Imagine a scenario where fewer female graduates were finding jobs in this recession than men or that fewer females were entering the professions than men. Imagine, the acres of newsprint, airtime and gnashing of teeth from Harman Towers, the Fawcett Society, the Equalities Commission and anyone else wanting to moan about discrimination.
Of course, the reality is that the opposite is happening in Britain in 2009 but the silence is deafening.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency produced research this week that showed that one in ten men (10.3%) who graduated with a degree last year is unemployed, compared with 6.3% women. With fewer boys now going into university in the first place, this is a worrying trend partly I believe because of the collapse of the private sector (men predominate) as opposed to the continuing expansion of the public sector (female predominate). Certainly, it nails again the myth that Harman put about that women would suffer more in the recession than men.
The gender balance has been changing for years now as the education gap between boys and girls continues as now more women are entering the professions than boys (I swear there was more up-to-date research on this last week but cannot find it). No mention of this profession issue in the gender pay gap debates.
aye, if it was the other way around it would be BBC headlines. Just bracing myself for the triumphalistic "girls are better than boys" headlines when the exam results are announced shortly...
Posted by: CS | Wednesday, 19 August 2009 at 21:12