The Paula Principle

Paula at work

I’m aiming to build up examples of the PP in operation at the workplace – at all levels.

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
Read More

The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
Read More

Adam Smith’s dinner: man-made?

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title  and a distinctive style.  Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish.  Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original.  The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach:  vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed.  Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get.  When it…
Read More

A really strong Select Committee report

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap.  A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course.  This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women.  The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…
Read More

Careers and pay: findings from CIPD and Bank of England

The CIPD has just published its 2016 Employee Outlook.  This reports the views of over 2000 men and women on what is going well, and less well, with their careers.    A number of findings are very relevant to the Paula Principle. The very first table shows that 35% of women report themselves as overqualified for the job they are in, compared with 27% of men.  This looks like fairly direct evidence in favour of the PP.  It could be that women are disposed to pay more attention to their level of qualification and so are inherently more likely to notice any discrepancy between this and the job they are…
Read More

The divergence continues

Two separate items from this week which exactly confirm the divergence that is at the heart of the Paula Principle. First the 'End of Cycle' report from UCAS shows women moving even further ahead.   (By the way, what does "UCAS' stand for?  Universities Commission on Admissions and Statistics?  I couldn't find it on their site.)    The entry rate for 18 year old women is 9.2 percentage points higher than for men, making them 35 per cent (proportionally) more likely to enter than men. These differences, both proportional and in percentage points, are the highest recorded. Here's the chart: Another very significant point is that this effect is even…
Read More

EQ and PP

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, caused quite a stir last week with his speech to the TUC on how many jobs might be taken over by robots.  This was a typical report, from The Times: "The robots are coming - and they may take 15 million British jobs, says the Bank of England's chief economist. Andy Haldane told the Trade Union Congress yesterday that millions of jobs could be at risk of automation, with those most vulnerable working in the administrative, clerical and production sectors and among the low paid." Having also scared the accountants in the audience (though not many owned up to being in this…
Read More

Silos and Slaughter

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas.  Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world:  the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.)   Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate.  This does…
Read More

Networks, homophily, social capital: it’s not even who you know…

PP factor 4:  women don't have access to the same networks as men do, especially networks that include people working at higher occupational or organisational levels.  It's what social capitalists call 'linking social capital' - the kind that links you in to people higher up the power hierarchy, in contrast to bonding SC (hooking up with people like you) or bridging SC  (connecting to people outside your own type, but not necessarily any higher up than you are). Demonstrating this is something other people have done in far greater detail than I have been able to do.  Herminia Ibarra did this over 20 years ago in an interesting paper on…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Minding the gap

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts.  74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys.  The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing:  78/64 - reading:  82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read:  " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers.   The same paper carried a profile yesterday of  Becky Francis, an education adviser.   According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…
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The long and the short of it: differentiating part-timers

I went yesterday to the launch of an important new book, Unequal Britain at Work.  Using surveys that go back about 20 years and more it documents changes in the way we work and how it is rewarded:  not just how we are paid, but  the quality of the job, measured in terms of intensity, discretion and so on. A crucial feature of the book, and of the presentations made by its editors, Francis Green, Alan Felstead and Duncan Gallie, is the attention it pays to groups usually considered marginal, especially  part-timers and the self-employed.  One of the overall conclusions is that there has been a fair degree of convergence on…
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