Working hours, productivity – and gender

A really interesting paper by Briony Harris from the World Economic Forum shows how reducing working hours can lead to increased productivity.  The first point that struck me is that the will-writing company that forms the initial case study employs 200 people - just how many wills do Kiwis need written?  The second, more significant, point is that the company simply chopped a day off the staff's working week without reducing pay or conditions and got the same results from them, with far higher levels of job satisfaction and staff commitment. The paper goes on to look at the relationship between working hours and productivity across a whole range of countries.  It notes…
Read More

A WEF graph sums up the PP

In a previous post I drew on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Report.  The Report seems only now to have been released, and has hit the headlines.   There's a lot in it, but the graph below sums up, to a large extent, what the Paula Principle is all about.  It shows how, across 144 countries, women have caught up with men on education (and, in many countries, surpassed them, though the GGR methodology doesn't allow them to show this) but on the economic front the picture is very different. In fact, as the analysis (but not the graph) shows, on the economic dimension the overall picture is not only one…
Read More

So the gap is growing…

International and national evidence  confirms that we cannot absolutely not assume continuing progress towards fair recognition of the value of women's competences. A recent blog by Laura Liswood drew my attention to the World Economic Forum's  Global Gender Gap Report for 2016.  This is a complex, massively informative operation - a treasure trove which sorts countries by regions and income levels, along four main dimensions: Education Health Economic participation Political empowerment. The overall conclusion starkly confirms the Paula Principle, at a global level: On average, the 144 countries covered in the Report have closed 96% of the gap in health outcomes between women and men, unchanged since last year, and more than…
Read More

Salutary reminders on pay gaps and progress

There has been a steady trickle of important PP-relevant analyses in recent weeks.  Here are just two of them. First, the TUC shows how the gender pay gap is biggest for women in their 50s, at about £8500 per year, or £85000 over the decade.  This is a powerful reminder that we need to look at these effects over the whole of the working life.  Of course much of the gap derives from the point at which women have children.  For mothers in their 50s the gap is 42%, and so the crucial remedies are better childcare provision and parental leave, with encouragement for men to share child-rearing responsibilities. But…
Read More

WEF Gender Index

From the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap  report comes some heavy duty and intriguing indicator work on progress towards gender equality in four areas:  the economy, health, education and politics.  I'm not a serious numbers person (more's the pity), but you can get the essence of the report quite easily, and then spend as long as your inclination or capacity allows you digging around in the detail, including in the 136 individual country reports.  Here's my go at extracting the overall picture, and then a few nuggets.  Maybe more in a later post. For each of the four 'pillars' the report uses a number of indicators to measure equality between…
Read More

Working hours, productivity – and gender

A really interesting paper by Briony Harris from the World Economic Forum shows how reducing working hours can lead to increased productivity.  The first point that struck me is that the will-writing company that forms the initial case study employs 200 people - just how many wills do Kiwis need written?  The second, more significant, point is that the company simply chopped a day off the staff's working week without reducing pay or conditions and got the same results from them, with far higher levels of job satisfaction and staff commitment. The paper goes on to look at the relationship between working hours and productivity across a whole range of countries.  It notes…
Read More

A WEF graph sums up the PP

In a previous post I drew on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Report.  The Report seems only now to have been released, and has hit the headlines.   There's a lot in it, but the graph below sums up, to a large extent, what the Paula Principle is all about.  It shows how, across 144 countries, women have caught up with men on education (and, in many countries, surpassed them, though the GGR methodology doesn't allow them to show this) but on the economic front the picture is very different. In fact, as the analysis (but not the graph) shows, on the economic dimension the overall picture is not only one…
Read More

So the gap is growing…

International and national evidence  confirms that we cannot absolutely not assume continuing progress towards fair recognition of the value of women's competences. A recent blog by Laura Liswood drew my attention to the World Economic Forum's  Global Gender Gap Report for 2016.  This is a complex, massively informative operation - a treasure trove which sorts countries by regions and income levels, along four main dimensions: Education Health Economic participation Political empowerment. The overall conclusion starkly confirms the Paula Principle, at a global level: On average, the 144 countries covered in the Report have closed 96% of the gap in health outcomes between women and men, unchanged since last year, and more than…
Read More

