Women's skills need Government action Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 16:15

The recession will not be gender neutral - new report says.

The current policy focus on skills for employability does not pay any in-depth attention to gender, tending to treat skills as gender neutral says NIACE, as it welcomes the publication of the report, Closing the Gender Skills Gap, from the National Skills Forum.

The result of a lack of focus is that gender inequalities and women's skills and training needs are not sufficiently taken into account in current policy and practice.

NIACE is concerned because this leads to a situation where employment remains gendered and the recession is likely to affect women and men in different ways and will require alternative responses to enable women to re-enter the labour force and progress at work.

Areas of particular concern for women's skills needs include:

• more women are entering the professions, in particular some branches of medicine and law, however high paid employment remains male dominated
• employment traditionally taken up by women (the five Cs - cleaning, catering, caring, cashiering and clerical) tends to be low paid and frequently part-time (around 83% of part time workers are women)
• women from ethnic minorities, especially Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Somali women, and those who have limited written and spoken English, are amongst those with least access to the labour market, are the lowest paid and experience the worst conditions of employment
• women's part time work tends to be characterised by reduced job security, low pay, fewer career prospects and less access to training and development; and
• access to training and skills development is highly gendered; for instance in Modern Apprenticeships, around 97% of early years carers are women and they will earn significantly less than the 99% of male plumbers.

Jane Ward, Senior Development Officer at NIACE, said:

"It's a scandal that women are still more disadvantaged in the labour market.

"Women are being hit hardest in the current recession with almost twice as many women as men losing their job. These gender gaps are likely to intensify as we enter a period of recession as women are concentrated in the sectors experiencing high levels of job losses such as retail.

"Experience has shown us that a gender-blind approach to learning and skills training to support women back into work will not be enough. It is important to recognise where women and men are differentially affected by job losses, the pay and opportunity gaps, and the constraints and barriers to women accessing new employment or skills retraining.

"The government must put programmes in place to combat the particular barriers that women still face in accessing learning and skills training and employment."

Katherine Chapman from the National Skills Forum said:

"One of the issues we look at in Closing the Gender Skills Gap is the problems faced by older women who want to retrain and who quite likely missed out on educational opportunities in the past.

"As a result they'll be the biggest beneficiaries from improved access to adult education programmes. That's why the report recommends that the Government reinvest in adult and community learning and offer increased financial support to adult learners in further education."