Engender blog

Indyref, women and the labour market (Indyref Thursday #1)

In the run-up to our event on 'gender equality, the referendum and beyond', we'll be publishing a weekly blog to correspond with our 'Scotland's futures' briefing papers series. First up is women and the labour market by Engender's Director, Emma Ritch.

Women in Scotland experience a vastly different workplace from men. Women work in different jobs, earn lower wages, experience the bulk of sexual harassment, have a precarious place in male-dominated organisations and sectors, and are vanishingly unlikely to end their careers around a boardroom table.

The scale of the differences is so enormous as to be almost invisible: it fills the vision of women as they grapple with the everyday ordinariness of balancing work, friends, and family life. The inequalities have developed a different veneer since the 1950s, but many of the changes have been superficial. Some of the key indicators of inequality, like who works part-time, have barely flickered in generations. In some places in Scotland, we’re even recreating the typing pool, as public bodies make ‘efficiency savings’.

Getting to grips with women and work can be a technical minefield, with overlapping policies, sets of statistics, and legal structures in play. So what should we all be thinking about when we cast our ballots on 18 September?

Guest post: ‘Women and Children First?’ The reality of maternity care for Scotland’s refused asylum seekers

By Vicky Glen

For mothers in Scotland (and the world over), experiences of maternity care are key in influencing the overall experience of motherhood. Health policy has been a devolved matter since the creation of the NHS. As such, asylum seekers (including refused asylum seekers) are entitled to free primary and secondary health care in Scotland (in contrast with England and Northern Ireland, where refused asylum seekers may be required to pay for secondary health care, which can include maternity care). But do asylum seeking women experience a level of maternity care equal to that of other women living in Scotland?

It was this question that Sylvie Da Lomba of University of Strathclyde Law School and Nina Murray, Women’s Policy Development Officer at Scottish Refugee Council, sought to answer. While work had previously been conducted into the quality of maternity care for asylum seeking women in England and Wales, there was no primary focus upon the experiences of refused asylum seeking women. Previous work had already identified the severity of the health needs of asylum seeking women, with these needs exacerbated during pregnancy.

In light of the then proposed changes to access to healthcare under the Immigration Act 2014 (now a sad reality), and the challenging of asylum support levels by various third sector organisations (now perfectly exemplified in the case of Refugee Action v Secretary of State for the Home Department), the project aimed to assess: whether female asylum seekers were accessing free maternity care in Glasgow as ordinarily resident UK citizens (in line with Scottish government guidance); the extent and nature of any barriers to this access; and whether the access and quality of this care was in line with statutory, governmental and international human rights obligations.

First all-female cabinet event a mixed bag on women's equality

Events like the first all-female cabinet meeting with the women's sector are generally more about symbolism than they are about substance. Sceptics have even made the point that the women of the Scottish cabinet only control 12% of the Scottish budget.

Nonetheless, the visual of five female ministers (the four cabinet secretaries and Aileen Campbell, Minister for Children and Young People) setting out their vision for Scotland was an arresting one.

Nicola Sturgeon's opening speech wasn't particularly gender-focused, but it did tick off a number of gender-inflected issues, in the form of the minimum wage, anti-discrimination law, and women on boards.

Women and equality: 100 days until indyref

It’s one hundred days until the referendum vote, and today more than one hundred women will hear the female members of the Scottish cabinet speak about their ambitions for gender equality in an independent Scotland.

Scotland can take pride in the fact that women occupy 40 per cent of the seats around the cabinet table in Bute House, and in the individual commitment of the female cabinet secretaries to seeing other women flourish. They will be hoping that their words inspire women inside Dynamic Earth, and across Scotland, to decide where to place their cross come September.

The event comes as focus on women’s voting intentions sharpens. Much digital ink has been spilled in an effort to interrogate women’s attitudes to independence, and to get underneath our current preference for straddling the fence and leaning towards a no vote. Some commentators have decided that women are just ineffably different, but certainly slower to make up our minds, and less likely to take risks.