..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

I was scanning my 1994 diary yesterday We had just been photographed and interviewed for a magazine piece about working mothers and women who earned more than their husbands. It is a pity that rolling on to 2018 we are still having to have the same discussions.

As point out above, many of those aged under 25 will be in education, and many over 50 will be retired. Running the statistic to the age of 65, when 60 year old women can draw the state pension, is utter lunacy.

Part time work is not a bad thing either. It can be a great lifestyle choice, and also is not necessarily related to caring responsibilities. It's also possible to have a very good income while working part time.

To put this statistic in context, we also need to know how many men of this age range are in employment. I bet there isn't such a significant difference.

Of course it is the business of those in society to make sure that women and black and ethnic minority people aren't the poorest and most disadvantaged in old age- which they currently are!

Women receive 35p of any £1 of their husband's pension, that's if they have a pension at all. Fair?

There's an awful lot of 'well, I'm alright with my pension and investments', ignoring the fact that probably the majority aren't!

I favour a carer/family pension top-up/consistency in payments beyond child benefit for this reason.

It isn't a question of devaluing unpaid work, I'd like that properly valued AND subsidised childcare because I believe both carers and workers benefit society.

The responses on this thread are quite incredible to me, that people can't see that what seems 'inevitable' in terms of women just having less money, less economic power and more poverty isn't actually just inevitable at all, it's a structural issue which is then justified by the narrative about how it's silly for women to work when childcare is so expensive, when this is something fixable and different in other cultures.
JennyHolzersGhost GoldenWonderwall I agree.

Many of those under 25 will be in education yes, but they are also likely to be working part time! Many women over 50 will be retired.... not likely these days, private pensions often can't be taken until 55. As for women retiring at 60... that hasn't happened for a while, I will get state pension at 67.

Op you are correct that as a social issue so many women not working/self employed is of concern and yes to better childcare options to give real choice to women to improve their own situations.

This is just not about individual's choices!

Long days in childcare won't suit every family though.

What angers me is the systematic inequality in that in order to enable more women to work full-time, the women doing the childcare in nurseries are often being paid minimum wage! If they are not economically vulnerable, I don’t know who is. How can you ever hope to get on the housing ladder, especially in London or the South-East with minimal income - unless you meet a man with a better income or come into money some other way? This is the reality. Unlike some (and not enough) women on low wages in the NHS, there is no option for “key worker” housing if you work for a private nursery. I have a cleaning lady who I pay £14 per hour cash. She used to work in a nursery for half of that and she tells me that by the end of the month she was living on cereal! Now she is her own boss and isn’t beholden to unrealistic stress of constant form filling and covering your back, combined with the massive responsibility for the well-being and safety of the children in her care - a job she had hoped would be a vocation for her. I think this is the real face of economic inequality. In the same vein as you could ask why more women aren’t at work, you could also ask why more men don’t choose to be childminders, etc. Women are just taking the burden in another form.

Interesting Start the Week item on the downsides of too much state-run childcare in Sweden and how the state ‘liberates’ families from needing to care for their members. Not an altogether attractive prospect.

Great post Orchiddingme!

Also why don't we also look at the "high powered" jobs which leave people needing the other parent to do all the pick ups and "wifework"? Why can't there be a healthy medium?

flame how can women who apparently only hold 40% of full time work positions and less than that of positions in power change the way that society has structured itself so that traditional women’s work such as childcare is not seen as lesser and is therefore paid less? If your cleaning lady was prime minister do you think she’s be advocating that childcare, care work, cleaning, front facing customer roles should all be paid at the bare minimum? I certainly would not!

Women are funnelled from an early age into work that pays less because it is valued less because it is women’s work (not my personal opinion). Then they are discriminated against in their child bearing years in case they might get pregnant or they do get pregnant. Then they find their wages don’t cover the cost of childcare and the father of their children can pretty much carry on as is so it then ‘makes sense’ for her to drop her hours or quit work for a couple of years. Then you’re in the bind (that I am) trying to find work that is worthwhile, well paid and flexible/pt because childcare is costly and inflexible and workplaces like dh’s don’t really have to provide flexible working for roles like his because it’s women like me that are expected to flex and bend and compromise round childcare responsibilities.

If you (general you) are happy working pt or not at all round your dc and have mitigated any financial negative that puts on you as an individual should your partner disappear then how wonderful for you! Well done! If you are not happy then we need more options so that you can be. Whether that’s paying for people to sah, paying people properly to care for family members, subsiding childcare, encouraging employers to offer proper flexibility on hours, days, working from home wherever possible, making properly paid parental leave available to both parents or a combination or something else there are potential alternatives to what we have now.

I totally agree that it would be great to restructure the economy around part time work being the norm, at least for parts of one’s working life, without facing a financial or career penalty for doing so. It would make it more common for men to participate equally in family life and I can see the health benefits too, both mental and physical. Plus giving parents more flexibility with managing childcare responsibilities.

Again, if we sat down to design an economic system that worked best for women, I don’t think it would look anything like what we’ve got now.

Also why don't we also look at the "high powered" jobs which leave people needing the other parent to do all the pick ups and "wifework"? Why can't there be a healthy medium?

That is such a good point, Snuggy. Do these roles really need to be so all encompassing and such extensive hours that they require the wife to pick up all the slack including childcare and wifework. These roles are usually, but not always, held by men and they perpetuate a set up that benefits men.

