Daisy Sands, Policy and Campaigns Officer

About Fawcett
• the UK’s leading campaign for equality between
women and men
• Trace our roots back to 1866, to Millicent Fawcett’s
peaceful struggle for women’s votes
• Vision: a society where women and our rights and
freedoms are equally valued and respected and
where we have equal power and influence in shaping
our own lives and our wider world
The ‘Triple Jeopardy’
Deficit cutting:
Women face a ‘Triple Jeopardy’

1.Cuts to jobs
2.Cuts to services and benefits women use
more
3.Women also likely to ‘fill the gaps’
Cuts to jobs…
• OBR est. 500,000 jobs to be lost in public sector
• 65% of public sector workers women
- 73% local government workers
- 77% of NHS
= will have particular impact on women in part-
time work/ on low wages
Cuts to services…
• Children’s services
• Social care services
• Support for pregnant women
• Domestic violence + trafficking services
• Voluntary sector women’s groups
• Legal aid
Cuts to benefits
On average, benefits and tax credits comprise 1/5 th of women's income
and less than 1/10th of men's
• Child Benefit
• Reductions in entitlements to child and working tax
credits
• Housing Benefit
• Maternity payments
• Lone parents
 Women filling the gaps...
• As services are withdrawn, regressive ideology assumes
women will fill the gaps
• Women already do 2 hours more unpaid work a day than men
• Women do ¾’s of childcare during the week
• ¾’s recipients of carers allowance are women
+ concerns about welfare reform – ‘universal credit’ could
threaten independent income and incentives to undertake
paid work
All this against a backdrop of……
• Persistent gap between the pay of women and men
– currently 16%
• 64% of low paid workers are women
• 40% of ethnic minority women live in poverty
• Women’s average income in retirement only 62% of
the average for men
= a roll back on women’s equality
2011 Budget
• Growth strategy – missed opportunity to start rectify rise
in women’s unemployment
• Freeze on changes in employment practice will penalise
women in small businesses
• Watering down existing employment rights risks hitting
women hardest
• Cutting red tape should not be at the expense of
women’s equality.
What is Fawcett doing?
• Insider: holding government to account on legal
duty to eliminate/advance gender equality

• Outsider: campaigning to highlight and address

the impact of deficit-cutting measures on
women’s equality
What you can do...
• Join Fawcett to support our work
• Tell us your experiences – how will the cuts affect you?
• Write to your local council re req. to undertake GEIA’s
for services cuts
• Write to your MP to ask them to raise PQ’s
• Organise locally, spread the word
• Write to your local paper
To join Fawcett, for more on our campaigns...

www.fawcettsociety.org.uk

To contact me:

Daisy.sands@fawcettsociety.org.uk