The Scottish Government

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Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Background

1.1.1 Both the Scottish Executive Equality Strategy (Scottish Executive 2000) and the Scottish Parliament's commitment to mainstreaming equality through all of its work (Kidner & Curtis 2003) have highlighted a concern to promote equality through all policy and legislative activities in Scotland. In support of this broad commitment to equality, there have been a number of specific activities taken forward at UK and Scotland level in recent years that have focused on addressing gender inequality.

1.1.2 The Strategic Group on Women was set up in 2003 by the then Minister for Social Justice (later the Minister for Communities), Margaret Curran MSP. The Group's remit was to take a strategic look at the issues facing women in Scotland and to suggest an agenda for action to address these. The Group identified occupational segregation as a key priority and made specific recommendations to address this through, for example, promoting flexible working arrangements, tackling gender segregation in education and training, and encouraging women and men towards employment in non-traditional sectors/occupations (Scottish Executive 2003).

1.1.3 The Women and Work Commission was set up in 2004 by the UK Government to: "offer an independent review to examine the causes of the gender pay and opportunities gap and to find practical ideas to close it within a generation" (Women & Work Commission 2006; p.iv). Evidence to inform the Commission's work was taken from experts in gender equality and those running successful initiatives, as well as from meeting with women and girls during visits to schools, colleges, workplaces and meeting places across the UK, including a visit to Glasgow. The Commission's report Shaping a Fairer Future (Women & Work Commission 2006) identified four areas for action, including a concern with challenging gender stereotyping in education, training and employment. With girls and women still following traditional paths through education and training, and earning less as a result, the Commission recognised that a cultural change was needed to challenge assumptions about men and women's potential and widen girls' horizons in terms of the jobs that they do. There was also recognised to be a need to address the range of barriers affecting take-up of a wide variety of employment options for both women and men.

1.1.4 Throughout its 30 years, the Equal Opportunities Commission ( EOC) worked to challenge gender inequalities, including occupational segregation, through policy, research and advocacy activities that engaged employers, training and education providers and government. In 2003, the EOC launched a General Formal Investigation ( GFI) into occupational segregation. Framed by the activities of the Modern Apprenticeship scheme, the Scottish GFI reported a continuance of traditional gendered career choices, with significant attitudinal and cultural barriers framing the occupational choices made by young people (Thomson et al 2005). The report highlighted important policy messages on occupational segregation:

• The segmentation of women and men into different types of employment has a damaging effect on the economy by failing to make the most efficient use of the potential workforce, contributing to persistent skills' deficits and holding back increased productivity.
• Occupational segregation of women and men in different occupational groups (horizontal segregation) and the concentration of women in low paid and low status jobs (vertical segregation) are major contributors to the gender pay gap.

1.1.5 The continuance of occupational segregation has important economic and social implications, not only in relation to pay inequality and the potential cost to the Scottish economy of women not realising their full potential, but also in terms of the differential status attached to specific jobs. With women dominating in five core occupations - what the Women & Work Commission report refers to as the five 'c's of caring, cashiering, catering, cleaning and clerical (p.4) - there is recognition that many of the jobs done by women are low value, low status jobs (Guy & Newman 2004).

1.1.6 As many part-time jobs are low-level and low pay jobs within particular sectors, and women are the significant majority of part-time workers, there is a clear economic disadvantage to working part-time, which disproportionately affects women (Equal Opportunities Commission 2005). As is discussed further in Chapter 2, analysis of hourly earnings by gender shows that the pay gap between women working part-time and men working full-time is significantly higher than the pay gap between women working full-time and men working full-time.

1.2 Current policy/legislative drivers

1.2.1 At both UK and Scotland level, there have been a number of policy/legislative activities introduced in recent years that may have a more or less direct influence on the achievement of gender equality. The biggest policy change emerges from the introduction of the Gender Equality Duty (which came into force on 6 April 2007), which places a new legal requirement on all public authorities not just to eliminate unlawful gender discrimination and harassment, but also to promote equality of opportunity between women and men. The introduction of the Gender Equality Duty is said to represent the biggest change in gender equality legislation in 30 years with, for the first time, public authorities and those contracted by them now having to be proactive in eliminating inequalities between women and men. In practice, this means that when a public body, or someone contracted by a public body, carries out its functions, they must have due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate unlawful sex discrimination and harassment.
• Promote equality of opportunity between women and men.
• Eliminate discrimination and harassment in employment and vocational training for transsexual people.

1.2.2 To comply with the Gender Equality Duty, each public authority was required to publish a gender equality scheme in April 2007. The written scheme is intended to set out how each public authority intends to fulfil their gender equality duties by setting specific gender equality objectives. The Scottish Executive (2007a) gender equality scheme ¹ identified four activities as important to achieving gender equality in Scotland:

• Produce, in partnership with the Equal Opportunities Commission, a gender equality toolkit for education staff working in schools (Scottish Executive 2007b).
• Via the Occupational Segregation Working Group (see 1.3), explore areas where policy might be developed to tackle occupational segregation in the workforce of Scottish schools.
• Draw on the cross-Directorate Occupational Segregation Working Group to help challenge gender stereotyping in subject choices, career choices, and within Modern Apprenticeships.
• The continued support of policy teams throughout Scottish Government by the Equality Unit to embed the equality agenda in all their work.

