Women’s Employment Summit
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-04314, in the name of Angela Constance, on the women’s employment summit.
14:23
I am delighted to have this early opportunity to report back to Parliament on the women’s employment summit that was held on 12 September.
The purpose of the summit was to consider the issues that impair women’s access to, and participation in, the labour market, and to identify action. Both the First Minister and Deputy First Minister addressed the 150 delegates, which clearly reflects the fact that women’s employment is an issue of national importance that is at the heart of this Government, and that women are crucial to economic recovery.
The other keynote speaker, Professor Ailsa McKay of the University of Strathclyde—a key member of the equality budget advisory group—set out in stark terms the challenge that lies before us, but she also set out the opportunity that we have to move forward from the summit in order to make a real difference to women’s lives.
Let me be clear that the event was not a one-off—the summit is a springboard for fresh impetus to identify action in the short, medium and longer terms, as a matter both of equality and economic necessity. I am committed to informing and involving Parliament every step of the way, as we develop a renewed and focused plan of action.
I was pleased to see members of the Equal Opportunities Committee attend the summit, and I hope that it was useful, given the committee’s upcoming inquiry into women and work. I want to record my thanks and appreciation to Agnes Tolmie, this year’s president of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, who chaired the summit. I am grateful to Agnes and to the STUC women’s committee for all their work in the lead-up to the summit and on the day.
I also want to thank Samantha Ritchie and Rachael Macleod, the two students who made the film that was shown at the summit. The film, which was completed as part of their internships with Unite the Union, was a great snapshot of working women in Scotland today. I also want to acknowledge the young engineering apprentice Jessica King, who talked eloquently about her experiences as a modern apprentice in a non-traditional occupation for women.
I will not be able to cover all the discussions from the day, but I will endeavour to give an overview of them. One of the overwhelming messages from the summit was the importance to working parents—working mothers, in particular—of flexible, accessible and affordable early learning and childcare. Childcare is an economic issue. It is a vital part of this country’s infrastructure, which can provide a route out of worklessness and can increase access to rewarding careers. We have already announced changes that will see parents in Scotland being able to access the highest overall level of Government-funded childcare and early learning provision anywhere in the UK.
The summit discussions will inform the sub-group of the early years task force that we have set up to help us to develop a long-term vision for family support, family centres and integrated early learning and childcare. It will take into account the many and varied childcare requirements of families today, which include the need for care for children in rural areas, out of school care, care in school holidays and care for children whose parents work shifts.
As well as a lack of suitable childcare, many women face other equally significant challenges in entering work. Those who face such challenges include women with disabilities, women from ethnic minority backgrounds, lone parents and ex-offenders. Women need to be supported to recognise their existing skills and talents and how best to build on them. Access to further skills and employment support is crucial. In addition, the strong view was expressed at the summit that money advice is key for many women.
It is clear that welfare reform is having a significant impact on women and their aspirations. This year’s report by the Fawcett Society, “The Impact of Austerity on Women”, concludes that the welfare reform changes, combined with the high cost of childcare, are forcing women to give up their jobs, as the cost of childcare outweighs the benefits of work. A survey that was conducted by Working Mums found that 24 per cent of mothers have had to give up work as a result of the changes.
For women who are looking for work, the requirement to claim jobseekers allowance means that many are finding it harder to access skills provision. Although the Scottish Government offers up to £1,215 in lone-parent childcare grant to help lone parents who attend further or higher education, the changes to benefits legislation mean that fewer lone parents can now attend college without losing benefits.
For women who enter work, occupational segregation is an issue, as the group discussions highlighted. The reasons for occupational segregation are many and complex. A change in culture and attitudes is required, alongside a shift in policy and practice.
I note that, on the day of the summit, the First Minister chose to announce an investment of £250,000 to intensify engagement with schools to encourage recruitment of girls into the science, engineering and technology sector. A further fund is all well and good, but if we do not transform the sector, women will not stay in it. I think that the First Minister might have focused on the wrong end of the problem. Would the money not have been better spent tackling some of the barriers that the minister is outlining?
Early intervention’s value in changing the hearts and minds of young girls and, indeed, their parents cannot be overstated. Choosing to intervene with young girls before they get anywhere near secondary 2, when they make subject choices, is a choice that I would defend. However, I acknowledge that we need a range of interventions on occupational segregation at every age and stage. That is about what happens in secondary schools, colleges, higher education, and in particular sectors of industry.
As Ms McInnes mentioned in her intervention, we are failing to attract women into science, technology, engineering and maths-based careers. Women who do access those sectors often leave, with the result that we are failing to maximise opportunities for women and those sectors.
Caroline Stuart of Oracle spoke passionately at the summit about the need to bring more women into jobs in information technology. Currently, only 13 per cent of university students in computing are female and only 17 per cent of the IT workforce are women.
Are there international comparisons on women or girls who go into science-based occupations?
Ms MacDonald has hit upon an important point. As I move forward in my work on developing vocational education, I need to look at those very issues. I am committed to learning from the best elsewhere in Europe and across the world.
Minister, I will be generous with time as you have taken two interventions.
Thank you.
The fact remains that IT and other sectors offer very good career opportunities for women, but young women in particular are not making those choices, for many reasons. We need to understand better what drives those decisions. A range of factors influence career choice, and there is no doubt that careers advice and guidance is one of them. We want to put an end to the idea that some jobs just are not for women. As Ms McInnes mentioned, at the summit the First Minister announced the new £250,000 careerwise Scotland initiative, which is aimed at encouraging more young women to consider careers in science, technology and engineering. I am pleased to say that it will be in place by April next year.
Another area of concern is the apparently low number of women who start up their own businesses. Professor Sarah Carter of the University of Strathclyde chaired a discussion on women in enterprise. I am delighted that she has agreed to chair a series of stakeholder-led workshops to identify what can be done to increase the number of women who start up their own businesses.
My speech has been just a very brief flavour or snapshot of what was discussed at the conference. At the end of the debate I will talk about how the outputs from the summit will be taken forward. At this time, I want to make it clear that the event was, for me, just the start—not the end—of a process on which we expect all Scotland to work with us.
Elaine C Smith said:
“In any country in the world, the key to real change always lies with the women of that country.”