Do these roles really need to be so all encompassing and such extensive hours that they require the wife to pick up all the slack including childcare and wifework. These roles are usually, but not always, held by men and they perpetuate a set up that benefits men

Exactly. Most of the case, things don't need to be done right now. Working life is full of false deadlines. And of course, lots of (generally) men want to stay in the office longer so they don't have to do the messy childcare stuff like getting the kids bathed and into bed.

A woman working in those kinds of jobs needs a ‘wife’ just as much as a man does. It’s the nature of the job unfortunately. Or else she ends up trying to ‘do it all’ and doesn’t have a minute to spare to call her own. Incredibly stressful.

I'm a sahm so totally reliant on my DH. I don't see this as a problem.

A woman working in those kinds of jobs needs a ‘wife’ just as much as a man does. It’s the nature of the job unfortunately. Or else she ends up trying to ‘do it all’ and doesn’t have a minute to spare to call her own. Incredibly stressful.

I agree Jenny but I think if women had an opportunity to create the world of work it wouldn't look like this. I think CEO jobs warrant such long hours but I often wonder why it's the case for jobs at £40-45k. We really ask/expect a lot of our staff from mid-mgmt upwards!

‘Op you are correct that as a social issue so many women not working/self employed is of concern and yes to better childcare options to give real choice to women to improve their own situations.

This is just not about individual's choices!’

Absolutely.
We’re seeing a self selecting group on here who are telling us that they’ve given up work, or let their career play very much second fiddle to their dh. These are likely to be the minority of women who do have their own assets, or husbands paying into private pensions for them, or husbands with excellent insurance for critical illness etc

The point these posters are missing is this isn’t about them. This is about the majority of women who are economically vulnerable and face the prospect of an impoverished older age.

Actually if you pop over to Relationships you will see multiple posts from posters who are pregnant or who have three children with horrible men but cannot see financially how they can survive/maintain the children in existing schools/are terrified of becoming dependent on benefits/entering the UC fiasco/can't support or get the mortgage transferred to themselves/don't know their husband's financial status/know it but know he's hiding it. Economic disadvantage does keep women trapped- indeed there are more threads like that than posters on here who are doing just fine with their pensions/insurances. Unsurprisingly as this is what the stats tell us!

Golden - I totally agree with you.

windy - you ask a reasonable question about why some jobs need to be so “all encompassing”. I don’t really have the answer to that obviously, but I would say that very few people (men or women) make a lot of money if they don’t have at least a certain period where their work becomes all consuming. Maybe some do, but they’re the lucky ones! My DH has no concept of switching off and it’s been that way for maybe 17 years. He’s never had a salary since he was in gold options banking in his 2Os and since then he’s been self-employed and moved money around as needed. It’s his in his nature - some people are like this and you can’t change them. He runs 2 companies employing thousands here and abroad. He makes / loses daily more than I could earn in a year on the City Index and god knows what else. He (we) have a oroperty portfolio and a company for that. He is on the board of directors for at least 3 other companies I know of. He has done IPOs and sales of other companies he’s had shares in. He is all over the place on any given day. He does extreme hobbies to boot. He is permanently stressed even though he could have jacked it all in years ago but he won’t because he doesn’t know how else to be. So he’s not really “normal” no, but there are plenty like him and if you’re married to this kind of person, it’s not like you can really sit them down and say, “Well Id like to be more 50/ 50 so could you come home at 5pm please and get dinner ready?” Well you could, but it’s like swimming against a tsunami.

F1ame so what you’re saying is that you married and had children with a man who is totally driven, lives life in the fast lane and thrives on the Adrenalin. And you accept that the flip side of this is you benefit from the very high income he commands, but you know that he can’t be expected to do any school pick ups, or household stuff.

Which is fine. It’s down to couples to shape the lifestyle which suits them. But once again, this thread is about a general issue, not about individuals, and too many women are left financially vulnerable or end up wanting to have a better balance of working and caring in their own life but can’t. That’s a real political and social problem.

I think the issue being highlighted isn't that most people would have to engage in all encompassing work to make a lot of money, it's that there are people who have to engaged in all encompassing work who aren't particularly well renumerated for it. And that's true. I accept that a hedge fund manager on 250k per year is being paid to be available 24/7, and that seems legitimate enough. I don't think someone on a tenth of that should have to be at the beck and call of their employer constantly.

I think employers are very demanding, whether it's the high paid stuff where you are expected to answer emails 24/7 or low paid zero hours where you are expected to be flexible to suit your employer. Neither are good options for parents though the former at least gives you the option of paying or financially supporting someone else to cover your responsibilities.

Hub, yes I do of course realise it’s a wider social issue, but I was just trying to give one example to answer windy’s specific question because that kind of experience is my daily reality!

I also wouldn't swap to fewer hours either and choose to work (or at least do some work) on just about every day of the year and now the youngest are at university that is a lot easier to manage. If you like your work it almost becomes a hobby. (I work for myself now).

I would not have accepted sexism even for a day in my marriage however and we married on the basis we would both work full time even after children and my children's father moved hundreds of miles to London for my career. (I earn more).

I choose to work only part time- my youngest is 18 and at University.

I love having lots of free time to myself.