The UK Covid Inquiry: an object lesson in who gets to make policy

The UK’s Covid Inquiry has provided confirmation that all was not well in the heart of government as the country faced perhaps its greatest crisis since the Second World War.  In a sense, so far, so familiar – it has long been clear there were deep tensions between many of the principal actors in Westminster, and that the UK had a worse experience than many comparable countries.  But what recent testimony laid bare – especially the evidence given by former civil servant, Helen MacNamara – was that the government response was frequently limited by the lack of diversity amongst central decision-makers, and that a tendency towards groupthink had consequences for policy.  MacNamara went so far as to say that a lack of women’s perspectives at the top table, meant that it was very likely that women would have died during the crisis, due to a lack of attention to issues like domestic violence during lockdown, and further, that women’s health was more widely neglected.  There was only a sluggish response in areas such as maternity and abortion care. 

MacNamara and other witnesses have pointed to the flaws in the much-touted strategy of ‘following the science’ – a slogan which rapidly begins to disintegrate in contact with policymaking realities.  Not only have various key players questioned the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s, grasp of the science around contagion and containment of the virus, but there has been a wider recognition that the notion of ‘following the science’ obscured political choices made in confronting Covid 19.  MacNamara in particular highlighted how the ‘breezy confidence’ of senior government figures early in the pandemic hampered a more thoughtful and wide-ranging approach to practical policy-making.  It should have been possible to attend more to the differential impact of pandemic response measures on particular sections of the population – notably low-paid workers, ethnic minorities and women. 

The ways in which self-isolation, lockdown and eligibility for economic support, might affect those outside the Westminster bubble, those in frontline occupations, and with caring responsibilities, did not sufficiently register with the Prime Minister and his immediate circle, MacNamara suggested.  In a group of relatively privileged men with well-paid jobs, back gardens and in-house childcare, too little time was spent thinking about how their decisions impacted on the less well-resourced and less powerful in society.  Lee Cain, Johnson’s Director of Communications, remarked that no-one in the Cabinet Office had experience of Free School Meals, while Helen MacNamara noted that there was little appreciation of the conversations going on between parents at the gates of State schools.

These types of issues that have been preoccupying me for some time, as I am writing a book about the lack of representativeness in policymaking and research circles.  Not only are there inequalities between people to consider, but also the ways in which different types of evidence are prioritised (or not) within the political system.  Helen MacNamara talked about the importance of addressing the human aspects policymaking, as well as the ‘count-able’, auditable aspects.  In other words, effective policymaking should take account not just of tangible stuff (like the numbers of deaths during the pandemic, or the rates of spread of the virus) but the less visible matters, such as the knock-on effects of school closures on parental employment or mental health; the effect on child and family outcomes of enforcing strict isolation policies on birthing mothers. These are precisely the sort of areas where social science perspectives and individual testimony can augment more technical, quantified knowledge. David Halpern, a behavioural science expert, told the Inquiry that British scientific advisers were slow to learn from effective strategies adopted in other countries. Others have noted elsewhere a lack diversity amongst advisers.  In responding to a pandemic, openness to wide range of perspectives is distinctly advantageous.

And it’s not just in matters of rating evidence and assessing outcomes that diversity matters.  It was clear in MacNamara’s evidence that women were excluded from many of the crucial decision-making processes in government – either by not being present at key meetings, or by being overlooked or interrupted when they were there. During the pandemic, researchers concluded that countries with female leaders fared better. In what one senior civil servant described as the ‘superhero bunfight’ which characterised much of the Johnson team’s response to Covid, it was hard for women to get a hearing for any concerns. And in spite of evidence of higher death rates amongst ethnic minorities in Britain, the centre was slow to attend to such matters.

