Social mobility, occupational maturity and an early pay gap

The Social Mobility Commission's report on the influence of social class on professional progression deservedly got wide coverage.   It moves the debate along from looking only at entry into different professions, to show how people from different social origins do or do not make progress and are or are not rewarded once they have been working for a while.  The analysis shows that those who come themselves from the lower social classes earn on average £6800 less - 17% - than their peers who themselves originate from the professional classes. The class gap is bigger for men than for women.  But the report points out that there is a double…
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Basic incomes surface in Davos – no longer marginal

Back in Aug 2014 I wrote a post on the idea of a citizen's income.  The idea of guaranteeing a basic income is PP-relevant because it would help people - especially women -  move in and out of formal employment without looking like deviant marginals. I said: The CI has been around for a long time. It has generally been dismissed as either cranky or ok in theory but unworkable. But when it was first being discussed 20 or so years ago, the labour market was very different..... As a political sell, it’s a tough one. Many will have an instinctive reaction against the unconditional something-for-nothing proposal....But as Iain Duncan…
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Reduced working hours: linking the PP to inequality and to climate change

The primary conclusion of The Paula Principle  is that women's competences stand a chance of being fully recognised only if men's work and career patterns change to a more 'mosaic' model.  Central to this is the need for us to recognise that careers, at whatever level, should not require people to work full time or continuously (hence the mosaic image of different pieces put together in a variety of patterns, rather than a vertical career ladder). In this post I want to make the link between this and two items: a. new analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which shows how inequalities in incomes have been increased because lower-wage men increasingly…
Read More

Social mobility, occupational maturity and an early pay gap

The Social Mobility Commission's report on the influence of social class on professional progression deservedly got wide coverage.   It moves the debate along from looking only at entry into different professions, to show how people from different social origins do or do not make progress and are or are not rewarded once they have been working for a while.  The analysis shows that those who come themselves from the lower social classes earn on average £6800 less - 17% - than their peers who themselves originate from the professional classes. The class gap is bigger for men than for women.  But the report points out that there is a double…
Read More

Basic incomes surface in Davos – no longer marginal

Back in Aug 2014 I wrote a post on the idea of a citizen's income.  The idea of guaranteeing a basic income is PP-relevant because it would help people - especially women -  move in and out of formal employment without looking like deviant marginals. I said: The CI has been around for a long time. It has generally been dismissed as either cranky or ok in theory but unworkable. But when it was first being discussed 20 or so years ago, the labour market was very different..... As a political sell, it’s a tough one. Many will have an instinctive reaction against the unconditional something-for-nothing proposal....But as Iain Duncan…
Read More

Reduced working hours: linking the PP to inequality and to climate change

The primary conclusion of The Paula Principle  is that women's competences stand a chance of being fully recognised only if men's work and career patterns change to a more 'mosaic' model.  Central to this is the need for us to recognise that careers, at whatever level, should not require people to work full time or continuously (hence the mosaic image of different pieces put together in a variety of patterns, rather than a vertical career ladder). In this post I want to make the link between this and two items: a. new analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which shows how inequalities in incomes have been increased because lower-wage men increasingly…
Read More

Social mobility, occupational maturity and an early pay gap

The Social Mobility Commission's report on the influence of social class on professional progression deservedly got wide coverage.   It moves the debate along from looking only at entry into different professions, to show how people from different social origins do or do not make progress and are or are not rewarded once they have been working for a while.  The analysis shows that those who come themselves from the lower social classes earn on average £6800 less - 17% - than their peers who themselves originate from the professional classes. The class gap is bigger for men than for women.  But the report points out that there is a double…
Read More

Basic incomes surface in Davos – no longer marginal

Back in Aug 2014 I wrote a post on the idea of a citizen's income.  The idea of guaranteeing a basic income is PP-relevant because it would help people - especially women -  move in and out of formal employment without looking like deviant marginals. I said: The CI has been around for a long time. It has generally been dismissed as either cranky or ok in theory but unworkable. But when it was first being discussed 20 or so years ago, the labour market was very different..... As a political sell, it’s a tough one. Many will have an instinctive reaction against the unconditional something-for-nothing proposal....But as Iain Duncan…
Read More

Reduced working hours: linking the PP to inequality and to climate change

The primary conclusion of The Paula Principle  is that women's competences stand a chance of being fully recognised only if men's work and career patterns change to a more 'mosaic' model.  Central to this is the need for us to recognise that careers, at whatever level, should not require people to work full time or continuously (hence the mosaic image of different pieces put together in a variety of patterns, rather than a vertical career ladder). In this post I want to make the link between this and two items: a. new analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which shows how inequalities in incomes have been increased because lower-wage men increasingly…
Read More