Progress in the boardroom may prove to be the consolation prize for the loss of many gains women have won in the past 40 years
Mr Cameron was in Stockholm last week to discuss with the Nordic countries, among other issues, why women are largely absent from British boardrooms and how more females can be encouraged to become entrepreneurs and leaders in business. "It's about quality," Mr Cameron said. "Not just equality… if we fail to unlock the potential of women in the labour market, we're not only failing those individuals, we're failing our whole economy."
It is stirring talk: a nod to social justice and an understanding that, as numerous studies have shown, more women at the top is also good for the bottom line: both arguments eloquently articulated by the man in charge. Many women in the 1960s might have cheered to the rafters to hear a prime minister acknowledge that what his predecessors could easily have dismissed as "pinafore politics" is apparently seen as vital to equal citizenship and a growing economy. So, is a momentum for real change under way?
Since the Davies report last year, which proposed female quotas at boardroom level by 2015 if there wasn't a significant improvement, the proportion of women on the boards of FTSE companies has crept from 12.5% in 2010 to 15% and on all boards from 13% to 27%. Mr Cameron has suggested that he might advocate quotas if the pace doesn't accelerate. His familiarity with his female side is rarely consistent. Mr Cameron's interest in the Swedish measure to give tax breaks to the affluent who employ domestic servants flagged up yet again his apparent lack of insight into the parlous position of millions of women in the UK who are seeing their own and their children's job prospects shrink while their family's living standards diminish.
Mr Cameron's Nordic excursion was one of only a number of occasions in the past couple of weeks in which the representation of women has attracted attention. The lack of women in the bishopric, the boardroom, on television and – fully dressed – on Page 3 of the Sun are all issues of concern that rightfully need addressing. However, arguably, what requires even more urgent action is the profoundly inequitable manner in which the cumulative clout of growing unemployment, changes to benefits, the rising cost of childcare and significant cuts to services such as support for the elderly is hammering women in particular. Progress in the boardroom may yet prove to be the consolation prize for the loss of many of the gains women have won in the past 40 years.
"Forget China, India and the internet," the Economist instructed presciently in 2006. "Economic growth is driven by women." If so, we have further proof that Mr Osborne's economic strategy is failing miserably. Female unemployment is at a 23-year high, not least because two out of three jobs in the public sector are held by women. And it's far from over yet. The Office for Budget Responsibility anticipates that the public sector will lose 710,000 jobs and living standards will continue to fall until 2013.
Attrition doesn't stop at the Jobcentre. According to campaigning groups the Fawcett Society and the Women's Budget Group, more than 70% of the £18bn cuts to social security and welfare will fall on women. While one-fifth of the female wage consists of benefits to compensate, for instance, for the low wages associated with female-dominated sectors such as care and retail – benefits make up only one-tenth of the male wage. From April, for instance, a couple have to work 24 hours instead of the current 16 hours before becoming eligible for working tax credit. Add to that a reduction in childcare support (in the UK, parents contribute 33% of their net household income on childcare compared with 11% in France and 4% in Belgium) and a woman can't afford to go to work. The introduction of universal credit (UC) in 2013 will create further disincentives. A second earner working 16 hours on £6.08p a hour will lose 82% of her weekly earnings under UC compared to only 53% under the pre-April 2011 tax credit system.
The perilous position of many women is in part to do with their traditional (and now changing) role as the main carers of children; the fact that 40% of all working women are employed in the hard-hit public sector and the apparent blindness of politicians to the negative chain reaction that many of their policies trigger – increasing rather than reducing the cost to the public purse. Small wonder that the Conservatives are seeing the female vote drain away.
So what might make a difference? For all its failings, Labour understood the way in which targeted support – tax credits, child benefit, childcare subsidy and jobs growth in the public sector – benefited women, helped to reduce child poverty and stimulated the economy. It should be articulating costed policies in a similar vein more strenuously now and considering bolder support for childcare. That said, women are as diverse as men, so even several solutions cannot suit all. Nevertheless, what would help is if the coalition undertook to examine seriously why those at the bottom are disproportionately paying so much more than those at the top. It might also undertake to ensure the £5bn capital investment proposed as part of the National Infrastructure Plan is spent not only on physical infrastructure – road, rail and digital – but also on social infrastructure – education, care and health services – that generate jobs for women.
While aware of the deficit, also on a to-do list ought to be an increase in the minimum wage, improved childcare support, better representation in politics so we don't have more (male) millionaires than women around the cabinet table, and a serious attempt to address equal pay and the part-time penalty. As the thinktank the Resolution Foundation has pointed out, female talent is going to waste because once a woman moves to part-time employment, what some men prefer to call "compressed hours", her skills are drastically underused.
Last week, when Mr Cameron was in Stockholm, he may have picked up a copy of the tales of Pippi Longstocking, the much-loved fictional character created by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Pippi, aged nine, is unconventional, assertive and can lift a horse with one hand. She also has a strong sense of justice and fair play. Pippi constantly questions why things are the way they are.
Unless rigorously challenged now, the way things will be for many British women for several years to come is that they will disproportionately forfeit prospects, employment, pay and pensions. That is an abrogation of the social contact between citizen and government, a loss to the economy and, ultimately, it exacts a high price from us all.