‘Women in the North: Choosing to Challenge Inequalities’

The latest IPPR North report, written by Amreen Qureshi & Sarah Longlands, was released at the end of April 2021. Their premise for the report circulated around wanting to investigate how women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. They have taken an intersectional approach to the investigation, which encompasses the impact of pre-existing economic and social inequalities in combination with the disproportionate impact of corona on women. Their view is that the pandemic has further exacerabted pre-existing inequalities across the North for women.

What has been the impact?

• Women are more likely to earn less and save less

• Challenges in the North exacerbated by austerity

• Health and Social Care workers are at higher risk of infection and death (in the UK 77% Health & Social Care workforce are women)

• Gender pay gap in the North is wider than other areas of the UK

• In response to school closure, women with the lowest income are 9x more likely to report job losses

• Unpaid care work has a negative impact on mental health

• The pre-existing social and economic inequalities which affected minority ethnic women has made them “less resilient to the pandemic” than other demographics

• There has been an increase in domestic violence- (women with insecure immigration status have had particular issues accessing support services)

Policy Responses to Covid-19 for Women in the North

North West Relevant:

• Greater Manchester Combined Authority launched the ‘Women and Girls’ Equality Panel’

• Lancashire County Council commissioned Northern Power Women and Groundswell Innovation to create ‘Two Zero’: Female (business growth programme supporting female-led Lancashre based businesses)

• Salford introduced ‘Tech She Can’

• Liverpool City Region Combined Authority launched the ‘Fariness and Social Justice Advisory Board’

Recommendations for Building Back Fairer for Women

The report is explicit in it’s statement that economic recovery should not disregard the importance of furthering gender inequality.

They have 3 thematic recommendations:

Income

• The Government’s “plans for jobs” should use targets to focus on employment for support for disadvantaged women and recognise caring inequalities faced by women

• Introduction of targets set to level up the North’s gender pay to match the rest of the country

Understanding

There should be a shift in understanding of what constitutes the economy:

• Equality impact assessments should be innately part of covid recovery policies

• Government and Equalities Office should be more proactive in putting gender equity at the fore of policy development and make it a requirement for departments to publish data in relation to gender

Representation

• Every recovery strategy designed by Combined Authority’s should have dedicated components considering more support of women e.g. gender equality panels should represent the diversity of women in the North

• Politcal infrastructure gender balance

• Devolution and recovery white papers should assess impacts of policies on women