Salutary reminders on pay gaps and progress

There has been a steady trickle of important PP-relevant analyses in recent weeks.  Here are just two of them. First, the TUC shows how the gender pay gap is biggest for women in their 50s, at about £8500 per year, or £85000 over the decade.  This is a powerful reminder that we need to look at these effects over the whole of the working life.  Of course much of the gap derives from the point at which women have children.  For mothers in their 50s the gap is 42%, and so the crucial remedies are better childcare provision and parental leave, with encouragement for men to share child-rearing responsibilities. But…
Read More

WEF Gender Index

From the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap  report comes some heavy duty and intriguing indicator work on progress towards gender equality in four areas:  the economy, health, education and politics.  I'm not a serious numbers person (more's the pity), but you can get the essence of the report quite easily, and then spend as long as your inclination or capacity allows you digging around in the detail, including in the 136 individual country reports.  Here's my go at extracting the overall picture, and then a few nuggets.  Maybe more in a later post. For each of the four 'pillars' the report uses a number of indicators to measure equality between…
Read More

Working hours, productivity – and gender

A really interesting paper by Briony Harris from the World Economic Forum shows how reducing working hours can lead to increased productivity.  The first point that struck me is that the will-writing company that forms the initial case study employs 200 people - just how many wills do Kiwis need written?  The second, more significant, point is that the company simply chopped a day off the staff's working week without reducing pay or conditions and got the same results from them, with far higher levels of job satisfaction and staff commitment. The paper goes on to look at the relationship between working hours and productivity across a whole range of countries.  It notes…
Read More

A WEF graph sums up the PP

In a previous post I drew on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Report.  The Report seems only now to have been released, and has hit the headlines.   There's a lot in it, but the graph below sums up, to a large extent, what the Paula Principle is all about.  It shows how, across 144 countries, women have caught up with men on education (and, in many countries, surpassed them, though the GGR methodology doesn't allow them to show this) but on the economic front the picture is very different. In fact, as the analysis (but not the graph) shows, on the economic dimension the overall picture is not only one…
Read More

So the gap is growing…

International and national evidence  confirms that we cannot absolutely not assume continuing progress towards fair recognition of the value of women's competences. A recent blog by Laura Liswood drew my attention to the World Economic Forum's  Global Gender Gap Report for 2016.  This is a complex, massively informative operation - a treasure trove which sorts countries by regions and income levels, along four main dimensions: Education Health Economic participation Political empowerment. The overall conclusion starkly confirms the Paula Principle, at a global level: On average, the 144 countries covered in the Report have closed 96% of the gap in health outcomes between women and men, unchanged since last year, and more than…
Read More

Salutary reminders on pay gaps and progress

There has been a steady trickle of important PP-relevant analyses in recent weeks.  Here are just two of them. First, the TUC shows how the gender pay gap is biggest for women in their 50s, at about £8500 per year, or £85000 over the decade.  This is a powerful reminder that we need to look at these effects over the whole of the working life.  Of course much of the gap derives from the point at which women have children.  For mothers in their 50s the gap is 42%, and so the crucial remedies are better childcare provision and parental leave, with encouragement for men to share child-rearing responsibilities. But…
Read More

WEF Gender Index

From the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap  report comes some heavy duty and intriguing indicator work on progress towards gender equality in four areas:  the economy, health, education and politics.  I'm not a serious numbers person (more's the pity), but you can get the essence of the report quite easily, and then spend as long as your inclination or capacity allows you digging around in the detail, including in the 136 individual country reports.  Here's my go at extracting the overall picture, and then a few nuggets.  Maybe more in a later post. For each of the four 'pillars' the report uses a number of indicators to measure equality between…
Read More

Working hours, productivity – and gender

A really interesting paper by Briony Harris from the World Economic Forum shows how reducing working hours can lead to increased productivity.  The first point that struck me is that the will-writing company that forms the initial case study employs 200 people - just how many wills do Kiwis need written?  The second, more significant, point is that the company simply chopped a day off the staff's working week without reducing pay or conditions and got the same results from them, with far higher levels of job satisfaction and staff commitment. The paper goes on to look at the relationship between working hours and productivity across a whole range of countries.  It notes…
Read More

A WEF graph sums up the PP

In a previous post I drew on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Report.  The Report seems only now to have been released, and has hit the headlines.   There's a lot in it, but the graph below sums up, to a large extent, what the Paula Principle is all about.  It shows how, across 144 countries, women have caught up with men on education (and, in many countries, surpassed them, though the GGR methodology doesn't allow them to show this) but on the economic front the picture is very different. In fact, as the analysis (but not the graph) shows, on the economic dimension the overall picture is not only one…
Read More

