Current policies supporting fathers in the workplace do not deliver what they promise, despite good intentions. And this is particularly true for low-income fathers, finds a March 2018 report from the Women and Equalities Select Committee.
The Social Mobility Commission has a vital role to play in “[putting] the Government’s feet to the fire” – but changes need to be made.
‘Too many people are being silenced by toxic workplace cultures’, says a March 2018 report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Turning the tables (PDF) looks at how sexual harassment is dealt with by employers, and uses the evidence from individuals who have experienced sexual harassment at work to recommend improvements.
The report finds:
Around a quarter of those reporting harassment said that the perpetrators were third parties such as customers or clients
Many individuals believed that senior colleagues, due to their position of influence within organisations, were not challenged by HR departments or other colleagues, with some describing these individuals as ‘untouchable’
Around half the respondents hadn’t reported their experience of harassment to anyone in the workplace
In around half of the cases where individuals did report the incident, respondents said that employers took no action as a result.
Read the full report (PDF).
Globally, the UK’s 30% ratio for women in the House of Commons puts it 49th in ranked list. This is according to the February 2018
The profiles of homeless people are changing, with children becoming the largest group of people in emergency shelters as a result of a deterioration in the living conditions of extremely vulnerable families.
This from the March 2018 annual report (PDF) from the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA)
This report reveals how millions of Europeans face housing exclusion on a daily basis as well as a dramatic picture of increasing homelessness across most of the EU – in particular amongst children, women and migrants.
The report finds:
In France, 20,845 people called the 115 homeless helpline requesting accommodation (in June 2017)
Dublin City Council spent € 39 million on hotel nights for homeless people in 2016, while € 10.7 million was spent on prevention and supported housing
In Britain, 29% of spending was on temporary accommodation and (44% of which was spent on hotels/Bed and Breakfast) and 61% on housing services (between 2015-2016)
Over the last number of years, only two European countries (Finland and Norway) have seen a reduction in the number of homeless people
Read the full report (PDF).
‘Millions of working women face financial insecurity’, says the March 2018 research from the Living Wage Foundation and Fawcett Society.
A poll of women earning below the real Living Wage revealed that:
A third (33% or 1.12 million women) have no savings at all, including pensions
39% have more than £500 of debt, while 31% have more than £1,000 of debt
94% worry about their financial situation.
Access the full research.
‘The impact of changes to direct taxes and benefits is to reduce the income of
Bangladeshi households by around £4,400 per year on average’.
Four months after releasing their 2017 interim report, the Equality and Human Rights Commission have published their final cumulative impact assessment (pdf), in March 2018.
The report exposes how much individuals and households are expected to gain or lose, and how many adults and children will fall below an adequate standard of living, as a result of recent changes to taxes and social security.
The report finds:
Negative impacts are particularly large for households with more disabled members, and individuals with more severe disabilities, as well as for lone parents on low incomes
For some family types, these losses represent over 13% of average net income
At an individual level, women lose on average considerably more from changes to direct taxes and benefits than men
Lone parents in the bottom fifth of the household income distribution lose around 25% of their net income, on average
Around 1.5 million more children are forecast to be living in households below the relative poverty line as a result of the reforms.
EDF and a number of our members have contributed to the development of this important research.
Read the full report (pdf).
57% of people in poverty are children or working-age adults living in a household where someone is in paid work.
This is according to a March 2018 briefing from the Institute for Fiscal Studies on poverty and low pay in the UK.
The briefing finds:
Low pay is highly related to lack of pay progression. The wages of the low- and high- educated, and of men and women, end up much further apart by age 40 than they were at the start of their careers
Experience and education are both positively associated with higher wages, but the association with experience is much stronger for the high-educated than the low-educated
The fact that women’s wages fall behind their male counterparts over the lifecycle is, in part, related to a remarkable lack of wage progression in part-time work.
Read the full briefing.
6 in 10 employers agree that a woman should have to disclose whether she is pregnant during the recruitment process.
This is according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) who have published the results of their survey on maternity discrimination in the workplace, in February 2018.
The aim of the survey was to understand managers’ attitudes around pregnancy and maternity discrimination.
Findings from the survey include:
44% of employers agree that women should work for an organisation for at least a year before deciding to have children
40% of employers claim to have seen at least one pregnant woman in their workplace ‘take advantage’ of their pregnancy
41% employers agreed that pregnancy in the workplace puts ‘an unnecessary cost burden’ on the workplace.
EHRC have also launched a February 2018 campaign to combat these negative perceptions and end discrimination against new parents. Working Forward asks businesses to join the campaign and make the pledge.
Read the research report.
Find out on the Working Forward campaign.
Human rights belong to everyone. We all have rights regardless of sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, age, income, gender, country of birth or belief.
This is from the February 2018 report from the Scottish Human Rights Commission on building a human rights culture in Scotland.
The research tested and identified the impact of different types of messages on people’s attitudes towards human rights
The report finds:
Demographic groups of women and 16-24 year olds were most likely to become more supportive and engaged with human rights when exposed to key human rights messages
When talking about human rights, organisations involved in human rights secured the greatest levels of trust amongst all those surveyed, with 58% of participants saying they would trust them a great deal or fair amount.
This compares to 17% for a famous singer, actor, sportsperson or musician who is well known for caring about human rights
Different spokespeople affected the impact of messages. For example across all those surveyed, a disability rights campaigner has more impact than the Chair of the National Human Rights Institution when discussing disability rights.
Read the full report (pdf).