I hope that today’s debate will represent another step forward in understanding and overcoming the challenges that face women in the labour market.
I move,
That the Parliament notes that the Women’s Employment Summit, held on 12 September 2012 in partnership by the Scottish Government and Scottish Trades Union Congress, recognised the significant contribution that women make to sustainable economic growth; recognises that, for many women, a range of barriers to achieving their full potential still exists and welcomes the Scottish Government’s work with partners across Scotland to address those barriers, which include the pay gap, occupational segregation, childcare and difficulties in business start-up, and agrees that the Scottish Government should now work with partners to draw up and implement a cross-government approach to help achieve its short, medium and long-term ambitions for the women of Scotland.
14:34
I thank the minister for her opening speech. Before I get into the main substance of my speech, I will start with a brief digression. Last night, when I was at home preparing for today’s debate, one of the tasks that I had to do first was change the belt on the hoover. That is not a difficult or particularly time-consuming job, but it is clearly my job—as are taking out the bins, cutting the grass and changing the light bulbs.
Ken Macintosh can come to my house any time.
Before Ms MacDonald and other members get the wrong idea, I should say that Claire and I do not live some sort of 1950s lifestyle—Claire in an apron and me with my papers and pipe. That is not how it is. The big advantage over our parents’ generation for men of my generation and for younger men is that we are able to participate fully in childcare. It is a huge advantage.
As happens in many families, we choose to divide up the household tasks. That is fine, but there is a danger that if we pass on to our children a particular division of labour, then social and cultural attitudes become ingrained. If such attitudes translate into job segregation in the workforce, that is damaging to our society and certainly to women in our society. I think that Professor Ailsa McKay said at the women’s employment summit that irrespective of what the Government can do, it is up to parents, first and foremost, to ensure that we bring our children up with the right attitudes.
However, I will not let the Government off the hook. Women’s struggle for equality in the workplace is not new, but it has taken on added importance in recent years as a result of the recession. Female unemployment has risen at an alarming rate—by more than 16 per cent among working-age women in the past year alone. For women aged 16 to 24, the rate is almost twice as high. The current level of women’s unemployment is almost double the level prior to the recession.
I thank the minister and the STUC for hosting the women’s employment summit some three weeks ago and for calling for this debate, to enable us to reflect on the findings. An issue that was highlighted at the conference was that rising female employment has not only an acute impact on families and the economy but a more profound, although less talked about, impact on child poverty. The women in Scotland’s economy research centre, in conjunction with Save the Children, carried out important research that revealed a relationship between rising levels of women’s employment and falling levels of child poverty between 1998 and 2008. The centre found that women are more likely than fathers are to spend household income on children, and to defer their own consumption in favour of that of their children. The findings suggested that the needs of children in low-income households are more likely to be met when the mother is in work.
We can draw our own conclusions about the accuracy and truth of the findings. I do not want to dwell on my party’s shortcomings, but I distinctly remember that when the 10p tax rate was abolished, the people whom I met who were the most anxious about how they would be affected were women—mothers and often grandmothers—in low-paid or part-time jobs. In nearly all cases, those women belonged to a self-sacrificing generation that earned very little and put children and families’ needs first. The women were worried about the impact, not on themselves but on the people for whom they cared.
The WISE research centre’s study makes important observations about how Government shapes public policy, in particular in the context of our approach to the recession. We know that in many cases, posts that women held were the first to go when the cuts started to bite. The high levels of women’s employment in the public sector—women are twice as likely as men to be employed in the public sector—mean that when the further cuts for local authorities that were announced in last week’s budget start to bite, women will again be the hardest hit.
We have lost 30,000 public sector posts in a little over a year. Those cuts have come at the same time as the United Kingdom Government’s reforms to the welfare system, which will make it even more difficult for families to make ends meet. Save the Children has said that unless the final version of universal credit is radically different from the current version, there will be markedly higher levels of child poverty. That will be the case even in families in which parents are in work, as support from working tax credits disappears.
What can Government do? In the Equal Opportunities Committee debate on the issue in June, Mary Fee and other members repeatedly highlighted the need for flexible, available and affordable childcare. I was encouraged when, at the summit, the Deputy First Minister equated childcare with infrastructure in its widest sense. As Frances O’Grady, the next general secretary of the TUC, said this week, investing in infrastructure for growth is about not just building more roads but is also about investing in our human infrastructure, by investing in education for young people, safe transport for workers and affordable childcare for families.
Scottish childcare costs are among the highest in the UK. We must do more to bring costs down. Childcare must be flexible and accessible, to enable women to gain employment in all sectors of our economy. Women continue to provide the majority of unpaid care in the UK economy, whether for children or for other family members, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that women opt for part-time work to do just that. It is important to recognise that caring for children does not stop when a child reaches school age. All too often mothers and fathers are restricted in the jobs that they can do because of the times that their children are in school.
I understand that the Scottish Government is committed to introducing a children and young person’s bill in 2013, but there is no need to wait for that legislation. The Government would have our full support if it was to make more radical proposals now.
Is Ken Macintosh aware that current provision is embedded in existing legislation, which ties early learning and childcare into schools and nurseries? Does he agree that we need primary legislation if we are to meet the needs of parents—like me and him—across Scotland for flexible childcare that is not necessarily provided in our schools but could be provided outwith school hours and terms?
Mr Macintosh, I will be generous because that was a fairly long intervention.
I agree with the tenor of what the minister said, except that I do not agree that we require legislation. Primary legislation can send out an important message and it certainly clears the way by setting policy firmly. However, I do not believe that flexible, affordable and available childcare needs primary legislation. We can do a lot right now by just investing in after-school clubs or activities for children, for example. Back in June, Mary Fee raised the point about encouraging more flexible working practices in the public sector. That does not mean just working practices that are flexible for employers, but working practices that are flexible for employees.
Another example is our modern apprenticeship programme, which is very much to be supported. However—unintended or otherwise—it is clear that it is a Government-sponsored programme that can and does reinforce occupational segregation in certain areas. Some of the most recent statistics have revealed that, out of a total of 1,167 people who began hairdressing apprenticeships, 1,082 happened to be women. In contrast to that, only 31 women were accepted for an engineering apprenticeship out of a total of 1,209.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. It would be easy for the Scottish Government to throw its hands up and blame the current crisis in women’s employment on the recession and on the actions of the UK Government. To some extent, we could make common cause in doing so, but I point to the many other things that the Scottish Government could be doing, even in these tough times, to promote equality and encourage women into the workplace.