So the gap is growing…

International and national evidence  confirms that we cannot absolutely not assume continuing progress towards fair recognition of the value of women's competences. A recent blog by Laura Liswood drew my attention to the World Economic Forum's  Global Gender Gap Report for 2016.  This is a complex, massively informative operation - a treasure trove which sorts countries by regions and income levels, along four main dimensions: Education Health Economic participation Political empowerment. The overall conclusion starkly confirms the Paula Principle, at a global level: On average, the 144 countries covered in the Report have closed 96% of the gap in health outcomes between women and men, unchanged since last year, and more than…
Read More

Salutary reminders on pay gaps and progress

There has been a steady trickle of important PP-relevant analyses in recent weeks.  Here are just two of them. First, the TUC shows how the gender pay gap is biggest for women in their 50s, at about £8500 per year, or £85000 over the decade.  This is a powerful reminder that we need to look at these effects over the whole of the working life.  Of course much of the gap derives from the point at which women have children.  For mothers in their 50s the gap is 42%, and so the crucial remedies are better childcare provision and parental leave, with encouragement for men to share child-rearing responsibilities. But…
Read More

WEF Gender Index

From the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap  report comes some heavy duty and intriguing indicator work on progress towards gender equality in four areas:  the economy, health, education and politics.  I'm not a serious numbers person (more's the pity), but you can get the essence of the report quite easily, and then spend as long as your inclination or capacity allows you digging around in the detail, including in the 136 individual country reports.  Here's my go at extracting the overall picture, and then a few nuggets.  Maybe more in a later post. For each of the four 'pillars' the report uses a number of indicators to measure equality between…
Read More

Working hours, productivity – and gender

A really interesting paper by Briony Harris from the World Economic Forum shows how reducing working hours can lead to increased productivity.  The first point that struck me is that the will-writing company that forms the initial case study employs 200 people - just how many wills do Kiwis need written?  The second, more significant, point is that the company simply chopped a day off the staff's working week without reducing pay or conditions and got the same results from them, with far higher levels of job satisfaction and staff commitment. The paper goes on to look at the relationship between working hours and productivity across a whole range of countries.  It notes…
Read More

A WEF graph sums up the PP

In a previous post I drew on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Report.  The Report seems only now to have been released, and has hit the headlines.   There's a lot in it, but the graph below sums up, to a large extent, what the Paula Principle is all about.  It shows how, across 144 countries, women have caught up with men on education (and, in many countries, surpassed them, though the GGR methodology doesn't allow them to show this) but on the economic front the picture is very different. In fact, as the analysis (but not the graph) shows, on the economic dimension the overall picture is not only one…
Read More

So the gap is growing…

International and national evidence  confirms that we cannot absolutely not assume continuing progress towards fair recognition of the value of women's competences. A recent blog by Laura Liswood drew my attention to the World Economic Forum's  Global Gender Gap Report for 2016.  This is a complex, massively informative operation - a treasure trove which sorts countries by regions and income levels, along four main dimensions: Education Health Economic participation Political empowerment. The overall conclusion starkly confirms the Paula Principle, at a global level: On average, the 144 countries covered in the Report have closed 96% of the gap in health outcomes between women and men, unchanged since last year, and more than…
Read More

Salutary reminders on pay gaps and progress

There has been a steady trickle of important PP-relevant analyses in recent weeks.  Here are just two of them. First, the TUC shows how the gender pay gap is biggest for women in their 50s, at about £8500 per year, or £85000 over the decade.  This is a powerful reminder that we need to look at these effects over the whole of the working life.  Of course much of the gap derives from the point at which women have children.  For mothers in their 50s the gap is 42%, and so the crucial remedies are better childcare provision and parental leave, with encouragement for men to share child-rearing responsibilities. But…
Read More

WEF Gender Index

From the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap  report comes some heavy duty and intriguing indicator work on progress towards gender equality in four areas:  the economy, health, education and politics.  I'm not a serious numbers person (more's the pity), but you can get the essence of the report quite easily, and then spend as long as your inclination or capacity allows you digging around in the detail, including in the 136 individual country reports.  Here's my go at extracting the overall picture, and then a few nuggets.  Maybe more in a later post. For each of the four 'pillars' the report uses a number of indicators to measure equality between…
Read More