The Paula Principle

Paula at work

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

Complex, problem-solving jobs – or the reverse?

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

PP and ethnic integration

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds.  (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment.  The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates.  In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market.  Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…
Read More

Hillary and Montaigne: knowing when to stop

Readers of this blog may know that PP factor 5 is 'positive choice'.  That is, one of the five factors that explain why women work below their competence level is their capacity/willingness to choose not to go up one further rung on whatever career ladder they are on, even though they could (probably/possibly) do so. By 'positive' choice, I mean a decision that is, as far as we can tell, a free one, not driven by  the prospect of grumpy partner unwilling to increase their share of the childcare.  It would be good, incidentally, if more men made such choices; for one thing it would reduce the instances of the…
Read More

Ageing and equality: a curious relationship

Another really interesting post from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales, this time on the impact of gender equity on demographics worldwide.  Rick cites an important study by Anderson and Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania.  The basic point is that in countries where women go to work but there is no accompanying social change to reduce their domestic commitments, the birth rate falls. I've pointed before to Japan and Korea as countries where the Paula Principle applies particularly strongly, and it's no surprise to find they have dramatically ageing populations:  their highly educated women are forced to choose between children and careers, and even if they choose to carry on working…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

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

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

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

‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘part-time’

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

Happiness, happiness….

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

Paying more

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

Growth Through People: gender and the productivity puzzle

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

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