ALSO IN THIS POST…
The calamitous state of the care sector
America’s greatest failure
Latest on WOMEN MONEY POWER, the book
Last month I wrote about an ideological gender divide that’s becoming more pronounced among young men and women around the world. On a related note, I wrote a piece for Forbes last week on the gender divide when it comes to attitudes toward the concepts of feminism and equality.
Academics at King’s College London’s Policy Institute and Global Institute for Women’s Leadership—in collaboration with Ipsos UK—surveyed 3,716 people aged 16 and above on their opinions and beliefs about feminism, gender equality, the barriers people face on account of their gender, and how these barriers are likely to evolve in future. Based on the findings, the scholars concluded that there’s a distinct gender divide: a divide that’s particularly obvious among young people.
Close to half of the respondents said that they thought it was harder to be a woman than a man today, while only 14% said the reverse. But the distribution of answers differed dramatically by gender, especially for those aged between 16 and 29. In that age group, some 68% of women said that it was harder to be a woman, but only 35% of men agreed with that statement.
Overall, one in six of those surveyed said that they believed that in twenty years it will be harder to be a man than a woman. But men aged 16 to 29—at 30%—were almost twice as likely to feel this way, and almost a fifth of men in that age group—19%—said that they anticipated it to be “much harder” to be a man than a woman in two decades’ time.
This is not only fascinating data and insight, but it’s also extremely important as we consider our own approach to conversations about gender divides and inequality and as we embark upon this huge election year for so many countries around the world. As Professor Bobby Duffry, Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, put it: we tend to think that “younger generations are consistently more comfortable with emerging social norms, as they grew up with these as a natural part of their lives.” But what we’re learning here is that this isn’t necessarily the case. Indeed, Duffry adds, it “points to a real risk of fractious division among this coming generation of young—and the need to listen carefully to both.”
Professor Rosie Campbell, Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, agreed.
“What we are seeing is a polarization in the attitudes of young men and women towards gender equality that matches the gender split in party support in the younger age groups, with women to the left of men,” she said. “We're just at the beginning of understanding what's driving this but the fact that this group is the first to derive most of their information from social media is likely to be at least part of the explanation,” she added.
The Care Crunch
Elsewhere this week, a fresh reminder of the calamitous state of the care sector—this time from the UK.
An annual survey of over 3,000 working families conducted by Bright Horizons, a provider of employer-sponsored childcare, found that 42% of respondents to this year’s survey said that they are actively looking for alternative work in order to better navigate the competing demands of their careers and caring duties. That represents a rise of 4 percentage points over last year’s figure.
Consistent with this finding, the proportion of employees who said they feel like their employer is supportive of family life has dropped by five percentage points to 72%, and 80% of women and 76% of men said they would need to carefully consider their childcare options before accepting a promotion or embarking on a new job.
“Something seems to be shifting in the wrong direction and the added pressures are clearly taking their toll,” commented Jennifer Liston-Smith, head of thought leadership at Bright Horizons. “Employers continue to face significant retention and recruitment challenges; retaining working parents and carers has to be a key focus to alleviate these and supporting their mental health and ability to perform at work should be at the heart of employers’ strategy,” she added.
The research, conducted across a range of industry sectors, found that working mothers are disproportionately affected. Almost three quarters—or 74%—of those surveyed said that they carry the mental load for parenting, compared to just under half (or 48%) of working fathers. Working mothers, the survey also found, feel less able to progress their careers while working flexibly than working fathers do.
But it’s not just childcare that’s having a toll. Over 9 in 10 carers of adults said that caring impacts their work—something that’s particularly concerning considering the aging population in the UK and elsewhere.
“The imbalances in expectation and reality need to be addressed and employers need to be supporting employees from all angles,” said Liston-Smith.