I move amendment S4M-04314.1, to insert at end
“; is concerned that women have been particularly badly hit by the rise in unemployment in Scotland including an increase of more than 16% for all working-age women and more than 30% for women aged 18 to 24 over the last year alone and that women will have been disproportionately affected by the loss of around 30,000 Scottish public sector jobs over a similar period; is further concerned at the particular implications of high female unemployment in terms of tackling child poverty, and therefore calls on both the UK Government and the Scottish Government to urgently address this in their economic policies in addition to tackling traditional barriers to women accessing employment.”
14:42
I am pleased to speak in the debate. Had I known that I would be opening and closing the debate for my party, I would certainly have made it a priority to attend the women’s employment summit in Edinburgh last month. Gavin Brown had intended to go on our behalf, but had to call off sick.
I commend the Government on the summit. Having done some research on the issue, I now appreciate that much more needs to be done to ensure that women have access to all the opportunities in a modern Scotland and beyond. I hope to be part of the fresh impetus that the minister spoke about.
The glass ceiling is always mentioned when we hear about women in promoted posts, and rightly so, but it implies that all women belong in the office and, potentially, in the boardroom. I would like to look further into the role of women in Scotland’s oil and gas industry. Not only does oil and gas provide more revenue to the Treasury than Scotch whisky, it is the biggest employer in Scotland and contributes more than £30 million to the UK balance of payments. It is therefore disappointing, to say the least, that 15 fewer women are now working offshore today than there were in 2007. That is not good enough. Many jobs in the oil industry are onshore.
Women are generally associated with the five Cs—cleaning, catering, clerical, cashier and caring work. The oil and gas vacancies that are most difficult to fill are not in administration, secretarial or IT support jobs; the industry needs professional engineers, but less than 5 per cent of the professional engineers who are working offshore are women. It is difficult to understand why that is the case, given that more than half the entrants to further and higher education are female, although 66 per cent of those in modern apprenticeships are male. Of total school leavers, 32 per cent of males go into higher education compared with 39 per cent of females. I appreciate that, as Alison McInnes said, the First Minister has allocated £250,000 to encourage girls to widen their career options, and that he has launched careerwise to encourage girls to become engineers, manufacturers and scientists. That is much needed and I hope that it will make a difference.
The skills shortage in the oil and gas sector was debated at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry conference in Aberdeen in February. It asked the Scottish Government to set out its skills strategy, policy and priorities. That relates to the sustainable supply of skilled people in Scotland. I agree with the minister’s calls for better collaboration, knowledge sharing and alignment between Government, academia and industry, but we still need to ensure that more is done to focus on women in that process.
Scotland is ranked second only to London for the number of people who are qualified to degree level or above. We are highly skilled, but that does not translate into productivity. When we consider the movement of people who are educated to degree level into engineering and related occupations, the gap probably relates more to female employment than to male employment. However, the industry is up for the challenge. Perhaps it, too, could do more to get the message across that the North Sea oil and gas industry is open to qualified and trained women as well as men.
My second point is on childcare, which is a topic that is regularly mentioned in relation to female participation in the workforce, as the minister acknowledged. When I looked at the issue, it reminded me of the inquiry that the previous Health and Sport Committee held three years ago into child and adolescent mental health services. That inquiry highlighted the need for standard health checks and high-quality child support. Dr Phil Wilson mentioned the evidence base for the finding that children with problematic behaviour at two and a half years are likely to end up with problems later in life, and research has suggested that it is possible to predict at the age of three as many as 70 per cent of those who will end up as in-patients in a psychiatric hospital or prison.
It is for that reason, as well as many others, that I fully support the extension of free nursery education to 600 hours a year for three and four-year-olds, which will help women into the workforce. However, we need to look again at two-year-olds, given that only 1 cent of them get free nursery education in Scotland, compared with 38 per cent in England. The reason why I am so keen on that is that developmental issues can be picked up by qualified nursery staff and addressed early. That benefits not only the child but the mother, who in too many cases cannot work due to having to stay at home and look after children.
Will the member give way?
The member is in her final minute.
The nursery education workforce is mainly female. I question whether those workers are fully valued for the excellent work that they do in identifying developmental issues, working closely with parents and adhering to standards of care. They deserve more recognition than they get. Historically, the training and education of the predominantly female employees, as well as the national standards, were not too relevant. I hope that, in the process of women’s summits, we can change that perception and give them more recognition.
We move on to the open debate. I remind members that the time limit is four minutes.
14:49
As the deputy convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to comment on the women’s employment summit, which I was fortunate enough to attend last month. I am glad that the role of women in the workplace and in wider society has returned to the chamber for debate, although I am saddened to acknowledge the continuing need for such debates.
We have come very far in a very short space of time, but a lot of work remains to be done and I know that the minister Angela Constance and the Government are determined to take that forward. It is important that we lower—and eventually eliminate—the barriers and ceilings faced by women in the workplace, particularly given the recession’s disproportionate impact on them. After all, according to statistics, women are more likely to work part time and to be more affected by Westminster’s welfare reforms.
As I have done in the past, I draw the chamber’s attention to the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s report “Tapping all our Talents”, which sets out a strategy for increasing the number of women working in STEM areas. Produced by a working group that included the inimitable Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the report is a searing indictment of the barriers that are faced by women who wish to study and work in those areas and sets out in stark detail just how big a barrier gender can be to entering certain occupations.
On 2 August, “Women’s Hour” on BBC Radio 4 featured a discussion with Christine Ashton, who has been named as the 12th most influential woman in IT in the UK. She advertised service manager posts, hoping to attract applications from women, but did not receive any. The show-stopper was this: when she readvertised the posts, having dropped the salary by £20,000, many more women applied. We can leave a debate on the issue of reverse psychology for another day, but I think that that anecdote indicates the scale of the problem.
