..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

Women's careers slide because they are they are the ones who bear most of the cost of having and raising children.

word in some cases - it most certainly doesn't need to be that way.

F1ame, you are unusually wealthy but you are still dependent on your husband to provide. Women worked so hard in the past to get the right to vote, the right to go to university, the right to be married and work, the right to return to work after children. It has worked. There are now more women than ever going to university and working full time. By dismissing their efforts to endure future equality , you are turning your back on female emancipation. The Government could not afford to support all these schemes and promote women in all areas of society if they thought women were going to give up on their careers and revert to supporting men.
It can't happen and most women will not allow us to go backwards. There are more women working now than ever before and F1ame's behaviour and attitude would rightly be thought archaic and entitled by many. I am proud of the many women I have taught who have succeeded in so many different careers. My MIL never worked once married and kept the home fires burning and then very much lost her sense of who she was once her children had left home and no longer needed her in the same way.
I dislike anecdotal evidence (see above) so the fact that there are now more women in Higher Education (than men) and qualifying for jobs that would once have been thought the prerogative of men is immensely cheering.
It is predicted that women will become increasingly important in the workplace this century and hooray for that!

it doesnt have to but a certain amount of swimming against the tide is required to make sure that both partners equally bear the cost/downsides of having children

as it is mostly women take a large hit but men benefit from the elevated status of being a married family man, because this is code for 'he has someone to take care of the domestic and family work to free him up to focus on his career, we should hire him he'll be an asset to the company.

A married woman on the other hand is seen as a liability because she will be burdened by any domestic or caring work, that needs to be done and so will not be free to focus on her career.

Also people don't always pick the right thing to study.

word what decade are you living in?? I have never been seen as a liability by my employer and neither have my female friends. My DH certainly didn't benefit from an 'elevated status' either. Do you know is why? Because we both take equal responsibility for household chores and childcare.

Our careers have soared since having DS because we support each other. My DS earns more than me (he's 12 years older so has that advantage) but he still does his fair share of drop off, pick ups, and sick days. The same happens in my social group.

I have never come across scenario you describe.

Windy - I respect that you’re doing what you have to do. But, theoretically speaking, what would you do if you were married to a workaholic high-earner with multiple DC together

I'd like to think I'd keep working. I wouldn't be satisfied just enabling someone else, no matter how much it benefitted me. And that's probably why I'm single! :)

To be honest, some women have to keep working despite juggling a lot as they have no choice. Other's give up work, possibly quite quickly, because they can. If you don't have a fallback position you have to keep on trucking.

@BlaaBlaaBlaa then you and he are an excellent team
may you prosper and flourish, spreading your good example far and wide

we're not unusual though.....it's pretty standard behaviour in our work place and social group.

of course you are not unusual compared to people like you

Mrs - I think it’s overly simplistic and way to binary to equate anyone’s Employment decisions or circumstances with “feminism.” Also, I think your interpretation of feminism is a bit narrow, if you don’t mind me saying so. Having a job does not equate to “feminist.” There a bit more to it than that!

word I have a diverse group of friends and colleagues. My situation is not as uncommon as you think.

Hubanmao

Wow, nice to know you think I am intellectually inferior to my husband. You should meet my friendship group. All higher educated, intelligent women, who have chosen to give up their careers to look after their children and yes, support their husbands. I didn't want someone else to look after my children, and that included my husband. Sorry that doesn't fit in with your view of the world, but surely female emancipation is about having that choice, and that is what we chose to do.

I think an issue for some of us ‘oldies’, women over 50 who were having our babies back in the 80s /90s is that compared with how things were back then - 12 week maternity leaves, no paternity leave, far fewer day nurseries, school breakfast clubs virtually unheard of - it just seems like nowadays things are weighted far more towards enabling women to keep their career going . Maternity leave is much longer plus can be transferred in part to the baby’s father and there are rights to request flexible working. Also- big one this - free early years hours at age 3 which can massively reduce childcare bills.

It just seems strange and rather frustrating I suppose that all these hard fought improvements are there, but if couples don’t take advantage of them then things won’t change. Shared parental leave is a good example. Why is the take up so shockingly low? I think only about 1 or 2 % of couples use it. I would have given my right arm to have 9 months ML and then to have my dh doing another 3 months - fantastic bonding opportunity and no childcare bills for the first year. Very different to returning to work with a 12 week old baby which is what my friends and I did.

I do think overall things are moving in the right direction but when you see statistics like the ones in the OP, it does make you realise just how many women are still so far from equality

I agree with the OP. It's not just the baby years - beyond mid forties/early fifties many women are working because they have to, rather than they want to.
Some want to stop working altogether, others want to drop to PT - they don't have enough time for them despite being through the worst of the childcare years. I don't hear this from men at that age at all. They still have fire in the belly for work and don't seem to need the me time.
I admit I suffer from this a bit despite being a 6 figure earner and a senior job. But often I'd rather have time for coffees and a chat, or the gym.

‘I didn't want someone else to look after my children, and that included my husband. Sorry that doesn’t fit with your view of the world’

Any woman who sees the children as ‘hers’ and doesn’t want her husband to look after them is indeed very far from the sort of world I like to live in. I’m much happier acknowledging that my children have two equal parents who both enjoyed looking after them (as well as earning, cooking, cleaning and everything else that goes with running a home and family)

older you didn't even want your husband looking after your children?? How bizarre. Did he have a say in this? How do you children about it?

OK - I didn't put that very well, I got the hump about being labelled as inferior.

DH worked away Sunday night to Friday night every weeks for years while the children were little. He wasn't there to look after them, and therefore all the childcare fell to me. I was working PT then. In other words, I wouldn't have wanted him to change his career in order to look after the children, when I was most able to do so. Does that sound better??

*do your children feel about it

I don’t work at this stage of my life, so my husband’s salary feeds and clothes me. ( I have done the same for him in the past). I guess you would think I am vulnerable.

However I have assets in my own name as well as jointly, and I know where the rest of the money is (I generally decide where it’s going to be invested, though obviously I agree this with my husband).

I don’t consider myself to be economically vulnerable in any way. It’s a lot more complicated than your analysis suggests in my experience, and we can go through very different situations at different stages of our lives.

if couples don’t take advantage of them then things won’t change. Shared parental leave is a good example. Why is the take up so shockingly low?

presumably because men arent keen to take a hit in order for the situation of women to improve

I didn’t label anyone inferior btw- your choice of words. I said that most couples tend to have similar levels of education and earning ability. If partners are hugely mismatched in these things, or if one completely gives up earning and chooses for them to have demarcated earner/ carer roles then you can see how one partner might end up earning mega bucks and the other nothing. Which kind of returns to the OP and the fact so many women are economically vulnerable

Using the word ‘inferior’ was all your own work

Word- or (as evidenced by comments on this thread as well as others) because some women don’t want to hand over any of their leave for their husband to look after their children!!

surely female emancipation is about having that choice, and that is what we chose to do.

Women have always had the "choice" to waste their eductions and make themselves completely financially dependent on men. Feminism was about giving women other choices. Of course, if that's what makes you happy, fine, but it is not a feminist choice, unless we adopt the vacuous reasoning that any choice made by a woman is a feminist one.

All higher educated, intelligent women, who have chosen to give up their careers to look after their children and yes, support their husbands.

Have these educated, intelligent women given any thought to what will happen when their children grow up? Or their husbands decide they would prefer to be 'supported' by another woman?

These women aren't supporting their husbands - they're facilitating them.