..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

So to summarise one is not allowed to do what suits you as an individual or a particular family nor are you allowed to criticise the wider group norm as it will be deemed offensive

Where have i said that? If you read any of my posts you will see that I never judge people on the choices they make. Suggesting someone considers their long term financial security is not judgement - it's common sense. I research women career choices and career decisions for a living. I don't judge but i do see the long term financial impact of these decisions. Women are disproportionately negatively impacted by having children.

millie would you consider a dad who works full time selfish?

Being called selfish for choosing to work is judgment and offensive.

the previous way of bypassing this conflict was to treat women as secondary so that their needs for marketable skills could be ignored and they did the childcare freeing up the men to max out their marketable skills

needless to say men have had plenty of time to observe this dynamic and are in no hurry to occupy the position of secondary adult

Million no one is doubting that but we do need money to survive and to house ourselves and to eat. So we need to ensure that women are financially secure no matter what their choices are.

But you don’t achieve that by devaluing, minimising or trivialising the hard labour women do outside of paid work. This burden needs to be relieved for women to have time and capacity for other things. You don’t just ignore the contribution they are making and make it sound like nothing. It must be properly acknowledged and respected. Only this way can we hope for more men leaning in at home with their families and women actually being free to use their educations and skills to earn.

Fantastic post upthread from swingofthings.

It’s just not a black and white issue where you take a polarised stance such as all childcare is evil, or everyone should work full time. It’s much more nuanced.

And F1ame- I don’t think anyone is saying that couples should force themselves to adopt a particular model against their natural instincts. If one half of a couple is genuinely happy being the sole provider, even if that means sacrificing time with their children to earn the big bucks, and the other half is happy to do all the caring/ home things, then that’s fine. If it’s a mutually agreed arrangement (and preferably with safeguards built in, so that if the earner gets sick or worse, the other half is protected.)

The point we are trying to make is that the unacceptable default is that women disproportionally take the career hit, the financial insecurity.

I guess a lot of it comes down to whether you fundamentally believe that most men and women want similar things... a good family life, a fulfilling job, a reasonable amount of ‘me’ time for hobbies. Or whether you believe that men and women are so fundamentally different that the best set up for most couples is to assume split roles of earner/ carer. As I said before, I wasn’t born with any genetic predisposition to changing nappies, cooking dinner or tidying up. My husband doesn’t have a monopoly on qualifications, skills and ability in the workplace. It therefore made total sense to us for neither of us to sacrifice our careers, but equally neither of us allowed ourselves to be so career driven that it abdicated us of caring responsibilities. And this was manageable back in the 1980s when the structures and legislation weren’t nearly as favourable as now. I’m actually very envious of women now who can transfer some of their long leave to the baby’s father. What a win win. Fantastic bonding time for dad and child. We’d have jumped at it if it had been around when we had children.

Windy, you can’t very well start a thread aimed at criticising the life choices of a lot of women and then get offended when people criticise your own in return.

To be honest, the best thing would be for everyone to mind their own business and for people to refrain from starting posts like these but they just keep on coming!

Universal basic income would stop a lot of this sniping in it’s tracks and start giving people proper choices but perhaps it’s a discussion for another day.

Sah and caring for family should be renumerated because it is important work and should be valued. The mostly women who devote themselves to this and have not managed to marry a millionaire should not have old age poverty to look forward to. Taking time out of the workplace to raise dc should not be the barrier to prosperity that it is.

We need more women and working class people in decision making capacities around financial wealth in this country.

Bla - trying to stereotype all non-working women as “vulnerable” is also offensive. Can people really not see that how “vulnerable” a woman is is not simply about income or lack of it? It is blatantly obvious that how vulnerable you are is about overall wealth - including your level of debt, property ownership, relationship status, education, transferable skills, resilience, luck, health - all sorts of factors.

So Mrs X who who works full-time divorces Mr X. Unfortunately there is no equity in their home, they are up to their eyes in credit card debt and she finds she needs to reduce her work hours to spend more time with the DC who are traumatised by the split. Meanwhile Mrs Y nextdoor, who has not worked since she married, divorces Mr Y. There was no mortgage on their house so they split the proceeds and savings, pension schemes are split as well as other assets. This financial stability gives Mrs Y some breathing space to adjust while she decides how to re- enter the workplace.

