Our campaign
YWCA's campaign is about giving young women from disadvantaged backgrounds the skills they need to climb off the bottom rung of the career ladder and work towards a better future.
The five lowest-paying sectors for apprenticeships are dominated by women:
- Hairdressing (average net pay: £90 a week, proportion of female apprentices: 93%)
- Early years &education (£95; 97%)
- Retail (£123; 61%)
- Business admin (£126; 76%)
- Health & social care (£130; 89%)
From Ullman, A. and Deakin, U. (2005) Apprenticeship Pay: A Survey of Earnings by Sector, DfES Research Report RR674
Well over 70 per cent of the low-paid are women. More than 30 years of legislation, work-based initiatives and training schemes have failed to make an impact on the women in Britain today who work hard but stay poor.
Why do we still undervalue women’s work and tolerate the unexplored potential of millions of young women?
The personal cost to low-paid women is shocking enough without even considering the economic cost. The Women and Work Commission estimate that getting women working in occupations which are currently male-dominated and getting more women into the labour market could be worth between £15 billion and £23 billion to the UK economy.
In the past few years raising aspirations and providing laws to tackle sex discrimination has been the focus and it's been great for middle-class girls. Now we need to turn our attention to girls from poor communities who face huge personal barriers as well as deep-rooted cultural obstacles.
Work and worth
We will always need cleaners, carers and caterers – jobs mostly done by women – and we will always need plumbers and bricklayers – jobs mostly done by men. How come plumbers and bricklayers get paid more? If we encourage women to leave sectors such as cleaning and caring, someone will still have to do them. Low pay and poor prospects will then affect the next worker who does that – in many cases an immigrant employee. So alongside broadening the options for young women we need to reassess the value we attach to the jobs they do, reward their hard work and respect the choices they make.