UK: Reversing the old gender gap

The idea that men will always earn more than women is deeply ingrained in society. So much so, it is generally believed that if we wish to achieve gender equality in pay, governments must use the law and the courts to rectify the imbalance on behalf of disadvantaged women.

But what happens when women start to earn more than men? Should governments then start doing the opposite? New research by Mary Curnock Cook, head of the university admissions body, UCAS, which we report on today, suggests that this is happening already. According to Ms Cook, women aged 22 to 29 now earn more on average per hour than men of the same age group. Admittedly, the gap is fairly small, a matter of a few pence per hour, but it is tremendously significant that women have the advantage in earnings at all.

In one sense, this result is predictable and welcome. The world of work has been transformed in the past 30 or 40 years and many of the changes that have occurred have benefited women. Manual labourers have greatly declined as a proportion of the workforce, for one thing.

At the other end of the spectrum, the testosterone-filled world of the boardroom is still an overwhelmingly male preserve, which is why women seeking top jobs still hit a so-called glass ceiling. But what's clear is that in that vast economic space above manual labour and below the boardroom – the bulk of the economy these days – women finally are gaining a lead over men.

It is a small lead for the moment, but one that is probably destined to widen unless the gap in academic achievement between girls and boys in schools starts to narrow, because this is the root cause of the subsequent gap in pay. Girls have been outperforming boys academically at schools for several decades, so it was only a matter of time before that fed through in terms of a difference in pay.

We should welcome the results of this survey but feel cause for concern. Ideally, boys and girls should perform equally at school and then go on to earn roughly the same amount of money. Simply reversing the old ascendancy of men over women in terms of pay is not necessarily a leap forward.

Source: Independent (UK), 3 October 2011

Girls Decide

On 21 September 2011, the Girls Decide films produced for the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) won the prestigious International Video and Communications Award.  

There to accept the award was Eliot Carroll, the director of the films from production company Tinderflint, who said he was ‘over the moon’ about winning the award. In an interview with the IVCA sponsors, Eliot gave all due credit to the young people and staff of IPPF who contributed their time, skills and passion during the films’ production in Syria, Albania, Argentina, Swaziland, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The Girls Decide films were highly commended in the public sector video category, and won the charity sector video category at the IVCA awards. The winners’ photos, alongside links to the winning videos, will be posted on the IVCA Clarion Awards website early next week.

The Girls Decide initiative, started by IPPF in 2010, embodies a positive approach to the sexual and reproductive health of young women and girls across the world and emphasizes the importance of access to services in improving their health, well-being and development.

One out of every three clients who visits IPPF clinics across the world is a young person. IPPF’s focus is on providing sexual and reproductive health services that are youth-friendly; empowering young women, particularly through the provision of comprehensive sexuality education; and affecting political and social change to ensure that we live in a world where girls decide.

View the films >here>

THE FACTS

·         About 16 million girls aged 15 – 19 give birth each year, accounting for about 11% of births worldwide;

·         Adolescents girls aged 10 – 19 account for 23% of the overall burden of disease due to pregnancy and childbirth worldwide;

·         About 2.5 million adolescents have unsafe abortions every year and account for 46% of deaths related to unsafe abortion worldwide;

·         In developing countries, more than 60 million women aged 20-24 were married or in a union before the age of 18.

For more information, please, contact Paul Bell.

condom and vasectomy only ?

Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance (RISUG) is also starting to get recognition in the United States. Men receive an injection of chemicals that form a gel along the vas deferens, the pathway that transports sperm. The gel can last for 10 to 15 years. During that time it both reduces the number of sperm making the trip, and also physically disables the ones that do make it safely through the passageway.

The major concern with vasectomies, the only form of male contraception other than condoms, is that they are not always reversible, a risk many men are unwilling to take. According to the researchers involved, RISUG solves that problem. At any point the man can receive a second injection that dissolves the sperm-blocking gel and reverses the contraceptive.

The RISUG method has been in clinical trials in India for several years, and recently U.S. researchers took notice and will start testing it out here. Elaine Lissner, director of the Male Contraception Information Project in San Francisco, bought the rights to the technique and will repeat the clinical trial process in the U.S. in hopes of readying it for FDA approval.

Now that baby boomers and post-baby boomers make up the majority of men needing contraception, 13% to 80% of men (depending on the country and study) express interest in using a new male method. A recent study of over 9,000 men in nine countries on four continents showed that more than 60% of men in Spain, Germany, Mexico and Brazil expressed willingness to use a new male contraceptive. These men would like to relieve their partners of some of the contraceptive burden in their relationship or would simply like a more reliable backup to condoms.

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