This is obviously super-simplistic, but can you see how income is not the only predictor of financial stability?

Windy, you can’t very well start a thread aimed at criticising the life choices of a lot of women and then get offended when people criticise your own in return.To be honest, the best thing would be for everyone to mind their own business and for people to refrain from starting posts like these but they just keep on coming!

I'm not offended, I'm just noting a certain level of hypocrisy that exists. I'm really not easily offended - I have no choice so have to work!

But 'minding everyone's business' means that nothing ever changes as others noted below. Have you not heard the phrase 'the personal is political'?

F1ame all your scenarios below point to is that it's best to marry a man with lots of money! Is that the answer?

*F1ame" I've never said all non-working women are vulnerable but a large proportion are. I speak to these women regularly. They do exist.

Of course there is no guarantee of financial security in any given situation but it's about reducing the risks based on your individual circumstances and thinking long term.

this could be framed as a conflict of interests between adults and children

It absolutely is. There is collateral damage. But let’s ignore that as it doesn’t suit the argument.

I know I disadvantage myself to advantage my children. My DH does the same by working more than he would personally prefer. If he was a star at home and did what I do, I would be the breadwinner quite happily. But he doesn’t, so we contribute in the ways that we can best at the personal cost to each of us. The costs we pay aren’t always purely financial.

Finally, having read the full thread I feel like I can comment.

I agree that structurally paid employment is still set up for a full time employee, who doesn't have time-demanding dependants (I use time- demanding as this is what scuppers people who have caring responsibilities from devoting the time to the paid position)

So as the personal is political and vice versa, I am commenting from my personal experience, and agreeing with the general assumption, re women being more financially vulnerable.

My vulnerability started when I returned from maternity leave in 2001 to find that I was no longer managing the department I had left. They paid me the same salary but took away all my responsibilities and had me report into a junior manager. I was further marginalised and demotivated by being given new targets for a different environment and system - one I was not familiar with and furthermore expected to programme instead of project manage. The way this was done was over the course of 6 months and to be honest I was just coping with being back at work and a new parent (I went back after 24 weeks, I was entitled to 26)

I was then made redundant whilst pregnant with my second - this happens. And I had a horrific birth with my second - we both nearly died, so I had no spare energy to fight the redundancy - and that happens to a lot of women.

No matter - we move because of the employed parent's job, away from my support networks and I try and rebuild my life

Which I did. I was left with long term mental health issues - that are finally resolving themselves - my second baby is now approaching 16!!

But what I found (And I have worked when able - which is more than 75% of those 16 years) is that getting back to work and sustaining meaningful paid employment is much harder than "just" being a stay at home mum which I have also done.

The reason it's harder isn't because being at home is easy (oh, that it were) but because of the structural inequalities around a workplace set up for people who don't have to juggle the other things that we need to happen in society like caring for children/parents for example.

I've done skilled work, but not being visible, or available at short notice means that career progression has been negligible. I really object to the fact that employers only see the downside of women who have children and not the advantages it brings. I am more focused, efficient and productive than I ever was before children.

I really don't know what the answer is. Perhaps it's time to look at a universal basic income for citizens?

I am personally in favour of the idea of a citizens wage, enabling everyone to have a basic level of necessities and ensuring that there is a genuine incentive to working. Too many people are trapped in low paid work, zero hour contracts and feel only marginally better off in work

I am absolutely against the idea of remuneration being a SAHP. Why should anyone be paid to do what isn’t a job, but is actually very hard work and a labour of love for all of us?

What is beneficial to society is having children raised in loving, nurturing homes where they grow up to be well adjusted citizens. And parents can do that (or not do that) whether one, both or neither of them work. Why on earth should someone be paid just for having fathered or given birth to a child and then being at home even if they are neglectful, or abusive, and raise the child with terrible values? And conversely, why would two working parents who raise their child responsibly and lovingly not be paid?

