Women bearing brunt of UK economic problems, new study finds

Women are bearing the brunt of economic problems in the UK and almost half of women in work would struggle to pay an unexpected bill of £100 compared to a third of working men, a new study has found.

The report, carried out by the RSA and the Women’s Budget Group, found 38 per cent of working women feel their job does not provide them with enough income for a decent standard of living. This is in comparison to just 24 per cent of men in work.

Female workers were found to be more likely to feel that they do not have enough savings to maintain a decent standard of living in retirement – with 54 per cent of women feeling unable to save for retirement and just 37 per cent of men saying the same.

While 42 per cent of working women felt like they do not have scope to advance in their careers, only 34 per cent of men felt similarly.

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the UK Women’s Budget Group, said: “This survey highlights the stark truth that for too many women, the economy isn’t working.

"Women have lower incomes than men, are less likely to progress in their careers and are more likely to be living in poverty at all stages of their lives.

“Working class, BAME and disabled women are particularly likely to face the economic insecurity revealed in this survey. But it doesn’t have to be like this – we can organise the economy differently.”

The report warned female workers are drastically more likely to be forced to endure financial precariousness and are more fearful of Brexit’s impact on living standards than their male counterparts.

Researchers argued the chief challenges radical technologies pose to the future of work for women are grounded in low participation in the gig economy, underrepresentation in STEM, discrimination by algorithm in recruitment, and the explosion of automation.

They argued women are enduring the subsequent precarity of those challenges most intensely.

The study, which polled 2,048 British adults, draws attention the dangers of new technologies worsening existing gender divides in the workplace – calling for recent cases of women suffering from in-built bias in artificial intelligence systems to be met with a “robust response” from policymakers and employers.

The report warns that “algorithmic prejudice” could become one of the new giants of modern poverty if it is left unchecked.

Asheem Singh, Director of Economy at RSA, said: “Automation, gig work and artificial intelligence offer huge opportunities to enrich the human experience – but also real dangers.

“Women, in particular, are at risk: whether it is algorithms that filter out women from certain job adverts or a gig economy that is increasingly gendered, we need to be alive to the danger and take action. We need more women in science and coding jobs and more conversations about gender and tech in workplaces and institutions. We must avoid at all costs a world in which prejudice by algorithm is an accepted part of everyday life.”

In March, the national statistics office announced women in the UK are considerably more likely than men to be working in jobs endangered by the advance of technology.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said 1.5 million people in England are at high risk of losing their jobs to automation – with women holding more than 70 per cent of those roles believed to be at high risk.

The three occupations with the highest probability of automation were found to be waiters and waitresses, shelf-stackers and basic retail roles – all of which are low-skilled or routine. However, well-educated women were also found to be more at risk than men.

“Even among degree-educated workers, three in four men are in jobs at low risk of automation, while only six in 10 women are,” said the Resolution Foundation, a think tank which aims to improve the living standards of low and middle-income families.

The ONS defines automation as tasks currently performed by workers being replaced with technology. This could mean computer programmes, algorithms, or robots.