Women: Contribution to Economic Life

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate today on a topic of significant importance in this day and age and one which is dear to my heart. Like many, I have received a wealth of data and information to help support my arguments. I am delighted that my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, has chosen this topic for his maiden speech. I look forward to hearing what he has to say and wish him well.

As we have already heard, getting women into the workplace is an international problem. A report published in the Economist in October 2012 stated that in the next decade nearly 1 billion women are likely to enter the global labour force, but their economic potential is largely unrealised. If female employment rates matched those of men, GDP would increase by 5% in America and 9% in Japan by 2020. The impact would be even larger for developing countries, home to most of the world’s women who lack adequate education and support, both social and political. Increasing female employment would increase GDP significantly in countries such as India and Egypt, where female labour participation rates are below 30%. In Egypt, GDP would increase by 108% and in Britain by 13%.

When first elected as Leader of Somerset County Council in 2001 in the middle of the foot and mouth crisis, I chaired the Cabinet of six women and one man. My male colleague frequently made reference to the fact that he was the “token male” and obviously felt uncomfortable. His female colleagues, however, were perfectly satisfied with the situation. However, it was not long before the other men in the group started to whisper and plot to “get rid of some of these women and replace them with men”. There being more men than women in the group, at the next annual meeting they did, in fact, replace two of the women with men. The women were devastated as they had worked hard, got to grips with their briefs and done a good job. The replacement men were only satisfactory in their roles but terribly proud of themselves for their achievement in having got promotion to the “inner circle”, as they saw it. Sadly, behaviour such as this is typical of the ethos which exists in some workplaces. Why is it that some men feel so threatened by women? Is it that we are better at juggling—if you are to have a job and bring up a family, it is essential that you are an expert juggler—or is it some other reason?

Access to safe and affordable quality childcare is key to women fulfilling their potential in the workplace and contributing to the economy of our country. The report out this week from the Family and Childcare Trust reveals that families are paying around 4.7% more on average for part-time childcare than they spend on an average mortgage. This is an enormous sum and we should be doing more to address the issue of a ready, cost-effective supply of childcare. We know from Department for Education surveys that more women would return to work if they could access childcare that did not cripple them financially. One in five working mothers said that they would like to increase their hours if they could arrange,

“good quality childcare which was convenient, reliable and affordable”.

Parents in Britain use more than a quarter—26.6%—of their salaries on childcare, more than any other European country, except Switzerland.

The return of women to the workplace after having children is not without its personal costs. As a working mother I cursed school inset days and came to dread the school holidays. Racked by guilt that I was not spending enough time with my children, I searched around for clubs and activities that I hoped my children would enjoy so that they would not have to spend quite so much time with the childminder. I reduced my working week so that I got home earlier and could go out for walks and picnics to spend some quality time with them, but I was always left with the feeling that I had somehow let them down, although they never said anything to compound that feeling.

As a country we must do everything we can to encourage women to return to the workplace after having families. We can now see examples of employers who, instead of denigrating the fact that women go off to have families, are recognising that the skills gained in this experience far outweigh those of their male colleagues. Any woman who has negotiated with a three year-old determined to participate in a life-threatening activity and done so without the resultant tears and tantrums in a very public place can well deal with negotiations between her male colleagues’ testosterone-driven ego trips. Women also bring a different perspective to problem solving which, together with their male colleagues’ approach, often produces a more rounded solution.

Some women suffer discrimination in the workplace simply because they are women. Often it is women higher up the structure of their employers who attempt to keep their female colleagues down instead of encouraging them. They have had to struggle to get where they are and wish their counterparts to have the same experience. It is certainly the case that in many professions, in order for women to succeed, they have to behave and act like their male counterparts to be taken seriously, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley so graphically demonstrated to us.

The Government are keen to encourage young people into the STEM subjects at school, but young women need to be aware that they will have a struggle on their hands. In a large hospital in the south, of 439 consultants, 74% are men and only 26% are women. In that hospital there are 53 dieticians but only one is a man. In the nursing profession only about 10% are men. This speaks volumes of how the health service views the roles of men and women. Does this also say something about how difficult women find it to juggle families and high-pressured careers? It is certainly the case that women find it easier to have careers in the NHS than in engineering, for instance.

Many women work in small businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses believes that it is vital to support female entrepreneurship. In the UK alone, 150,000 additional start-ups would have been created each year if women had started businesses at the same rate as men. The FSB has worked to promote female entrepreneurship and to look at the barriers particularly faced by women in starting businesses. Nearly half the businesses established in the past two years in retail, hotels, catering and leisure were primarily owned by women. Of the businesses that are members of the FSB, 26.9% are female-owned. The sectors with the highest proportion of female-owned businesses are: health and social work, 45.5%; education, 44%; and personal services, 42.5%. These businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. Without the services provided by these small businesses, many other women would be unable to go out to work at all.

On the international aspect of our debate today, I am indebted to my noble friend Lady Falkner for the following figures. She regrets that another engagement prevents her being present today and taking part in the debate. In response to questions to the FCO, my noble friend received the following information on the role of senior women. EU Permanent Representatives: nine men, no women; NATO Permanent Representatives: eight men, one woman; UN agencies heads of mission, New York: eight men; no women; UN agencies heads of mission, Geneva: seven men, two women; heads of mission to China, Russia, France and the US: 31 men, one woman; heads of mission to Germany and Italy: 17 men, no women; heads of mission to the 11 BRICS countries: 93 men, seven women. This really is not good enough.

We all know that women are perfectly capable of filling their place in society at all levels. We must do everything we can to make sure that no barriers are put in their way to prevent them achieving and assisting our economy in benefiting from their considerable skills. I look forward to the contributions from your Lordships during the rest of the debate and I hope that at the end of the day we can take some positive steps in going forward.