The Paula Principle

Author: peterprinciple

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Early modern England: whose skills were applauded?

I've just read Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England,  about what people valued during the early modern period (that's 1530-1780, for those who like me need a definition).  KT provides a glorious stream of quotations on 6 areas where people might have sought fulfilment - wealth and possessions, fame and afterlife, honour and reputation, and so on. One of the areas is 'work and vocation', and this chapter provides nice  insights into the division of labour. "Some occupations were thought to be unmanly because they could equally well be performed by women: brewers, bakers, and cooks all suffered from this stigma."   I wouldn't…
Read More

Theatrical chaos

Beautiful Chaos is the arresting title of a book by Carey Perloff, on her life and times as director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.   I have a partner with 30 years' experience as an actor but I have no professional understanding of the theatre; yet the book engrossed me with its insights into the dynamics of the world backstage.  (Declaration of interest:  Carey is a second cousin of mine, though we've never met.) Two themes in the book struck me particularly.  The first is the emphasis put on theatre as a vehicle for lifelong learning.  At a technical level Carey describes the changes she made to…
Read More

Pay gaps, at both ends of the scale. And OECD on an overblown finance sector.

Two heavy-duty reports came out recently,  both relevant to the PP though from very different angles. First a commission set up by the Resolution Foundation to look at the attempts to introduce Universal Credit produced its final report, Making the most of UC.  Mainly this grapples with the incredibly complex issues posed by the attempt to simplify the benefits system through Universal Credit.  I'd blow several gaskets if I even attempted to summarise it here, but one of the central issues is how to enable people work at lower levels to earn more, and to keep more of their earnings.   The current system often traps people in low-earning jobs,…
Read More

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

I went recently to a presentation by Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller, from the LLAKES centre, of their very informative work on adult apprenticeships, in the lovely Bedford Square offices of the Nuffield Foundation (one of our most effective foundations).  In the pre-election period there was  a rather ludicrous bidding war between the parties on how many apprenticeships they could promise.   We've ended up with 3 million. 'Apprenticeship' has a good solid ring to it, which is why the parties jumped on it.  It implies work-relevance, application, skill and good employment prospects.  The problem is that it is now used very broadly, so broadly that it is losing that solidity…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Happiness, happiness….

A 'World Happiness Report' sounds rather implausible;  or Orwellian.  But it exists, and has been put together by some top-flight authors - John Helliwell from Canada, Richard Layard from the UK and Jeffrey Sachs of the US.  Even if I disagree with the 'happiness' title, it's a big step towards measuring things that are important for our quality of life. (The authors admit the label is there for marketing purposes - 'wellbeing' would be far preferable in my view.) The WHR focuses on six determinants of happiness/wellbeing:  income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption and generosity/giving.  Much of the report is unsurprising in itself…
Read More

Competency and choice

In the past couple of months I've been to two different productions of The Merchant of Venice.  I posted earlier on the Almeida's brilliant Las Vegas-style version, and the very PP-relevant way it interpreted the final act. Last night it was the Globe Theatre's production, with Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock and his daughter as his daughter (i.e. Phoebe Pryce as Jessica).   I have to say that I found this production a good deal less gripping, though I always find it a delight to be in that setting, especially on a fine night with a crescent moon, and there was lots to appreciate. As I noted in the earlier post, choice…
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