The Paula Principle

Month: March 2015

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

The UK Commission on Employment and Skills has just published an excellent report, Growth Through People.  It sketches out, in considerable detail but in clear language, the puzzle of how the UK has a high level of employment; relatively high levels of high level skills, measured by graduate level qualifications; but low productivity levels.  Productivity, as yesterday's budget yet again showed, is crucial to our general prosperity. The most important implication of the UKCES analysis is to shift the focus from simplistic assumptions that boosting the sheer numbers of highly qualified people is a solution to our economic problems, to a much more nuanced and complex consideration of how skills are…
Read More

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

Below is a rather depressing table.  I've taken it from a piece by Michael Handel in  the recent ippr publication Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe, which draws on data from the European Working Conditions Survey. First, it suggests that the quality of work in the UK dropped significantly over the decade to 2005, absolutely and relative to other EU countries.  We started well above the EU average on both complex tasks and problem-solving at work, but 10 years later we had dropped significantly on both these scores, so that we were below average on the former and only just above on the latter.   This is not a healthy…
Read More

Rejections, and more important things

It's the day after International Women's Day, and I just thought I'd share two responses I've had to the PP book manuscript.  The first is from a publisher: "There are two problems.  First they feel that some of the material is not wholly unfamiliar – my colleagues who read many more business books than me tell me that they have read books which cover the subject and they are not sure this breaks enough new ground.  And second – and I am not sure how one resolves this problem– they feel it would be a sales obstacle for us to publish a book on this subject by a man.  It probably…
Read More

Plumbing, quotas, piloting

  I've just  spent most of the day at the Women of the World festival at the Southbank Centre.  It started with Jude Kelly interviewing Annie Lennox (yes!!), with scrolling stats on the global position of women;  the most startling of these is that gender-based violence notches up more deaths and disablement than wars, malaria, cancer and crashes.   It's worth also remembering that 41 million girls don't even get primary education.   Kirsty Wark then chaired a discussion on whether things had gone backwards as far as (violent) misogyny is concerned; it led me to her film on Blurred Lines, which deals with the fissile and contentious boundaries between…
Read More

Valuing care

There are about 2 million people employed in the care sector in the UK.   1.4 million are in the 'frontline' , which means they do the physical caring,      but also often are one of the few social contacts that the client has, especially in the case of elderly clients.   Most of these are women.  It's a demanding job that many of us would be completely unable to sustain.  It's also one where low pay is very widespread.  This is criminal - often literally so, as many are paid below the National Minimum Wage. A recent report from the ever-relevant Resolution Foundation, aptly titled 'As If we Cared', tackles…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

The UK Commission on Employment and Skills has just published an excellent report, Growth Through People.  It sketches out, in considerable detail but in clear language, the puzzle of how the UK has a high level of employment; relatively high levels of high level skills, measured by graduate level qualifications; but low productivity levels.  Productivity, as yesterday's budget yet again showed, is crucial to our general prosperity. The most important implication of the UKCES analysis is to shift the focus from simplistic assumptions that boosting the sheer numbers of highly qualified people is a solution to our economic problems, to a much more nuanced and complex consideration of how skills are…
Read More

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

Below is a rather depressing table.  I've taken it from a piece by Michael Handel in  the recent ippr publication Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe, which draws on data from the European Working Conditions Survey. First, it suggests that the quality of work in the UK dropped significantly over the decade to 2005, absolutely and relative to other EU countries.  We started well above the EU average on both complex tasks and problem-solving at work, but 10 years later we had dropped significantly on both these scores, so that we were below average on the former and only just above on the latter.   This is not a healthy…
Read More

Rejections, and more important things

It's the day after International Women's Day, and I just thought I'd share two responses I've had to the PP book manuscript.  The first is from a publisher: "There are two problems.  First they feel that some of the material is not wholly unfamiliar – my colleagues who read many more business books than me tell me that they have read books which cover the subject and they are not sure this breaks enough new ground.  And second – and I am not sure how one resolves this problem– they feel it would be a sales obstacle for us to publish a book on this subject by a man.  It probably…
Read More

Plumbing, quotas, piloting

  I've just  spent most of the day at the Women of the World festival at the Southbank Centre.  It started with Jude Kelly interviewing Annie Lennox (yes!!), with scrolling stats on the global position of women;  the most startling of these is that gender-based violence notches up more deaths and disablement than wars, malaria, cancer and crashes.   It's worth also remembering that 41 million girls don't even get primary education.   Kirsty Wark then chaired a discussion on whether things had gone backwards as far as (violent) misogyny is concerned; it led me to her film on Blurred Lines, which deals with the fissile and contentious boundaries between…
Read More

Valuing care

There are about 2 million people employed in the care sector in the UK.   1.4 million are in the 'frontline' , which means they do the physical caring,      but also often are one of the few social contacts that the client has, especially in the case of elderly clients.   Most of these are women.  It's a demanding job that many of us would be completely unable to sustain.  It's also one where low pay is very widespread.  This is criminal - often literally so, as many are paid below the National Minimum Wage. A recent report from the ever-relevant Resolution Foundation, aptly titled 'As If we Cared', tackles…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

