it. Secondly they might have bought a buy to let flat or two and lte them out although that is not always a way to money - we bought 2 in the 80s I call them the buy to lose flats, put in hours of work on them, eg 8 hour stretches painting etc and then sold them at huge losses in the 1990s recession.

Those particular posters did say their new found wealth wasn’t through living off rent/ investments or through their husband though.

Of course employment isn’t the only route to having money and financial security, it’s just interesting how these occasional women pop up with their cryptic posts about how they’ve done so well financially without working for 20 years! Would be interesting to actually hear how they’ve done it

Of course this isn’t the reality for most women though

Many women take some kind of break for children when they are little. I am a teacher (secondary) and generally the mothers that are over involved are the ones that have never gone back to work and they are trying to take control of their children's academic progress as a kind of sub job.
Anecdotal but I took a few years off, went back full time when my youngest started school (part time prior). They thrived on independence and did extremely well academically (state comps , Oxbridge). There was a feeling that we all had a job to do and they played their part. My youngest did every scrap of ironing until he went to university. I think it has made us closer as a family that I worked full time and had responsibilities outside the home.
Again and again posters explain that they recognise disability may change the way the family operates but all things being equal there is a lot of research to show that work is good for everyone. It is not just 'thinking about the children' but thinking about older women and their mental health ( apart from the financial implications). Of course there are women who try to recreate the work place through endless studying or volunteering or running the PTA and I am sure that is healthy alternative in terms of mental health. However, if we seriously want to change society so that men do their fair share of caring and domestic chores and responsibilities then women have to recognise the need to take an equal load in providing financially for their families. Most women do not want to return to the 1950s or to the twentieth century. They want higher education and proper jobs and equal responsibility with their partners for childcare and running a home.

This is such a patronising, passive aggressive thread.”

Totally agree NataliaOsnipova. Same old agenda of spite, thinly disguised as faux concern for women in general

In real life, nobody gives a second thought to anyone else’s employment status or lack of it or their family arrangements.

Work isn’t the path to prosperity it used to be
Only fools and horses work

Children need to be cared for until at least 12 after school so far better a parent does it than paying for childcare

It’s only this generation that have perceived children to need this level of adult supervision to this age.

Latchkey 5 year old were common and accepted a generation ago.

My dcs loves after school club. They went even when we didn’t need it for childcare. It was fun, social, gave them more opportunities to play, exercise and develop confidence.

This is a much better way to spend 3-6pm than stuck in front of a screen at home while mum cooks dinner in the kitchen!

As usual there’s a sanctimonious undertone to some of these posts implying that sahms are better at ‘mothering’ than wohm.

Plenty of sahms are shit at parenting and don’t do nurturing, bedtime stories, baking and all those middle class postcard picture images of ‘good mummying’.

Research has shown that children benefit from early years provision and in other European countries eg France a patent would be seen as neglectful if their 2 year old wasn’t in nursery all day.

F1ame- I agree in real life no one analyses anyone else’s set up- we are far too busy getting on with our own lives

But the OP isn’t about individuals, it’s about the facts, the statistics which show that women are hugely economically disadvantaged compared to men- not just in terms of earnings but also pension provision and long term security.

If people insist on making the thread about themselves they’re missing the point. Great if you don’t work and are totally set up financially. This thread isn’t about you! It’s about the very many women who aren’t. And while none of us spend hours agonising over individual women, some of us are concerned about the very real political and social issue here