BROKEN LADDERS: THE MYTH OF MERITOCRACY FOR WOMEN OF COLOUR IN THE WORKPLACEWomen of colour across the UK already know that experiencing racism at work is the norm. That’s why we’ve partnered with the Runnymede Trust to produce our ground-breaking research, Broken Ladders: The myth of meritocracy for women of colour in the workplace.Broken Ladders centres the voices and experiences of thousands of women of colour at work and explores the different experiences of women from different ethnic minority groups and religions.Our research shows that every stage of the career journey, from entering work to senior leadership, women of colour are being locked out of reaching their true potential.
The intersection of sexism and racism mean that often women of colour experience compounded disadvantage. A new report from the Fawcett Society, supported by the #EthnicityPayGap Campaign, shows how the ‘Motherhood Pay Penalty’—that mothers with two children take home 26% less income than women without children—impacts on a woman’s income and earning power throughout her working life, and compounds the effects of the ethnicity pay gap.Today’s report is the first of its kind to break down the pay penalty by not only gender, but also ethnicity, and shows that the motherhood pay penalty is affecting the lifetime income of Black and minoritised women.
The second of two reports from the Fawcett Society and Totaljobs demonstrates the disproportionate impact childcare responsibilities have on women and their careers. READ PATHS TO PARENTHOOD: UPLIFTING NEW MOTHERS AT WORK Key findings include:
One in ten working mothers quit jobs due to childcare pressures
Two fifths of working mothers have turned down a promotion due to childcare pressures
Working mothers are 1.4 times more likely to feel the financial burden of childcare costs compared to working fathers
Only a third (31%) of working mothers have access to the flexible working arrangement that they need
85% of working mothers struggle to find a job that can accommodate their childcare needs
Equal Pay Day 2023 will be 22nd November.Today, the Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading membership charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights at work, at home and in public life, can confirm that Equal Pay Day 2023 will fall on 22nd November.Equal Pay Day is a national campaign led by the Fawcett Society in the UK. It marks the day in the year when, based on the gender pay gap, women overall in the UK stop being paid compared to men.The gender pay gap is the difference between the average pay of men and women within a particular group or population. Fawcett uses the mean, full-time, hourly gender pay gap for the UK to calculate the gender pay gap for Equal Pay Day which this year is 10.7%, a tiny shift from 10.9% last year.
System Update: Addressing the Gender Gap in Tech is the culmination of eight months of extensive research, interviews and polling. The report explores the views and experience of women and men who work in tech roles, those who have recently left, and women who have qualifications but are not currently working in the sector.Key findings include:
1 in 5 men working in tech roles believe that women are naturally less suited to working in the sector.
43% of women in the tech sector think about leaving their role at least once a week.
More than a quarter of women with STEM qualifications outside of the sector believe there is more sexist behaviour in tech than other types of work.
72% of women in tech roles have experienced at least one form of sexism at work.
This includes being paid less than male colleagues and sexist ‘banter’ (22%) and questioning of their skills and abilities (20%).
Black and minoritised women have experienced additional levels of exclusion, with almost three in four having experienced racism at work.
1 in 3 Black women have been assumed by colleagues to not hold a technical role
TODAY IS A HUGE DAY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE UK.We are delighted that The Worker Protection Bill has passed its final stage in the House of Commons which means it will become law before the end of the year.Everybody deserves to feel safe at work but the harsh reality is that too many women don’t because workplace cultures allow sexual harassment to thrive. Recent news stories have shown just how deep the crisis is and the research backs it up. At a minimum, sexual harssment is experienced by 40% of women in the workforce over the course of their career. Different women experience different rates and forms of harassment. People of colour report even higher rates of sexual harassment while 68% of disabled women and LGBTQ+ workers have experienced workplace harassment.
At a press briefing Thursday, just two weeks after South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem signed the first anti-trans bill of 2022 into law, a reporter asked why she thought 90 percent of LGBTQ+ youth in South Dakota are diagnosed with anxiety or depression.
Without even feigned introspection or urgency, Noem replied: “I don’t know. That makes me sad, and we should figure it out.”
Racial and wealth disparities in the United States have been thrown into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest throughout 2020. We see more clearly than ever just how often Black business owners and creatives have been thought of as less than their Caucasian counterparts – and Black businesses are paying the price.
Black businesses are impacted more deeply than Caucasian businesses by COVID-related closures, due to the long history of racial inequality that’s now exacerbated by the ongoing state of emergency.
It feels like an overwhelming problem – and it is – but there’s one simple thing you can do right now to help: Shop at Black-owned businesses whenever you can.
Supporting Black-owned businesses helps provide much-needed stability to business owners that have been hard hit by the pandemic. And you’re laying a foundation to continue to support Black businesses long after the crisis is over.
In some ways, the often informal and unsupervised channels through which remote work takes place can actually enable increased harassment—because of both the lack of oversight and witnesses to employee interactions and the blurring of barriers between professional and personal spaces. “We often hide for a reason, and for many of us, the pandemic made that covering impossible,”
The tech industry is a sector dominated by men. You’ve probably heard about well-known tech giants like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg, but you might not know about the equally impressive female tech gurus. Research shows that almost 80% of students cannot name a single famous woman working in tech. To solve this problem, we’ve got a list of the top 50 women in the tech industry you should know about!