GENDER INEQUALITY - PATTERNS AND TRENDS

Question 1

What are the patterns of trends for gender life chances?

Answer 1

Education regarded as main engine for improvement of both life chances and social mobility
Females generally out-perform males at all levels of education
GCSE results (2014)
Pass rates for girls - 73.1%
Pass rates for boys - 64.3%
UCAS (2013)
Women now a third more likely to enter higher education than men

Question 2

What are the key names for gender inequality patterns and trends in work and employment?

Answer 2

Fawcett Society, UK Feminista, Equal Opportunities Commission

Question 3

What did Fawcett Society find?

Answer 3

In private business sector of employment, the gender pay gap is 24.8% compared to the public sector which is 17.1%
Self-employed women earn 40% less than self-employed men
Women make up 20.4% od directors on FTSE 100 boards and just 11.1% of UK bank CEOs are women
Pay gap is partly caused by a ‘motherhood penalty’ - motherhood often results in part-time work
Women’s rights at work are poorly enforced by state which seem reluctant to prosecute employers for discrimination

Question 4

What did UK Feminista find?

Answer 4

Up to 30,000 women sacked each year for being pregnant, even though this is illegal
Each year there is an estimate of 440,000 women who lose out on pay or promotion as a result of pregnancy
Women who work, with or without children, spend 15 hours a week on average doing chores, while men spend only 5

Question 5

What did the Equal Opportunities Commission find about gender inequality in work and employment?

Answer 5

Women concentrated in clerical, administrative, retail and personal services
Men mainly found in the skilled manual and upper professionals sector

Question 6

What are general statistics about gender inequality in work and employment?

Answer 6

Men with children more likely to work than those without - opposite for women
More men work in professional occupations associated with high pay levels, than women
Women dominate employment within caring and leisure occupations
Female graduates more likely to to work in lower skilled occupation group than men
Men make up majority in the top 10% of earners for all employees, but gap is lower for those under 30

Question 7

What are the key names for gender inequality patterns and trends in income and wealth?

Answer 7

OXFAM, Low Pay Commission, ONS, Sunday Times Rich List

Question 8

What did OXFAM find about gender inequalities in income and wealth?

Answer 8

22% of women, compared to 14% of men, have persistent low income
The income of retired women is less than 40% of that of retired men

Question 9

What did the Low Pay Commission find about gender inequalities in income and wealth?

Answer 9

70% approx. of people in national minimum wage jobs are women

Question 10

What did ONS find about gender inequalities in income and wealth?

Answer 10

Found a disparity between men and women in terms of who owns most houses, pensions, cars and stocks and shares
Average value of men’s total pension wealth - £63,000 (2010/12)
Average value of women’s total pension wealth - £34,800 (2010/12)
Nearly twice as high

Question 11

What did the Sunday Times Rich List find about gender inequalities in income and wealth?

Answer 11

Only 114 women of the UK’s 1,000 most wealthy people (a decrease from 118 in 2004)
Only two (J.K Rowling and Tamara Mellon) had made their own fortunes
The rest either inherited wealth of gained wealth from divorce settlements

Question 12

What are the key names for gender inequality patterns and trends in poverty?

Answer 12

Prudential, Global Citizen, The Trussell Trust, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Question 13

What did Prudential find about gender inequalities in poverty?

Answer 13

In a survey of 10,000 adults, ¼ women will be living below poverty line when they retire, compared to 12% of men

Question 14

What did Global Citizen find about gender inequalities in poverty?

Answer 14

Women make up half of world’s population yet represent 70% of the world’s poor

Question 15

What did The Trussell Trust find about gender inequalities on poverty?

Answer 15

Food poverty affects women and men differently, with many women going hungry in order to feed their children

Question 16

What did Joseph Rowntree Foundation find about gender inequalities in poverty?

Answer 16

Women believed that poverty undermined ability to be supportive parents to their children
Women felt unhappy that they could not afford to buy children treats and Christmas presents or take them on holiday. They often felt ashamed because their children had to wear second-hand clothes to school
Mother in poverty more likely to suffer poor mental health and physical health
Women reported stress, depression, exhaustion, low self-esteem and shame

Question 17

What are the key names for gender inequality patterns and trends in social mobility?

