GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE UK

Case study – Agile Nation
The Agile Nation project, run by the Chwarae Teg
women’s organisation with support from the Welsh
government and others, helps individual women
but on a large scale. It is a holistic and long-term
sustainable programme focusing on women in the
workplace, including development programmes
for women (such as leadership training) and for
employers (such as developing modern working
practices for ‘agile working’ including flexible hours,
and harnessing technology to enable remote
working). Helping businesses to see the benefits
of adapting to an ‘agile working’ philosophy for
all employees (women and men) is crucial, as is
applying insights gained through projects such as
WAVE to challenge the vertical (status-related) and
horizontal (stereotyped) segregation of men’s and
women’s work.
www.agilenation2.org.uk
the government Equalities Office, has probed the
national and international evidence base to produce
recommendations for: starting out, getting on, staying
on and enterprise. Practical case studies from all areas
of business and enterprise are readily available for
implementation.
Ministers and government officials have listened to
the voices of women in business and expert women’s
organisations such as the Fawcett Society.
Policy, guidance and legislation is in place, including:
• rights to additional paternity leave and shared
parental leave for fathers
• extended rights to free childcare and tax-free
childcare
• rights for all parents to request flexible working
• a duty on businesses employing over 250 staff to
report on gender and pay, which complements the
UK government’s Think Act Report initiative and
Trailblazing Transparency report. In Scotland public
authorities also have equal pay and board
composition publishing duties.
The duty to report on gender and pay will build on
existing reporting and monitoring requirements to
produce more quantitative and qualitative data to
address inequalities, and inform work by the EHRC,
Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and others
on pregnancy and maternity discrimination. Businesses
such as Gapsquare offer technical platforms to help
employers to analyse their workforce data.
The Office for National Statistics in the UK recently
produced a compendium of statistics on valuing
unpaid care and domestic work using what was
described by one of our stakeholders as a ‘worldleading
methodology’, assisted in this by consultation
with experts in the field. Total ‘home production’ in 2014
grew to 56 per cent of GDP, valued at £1,018.9 billion.
The UK has skilled specialist academic economists
working in universities across the UK and a number
of academic experts work with women’s organisations
(such as the women’s budget groups for the UK,
Scotland and Northern Ireland) on the production of
reports, tools and models that illuminate the value of
women’s work as well as the causes and the potential
solutions for women’s and girls’ economic inequality.
In Scotland, both Engender (information, research,
networking) and the Scottish Women’s Convention
(bringing women’s voices to government) receive vital
funding from the Scottish government and are able to
comment on the annual Equality Budget Statement,
facilitating gender-responsive budgeting as called for
by the Beijing Platform for Action. Gender-responsive
budgeting is on the agenda for the Wales Assembly
and for women’s organisations in Wales and in
Northern Ireland.