The government announced that it would not (contrary to previous indications) support a plan under which women who had taken time out of paid work in order to be carers, or who had worked in low-paid part-time jobs, would have been allowed to make one-off national insurance payments, covering up to nine years-worth of missing contributions, before retirement.
Source: House of Lords Hansard, Debate 17 December 2007, columns 467-469, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Hansard | Age Concern press release | Help the Aged press release | BBC report
Date: 2007-Dec
An article presented a framework for understanding gender issues in access to healthcare. Access appeared often to be relative, variable, and contingent upon many factors and circumstances, one of which was gender.
Source: Ellen Annandale, Janet Harvey, Debbie Cavers and Mary Dixon-Woods, 'Gender and access to healthcare in the UK: a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature', Evidence & Policy, Volume 3 Number 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2007-Nov
A report said that women-only services ('by women, for women') were still relevant and much in demand, despite a common misconception that they were no longer needed because women's equality had already been achieved.
Source: Why Women-only? The value and benefits of by women, for women services, Women's Resource Centre (020 7324 3030)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Oct
A report said that women's private pension saving for retirement was still well behind men's. 35 per cent of women of working age did not contribute to a pension scheme, compared to 22 per cent of men.
Source: What Women Need: Pension provision for today and tomorrow, Scottish Widows plc (0131 655 6000)
Links: Scottish Widows press release | Fawcett Society press release | FT report
Date: 2007-Oct
An article presented a gendered analysis of the Pensions Commission proposals for pensions reform. Substantial improvements for women would be in the long term only, and would depend heavily on the extent to which gendered patterns of work and family life changed in future. For women who followed traditional paths of combining part-time work with looking after children and kin, outcomes would depend on partnering arrangements. If they were married or co-habiting, they would be better off: but if they lived alone in later life, the principal advantage of the proposals would be a reduction in means-testing rather than an improvement in levels of income.
Source: Debora Price, 'Closing the gender gap in retirement income: what difference will recent UK pension reforms make?', Journal of Social Policy, Volume 36 Issue 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2007-Oct
An article highlighted the 'gender blind' nature of debates concerning a citizens' basic income scheme, and presented a case for a scheme based on a more inclusive notion of citizenship.
Source: Ailsa McKay, 'Why a citizens' basic income? A question of gender equality or gender bias', Work, Employment and Society, Volume 21 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2007-Jun
A report said that it was essential that incapacity benefits programmes took into account gender differences in their design and delivery.
Source: Sarah Deacon, Pamela Fitzpatrick, Marilyn Howard and Hilary Land, Women and Incapacity Benefits, Women's Budget Group (020 7253 2598)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Jun
A report said that more than 16 per cent of National Health Service acute hospital trusts in England were still struggling to provide single-sex accommodation, despite a 1997 manifesto commitment by the government to eliminate mixed-sex wards.
Source: Privacy and Dignity: A report by the Chief Nursing Officer into mixed sex accommodation in hospitals, Department of Health (08701 555455)
Links: Report | CPPIH press release | Telegraph report | Guardian report
Date: 2007-May
An article said that the evidence base of medicine might be fundamentally flawed because of an ongoing failure of research to include gender differences in study design and analysis.
Source: Anita Holdcroft, 'Gender bias in research: how does it affect evidence based medicine?', Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 100 Issue 1
Links: Article | RSM press release
Date: 2007-Jan