I believe that women will go into politics when women encourage other women to become involved. There is no doubt that they have the skills, experience, ability and talent but without the confidence to apply for posts or to get politically involved or involved in communities, women will remain reluctant. Some of those experiences must be factored into the correction strategy, and I hope that women will inform that process.
In response to Margo MacDonald’s point, I note that in the “Women’s Hour” discussion Christine Ashton said that women comprise 17 per cent of the IT workforce in the UK and 18 per cent of that workforce in Europe. It is clear that this is not just a Scottish problem. However, we should share things as widely as we can, and I was pleased to hear the minister say that that was one of her ambitions.
Members across the chamber will agree that actions speak louder than words. As someone who is always happy to speak on equality matters, I am especially heartened by the Scottish Government’s determination to pick up the baton and put in place a strategy that will complement its work in so many key areas. In the 21st century, gender, age, ethnicity and disability should not prevent individuals from fulfilling their potential, which we must ensure that they do.
14:53
I welcome today’s debate and thank everyone who took part in the recent women’s employment summit. I hope that the discussions at the summit will feed into the policy process and go some way towards addressing the employment problems that women in Scotland face and which the minister outlined in her speech.
The professional and social landscape has changed significantly for women over recent decades. However, although many barriers have been broken down, many remain. The gender divide begins to assert itself at university, where the STEM subjects remain largely male dominated. Although the specific skills sets required by such subjects mean that the professional outcomes for graduates in those fields are generally positive, there is far greater representation of women in subjects with less technical and vocational aspects such as the arts and social sciences.
As for the world of work, although the gender balance within professional occupations is roughly equal, the top managerial positions are still disproportionately male dominated. Even starker is the division of genders along occupational lines. For example, the skilled trades are 92 per cent male, while women comprise 80 per cent of the workforce in caring, leisure and service occupations, and a similar trend can be observed in the division between full-time and part-time work.
Will the member give way?
I am sorry—I cannot give way just now.
Although with the rise in underemployment more men have taken up part-time work in recent years women are still vastly overrepresented in that area. The underlying reason for that is that in broad societal terms women remain the primary carers. As a consequence, what we might call the key transitional events of human life—marriage, the birth of children and the ageing and infirmity of parents—have a far greater social and professional impact on women than they have on men.
There is a raft of new challenges to add to those traditional ones. The prince among them is Mr Osborne’s obsessive anti-state dogma, which has had a serious, if predictable, impact on a large proportion of women who are employed in Scotland’s public sector. As Ken Macintosh said, over the past year, there have been 30,000 public sector job losses in Scotland. That has directly contributed to the 16 per cent rise in female unemployment—the figure is 30 per cent among women aged 16 to 24.
With 80 per cent of Cameron’s cuts still to come, many more jobs will go before the dust settles. Most worrying for female workers in Scotland is John Swinney’s refusal to admit responsibility for Scotland’s sclerotic economic recovery and high levels of unemployment. With further restrictions on finance, job losses are unavoidable, and many of the victims will be women.
If that scenario is to be avoided, the Scottish Government needs to take real and decisive action to support and promote female employment from school leavers onwards. As a starting point, it must acknowledge that female unemployment is a specific problem that is influenced by a specific set of educational, professional and social factors.
The fact that the Government has, so far, failed to do that is evidenced by its youth employment strategy. The strategy document, which is fulsome in its praise of modern apprenticeships and the opportunities for all programme, features no specific policies on narrowing the gender pay divide while addressing occupational segregation. It does not mention that modern apprenticeships reinforce existing norms of occupational segregation, with women constituting 97 per cent of new starts in early years and education in 2011-12 against only 3 per cent of new starts in engineering.
Most worryingly, the document features no overarching strategy for addressing female employment in the long term.
Will Siobhan McMahon give way?
I am sorry, but I have only a minute to go.
The strategy document does not attempt to explain why women’s educational superiority in the early years is not translated into employment in later life or to draw the link between the lack of childcare support and the consequent difficulty that many women have in obtaining and maintaining full-time employment. Those are tough questions that must be answered.
When I spoke in the debate on the national parenting strategy, I urged the Scottish Government to consider introducing an early childhood education and care system, as advocated by Children in Scotland in a submission to the European and External Relations Committee. That would not only create jobs, but give parents—primarily women—greater flexibility to pursue professional opportunities. If the Scottish Government is serious about solving Scotland’s female employment problems and is really committed to transforming Scotland into a Scandinavian-type social democracy, that is the type of system that it needs to implement.
14:57
I welcome the debate, which is timely and, I hope, will continue the momentum that was generated by the women’s employment summit that the Scottish Government held last month.
I join other members in paying tribute to all who were involved in supporting the Government to realise the summit. In particular, I pay tribute to the STUC for its valuable support and guidance.
The STUC briefing tells us that women are disproportionately affected by unemployment. I will concentrate on that disproportionate effect.
Equality in the workplace has been a long-standing sore for many Governments over decades. With the Equal Pay Act 1970 in her 40s, should we really be living in a nation that turns a blind eye to the pay gap? Let us look at the history of women’s employment.
People talk about there having been full employment in Britain after the second world war, but there was never full employment for everyone; it was full employment for males only. Women were taken out of the workplace and removed from the employment that they had undertaken during the war.
Women’s work has always been an afterthought. It is not taken as seriously as, or thought as important as, employment for men. By leading the debate, the Scottish Government is showing how seriously it takes employment for everyone, regardless of gender, but also that it recognises that women have particular needs and concerns when it comes to work. The Government is putting women’s work front and centre of the debate about how we create jobs, grow our workforce and grow our economy.
Writing in The Guardian in April this year, Tanya Gold said:
“A strategy for women’s employment is necessary, encompassing women’s security in the workplace, decent provision of childcare and the scandal of occupational and gender segregation, which, together, bring forth the pay gap.”
That is a sad indictment.
It is a fact that we now have women in the army, women engineers and women who have rebuilt damaged satellites in space. We do not need to look much further than one of our own accomplished Scottish women: Professor Anne Glover, who is now the European Commission’s chief scientific adviser and works closely with José Manuel Barroso. Women are no longer excluded from doing jobs previously carried out by males.
At the recent Scotland Europa event held in the Parliament, Anne Glover told us that Scotland is number 1 for research and development impact. It would be a shame to roll that achievement back by reintroducing tuition fees, which would create another barrier to learning for women.
