The Paula Principle

International

The PP applies across many countries. It’s a sign of developepd status when women outperform men educationally.

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
Read More

Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

breadwinning

A new report from ippr, by Dalia Ben-Galim and Spencer Thomson, looks at how many women are now breadwinners.  The answer is, of course, many more than there used to be. Who counts as a 'breadwinner'?  The report defines it as someone who earns as much or more as their partner, or is the sole earner.    On this basis there are now 2.2 million female breadwinners, up by a million since 1996.  1 in 3 working women are now the breadwinner (don't forget, this includes a lot of single mums, 43% of whom are now employed). The definition covers a huge variety of circumstances.  It includes a solo working mother alongside…
Read More

Violins, hard work and training

I went last night to a Prom concert.  Bruch's violin concerto was played by  young Norwegian with the fine lupine name of Vilde Frang (having a half-Norwegian daughter entitles me to comment).  She was mightily impressive.        I was in the seats behind the orchestra, and as I watched her frizzed mane of hair vibrating to the music I     wondered how many of the younger breed of soloists, or just outstanding players, are women, and how far this varies by instrument.  Only one of the orchestra's double basses was a woman, for obvious reasons, and none of the percussionists.  For most of the strings, it was 50/50ish.   Whatever the…
Read More

Vers l’égalité

Whilst on holiday I was interested to read in  the French papers that the minister for the rights of women, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has just taken an outline law to parliament.    It  has a number of dimensions - parental leave, pension supplements, measures against violence against women - but particularly interesting for the Paula Principle is the intention to use quotas to boost the representation of women in the conseils d'administration of large companies and of public bodies such as sports federations, chambers of commerce and consultative bodies. These councils are advisory rather than decision-making bodies, but can be influential.  The minister proposes a quota of 40% of places to be…
Read More

Investing attitudes: Buffett and bankers

Here's Warren Buffett;  to me he comes across as entirely genuine, and I like his 'minimum threshold' approach. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/06/17/n-warren-buffett-women-in-business-full.cnnmoney If he can get it, why not others?  The Tyrie report on banking behaviour includes (para 140) a conclusion that the absence of women on trading floors may have contributed to the grotesque excesses.  It makes good sense, but I'd like to see more evidence .   know there's been some research on testosterone levels, but I'd be more interested in empirical studies of decision-making - in banking or elsewhere.
Read More

Swedish skirt solution

My visit to Sweden earlier this week coincided with a great story from there, which made it into several newspapers.  12 male traindrivers were banned from wearing shorts, even in hot weather when their cabs are particularly badly ventilated.  So they turned up in skirts instead - and the company went along with this (it's not said how reluctantly) since to do otherwise would have been discrimination.  The original ban sounds nonsensical, but it's a nice solution.  ( I tried googling for an illustration for this post, but 'man and skirt' led me to adult only sites.) In discussion with a Swedish colleague I raised the question of why jobs are…
Read More

Noncogs

Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…
Read More

The XX Factor

Alison Wolf’s new book, The XX  Factor, is jam-packed with juicy items, enough to keep book groups and academic seminars in discussion mode for many hours. The sub-title, ‘how working women are creating a new society’, is a little misleading.  Wolf focuses above all on women with top-end education.   They are an elite, though when they are all put together there are a lot of them.   She estimates these to be 15-20% of the population in most developed countries, amounting to some 70 million worldwide. They are educated at  universities with high reputations, and they have high career aspirations.  At the heart of the book is the argument that these…
Read More

The Group: vertical social capital, and choice

I've just finished Mary McCarthy's remarkable  1960s novel.   The group is one of Vassar graduates, so they are at the elite end of educated women, and they are closely bonded;  they celebrate each other's weddings, and offer support of a kind to each other on relationship and marriage issues. I picked it up thinking it might illustrate Paula Principle Factor 4 - that women lack the vertical networks to enable them to progress in their careers as fast as they might. McCarthy offers us a colourful palette of characters, from independent (Polly)  to submissive (Kay),  baby-focussed (Priss) to lesbian (Lakey), and so on.   They are introduced to us at Kay's marriage to Harald, the…
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Japan’s glass ceiling

Today's Financial Times reports that Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, moved yesterday to compel corporate Japan to promote more women. He asked them to set themselves a target - of at least one woman executive per company. As the Ft wrily remarks: "The request was polite and the scale was hardly European in ambition." In Japan women fill just 1.6% of executive roles (the European figure is 14%), so if even half of them they comply with their prime minister's wish it would mark a big jump forward. It's part of a wider tension within Japan about the role of women in the economy. This is powered in part by…
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An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
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