Campaign groups across the UK have been vocal in their warnings about a childcare crisis. In April, the government is due to extend the amount of free childcare it offers, but the country’s Education Secretary in February warned that she cannot guarantee that these resources will be available for all. Like in other countries, including the US, Britain’s care sector is, in some cases dramatically, under-resourced. According to figures published by the Department for Education in December, the number of infant care providers in England dropped 5 per cent in the year to 2023.
In September last year, research conducted by the charity Pregnant Then Screwed found that one in five parents in households earning less than £50,000 annually—or about $63,000—are leaving the workforce due to the cost of childcare.
America’s Children
Related to the above, I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about Nicholas Kristof’s recent column for The New York Times.
Kristof’s take—that America’s childcare system and schools are failing youngsters—isn’t particularly groundbreaking or surprising, but I was stunned by some of the statistics he offered.
Citing Steven Woolf, a population health expert at Virginia Commonwealth University, Kristof notes that, “if the United States simply had the same mortality rates for young people as the rest of the rich world, we would annually save the lives of at least 40,000 Americans age 19 and under.” What that means is that an American child “dies about every 13 minutes because we don’t do as good a job as our peers in protecting kids.”
Another stat that shocked me: According to Kristof, “fewer than 5 percent of young people who’ve spent time in foster care graduate from a four-year college.” He also notes that up to 60 percent of trafficking survivors have been in the system. “Yet when was the last time a politician was asked how to fix foster care?” he asks.
Other rich nations spend an average of about 29 times as much on child care per toddler as the US, and while this is a problem that is not explicitly gendered, it also sort of is. As I write in my book WOMEN MONEY POWER, to understand the current sorry state of childcare in this country, one must appreciate America’s historical attitude toward the concept.
Here’s what I write:
“Unlike every other developed country in the world, the United States has never, apart from during World War II, treated childcare as an essential service. The most obvious illustration of this: In December 1971, President Richard Nixon vetoed a bipartisan effort to establish a national system of comprehensive child development and day care. The proposal, he said, was characterized by “fiscal irresponsibility, administrative unworkability, and family weakening implications,” adding, “Neither the immediate need nor the desirability of a national child development program of this character has been demonstrated.”
This is what we’re up against. An entrenched belief that if we, as a society, had a network of affordable, available childcare upon which we could rely, then our collective values would atrophy; our families would weaken. Whatever that means.
The underlying assumption here, is that women are the glue that keeps children on the right track; that women are (and should be) the ones to pick up the slack in places where the state has failed. The underlying assumption is also that every child has two parents: one who can earn an income that will support the whole family and one who will raise the kids. It’s fiction and it’s nothing short of a tragedy that the most innocent and defenseless among us are also the ones who are paying the greatest price for our collective ignorance.
WOMEN MONEY POWER: The Book
Bonjour, France!
This past Friday, I had the pleasure of joining Annette Young on her fantastic show The 51 Percent, broadcast on France 24. We talked all things WOMEN MONEY POWER and why statistics only ever tell part of the story of progress or, indeed, of setback.
Watch the full clip here (from about 4:00!) and please appreciate my makeshift TV studio and especially my framed Shirley Chisholm campaign poster that makes an appearance in the background.
Publication day is about three weeks away. Have you pre-ordered yet? Do so here!
On March 4, the evening before publication day, I’ll be reading from WOMEN MONEY POWER at the lovely Corner Bookstore on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Drop me a note if you plan to attend. I’d love to see you there!
Here’s a link to the Columbia Magazine interview about WOMEN MONEY POWER in their Winter 2023-2024 edition.
I’ll also be in London in April. I’ll be doing a public reading on the evening of Monday April 8, at a Waterstone’s in central London. Exact location and time TBC…but save the date!
The generational gender divide is fascinating - thoughts about what is driving it?
And care Crisis is indeed at a calamitous moment - with women bearing the brunt even as double income households have become the norm and a necessity for most. Not to mention that more and more of us are juggling eldercare responsibilities alongside childcare. Something's got to give...