The Paula Principle

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
Read More

‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
Read More

Culture and change: last session of Women and Skills Commission

I went into the Palace of Westminster for the final public hearing of the Women and Skills Commission, with Secretary of State Maria Miller and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jo Swinson.  Maria Miller is SofS for Culture, Media and Sport;  she attended the Commission, I assume, because she carries the equalities brief (being one of the very few women in the cabinet....), whereas Jo Swinson represents  the Dept of Business, Innovation and Skills .  (No sign of DBIS’ SofS, Vince Cable...). Perhaps ironically, Ms Miller in fact spent a lot of time talking about culture  - not her ministerial diet of theatre and music, but culture at work.  She stressed the need…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London's Evening  Standard ! In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe - that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I…
Read More

Clean sweeps and clear-outs

I've quoted Virginia Woolf before:  "The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in other professions."  Well, the latest Costa prizewinner list certainly does something to say she was right about that success.  It's not technically a clean sweep: a husband gets in there as the illustrator of the graphic memoir Dotter of her Father's Eyes (what a triple hit of a title).  Alongside Mary and Bryan Talbot are the  novelist Hilary Mantel, new writer Francesca Segal, poet Kathleen Jamie, and children's author, Sally Gardner.    Can anyone put up a similar example of prizewinning dominance in a competition open to all?  Add that to…
Read More

Closing the Gender Gap

Welcome to 2013.  I didn't switch off Paula completely, but steered clear of blogging etc.  One xmas party conversation led to an interesting hypothesis:  that male CEOs  who have daughters will get it (the PP, that is, or gender issues generally) , but won't if they don't.   The reason my cocktail acquaintance gave for her idea is that those with no children won't get it anyway, and those with sons will think that no one can combine professional work with children, because sons take up so much organisational energy.  Only those with daughters will see that work and parenting can be combined with (relative) ease if things are sensibly managed.   She…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

older women

Jackie Ashley's piece in today's Guardian  is subtitled 'the nation's great untapped resource' and makes a strong case for paying attention to the competences of older women.  This generation of 50+ women is the first to have a high level of qualifications, and far fewer of them have no qualifications at all.  So we need to think much more about how they can play a full part in paid as well as unpaid work.  She makes a powerful argument that this affects us all, for fairness and efficiency reasons. Ashley quotes some significant changes in attitude compared to 30 years ago.  In 1984 65% of women agreed that a husband's…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
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Resilience, conscientiousness, openness – do these matter more than cognitive skills?

We're all  told, and most of us believe, that education makes a  big difference to people's lives;  but what exactly is it about the education that has such an impact?  I've just been at a meeting organised by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, where I used to work.   One of the meeting's primary topics was how far so-called 'non-cognitive' skills/characteristics such as resilience, conscientiousness or ability to relate to others contribute to individuals' success, as compared with traditional cognitive skills such as levels of literacy or numeracy. The project is looking particularly at the social outcomes of learning,  ie how education does (or doesn't) affect issues such as crime, health…
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‘Part-time’ working again, and inequality

Two strong further prompts that rethinking how we use 'part-time' is an urgent and important task.  I visited Emma Stewart, co-founder of WomenLikeUs, and she told me about their work in developing a better match between supply and demand in higher quality part-time jobs.  Only a tiny proportion of job vacancies - around 3% - are available on a part-time basis and at a salary level over £20K.  This contrasts with the 55% that are available full-time at this level.  So for every 'good' part-time position, there are 18 full-time positions.  This fits  very poorly with the large numbers of people - mostly women - who are well qualified and capable…
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