The Living Wage can loosen the grip of women’s poverty

Living Wage Week is an opportunity to recognise the importance of the living wage in lifting women out of poverty and enabling fair work for women.

Women continue to account for the majority of low-paid workers in Scotland and research from Living Wage Scotland has shown that women in part-time work stand to benefit the most from Living Wage accreditation.

Women’s employment is becoming increasingly precarious with women accounting for two-thirds of workers earning less than the living wage and 55% of workers on zero-hour contracts. The rise in women’s self-employment has also coincided with a rise in low-paid self-employment.

Women’s experience of the labour market is ultimately linked to women’s experience of poverty. In Scotland, women are more likely to be in poverty than men; are more likely to experience in-work poverty; find it harder to escape poverty and are more likely to experience persistent poverty than men. In line with the multiple labour market barriers experienced by different groups of women, the risk of poverty is even greater for black and minority ethnic, disabled and refugee and asylum-seeking women.

The Scottish Government have recognised the inextricable links between gender and poverty, and women’s poverty and child poverty in a number of key policy documents including Scotland's gender pay gap action plan, and the child poverty delivery plan. These plans are clear that tackling the gender pay gap is essential to overcoming women’s higher rates of in-work poverty, and child poverty in Scotland.

It’s vital that the Scottish Government and other policymakers adopt a gendered approach to all labour market policymaking and analysis of low pay in Scotland. At present, this is often not the case with key labour market policies failing to consider women’s different experiences of work, and policy analysis which does not recognise women’s distinct experiences of low-pay and poverty. We also continue to see analysis pertaining to low-paid workers, lone parents and child poverty without any consideration of the gendered causes.

It is also distinctly unsurprising that women make up the majority of workers being paid below the living wage, because women’s preponderance in low-paid work is a major cause of the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap represents a lifetime of inequality for women. Responses to the pay gap often focus on getting more women into senior roles. While vitally important, this ignores the fact that the gender pay gap is also caused by women’s concentration in low-paid, insecure and undervalued work such as care, retail and cleaning.

Work that is seen as “women’s work” is systematically undervalued in the labour market because this work is done by women. Practically, undervaluation means that women will receive lower rewards from investing in education or from their own work experience, and undervaluation thus underpins both occupational segregation and the pay divergence that accompanies it. While the payment of the living wage in these jobs and sectors is an important start, ultimately this has to be accompanied by a more structural response to the continued economic undervaluation of work done by women.

Women are more likely than men to have caring responsibilities and therefore must find work that allows them to balance earning with caring. This sees women concentrated in part-time work. However, most part-time work is found in the lowest paid jobs and part-time jobs are more than three times as likely to pay below the living wage than full-time roles.

Lone parents, 91% of whom are women, may be juggling several low-paid jobs at the same time to earn enough to make ends meet. Almost half (48%) of single-parent households are living in poverty, compared to a quarter (24%) of couple households.

The payment of the Living Wage in female-dominated sectors such as care, catering and retail is an important mechanism to lift women and their families out of poverty. Every Child, Every Chance has a focus on engaging with particular sectors such as tourism and hospitality where women’s low pay is a concern. The Plan outlines how these sectors, as key growth sectors of the Scottish economy, needs to play its full role in ending child poverty.

We also need a step change in employer responses to part-time and flexible working. Too often, there’s a cultural presumption against part-time working in senior grades, and in male-dominated jobs and sectors. This prevents women from progressing, and sustains their concentration in the lowest paid jobs in the labour market. Presently, only 12% of jobs paying £20,000 or more a year are advertised on a flexible basis, and research by Close the Gap has shown that the right to request regulations, extended to all employees in 2014, have not resulted in the normalisation of flexible working, as was envisaged.

Employers that pay their staff the real Living Wage, and enable them to work flexibly at all levels, will be able to benefit from the well-evidenced gains of gender equality at work. This will also enable us to challenge women’s poverty, meet Scotland’s targets on child poverty and make real progress towards closing the gender pay gap in Scotland.

While women continue to represent the majority of workers being paid below the living wage, we will be unable to realise the ambition of enabling access to fair work for women in Scotland.

Close the Gap launches innovative new resource for businesses on domestic abuse

Close the Gap is delighted to launch a new resource for businesses on domestic abuse as part of Think Business, Think Equality, the online self-assessment tool designed specifically for SMEs.

The free online tool enables employers to self-assess their employment practice and provides tailored advice and an action plan which sets out the simple steps you can take so that your business can realise the benefits of gender equality and diversity. The new resource on domestic abuse also includes a range of free resources for download including:

• Guidance on domestic abuse and employment
• FAQ on domestic abuse and work
• Good practice examples
• Workplace resources
• Useful links including signposting to specialist support organisations

Think Business, Think Equality already includes six resources on key aspects of employment practice including flexible working, workplace culture, pay and reward, progression and promotion, pregnancy and maternity and job segregation.