Having a SAHP is something that’s of value to that individual family. People do it because it meets their particular needs. It’s not of any benefit to society per se

louise my story is nearly the same as yours except for moving for dhs work and being 15 years later. What progress we have made! Hope things are better for you now

Because if sahp aren’t paid then women are financially vulnerable when they take time out to raise dc. Perhaps if you want to be paid for a sahm you could do child care theory classes and keep a diary of stimulating things you did with your dc. Then you’d potentially have a new career open to you in childcare when your dc went to school. I don’t see why sahp is less valuable to society than online gambling or working in the tobacco industry, which both seem very well renumerated.

Windy - well it obviously helps to be solvent, overall as a family, in a divorce settlement. Regardless of who earned what and how.

I guess what it comes down to is that the best paying work is more likely inflexible and demanding so for a couple with dependent children it makes more sense to designate one parent to focus on that kind of job rather than have both parents disadvantaged by having childcare commitments.

. ‘I don’t see why sahp is less valuable to society than online gambling or working in the tobacco industry, which both seem very well renumerated.’

Well, I thought I’d explained that. Because a SAHP might be wonderfully loving, they might provide plenty of stimulating and nurturing opportunities and raise a wonderfully well adjusted human being. Or they might be neglectful and abusive. Or anything on the spectrum inbetween. And equally, that mother or father with a job in the tobacco or gambling industry might go home every evening, play with their child, cook them a nutritious meal, read to them and be the most wonderful attentive parent.

Why on earth should tax payers fund one and not the other?

No one is saying SAHP aren’t valued- I would hope that the working partner totally appreciates all they do. But you can’t extrapolate from that, that all SAHP are somehow providing something that the public should pay for

Louise

A lot of people seem unable to move beyond the ‘I’m alright Jack’ approach to this so let’s reiterate what the OP said earlier. This is about what’s best for women as a whole - asking what is the best way of arranging society so that women have maximum choice in their lives ?
If you SAH and that is working for you, great. Nobody is criticising that (although we hope your husband has provided for you financially, which it sounds like some posters’ husbands have done) - fantastic! You do you. That’s best for your family and that’s your choice.
But you can’t deny that there are other women who want to make different choices and at the moment the way in which our economy works is preventing them from doing so. Now, they may not be the choices that you would make. But can you at least acknowledge that they are valid choices ? And that women deserve the freedom to make the choice to go back to work after having children and to be supported by society if that is their choice ?
Yes yes some children don’t like childcare etc - again that’s a family choice which is up to the parents to decide.

This is about maximising women’s freedom to choose. Who doesn’t want that ?!

The OP isn't about maximising choice, we have free choice already.
It's about suggesting that women who don't work are economically vulnerable, just the same as most that are employed. Of course there are exceptions and some women earn more than their partner, but most women are vulnerable in the case of a break up, working or not.

It's been an interesting thread - what can be done to improve equality, I think to begin with childcare should be tax deductible. We do need a cultural shift where both parents are encouraged to reduce hours to look after their kids.
Dh works in professional services and all the women at his level (and there aren't many!) have either a SAHP or very supportive family - there is no room for anyone to work fewer hours and the hours they work can be brutal, not much working from home and quite a lot of travel. Women who go back part time are frozen out of projects and given the dullest jobs - they eventually leave and this is a company that thinks it values women.
And then there's the low wage economy where women are represented to a more significant degree and while those on a low wages are not supported more through social security the vast proportion of vulnerable women remain vulnerable whether they work full time or not.

The OP isn't about maximising choice, we have free choice already.

Really? Are you saying that all women have free choice already?

I have to say that a SAHM with a DH who works long hours with travel is deluded if she thinks he needs her as much as she does him.

In the event of a split, she will find even if he pays full child maintenance it will be considerably less than he contributed to the household when they were a couple.

But he will continue to be able to rely on her to do all the childcare and carry on with his Big Important Job regardless. Because you can't force a man who walks out to maintain contact with his children at all, never mind insist on 50/50. He will simply say he can't do it and that will be that. He can use her for childcare at a cut price rate.

On the whole women do not have the same freedom of choice as men do. Some individuals do but on a societal level - nope. Not even close.

I have to say that a SAHM with a DH who works long hours with travel is deluded if she thinks he needs her as much as she does him.

Why do you have to say that?