Another point of fact is that having control of benefits and taxation in Scotland would allow this progressive Scottish Government to continue its work in supporting women into the workplace. Having control in Scotland over universal benefits such as child benefit would end the attacks on women with the Tories at Westminster, aided and abetted by Labour in Scotland following its lurch to the right, attempting to take away the little financial control some women have. Child benefit enables women to pay for childcare, it gives them some financial freedom and it enables them to contribute not only economically but intellectually to the recovery of our nation.
If, as Arthur “Bleak” Midwinter suggests, nothing is off the table when it comes to abolishing universal provision, I fear that the progress that we have made over the years will be eroded as women are pushed back into the kitchen and out of the job market.
There are fundamental questions to be asked of all Governments on equality in the workplace. If the answer is further to attack and erode the universal provision that enables people to get into and stay in work, that is not an answer that I am willing to sit back and accept—I suspect that many women feel the same.
It is certainly not an answer that this Scottish Government is willing to accept. The Scottish Government has shown that by taking the action it has taken to protect families’ incomes through universally free higher and further education; addressing health waiting times; providing free prescriptions, personal care and support; and, of course, freezing the regressive council tax. This Scottish Government has proved beyond a doubt that the Tory/Lib/Lab way is certainly not, to borrow an STUC phrase, “a better way”.
Johann Lamont says that the cap does not fit when her proposals are described as something that the Tories would be—and are, according to the Welsh Tories today—proud of. I say that the cap fits Labour far too snugly.
The Minister for Youth Employment, Angela Constance, said that the summit would help public sector bodies, employers, trade unions and other partners identify steps that they could take to make a difference. She has also pointed to the Scottish Government’s pledge to increase childcare provision for three-year-olds, four-year-olds and looked-after two-year-olds from 475 to 600 hours per year. Those plans will deliver the best package of flexible childcare in the UK.
That is the action that the women whom I speak to need and want; it is the action of a Scottish Government that is not bound by London masters; and it is the action of a Scottish Government to be proud of.
15:01
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this vital debate on women’s employment, especially given the recent figures that show that women have been particularly badly hit by the rise in unemployment. As stated in Labour’s amendment, there has been an increase in unemployment
“of more than 16% for all working-age women and more than 30% for women aged 18 to 24 over the last year alone in Scotland”,
and women have also been
“disproportionately affected by the loss of around 30,000 public sector jobs over a similar period”.
Male unemployment has fallen, while female unemployment continues to increase. Women are undoubtedly being hardest hit by the current economic situation in Britain. It is time that something was done about that.
With or without the Government’s summit, women in our labour market still face the same old issues, which need to be tackled. We need less talk and more action on issues that are critical for women in society every day, from a lack of quality part-time work to the gender pay gap. It is great to see groups such as Close the Gap continuing to fight to end the unfair difference between men’s and women’s wages. Even 42 years after the Equal Pay Act 1970, there is still an 11 per cent difference between the wages of men and those of women in part-time work, and a 32 per cent difference between the wages of women in part-time jobs and those of men in full-time jobs.
Others have talked about gender differences and occupational segregation. I will devote my time to childcare. Parents in my constituency and across the country routinely raise the issue of the point at which it is no longer cost effective to work and put their children in nursery care, so I welcome the recent announcement that free childcare will be increased by 125 hours a year to 600 hours for three to four-year-olds, but that is still not enough. Why was that move not made sooner—at any time since 2007, for example? It was essential that this Government do that, yet the move has been delayed until now. I welcome the fact that the minister has set up an early years task force to look at the issue. The policy helps people with children of pre-school age, but what is the Government doing to help the employability of women whose children are of school age?
This Government will not admit it, but the council tax freeze is impacting on the people of this country. Some local authorities have already closed after-school clubs and breakfast clubs. There are likely to be more closures due to lack of resources in this year’s round of local authority budgets. The loss of those vital services for working mothers makes it almost impossible for some women to hold down a job, because unfortunately we do not all have grannies or relatives who can help with childcare.
Only yesterday, I spoke—
Will the member give way?
Let me finish my point.
Only yesterday, I spoke with women from the Dalry breakfast club and after-school care club, which charges £3.50 or £7.50 a day per child during term time and £17 a day per child during school holidays. Those are the lowest amounts that the club can afford to charge to cover costs. The club operates in an area where high-quality jobs are few and far between.
The member is now in her last minute, so no interventions can be made.
I say to the minister that I am sorry—I had intended to let her in.
Many women work to pay for their childcare. Improvements will not be achieved by more summits or meetings. The Government knows why some women cannot work—they simply cannot afford to. The threat from local authorities of less affordable care because of the council tax freeze puts even more people in that situation. We need sensible solutions to this serious problem. Scottish women deserve better.
15:06
I am tempted to begin by saying that, unlike Ken Macintosh, I will not focus too closely on the division of labour in my household, because my wife sometimes watches debates and might pick me up on my interpretation of that division.
If she does not hear what the member says, we will tell her.
We can talk about the issue later, without Ms Fabiani’s sedentary interventions.
I welcome the debate. It is widely recognised that the subject is serious and important and that it concerns all parties in the Parliament. That has been reflected in the speeches. The issue also concerns people outside the chamber.
I will refer to a report—Ken Macintosh mentioned it—that was prepared by Save the Children and the women in Scotland’s economy research centre. The report is important because it highlights the link between increases in women’s employment between 1998 and 2008 and a reduction in the number of children who live in poverty.
The report points out that women are more likely than men to be the money managers in poor households, as Ken Macintosh said. It is important that we reflect on that. When we focus on women’s employment, we must consider the impact not just on women but on their families. Save the Children has held a series of conversations with parents across the United Kingdom who highlighted concerns about the availability of childcare. That was reflected at the summit that we are debating.
I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to increase radically the number of hours of childcare for three and four-year-olds. I recognise that there is a sense that the Government should go further. We would all like the Government to go further. If concrete proposals are made to the Government, I have no doubt that it will be willing to consider them. I see that the minister for the early years has joined the debate, and I have no doubt that she would be willing to consider such proposals.