Answer 17

Li and Devine, Heath and Li, Savage, The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission

Question 18

What did Li and Devine find about gender inequalities in social mobility?

Answer 18

Women still less likely to be upwardly mobile and more likely to be downwardly than men
Black African/Caribbean women have experienced a 15-20% fall in full-time employment rates over past decade, whilst white women have stayed stable

Question 19

What did Heath and Li find about gender inequalities in social mobility?

Answer 19

Black Caribbean men (39%) and Chinese women (47%) - lower rates of upward mobility than Black Caribbean women (67%) and Chinese men (57%)
Second-generation South-Asian groups in UK, men benefited more from upward occupational mobility than women

Question 20

What did Savage find about gender inequalities in social mobility?

Answer 20

Men were 40% more likely to climb the career ladder than women

Question 21

What did The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission find about gender inequalities in social mobility?

Answer 21

Girls born in 1940s to middle class parents were 8x more likely than working class girls to grow up to be in middle class
Middle class girls born in the 1970s were only 4x more likely than their working class peers to achieve middle class status in adulthood
The feminisation of the workforce was made possible by a noticeable improvement in the education performance of girls

Question 22

What are the key names for gender inequality patterns and trends in education?

Answer 22

Department of Education, Programme for International Student Assembly

Question 23

What did the Department of Education find about gender inequalities in education?

Answer 23

white working class boys are the largest underachieving group in education?

Question 24

What did the Programme for International Student Assembly find about gender inequalities in education?

Answer 24

Boys lag a year behind girls at reading in every industrialised country

Question 25

What are the key names for gender inequality patterns and trends in health?

Answer 25

Department of Health, ONS, Farrell

Question 26

What did the Department of Health find about gender inequalities in health?

Answer 26

On average, females are likely to live four years longer than males

Question 27

What did ONS find about gender inequalities in health?

Answer 27

On average, men develop heart disease ten years earlier than women (2010)
Rate of suicide for men is three times that of the number for women (2011)
Men are more likely than women to have an alcohol or drug problem
67% of British people who consume alcohol at ‘hazardous’ levels, and 80% of those who are dependent on alcohol, are male
Almost ¾ of people dependent on other illegal drugs are male

Question 28

What did Farrell find about gender inequalities in health?

Answer 28

‘Glass cellar’ exists in regards to men’s employment
In 25 of the lowest ranked jobs, 24 of them are dominated by men and these jobs are poorly paid and offer little job security

Question 29

What are the key names for gender inequality trends in family life and the crisis of masculinity?

Answer 29

Warin et al, CALM, Mac an Ghaill, Labour MP Dianne Abbott, Equal Opportunities Commission

Question 30

What did Warin et al find?

Answer 30

Out of 95 families in Rochdale, the majority of fathers, mothers and teenage children believed that the father should be the breadwinner
Fathers felt under pressure to provide for their families which was intensified by the demands of teenagers
Men in low paid jobs and those who were sick, disabled or unemployed were frustrated and sad that they were unable to supply what their family wanted
Contributions of fathers goes unrecognised
Fathers attempting to juggle role of provider with the emotional support

Question 31

What did the Equal Opportunities Commission find about gender inequality in family life and the crisis of masculinity?

Answer 31

89% of fathers are in employment compared with 74% of men without dependent children
Around 1/8 fathers in GB work excessively long hours of 60 hours a week or more, and almost 40% of fathers work 48 hours or more per week
The larger earnings of men limits the time spent with children
Male dominated workplaces are less likely to offer flexible working arrangements
Fathers feel discouraged by workplace norms and culture from taking time off work for family

Question 32

What did CALM find about the crisis of masculinity?

Answer 32

There is a crisis in modern masculinity, with men struggling to deal with pressures in their personal and professional lives
Allegedly the reason why male suicide rates in the UK are at a 15-year high

Question 33

What did Mac an Ghaill argue about the crisis of masculinity?

Answer 33

Working class boys experiencing a ‘crisis of masculinity’
Socialised into seeing their future male identity and role in terms of having a job and being a ‘breadwinner’ but the economic landscape has changed because manufacturing industry has declined and long term male unemployment has become a norm
The new jobs created have been mainly occupied by females
Working class boys feel that education and qualifications are irrelevant to their futures and look for alternative sources of status in anti-school subcultures or delinquency