British women remain separate and unequal

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 16

British women remain separate and unequal

From “The Economist,” London

Recession has stopped the British movement towards sex ” equality in its tentative tracks. The early 1970 s were good times: the Equal Pay Act boosted women’s weekly earnings from 56 per cent of men’s in 1970 to 62 per cent when the act came into full force in 1975. After creeping up to 65 per cent in 1977 it fell back again and has now only just recovered to 1977 levels. But in top. jobs women have slid backwards over the decade: 4 per cent of women workers were among the highest 20 per cent of •■earners in 1968. By 1979, 'only 3.75 per cent were up there earning at least £7500. These reverses do not result from a failure to implement equal pay but 7 from the bar- • tiers which prevent compara-. bility. Job segregation by sex y has actually increased since the early 19705, in spite of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.. (In the United .States work is' now more segregated than at' the turn of the century.) In 1979 73 per cent of British working men were in jobs where 80 per cent 1 or more of their fellows

were also male; in 1971 only 69 per cent were in similar ghettos. Women were clustered the same way throughout the decade: 78 per cent of them worked with a least 60 per cent other women. Simply put, two thirds of all jobs in Britain are one sex only. This worries most employers not a jot. A survey by the Equal Opportunities Commission in 1979 found that, four in five managers did not even pretend to have altered their hiring policies since the antidiscrimination act. Preferential action for women was almost non-existent. Women these days seldom encounter the sort of direct discrimination that can be cited- to satisfy a court. They are, simply discouraged from applying for ,: non-traditional jobs: And they are not given the chance to train for them: only 2 per cent of the apprenticeships for skilled manual jobs go to women and only 3 per cent of the places in management'training. Unions have not put their weight behind equal opportun-

ity because of conflicts with the interests of their male members. A few women like Ms Marie Paterson, former chairman of the Trades Union Congress, have had starring roles in unions. But most women tend to be less active and less militant than men, and most of the unions they join are weak. Only 45 per cent of women workers are unionised compared with 70 per cent of men.

The real unemployment rate of women is unmeasureable because of many job-seekers who don’t register and parttimers who can’t. The number of women at work has dropped by 650,000 since October, 1979. In the 1970 s it had risen by IM. Women’s rate of registered unemployment at 7.8 per cent is just over half that of men. But women’s share of unemployment has been rising faster than the male rate since 1974. Fewer married women hate been joining the work force since 1977. The birth rate has been rising in the same period. Which is the chicken, which the egg?