Save the Children’s report highlighted concern about the severe cuts in welfare spending having a disproportionate impact on women’s incomes. That point was reflected in the briefing that the Scottish Trades Union Congress sent us and it was looked at during the summit.
The Minister for Youth Employment made the important point that single parents cannot access college courses to gain new skills, because of welfare changes. That hardly strikes me as likely to improve the employment prospects of many women who are already struggling. I am a member of the Welfare Reform Committee, which is hearing plenty of evidence to suggest that the welfare reform changes that the UK Government is bringing in will be likely in some circumstances to force out of work people who are supported in employment. That is entirely counterproductive.
Will the member give way?
Do I have time, Presiding Officer?
Yes—for a brief intervention.
I appreciate Jamie Hepburn’s comments about welfare reform. What does he think will be the impact on women’s employment of the Government’s decision to cut local government spending by 4.3 per cent in real terms, when we know that two thirds of local government workers are women?
Jamie Hepburn has 30 seconds.
I am trying to be as consensual as I can be, but I hasten to point out that Mr Macintosh’s party is involved in a campaign with another party to keep a funding system that would continue to reduce the money that is available to the Scottish Government. That would have an obvious impact on the services that are delivered through the devolved Administration.
It is important to point out that local government today gets a higher proportion of the Scottish block grant than it did under the previous Administration.
I close—as I see that the Presiding Officer is asking me to—by welcoming the debate—
You are closing now.
15:10
I welcome today’s debate and the women’s employment summit, which focused on the barriers facing women in accessing the labour market—barriers that must be removed, as the minister reminded us, both for equality and because of economic necessity.
There is no doubt that there are enormous challenges in removing those obstacles, which are exacerbated by current circumstances, as was emphasised in the recent Fawcett report “The Impact of Austerity on Women”. Those challenges are also reflected in some of the dismal figures on women’s employment in recent times. For example, in the third quarter of 2011, 34,000 women in Scotland lost their jobs—370 jobs a day, at a time when male jobs were on the increase. More generally, the level of women’s unemployment is currently 8.3 per cent, compared with 4 per cent pre-recession.
The problems are not new. Another way of looking at them is to focus on the glaring anomaly in the educational qualifications and job destinations of girls and boys. For some time, girls have consistently outperformed their male counterparts in the subjects that they choose at school, yet that is not reflected in their employment rates in later life. A higher proportion of girls go on to higher education—40 per cent of girls compared with 32 per cent of boys. The same is true of further education—29 per cent of girls go on to further education, compared with 25 per cent of boys. Yet the percentage of females who are employed in later life within the category of medium to high-skilled jobs—jobs that have degree-level qualifications attributed to them—is just 22 per cent, compared with 38 per cent of males. Similarly, a huge difference exists in the category defined as medium to low-skilled jobs, where the figures are 46 per cent of females and only 24 per cent of males. I am sure that anybody who even glances at the statistics drawn from the analysis of school leavers and their prospective destinations would be—and certainly should be—shocked by the disparity. We must ask why the situation is as it is.
It seems that women cannot access the jobs for which they have the qualifications. Many of the reasons for that have been highlighted in the debate. The lack of affordable childcare is central. I will not speak at length on that subject, as I usually do—except in anticipating tomorrow’s debate, to which Christina McKelvie’s speech really belonged. I think that she would agree that one of the things that has helped people with childcare is the provision of tax credits in general and childcare tax credits in particular. That is a targeted benefit that has made a significant difference, and I deeply regret the fact that the current UK Government cut the rate from 80 to 70 per cent.
Other issues are relevant, such as the need for flexible working opportunities for both women and men. The absence of quality part-time jobs for women is a big issue, and access to job sharing is all too infrequent. Occupational segregation is relevant, too. It is rife both horizontally, through job stereotyping, and vertically, through women missing out on positions of influence and power. That relates to early gender stereotyping, which must be addressed, as the minister reminded us. We must also address gender stereotyping that occurs later in life, through modern apprenticeships, for example. Only 2.6 per cent of engineering apprentices are female, while the reverse is the case for childcare apprentices. That must be addressed as well.
Occupational segregation feeds into the pay gap. Margaret McDougall gave the figures for that. If we compare women’s and men’s full-time hourly rates of pay, we see that the mean gap is 10 per cent. However, if we compare women’s part-time and men’s full-time hourly rates of pay, we see a mean gap of a staggering 32 per cent.
There are enormous challenges, but the beginning of a solution to the problems is that we face up to them. I look forward to the minister’s winding-up speech, in which she has undertaken to outline how the outputs of the conference will be carried forward by the Scottish Government.
15:14
I am pleased to be taking part in the debate and I have listened eagerly to all the speeches. I believe that regardless of which party we are from, we are all intent on ensuring that all women can achieve their full potential, at their own pace and taking into account their circumstances. We recognise that, despite what Mr Macintosh says, women do most of the caring. I am sure that Mrs Macintosh would be willing to change the vacuum cleaner belt and the light bulbs if Mr Macintosh did all the ironing and dishwashing.
Childcare has been mentioned a lot. Affordability is key, but flexibility and accessibility are also issues. The majority of doctors and vets and similar professionals are now women, and they require flexible childcare rather than the normal office hours that are available in childcare establishments. As a result, the on-call hours and flexible surgery hours that the Government now requires are an issue for some practices.
We used to talk a lot about job share, which used to be actively promoted. Now, we hardly ever see jobs being advertised for which job share is a possibility. We should get that back on the agenda—and higher up the agenda.
Jean Urquhart mentioned the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s report “Tapping all our Talents”, which is an excellent piece of work. The report recommends many things, one of which is the commitment of those in leadership. It means commitment from all our educators, from nursery to higher education, to eliminate gender stereotyping. Our universities and their research establishments still have a lot to do to address the gender balance in senior management.
Mary Scanlon mentioned the oil and gas sector and why so few women were taking up the opportunities, of which I agree that there are many. This morning, I spoke at an oil and gas breakfast in Aberdeen with Alix Thom of Oil & Gas UK, who is doing a lot of work to address the skills shortage and skills gap. I am sure that Alison McInnes has had discussions with Alix, too.
