A report examined the distribution of public spending cuts (proposed in the 2010 Spending Review) between households with different gender characteristics. Cuts to public sector services and welfare budget disproportionately affected women's incomes, jobs, and the public services they used. Taken together with the measures announced in the June 2010 'emergency' Budget, the cuts represented an 'immense reduction' in the standard of living and financial independence of millions of women, and a reversal in progress made towards gender equality.
Source: The Impact on Women of the Coalition Spending Review 2010, Women's Budget Group
Links: Report | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Dec
A report examined the extent to which European countries had developed gender equality considerations in their policies designed for the active inclusion of vulnerable groups in society. It provided concrete policy examples across the three pillars of the active inclusion strategy – adequate income support, inclusive labour markets, and access to quality services. It said that proper gender mainstreaming of policies, for the most part, was still underdeveloped.
Source: Marcella Corsi and Manuela Samek Lodovici (with Angela Cipollone, Carlo D'Ippoliti and Silvia Sansonetti), Gender Mainstreaming Active Inclusion Policies: Final synthesis report, European Commission
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Dec
A trade union report said that public sector job losses and welfare cuts would disproportionately hit women's income and set back progress on closing the gender pay gap.
Source: The Gender Impact of the Cuts, Trades Union Congress
Links: Report | Morning Star report
Date: 2010-Dec
A briefing paper examined the arguments that had been made for transferable tax allowances.
Source: Antony Seely, Tax, Marriage and Transferable Allowances, Standard Note SN/BT/4392, House of Commons Library
Links: Briefing paper
Date: 2010-Dec
An article compared disabled women's experiences in accessing information, services, and public policy relating to income support in Canada and the United Kingdom. Policy in both contexts was not only written in an inaccessible and confusing way but also directed toward an able-bodied, independent, resource-rich ideal citizen. The UK offered a breadth of services and avenues for advocacy that were unavailable in Canada, and its policy appeared to be less adversarial and surveillance-based.
Source: Claudia Malacrida, 'Income support policy in Canada and the UK: different, but much the same', Disability & Society, Volume 25 Number 6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Oct
A report examined how the 'emergency' 2010 Budget would affect the individual incomes of women and men. Although the Budget had a few individual measures that helped to offset gender inequality, taken as a whole the Budget was unfair in its impact on women as compared with men. A related study (commissioned by Yvette Cooper MP) said that women would bear a disproportionate burden of cuts in public spending.
Source: A Gender Impact Assessment of the Coalition Government Budget, UK Women's Budget Group | Press release 5 July 2010, Yvette Cooper MP
Links: Report | Fawcett Society press release | Yvette Cooper MP press release
Date: 2010-Jul
An article examined the changing nature of women's pension provision. It provided an overview of the existing context, showing that many female pensioners were without access to significant pension entitlements in their own right. It considered the pension strategies of Thatcher and New Labour governments and their impact on women: this included an evaluation of recent proposals, such as personal accounts, a rise in the basic state pension age, and reintroduction of the link to earnings. These proposals did not represent the emergence of a new political economy of pensions that better reflected the needs of female pensioners: rather, they were a response to the challenges of an ageing population.
Source: Liam Foster, 'Towards a new political economy of pensions? The implications for women', Critical Social Policy, Volume 30 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Feb
A survey found that women planning to retire in 2010 expected to receive an average annual pension of £12,169, whereas their male counterparts expected to collect an average pension of £19,593 – a pension 'gender gap' of £7,424 – compared with £6,642 in 2009.
Source: Press release 16 February 2010, Prudential UK
Links: Prudential press release | Professional Pensions report
Date: 2010-Feb
A study of women claiming incapacity benefits said that women were being pushed out of the labour market and on to benefits as a result of job losses among men.
Source: Christina Beatty, Steve Fothergill, Donald Houston, Ryan Powell and Paul Sissons, Women on Incapacity Benefits, Centre for Regional, Economic and Social Research/Sheffield Hallam University
Links: Report | CRESR press release | New Start report | People Management report | Guardian report | Telegraph report
Date: 2010-Jan