The UK Commission on Employment and Skills has just published an excellent report, Growth Through People.  It sketches out, in considerable detail but in clear language, the puzzle of how the UK has a high level of employment; relatively high levels of high level skills, measured by graduate level qualifications; but low productivity levels.  Productivity, as yesterday's budget yet again showed, is crucial to our general prosperity. The most important implication of the UKCES analysis is to shift the focus from simplistic assumptions that boosting the sheer numbers of highly qualified people is a solution to our economic problems, to a much more nuanced and complex consideration of how skills are…
Read More

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

Below is a rather depressing table.  I've taken it from a piece by Michael Handel in  the recent ippr publication Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe, which draws on data from the European Working Conditions Survey. First, it suggests that the quality of work in the UK dropped significantly over the decade to 2005, absolutely and relative to other EU countries.  We started well above the EU average on both complex tasks and problem-solving at work, but 10 years later we had dropped significantly on both these scores, so that we were below average on the former and only just above on the latter.   This is not a healthy…
Read More

Rejections, and more important things

It's the day after International Women's Day, and I just thought I'd share two responses I've had to the PP book manuscript.  The first is from a publisher: "There are two problems.  First they feel that some of the material is not wholly unfamiliar – my colleagues who read many more business books than me tell me that they have read books which cover the subject and they are not sure this breaks enough new ground.  And second – and I am not sure how one resolves this problem– they feel it would be a sales obstacle for us to publish a book on this subject by a man.  It probably…
Read More

Plumbing, quotas, piloting

  I've just  spent most of the day at the Women of the World festival at the Southbank Centre.  It started with Jude Kelly interviewing Annie Lennox (yes!!), with scrolling stats on the global position of women;  the most startling of these is that gender-based violence notches up more deaths and disablement than wars, malaria, cancer and crashes.   It's worth also remembering that 41 million girls don't even get primary education.   Kirsty Wark then chaired a discussion on whether things had gone backwards as far as (violent) misogyny is concerned; it led me to her film on Blurred Lines, which deals with the fissile and contentious boundaries between…
Read More

Valuing care

There are about 2 million people employed in the care sector in the UK.   1.4 million are in the 'frontline' , which means they do the physical caring,      but also often are one of the few social contacts that the client has, especially in the case of elderly clients.   Most of these are women.  It's a demanding job that many of us would be completely unable to sustain.  It's also one where low pay is very widespread.  This is criminal - often literally so, as many are paid below the National Minimum Wage. A recent report from the ever-relevant Resolution Foundation, aptly titled 'As If we Cared', tackles…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

The UK Commission on Employment and Skills has just published an excellent report, Growth Through People.  It sketches out, in considerable detail but in clear language, the puzzle of how the UK has a high level of employment; relatively high levels of high level skills, measured by graduate level qualifications; but low productivity levels.  Productivity, as yesterday's budget yet again showed, is crucial to our general prosperity. The most important implication of the UKCES analysis is to shift the focus from simplistic assumptions that boosting the sheer numbers of highly qualified people is a solution to our economic problems, to a much more nuanced and complex consideration of how skills are…
Read More

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

Below is a rather depressing table.  I've taken it from a piece by Michael Handel in  the recent ippr publication Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe, which draws on data from the European Working Conditions Survey. First, it suggests that the quality of work in the UK dropped significantly over the decade to 2005, absolutely and relative to other EU countries.  We started well above the EU average on both complex tasks and problem-solving at work, but 10 years later we had dropped significantly on both these scores, so that we were below average on the former and only just above on the latter.   This is not a healthy…
Read More

Rejections, and more important things

It's the day after International Women's Day, and I just thought I'd share two responses I've had to the PP book manuscript.  The first is from a publisher: "There are two problems.  First they feel that some of the material is not wholly unfamiliar – my colleagues who read many more business books than me tell me that they have read books which cover the subject and they are not sure this breaks enough new ground.  And second – and I am not sure how one resolves this problem– they feel it would be a sales obstacle for us to publish a book on this subject by a man.  It probably…
Read More

Plumbing, quotas, piloting

  I've just  spent most of the day at the Women of the World festival at the Southbank Centre.  It started with Jude Kelly interviewing Annie Lennox (yes!!), with scrolling stats on the global position of women;  the most startling of these is that gender-based violence notches up more deaths and disablement than wars, malaria, cancer and crashes.   It's worth also remembering that 41 million girls don't even get primary education.   Kirsty Wark then chaired a discussion on whether things had gone backwards as far as (violent) misogyny is concerned; it led me to her film on Blurred Lines, which deals with the fissile and contentious boundaries between…
Read More

Valuing care

There are about 2 million people employed in the care sector in the UK.   1.4 million are in the 'frontline' , which means they do the physical caring,      but also often are one of the few social contacts that the client has, especially in the case of elderly clients.   Most of these are women.  It's a demanding job that many of us would be completely unable to sustain.  It's also one where low pay is very widespread.  This is criminal - often literally so, as many are paid below the National Minimum Wage. A recent report from the ever-relevant Resolution Foundation, aptly titled 'As If we Cared', tackles…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