If we ask fathers in the oil and gas industry whether they would like their daughters to work offshore, the resounding answer is no. We have an attitude problem here. Most members who have spoken today have been pussyfooting around this. We still have a lot to do to address male attitudes towards women working in traditional male roles. Many women are resigned to the fact that many such opportunities are not open to them. I am glad that the Government is addressing those issues. We have got to get cohorts of female apprentices in engineering into the oil and gas industry.
On Margo MacDonald’s point, 3 per cent of people in the UK oil and gas sector are women; in Norway, the figure is 9 per cent. We have a long way to go.
15:18
I am glad that Maureen Watt finished on that note, because that is where I want to start. This is where we get the start of cultural segregation in employment. We just have to accept that some men are bigger and stronger. Incidentally, Ken Macintosh can come to my house any time, if he is willing to do that.
There is a reason why a lot of employment is physically segregated. Nature dictated that women could not do some things that men can do, and vice versa. Has any other woman here been on an oil rig? I have, and there is no way that I would go back; there is also no way that, if I could choose, I would put sons or daughters out on an oil rig. It is a terrible existence. The workers deserve every penny that they get.
One of the reasons why the statistics on average wages are skewed is that the types of jobs that are being done by men and by women cannot be compared. I was unable to intervene, but Malcolm Chisholm gave us job statistics that were completely skewed, because we cannot compare apples and oranges. The point is that women are doing lower-paid and less-valued work, which is why they are getting less money. We cannot use statistics; we must use our personal experience, which tells us that girls are still not encouraged to do all that they can do. However, there are some things that they should never be asked to do, and we have to accept that.
We have tossed around the idea of the amount of female unemployment that has been caused by local government paying folk off. Is that what local government is for—creating employment for women? That sounds to me like a something-for-nothing society.
15:20
This has been an interesting debate—it was especially interesting to hear Margo MacDonald talking about a something-for-nothing society and to hear about the division of labour in the Macintosh household.
I say to Maureen Watt that Alix Thom has been busy, because I spoke to her on Friday—I think that we probably got the same figures. Maureen Watt raised an important point: we need to understand not only the headline figures, but what lies behind them.
I want to raise the issue of the caring profession in Scotland, which is made up of around 198,000 staff, mainly female. The training of the staff and their registration by the Scottish Social Services Council has been painfully slow. Despite the SSSC having been set up for 11 years, the registration of those predominantly female support workers is not required until 2020—another eight years—and, in order to register, staff must be trained to Scottish vocational qualification level. I cannot imagine any other profession in which women would be asked to do such a responsible job with little or no training. If we value the level of care that is given to elderly people and others, we should equally value the workforce that is supplying it and give those people the training, support and recognition that they need and deserve.
Earlier today, I highlighted an industry in which there is a desperate need for highly trained engineers, and few women in the workforce. Compare that with the caring profession, in which the workforce is mainly female and in relation to which training and support will not be required for another eight years—19 years after the SSSC was set up. I confess that I was on the Health and Community Care Committee that set up the council, but I do not think that any of us imagined that, two decades later, home care staff would still not be expected to have any training.
It is 42 years since the Equal Pay Act 1970, yet, shockingly, there is today an 8 per cent gap between male and female hourly rates and a 32 per cent gap in part-time hourly rates. Further, the female employment rate was 53 per cent in 1971 and, in 2010, the most recent year for which figures are available, it was 65 per cent. There has been progress, but it has been slow.
I am aware, from my background in further and higher education, that many women are underemployed—not only in terms of hours, but in terms of their occupations, which are well below their training and capability levels. I particularly noticed that in women who came to college to do HNCs on day release.
However, of the 27 countries in the European Union, female employment in the UK is seven per cent above the average, with only six countries having higher female employment rates—the highest is Denmark, then Sweden and then the Netherlands. We are not as bad as others, but there are still huge amounts of room for improvement.
I look forward to further debates on the issue and to the updates on outputs and progress that the minister promised. I hope that my contribution will prompt more recognition for the role of nursery staff and of the caring workforce. If the early years task force is to do something really successful and if we want to focus on the early years as a priority, we need to ensure that the standard of care and education supplied by the workforce, which is predominantly female, is acknowledged and recognised.
I hope that the minister will discuss the training of the caring workforce, which comprises 198,000 people, in order to ensure that they are given the support that they need. That would benefit not only the carers but those who are being cared for, and it would be a great boost to further education providers.
15:25
The debate is, indeed, welcome, as was the summit to which the motion refers. There has been consensus about the issues regarding women and employment. Indeed, unemployment has been highlighted as one of the biggest issues, and we have heard that women’s unemployment is up by 16 per cent and that the rate for younger women is double that. We have also had a good report from the WISE group and Save the Children highlighting the connection between women’s employment and child poverty; when more women were in the workplace, child poverty fell, but we are now seeing the reverse of that as more women lose their jobs.
We must remember that poverty impacts on a range of things, such as our health, education and, indeed, our future opportunities. Protecting women’s jobs and providing women with accessible and affordable childcare is preventative spend, because it means that we protect our children from damage in their lives ahead. It is not right that Scotland has some of the most expensive childcare in the UK. We need to change that situation and make the childcare affordable, but we also need to make it accessible.
I cover a rural area in the Highlands and Islands where it is difficult to get access to childcare without travelling huge numbers of miles. The situation is similar in areas of deprivation; I hear that much less childcare is available there and that, because of the cost, a lot of people who live in deprivation cannot consider childcare.
We need to look at how we can get women back into the workforce. Siobhan McMahon talked about local government cuts as one of the major reasons for the fall in the level of women’s employment. We see a further cut of 4.3 per cent coming down the line to local government in the budget. Front-line workers such as care workers and educational assistants, who are predominantly women, bear the brunt of the cuts. However, it is not just those women who are affected by the cuts, because other women have to pick up the pieces when services are removed. That makes it more difficult for them to work, because they are predominantly in charge of the caring responsibilities in the home. The knock-on effect is that more female unemployment is created.
The cuts are being made by this Government now. By cutting local government funding, the Government is driving children into poverty. Christina McKelvie may think that we in the Labour Party should not question the Government’s spending commitments, but when the Government drives children into poverty, I for one will continue to question those spending commitments.
