The Gender Agenda

In her first column for the Young Fabian Blog, Young Fabian Member and Membership Ambassador Anna Bage juxtaposes the coverage of Kate Middleton in recent weeks with the (lack of) coverage of women in politics.

It’s safe to say that in recent weeks Britain has been struck by Royal wedding fever. The engagement and wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton has dominated the news of late, with the UK in manic preparation for last Friday’s event.

Kate Middleton has received a huge amount of media attention, from interest in her wedding dress to how she’ll perform as Prince William’s wife. As a woman, watching Kate Middleton dominate the newspaper headlines has been bittersweet. Whilst it’s brilliant to see a woman on front page news being celebrated, the reason for the extensive coverage is less about applauding her capabilities and achievements, but more about her changing weight, her fashion sense, and of course, her appearance on the big day.

And although Kate enjoyed a successful three years at a red brick University, she now declines her right to vote by marrying into the Royal family – a right that was fought hard for by previous generations of women. In addition, she almost certainly forgoes a conventional career in which she might use the skills and knowledge attained via her degree.

With their focus elsewhere, the metropolitan media have missed the really big female story of the last few week. The Fabian Review study on gender inequality, both inside and outside of the houses of parliament.

Now, while I wouldn’t pretend that the ongoing lack of female presence in politics would sell as many headlines as the speculation over whether Kate Middleton would be wearing cream or ivory at the Royal wedding, it does highlight an important point. In a society that seems to venerate the status of the celebrity, what chance of intellectual exposure do the admirable qualities of our hard working Labour women stand? Not for them the front page news, endless headlines and photo opportunities. In fact, in the recent Fabian Review, the focus on gender equality, on feminism, and on highlighting the ever present lack of women in the Houses of Parliament showed that we have a long way to go.

It’s not that women aren’t as interested in politics as men, as accomplished women already show. Maybe it is rather that the political environment is not conducive to fostering fledging female ambitions.

In my work as a membership ambassador for the Young Fabians, I have come across young women who are passionate and enthusiastic about politics; women who are hard working, dedicated, and who want to get involved, but quite simply lack the confidence to do so. The Labour party need to both recognise and then realise the untapped potential that so many of these women hold. If this potential is to be harnessed for the future of both our party and our country, they need to be nurtured and supported for their future roles, just like Kate has for hers. Young women must realise and be shown that they have the support of their party behind them.

The Labour Party needs to do more to provide environments in which women can comfortably express their ideas and opinions, and can be guided through the workings of public life, and of the political environment. If we are to tackle the problem of under-representation in the houses of parliament, we must first surely energise women interested in politics by providing them with a strong and secure platform from which they can grow. And we should highlight Labour successes, such as Susan Nash and Luciana Berger, who are proving that being both political and female can be a perfect match.

For any union to be successful there needs to be a strong and caring framework on which it can rely. As Kate enters the cloisters of the Royal family, let’s hope that one day the Labour party can find renewed energy to work on providing a safe and supporting sanctuary for its young women.

That really could distinguish Labour from a party led by a man who, in the same week as Royalty crowned the media, thought it might be amusing to tell an elected representative of the people to ‘calm down dear, calm down…’

I wonder what Kate thought of that?

The same, but different

The ECJ ruling that insurance companies cannot charge different premiums for men and women is lunacy.

According to the ECJ:

Taking the gender of the insured individual into account as a risk factor in insurance contracts constitutes discrimination.

This is a rather absolutist view of gender equality, and ignores an important point: that gender differences may be the proximate cause of differences in observed outcomes, such as the ability to keep a car on the road.

Behavioural studies, as well as observed claim data available to actuaries who calculate insurance premiums, show that the risk of having a serious accident, and therefore having a large claim against insurance, is lower for females. (Other studies show that female drivers may be involved in more ‘low-claim’ accidents, and that over-75s are the riskiest group to insure). Essentially, the gender of driver is a reliable component in assessing the probability that a driver will claim against their car insurance.

The consequences of forcing insurance companies to ignore risk factors which may contribute towards the variance in the expected pay-out for a given individual is that some consumers are likely to overpay for cover – in the case of car-insurance, this is likely to be women who will be charged higher premiums.

Put another way, the link between the fundamental cost of the service and the price charged to some consumers will be distorted to the detriment of those consumers. Worse still, female drivers may now subsidise the cost of insuring more risky men.

Isn’t that a form of discrimination?

And where does the ruling end? Will insurance companies be banned from basing contracts on a person’s age? Or levying a higher price because someone is bad at driving – isn’t that discrimination?

A grown-up view of gender equality will recognise that there are some situations where acknowledging differences in gender is potentially important and desirable. The ECJ’s efforts would be better spent sorting out those situations where it is not.

Alex Baker is the Secretary of the Young Fabians.

It makes business sense and it’s socially just, why the City can’t get it together on gender balance in the boardroom??

On Wednesday 22 September, in the heart of the City at the London Stock Exchange, the Young Fabian Womens’ and Future of Finance Networks hosted an expert panel debate entitled “Balance in the boardroom: How to get more women leaders in the City?”.

