Mind the green gender gap!

In 2015, Bristol is the European Green Capital.

Bristol is the first city in the UK to have this title, taking over from Copenhagen. The launch of European Green Capital 2015 happened on January 24th, and was nothing but spectacular: colourful bright umbrellas, a lot of excited supporters, the Mayor and even a stunt involving a cycle on a wire.

The stunt itself was amazing. Jade Kindar-Martin from Cirque Bijou cycled on the tightrope with trapeze artist Karine Mauffrey hanging below. The title of the performance was ‘Bridging the Gap’, to symbolise the difference between our green intentions and our actions. But perhaps we should also think about bridging the gender gap.

Top earners

Top business schools produce top earners – if they are men.

Yesterday, we all heard about the new statistics published by free salary benchmarking service Emolument Alumni on the average salaries of graduates from different universities. The top 20 universities, and the average salaries of graduates within five years of leaving, are listed below.

The question we are most interested in is – what does the pay gap look like for these graduates. Emolument Alumni promised to come back to us with more detailed information, but in the meantime we found out that graduates from Imperial College have a huge gender gap – Men £53,000, Women £40,000.

This comes as no big surprise, as last year’s Fawcett Gender pay Gap Briefing “THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW”. According to the briefing, in 2013 the gender pay gap widened. A woman working full-time now earns, on average, £5,000 less a year than a man. In the case of Imperial College London graduates – that is £13,000 less a year.

Pensions are a human right

Pensions are a human right that TESCO is happy to drop.

This week, TESCO has announced plans to close its pension scheme. The company said the scheme will be revalued in May and that it would consult on the planned changes in June, before implementing the changes in February, 2016. Not many people think of it that way, but pensions are a human right. How did we get that idea? No other than the UN Declaration of Human Rights Article 25.

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

The UK government has not been doing very well ensuring this right is available to women. Not only are pension schemes and offers largely dictated by employers, they are also discriminatory towards people who have not been in employment for large periods of time, or people who have been in part time employment throughout their lives.

Justice is only available to those who can afford it

Great news people! We are out of a recession! Surely the worst is over?

Not so fast I’m afraid. Whilst I hate to be the pessimist, these cuts are having a disproportionate impact on ordinary women here in Bristol. Huge restrictions and cuts to legal aid that was brought in last year has resulted in a rise in self-representation – that is, people being unable to afford a lawyer and turning up to court to defend themselves.

This change to the provisions of legal aid has removed almost all private family law areas from its scope. What does this mean? That the ability to get legal support for domestic violence is much harder for one. Not that it has become unavailable, but new rules mean that it is more difficult to apply for legal aid – the Rights of Women and Women’s Aid found that 43% of victims were unable to provide the right documents to even meet with a solicitor in the first place.

Further, the number of parents now representing themselves before family courts has jumped by 20,000. Over half of this rise were made up of women, and many of these, according the Independent were mothers from poor backgrounds. Yet again, we hear that it is our low-income mothers bearing the brunt of the budget cuts. The situation has deteriorated so much that according to the Independent, in 2013/14, more mothers appeared in court without a lawyer than with one.

And for those who are in employment, but suffering from discrimination, the increase in fees to take an employer to a tribunal has caused a 70 per cent drop in cases.

Surely then, this lack of legal support starts to damage the law? With justice only available to those who can afford it, it becomes less about justice and more about the person with the bigger purse strings.

Sian Webb Co-Editor @SianKWebb