Many members have talked about occupational segregation. We need to start educating very young people or, rather, not educating or forcing them into the stereotypes that we carry with us. Ken Macintosh was rightly concerned about how he and his wife divvied up the chores last night. If they did that night after night, that would create a stereotype for his children to follow. However, he has assured me that he did the dishes and the ironing as well, so his children are probably getting a good role model to follow. That is the last of my sooking up to Ken.
We have to be careful about how we pass on our own stereotypes, because we carry stereotypes with us that were formed at an early age.
Rather than beat ourselves up over stereotypes, should we not just admit that there is a cultural bias across northern Europe towards a certain sort of family structure and therefore a certain sort of employment outside the family structure? That is what we are trying to change, but we should not beat ourselves up about it.
I was not suggesting that we beat ourselves up; I was suggesting that, if we allow women the same opportunities as men, we will have to change. We need to educate ourselves, our children and our employers to ensure that they recruit women into the right kind of roles. Like recruits like—if I interview people, I am much more likely to appoint somebody with whom I have something in common. Therefore, we need positive discrimination in places such as the boardroom to ensure that women are offered the same opportunities as men.
We must offer the right advice and guidance when people choose careers. Several members have talked about the oil and gas industry. We have skill shortages in engineering. It is important that we encourage women into roles in those sectors. This week, I met a woman who had a science degree and who is doing an engineering apprenticeship at Nigg—I was really impressed by what she is trying to do.
We need to ensure that we raise expectations about levels of pay, as Jean Urquhart said. Women need to have the same expectations as men on careers and what they can earn from them. As members have said, we are still way behind on equal pay, despite having legislation on the matter.
There is a clear link between women’s employment and child poverty and we need to do something about that. We cannot afford the education, health and life opportunity risks. The Government can take action now. I urge the Government to consider providing accessible and affordable childcare and to protect women’s jobs.
15:31
Today’s debate, like the debate on the issue that was led by the Equal Opportunities Committee, has been largely consensual, although in parts it has been feisty, thanks to Siobhan McMahon and my good friend and colleague Christina McKelvie. That is all right, because I strongly resist the automatic stereotype that women have to be consensual on all occasions. As in that debate in June, there has been a focus on the big-ticket items. Childcare has been central. I agree that childcare should not just be women’s work, although I accept that in reality it largely is. We need more flexible working for parents, for both men and women. Maureen Watt made a good point about job sharing and flexibility in working practices.
The Government is ambitious and wants to put in place a platform for childcare that can take us forward and allow us to match the best in Europe. However, the reality is that our lofty ambitions will only ever be ambitions if we do not have control over tax and benefits. We can only ever support parents with the cost of childcare via the tax and benefits system. Given that the childcare workforce is largely made up of women and is among the lowest paid, we cannot make childcare more affordable to families at the expense of those low-paid staff.
Mrs Scanlon made an important point about support for two-year-olds, but I stress that the Government’s overarching policy is to focus on zero to three-year-olds and, in some cases, pre birth. With that in mind, I remind Parliament of the investment in, and good work of, the family-nurse partnerships, which work with vulnerable women before their babies are born and until they are two years old.
Once a child is born, how many development checks does it get up to the age of three?
As the mother of a four-year-old, I should be able to remember the answer to that in detail. However, as my four-year-old does not sleep, I will have to get back to the member. [Laughter.]
I want to focus briefly on our modern apprenticeship programme because I firmly believe that that programme reflects, rather than reinforces, occupational segregation. I am always willing to hear ideas and proposals about how the modern apprenticeship programme could play its part in addressing occupational segregation, but we must be realistic and be aware that we cannot tackle occupational segregation by focusing on one part of that system in isolation.
We have heard some rumblings about the council tax freeze, which is something that this Government is proud to support and to continue with, but there are credible economic arguments that state that putting and keeping money in women’s pockets is the best way to address things such as poverty and child poverty.
Malcolm Chisholm made the point that our young women are outperforming our young men in their educational performance in terms of their attainment and the numbers that are going into further and higher education. That begs the question about what happens to women after they achieve high qualifications. What happens to women in particular sectors, whether that is oil and gas or the IT sectors, or the STEM professions? We must use the educational achievement of our young women as the platform for tackling occupational segregation; in no way should we turn back the clock by undermining progressive policies, such as tuition fees, when more young women are now going into further and higher education.
On skills shortages, it must be a quid pro quo. I am the first to say that we need to do more to recognise and support the needs of industry, but we must say to those who highlight skills shortages that half of the population’s talents and skills are being underutilised.
Last month’s summit gave us an opportunity to start a conversation with women from across Scotland and to seek their views on what should be done to make a real difference. In the coming months that conversation will, no doubt, continue through the Equal Opportunities Committee’s inquiry and, of course, the STUC women’s conference in November. I am confident that those events and processes will very much influence the Scottish Government’s work.
In February next year, following a commitment to Parliament in June, the Scottish Government will hold an event to consider what more can be done to increase women’s representation in public life. However, just because we are continuing the conversation does not mean that we will delay taking action now, and that is exactly what we must, and will, do.
We cannot make change of the level that is required overnight; we must be in this for the long haul. However, there is action that we can take and, in the coming weeks, we will draw together the recommendations from the women’s employment summit and develop an approach to take those forward and to identify short, medium and longer-term action at all levels of government, whether that is at the United Kingdom Government level or with our partners in local government. We need to be clear about where Government and employers have a responsibility, and where individuals can take advantage of further opportunities. I very much hope that that work fits in with, and is completed before, the Equal Opportunities Committee’s inquiry into women in work at the beginning of next year.
I intend to convene a small group of external and Scottish Government policy and practice experts to support me in ensuring that we implement the actions that we sign up to, and I would be very happy to report back to Parliament on the progress that is made in the coming year.
We are determined to work with partners across Scotland to tackle those areas in which we have the powers to do so, and to influence change where we do not. It is important that we are clear about the challenges on which we have clear evidence, and where we need to know more. That discussion was taken up in one of the summit’s sessions on research and analysis, and it is being continued.
I agree with the STUC that, as well as looking at the headline figures, we need to understand the trends that underlie them and to do more for women in Scotland to ensure that—as a matter of equality and economic necessity—they can play their full part in the workforce.