Special video highlights of the debate… link here

Women only represent 5% of executive directors from the 600 companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange, according to recent research by recruitment firm Egon Zehnder. With the passage of landmark legislation in the US aiming to increase female membership on corporate boards and the establishment of the Lord Davies inquiry into female representation in Britain’s boardrooms, the Young Fabians Future of Finance Network brought together an expert panel for lively interactive debate.

Chaired by Rachel Reeves MP, former Bank of England Economist and member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, panellists Clare Dobie, Immediate Past President of the Women’s City Network and witness for the Treasury Committee’s ‘Women in the City’ inquiry; Trupti Patel, Associate at Social Finance; Andrew Roscoe, London Director of Egon Zehnder International; and Cathrine Seierstad, Researcher at the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity in Queen Mary University, all set out their views on the issues before engaging in discussion with the audience.

All the panellists agreed that female participation at the top of the financial services sector in the UK was too low, both in comparison to other sectors in the UK and in comparison to the rest of Europe. All the panellists also agreed that there were important benefits for business and the economy from having more female talent on corporate boards. Andrew Roscoe pointed to research carried out by his search firm, Egon Zehnder International, which indicated that corporate boards that are more diverse make better decisions.

So, if female talent offered so many advantages to business, why are these companies in the financial services sector missing out on the competitive advantage of having women on the board?

The panel agreed that a principal problem is that a lot of recruitment is driven by the fact that people “recruit in their own image” and British business and the financial services sector is dominated by men – and men of a particular social ilk at that.

The issues are certainly complex and intertwined. Trupti pointed to characteristics of the corporate workplace that didn’t reward typical female skills types of working. Andrew highlighted his firm’s research that showed that networking and proclaiming one’s own success were strongly associated with success, however in female focus groups these qualities were not seen as desirable. Trupti thought that women generally needed support to improve the way they sell themselves internally and earn recognition for their work, and that career networks often helped women acquire these skills and gain the necessary confidence.

Parental leave was also an important part of the picture. Businesses see maternity leave as a financial risk. The Icelandic model, where parental leave is divided between men and women and the business risk is equal, was seen as an example for the UK.

On aspiration, the panel felt that the City should do more to raise awareness of job opportunities in the city and seeking to influence the careers advice or family advice that is so influential to people’s career decisions. There should also be better case studies of positive examples of women at the top of business.

Cathrine discussed the Norwegian experience of legislation requiring corporate boards to meet minimum gender quotas of 40%. The justification for positive discrimination was based on the need for a wider distribution of power, but also on an economic argument, that companies need to use the entire wealth of talent available in society to be competitive and that diversity has a positive impact of the board and the bottom line of company performance.

The panel agreed that there has to be a change in the culture at the very top for there to be real substantive change in the long-term over the sector and in society. Panellists and attendees alike agreed that encouraging such social and cultural change – which makes economic sense as well as being socially just – was precisely what the Fabian Society was for.

This event was kindly sponsored by the London Stock Exchange and Egon Zehnder International.

The Young Fabian Future of Finance Network was launched by Lord Drayson in March 2010 with the aim of better connecting socially-minded individuals from finance and the City of London with progressive politics. The Network provides an empowering opportunity for progressives, of all shades, from the front edge of industry and research to contribute their expertise to the progressive effort to respond to global policy challenges. Network membership is not limited to Young Fabian members, but open to all individuals who identify as socially-minded progressives.

For the full event report, please visit the Young Fabian Future of Finance Network Site: http://youngfabians-networks-fof.ning.com

How best to solve gender imbalance in the workplace?

A new paper by researchers at the University of Innsbruck suggests that from a young age – three years old – boys are more likely than girls to enter into competitive behaviour, and that this observed behaviour persists through childhood into adolescence. The paper is consistent with earlier studies which find a persistent and large gender gap in the willingness to compete amongst adults, but its conclusions are more instructive – willingness to compete may be less likely to be contingent on nurture, rather than nature, than we had previously thought.

Willingness to engage in competitive behaviour is important in the context of labour markets, where competition is likely to be higher (in general) for high-profile or well-remunerated jobs. This research might have important considerations from a policy perspective when designing programmes to promote competition in the workplace. Namely, when is the right time to intervene?

It might be possible to have greater impacts on outcomes later in life by targeting intervention from a very early age (pre-three years old) to boost the willingness to compete amongst females. However, this implies that the impact of nature and nurture are more balanced before the age of three (as there are no studies into competitive behaviour at such a young age, it is difficult to know).

Of course, if willingness to compete is largely innate, then it may not matter too much at what stage any interventions occur and, on balance, programmes are likely to have greater impacts if they focus on reducing competitiveness in the labour market to encourage wider participation amongst females.

On a broader, normative point – if we accept there are differences in willingness to compete given gender, then I’m not sure which course of action is more preferable – encouraging females to be more competitive, or making labour markets less competitive? Thoughts welcome…