The UK Commission on Employment and Skills has just published an excellent report, Growth Through People.  It sketches out, in considerable detail but in clear language, the puzzle of how the UK has a high level of employment; relatively high levels of high level skills, measured by graduate level qualifications; but low productivity levels.  Productivity, as yesterday's budget yet again showed, is crucial to our general prosperity. The most important implication of the UKCES analysis is to shift the focus from simplistic assumptions that boosting the sheer numbers of highly qualified people is a solution to our economic problems, to a much more nuanced and complex consideration of how skills are…
Read More

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

Below is a rather depressing table.  I've taken it from a piece by Michael Handel in  the recent ippr publication Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe, which draws on data from the European Working Conditions Survey. First, it suggests that the quality of work in the UK dropped significantly over the decade to 2005, absolutely and relative to other EU countries.  We started well above the EU average on both complex tasks and problem-solving at work, but 10 years later we had dropped significantly on both these scores, so that we were below average on the former and only just above on the latter.   This is not a healthy…
Read More

Rejections, and more important things

It's the day after International Women's Day, and I just thought I'd share two responses I've had to the PP book manuscript.  The first is from a publisher: "There are two problems.  First they feel that some of the material is not wholly unfamiliar – my colleagues who read many more business books than me tell me that they have read books which cover the subject and they are not sure this breaks enough new ground.  And second – and I am not sure how one resolves this problem– they feel it would be a sales obstacle for us to publish a book on this subject by a man.  It probably…
Read More

Plumbing, quotas, piloting

  I've just  spent most of the day at the Women of the World festival at the Southbank Centre.  It started with Jude Kelly interviewing Annie Lennox (yes!!), with scrolling stats on the global position of women;  the most startling of these is that gender-based violence notches up more deaths and disablement than wars, malaria, cancer and crashes.   It's worth also remembering that 41 million girls don't even get primary education.   Kirsty Wark then chaired a discussion on whether things had gone backwards as far as (violent) misogyny is concerned; it led me to her film on Blurred Lines, which deals with the fissile and contentious boundaries between…
Read More

Valuing care

There are about 2 million people employed in the care sector in the UK.   1.4 million are in the 'frontline' , which means they do the physical caring,      but also often are one of the few social contacts that the client has, especially in the case of elderly clients.   Most of these are women.  It's a demanding job that many of us would be completely unable to sustain.  It's also one where low pay is very widespread.  This is criminal - often literally so, as many are paid below the National Minimum Wage. A recent report from the ever-relevant Resolution Foundation, aptly titled 'As If we Cared', tackles…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

The UK Commission on Employment and Skills has just published an excellent report, Growth Through People.  It sketches out, in considerable detail but in clear language, the puzzle of how the UK has a high level of employment; relatively high levels of high level skills, measured by graduate level qualifications; but low productivity levels.  Productivity, as yesterday's budget yet again showed, is crucial to our general prosperity. The most important implication of the UKCES analysis is to shift the focus from simplistic assumptions that boosting the sheer numbers of highly qualified people is a solution to our economic problems, to a much more nuanced and complex consideration of how skills are…
Read More

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

Below is a rather depressing table.  I've taken it from a piece by Michael Handel in  the recent ippr publication Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe, which draws on data from the European Working Conditions Survey. First, it suggests that the quality of work in the UK dropped significantly over the decade to 2005, absolutely and relative to other EU countries.  We started well above the EU average on both complex tasks and problem-solving at work, but 10 years later we had dropped significantly on both these scores, so that we were below average on the former and only just above on the latter.   This is not a healthy…
Read More

Rejections, and more important things

It's the day after International Women's Day, and I just thought I'd share two responses I've had to the PP book manuscript.  The first is from a publisher: "There are two problems.  First they feel that some of the material is not wholly unfamiliar – my colleagues who read many more business books than me tell me that they have read books which cover the subject and they are not sure this breaks enough new ground.  And second – and I am not sure how one resolves this problem– they feel it would be a sales obstacle for us to publish a book on this subject by a man.  It probably…
Read More

Plumbing, quotas, piloting

  I've just  spent most of the day at the Women of the World festival at the Southbank Centre.  It started with Jude Kelly interviewing Annie Lennox (yes!!), with scrolling stats on the global position of women;  the most startling of these is that gender-based violence notches up more deaths and disablement than wars, malaria, cancer and crashes.   It's worth also remembering that 41 million girls don't even get primary education.   Kirsty Wark then chaired a discussion on whether things had gone backwards as far as (violent) misogyny is concerned; it led me to her film on Blurred Lines, which deals with the fissile and contentious boundaries between…
Read More

Valuing care

There are about 2 million people employed in the care sector in the UK.   1.4 million are in the 'frontline' , which means they do the physical caring,      but also often are one of the few social contacts that the client has, especially in the case of elderly clients.   Most of these are women.  It's a demanding job that many of us would be completely unable to sustain.  It's also one where low pay is very widespread.  This is criminal - often literally so, as many are paid below the National Minimum Wage. A recent report from the ever-relevant Resolution Foundation, aptly titled 'As If we Cared', tackles…
Read More