The new test, which takes no longer than five minutes to complete, has been developed to enable businesses to effectively support employees experiencing domestic abuse. Domestic abuse not only affects the victim-survivor but can also impact colleagues, and ultimately the smooth running of a business through increased absenteeism, reduced productivity and higher turnover. Domestic abuse is estimated to cost the UK economy £66 billion a year, which includes the cost to businesses in lower productivity, administrative difficulties from unplanned time off, lost wages and sick pay.

1 in 4 women experience domestic abuse in their lifetime in Scotland, so it makes good business sense to think about domestic abuse. As an employer, there are a range of simple, practical steps that you can take to ensure you effectively support your people, and protect your business.

The majority of women affected by domestic abuse are targeted at work. Perpetrators of domestic abuse often use workplace resources such as phones and email to threaten, harass or abuse their current or former partner. Perpetrator tactics such as sabotage, stalking and harassment at work, affect women’s ability to do their job, and to sustain employment.

Businesses that take steps to supports employees will benefit in a range of ways. Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of key people at work means that you're more likely to retain the skills and experience of female talent. By recognising the potential impact of domestic abuse on employees and their colleagues, you're minimising the risk to your business.

Delivering workplace equality makes good business sense. Having fair and flexible working practices allows you to attract and retain the best talent, reduce recruitment and training costs, and it makes your business more productive, more innovative, and more profitable. Evidence shows that gender equality at work is not just good for women, but is also a critical driver for improved business performance, and a worldwide catalyst for economic growth. Crucially closing the gender gap in employment is worth up to £17 billion to the Scottish economy.

Find out how your business can benefit from gender equality and diversity. Take the Think Business, Think Equality test on domestic abuse at www.thinkbusinessthinkequality.org.uk.

Want to know more about business benefits of gender equality? Watch one of our 30 second films.

If you’re on the move, you can download the Think Business, Think Equality app for iOS, Android or Windows.

July reading round up

This month we launched our new research which looks at the use of formal flexible working in Scotland, considering what type of employee works flexibly & how this has changed over time. The research shows that the extension of the right to request flexible working has not led to an increase in people working flexibly. ICYMI, you can catch all the highlights here.

New Close the Gap research finds flexible working regulations aren't making work more flexible for women

In 2010, the UK Government extended the right to request flexible working regulations to all employees. Close the Gap’s new research, Flexible Working for All?, looks at the availability and uptake of flexible working in Scotland between 2010 and 2015 to identify whether this regulatory change has resulted in increased flexible working across Scotland’s labour market.

The research reveals that it has had very little impact on the uptake of flexible working, women’s access to flexible working specifically, and therefore gender equality at work more broadly.

The key findings include:

• The use of formal flexible working in Scotland has changed very little over the period of the study.
• There was some change in the use of individual forms of flexible working; small increases in the use of home working (4.0% to 4.9%) and flexi-time (12.0% to 12.3%) for which there is a broadly even gender split. However, there were small decreases in the use of job sharing (3.8% to 2.7%) and term-time working (1.7% to 1.1%) which are significantly more likely to be used by women than men.
• Part-time work continues to be much more likely to be used by female parents than male parents, with little sign of change.
• Less than three-quarters (70%) of Scottish employees indicated that they had formal flexible working available at their workplace, even after the extension of the right to request.
• Over half of employees felt that they have access to informal flexibility however a fifth (20%) of employees indicated that neither informal nor formal flexibility was available at their workplace.

These findings reaffirm what we already know about the limitations of the right to request regulations. Employees have to be in their job for six months before making a request which creates a barrier to women looking to move to a new job. This is compounded by the very low proportion of jobs that are advertised as being available for flexible working; only 12% of jobs paying more than £20,000 are advertised as having flexible working options. This particularly affects women returning to work after taking time out to care and those who hold a series of fixed term contracts. Also, the eight business reasons employers can use to justify a refusal are very broad, so it’s relatively easy to refuse a request if there is a wider cultural resistance to flexible working.

This new research comes at an important time as the UK Government this week announced plans to consult on changes to the law which would improve transparency around employer policies on flexible working, and introduce a requirement for employers to consider advertising all jobs as flexible.

The business and economic cases on flexible working are clear; employers that enable their staff to work flexibly have access to a more diverse pool of talent, are able to retain key people, see their business become more productive. We therefore make a number of recommendations to employers in the report which aim to tackle a range of barriers to flexible working including:

• Advertising all jobs as flexible by default;
• Mapping types of flexible working of the organisation to identify gendered patterns;
• Ensuring that line managers have the skills and competence to identify creative solutions around the operational barriers to flexible working;
• Sharing profiles of employees on different working patterns; and
• Using Close the Gap’s online self-assessment tool, Think Business, Think Equality, designed specifically for smaller employers, and Close Your Pay Gap, a resource for large employers working to close their gender pay gap.

Read the full report Flexible Working for All?.