AUTUMN STATEMENT 2013
Women left behind in the Autumn Statement
The Autumn Statement felt rather too familiar. Not only because the headlines were leaked to the press in advance but also because, once again, women were left behind.
Osborne congratulated himself on the indicators of recovery, but at the Women’s Budget Group we asked, recovery for who?
Unemployment is falling, yet women’s unemployment has fallen by less than 4% since 2011, half as fast as men’s (9%). Real earnings are not recovering; instead they have continued to fall for both men (0.4 % for gross hourly earnings) and for women (0.7%). As the cost of living rises and progress on the gender pay gap stalls, inequality only becomes further entrenched.