The Paula Principle

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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

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

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  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

AsSumptions: progress and pace

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance.  In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to  the system.  I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky.  But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…
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