1.2.3 As one of the high level objectives within the Scottish Executive's gender equality scheme was to tackle occupational segregation, the cross-Directorate Occupational Segregation Working Group was identified as an important policy driver to achieving change on this issue. More recently, gender stereotyping/occupational segregation has been discussed at meetings with stakeholders and public bodies to consider possible priority areas for the specific duty on Scottish Ministers to report on the advancement of equality of opportunity between men and women in Scotland. The outcome of these discussions will be available later in 2008.

1.2.4 While not making any specific reference to gender equality, The Government Economic Strategy (Scottish Government 2007a) states that "Scotland has a real strength in the most vital factor for modern economies - the human capital offered by our greatest asset, Scotland's people". This focus on human capital offers an important and timely opportunity to think explicitly about the human capital potential of women within Scotland's economy. Specifically, taking an inclusive approach to developing Scotland's economy requires activities to address gender inequality e.g. addressing the lower economic and social status attributed to the capital investments made by women in caring and domestic labour.

1.2.5 The Government Skills Strategy (Scottish Government 2007b) was launched with a key message to increase the skills of the workforce to boost productivity and growth. The Strategy makes explicit the commitment to promoting equality:

This Strategy is a framework to show how all of the constituent parts of our education and learning systems can contribute to giving Scotland a skills base that is world class. As well as aiming to promote equal access to, and participation in, skills and learning for all, we will aim to recognise people's different needs, situations and goals and remove the barriers that limit what people can do and can be. We will expect our partner organisations to do the same.

Each part of the Strategy covers very specific target groups from early years through to adulthood. In order to consider fully the equalities' implications of each policy area on its relevant audience, we will ensure that each programme underpinning this Strategy will be equality impact assessed across six strands (race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, age and religion/faith) and monitored thereafter to make sure that they are appropriate, to mitigate against any potential negative impact and to ensure that our policies are as robust and effective as they can be for as many people as possible (p.iii) .

1.2.6 With the UK thought to be experiencing a 'productivity gap' ( ESRC 2004), with output per worker low compared to other leading European economies and the USA, developing skills is recognised as important to improving productivity. Education and training - particularly vocational training programmes such as Modern Apprenticeships - have long been viewed as a means of addressing this gap by increasing skills and therefore increasing productivity. A key message to emerge through the Skills Strategy is that high levels of skills and qualifications must be matched by greater utilisation of skills so as to boost productivity and economic growth across Scotland. The Skills Strategy also makes an explicit commitment to removing the barriers that stand in the way of all individuals participating in learning and skills development, so helping people to realise their potential in the workforce.

1.2.7 In the new political context then, we can see evidence of a continued commitment to promoting equality and, with this, a need to continue to work to address gender inequality and tackle occupational segregation.

1.3 Occupational Segregation Working Group

1.3.1 In 2006, the then Scottish Executive set up the cross-departmental (now cross-directorate) Occupational Segregation Working Group ( OSWG) to take forward action to tackle occupational segregation. The Scottish Executive's gender equality scheme, published in March 2007 ², set out the following action to be taken forward by OSWG:

• Identify the key issues that impact on and contribute to gender stereotyping in education, work and training
• Raise awareness and understanding of the importance of considering gender issues and the wider mainstreaming equality agenda
• Further encourage joint working between delivery agencies and policy makers
• Consider where effective interventions might be made across the life-course to address gender stereotypes and encourage men and women to enter occupations where they are presently under-represented.
• Suggest concrete changes that can be made to existing or proposed interventions - exploring measures to tackle aspects of occupational segregation in the short, medium and long term.

1.3.2 A significant driver behind the work of OSWG was to address the recommendations of the Women and Work Commission as these pertained to Scotland. The OSWG was also concerned to continue action in response to the recommendations of the Strategic Group on Women, to support the work of the Close the Gap partnership in reducing the pay gap between men and women, and to take forward the issues raised by the EOC's GFI into occupational segregation. The main concerns raised in these documents, which have framed the work of the OSWG, relate to:

• Reducing the gender pay gap.
• Tackling low pay.
• Tackling job segregation.
• Promoting job flexibility.
• Improving childcare.

1.3.3 The OSWG had an ambitious brief, recognising that gender inequality occurs across the life-course, while also being aware that age, disability, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation can also affect an individual's experience of gender inequality.

1.3.4 Throughout 2007, the OSWG met to explore a range of issues that impact on and contribute to gender stereotyping from early years through school, further and higher education, training and employment. In addition to having representation from a range of policy teams within Scottish Government, the group also drew on the expertise of relevant external stakeholders as appropriate. This included the commissioning of a researcher to support the work of OSWG and to write this final report.

1.4 The Research

1.4.1 Three activities framed this research exercise:

• Analysis of statistical data on gender (in)equality in Scotland.
• A review of research on occupational segregation in the UK.
• Analysis of current policy activity by Scottish Government to address gender inequality/occupational segregation (which included individual meetings with policy teams to discuss their activities).

1.4.2 As well as the above activities, the research was informed by observation of, and participation in, a number of OSWG meetings held during 2007/08.

1.5 The Structure of the Report

1.5.1 This report presents important messages regarding the extent of, and measures to address, occupational segregation in Scotland. To set the scene, Chapter 2 presents a range of available statistical and research data relating to gender inequality/occupational segregation in Scotland, along with discussion of some of the key explanations that have been offered as to why inequalities still exist. Chapter 3 then presents evidence on the policy context and policy activity being taken forward in Scotland to address occupational segregation.

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