What the UK census says about women

Story published on Women's Views on News, December 19, 2012

The latest data shows England and Wales turning away from marriage, but women still working less

Most of the tables in the latest census release are not broken down by gender, so we will have to wait to see what these figures really tell us about our changing roles.

But according to figures released on 11 December people living in England and Wales are rejecting traditional values like marriage and religion. 

The proportion of people with no religious affiliation rose from 15 to 25 per cent. 

And the proportion of households containing a married couple or same sex civil partnership fell from 37 to 33 per cent.  The percentage of households containing a cohabiting couple increased from 8 to 10 per cent.

We also seem more prepared to live with people from different ethnic backgrounds.  Twelve per cent of households now contain people with more than one ethnicity, up from 9 per cent in 2001.

The proportion of those providing unpaid care to friends or relatives has remained the same as in 2001 at 10 per cent.  This is welcome as the majority of unpaid carers are women.

But despite some evidence of changing social attitudes, women continue to work fewer hours than men and are less likely to own their own businesses. 

A third of women work part-time, compared with 8 per cent of men, and only 9 per cent are self-employed, compared with a fifth of men.

Women are more likely to be studying full time however, 5.7 per cent of women are students, compared with 4.3 per cent of men.

There are over a million more women than men registered for the UK census, 28.5m women compared to 27.6m men.

While the main explanation for this is that women live longer, Prof Jane Falkingham, director of the Centre for Population Change told the BBC fewer women chose to or have the opportunity to live and work abroad.

But there may be a more administrative explanation. “Men are not good form-fillers,” she said.

UK women have greater sense of wellbeing than men

Story published on Women's Views on News, Friday, 13 April, 2012

Women in the UK are happier and more satisfied with their lives than men, but, according to recent government statistics, they worry more.

Between April and September 2011, respondents to the Annual Population Survey were asked questions about their well-being for the first time.

They were asked to rate satisfaction with their lives, whether they found them worthwhile, their happiness and anxiety levels on a scale of one to ten.

Women scored an average 7.44 overall, against 7.34 for men.

Younger women and older women tended to be happier, found life more worthwhile and were more satisfied than the middle-aged, but levels of well-being started to decline for women over 80.

Women also reported higher levels of anxiety than men.  Female respondents said they had an anxiety level of 3.29, whereas men put theirs at 3.09.

Women aged 50-54 were most anxious, while 16-19-year-olds rated themselves as the most carefree.
What We Do, a recent study of work and leisure activities produced by the Office of National Statistics as part of its National Measuring Well-Being Programme suggested one reason may be because fewer women work long hours.

But women fared less well when it came to participating in sport and fitness activities, widely believed to improve health and well-being.

Only 47 per cent of women had participated in sport and physical activity in the last four months, compared with 61 per cent of men.

Women hit hard by council job cuts

Story published in Women's Views on News, March 29, 2012
Over two thirds of the 200,000 people who have lost jobs in English and Welsh local authorities since the last election are women, according to research by the GMB union.

According to the research, which is based on government figures, 146,690 women lost jobs in local government between June 2010 and December 2011, 68 per cent of the 210,470 jobs lost overall.

In some regions, such as the south east, women accounted for over three-quarters of the jobs lost, and in some councils like Slough, the number of women who lost their jobs exceeded the number of jobs lost overall.

But a spokeswoman for Slough Borough Council said: “The majority of the people working here are women.

“All our corporate directors, bar one, are women, our chief executive is a woman, all our policy team are women.”

Kamaljeet Jandu, GMB national officer for equalities, said the drop was entirely predictable because the public sector employed more women than men.

According to the Local Government Association, 75.8 per cent of all local government workers are women, and whilst male employment in councils fell by ten per cent between December 2010 and December 2011, 6.8 per cent of female workers lost their jobs.

Jandu said the drop in the number of women employed in the public sector represents a serious loss of income for their families.

“Many households depend on having income from two wage earners to pay the mortgage and the household bills.

“The impact will be even worse in the quarter of households with children that are headed by lone parents, 90 per cent of whom are women,” he said.