While those giving evidence to the Covid inquiry sometimes differentiated between how things panned out during Johnson’s premiership, and ‘business-as-usual’ in government, I think there is ample evidence that diversity issues in policymaking extend beyond the pandemic, and beyond the particular monoculture of Boris Johnson’s top team. Helen MacNamara mentioned how her perspective had been informed by her experience of the Grenfell tragedy.  She was referring chiefly to the governance aspects in terms of supporting staff, in line with the remit of the Inquiry.  There are wider lessons to be learnt from this event, which occurred during Theresa May’s time in office.  The former Prime Minister has conceded that her initial response was lacking, and that those in social housing were viewed as ‘second class citizens’ by some.  It has frequently been argued that politicians’ response to Grenfell may have been better and swifter, had more of them had any experience of living in tower blocks or social housing. Moreover, a considerable number of MPs are landlords, a situation which may colour their judgement in terms of housing regulations and tenant rights.  In our highly unequal society, it is all the more vital that policy is informed by a range of voices from a variety of social backgrounds.

Policymaking in Britain is limited by the gap in lived experience between decisionmakers and the wider population.  The Covid Inquiry has shone a spotlight on this unhappy state of affairs. This matters, however, not just in times of crisis, but in the way everyday decisions are made on spending which affects people’s quality of life. Without greater input from women, ethnic minorities and working-class people, our social policy is destined to fail to meet the challenges of twenty-first century living. I’ve spent a long time writing about how we got to where we are – the point now is to change things for the better, by moving beyond policy made by the usual suspects.

Circuses and bread

When Boris Johnson appeared before the Privileges Committee recently, I thought that what the former Prime Minister gave us, was another spin in the ring of his particular brand of political circus.  His performance rather lacked in substance. I am hardly alone in this assessment – articles referring to him as a clown, or a washed-up actor, have multiplied (e.g. here and here).   Reflecting on his performance as he gave his version of events concerning gatherings in No.10, I was drawn back to things I’d written during the first lockdown in 2020.

I found a piece called ‘Bread without circuses’ that I’d written when the supermarkets emptied of flour, and the kids were stuck doing remote learning at home. I’m always interested in the crossovers between food and politics (as I have written e.g., here) and when the world shut down, I was to be found – like many others – making bread. I wasn’t alone in appreciating it when satirist, Karl Sharro, called sourdough ‘le paindemic’. Re-reading my writing from 2020 reminded me of the febrile atmosphere, and a sense of being cut off from social contact: ‘It seems everyone craves carbohydrates and ritual. Kneading, proving, rising, the smell of a new-baked loaf.  Ursula le Guin once said, ‘Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new’. With the wolf at the door, what else can we do?  Attention is turning to when the circuses might come back, to entertainment and eating out with friends – in the meantime, bread will do.’ For many of us fortunate enough to have food on the table, and the ability to work from home, breadmaking and cookery could provide a kind of near-therapy to cope with loss of social interaction and existential dread.

Back to 2023, and Boris Johnson was squirming under scrutiny of Partygate. What seemed to make his appearance before the committee out-of-kilter with much of his audience, was a certain shamelessness in trying to justify the social mixing that went on in Downing Street.  Did the rest of us only follow guidance ‘to the best of our ability given the circumstances’ as Johnson described matters on his watch? No, the vast majority complied fully with what they were asked to do, making sacrifices in order to do so. People waved at older relatives through windows, refrained from indoor socialising, and suffered through isolation. And those who were bereaved in that period had the additional pain of lack of contact with their loved ones and scaled-down funerals with no physical contact between mourners.  No wonder Johnson’s circus looked rather tawdry and past its best.

When it comes to substance, what bread could Johnson have thrown us? Forensic detail? Contrition? Neither seems a likely part of his playbook.  Perhaps this is really the wrong question.  After all, what does by the phrase ‘bread and circuses’ hark back to? It comes from a poem to describe how Roman governments gained approval by distraction: by providing free wheat and spectacles, rather than solid policymaking. Sound familiar? Let’s hope that in reaching a judgement on whether Johnson misled parliament, the Privileges Committee can help ensure that this circus moves on.  That will require a balancing act worthy of any big top. 

(Meanwhile, in the USA another carnival rolls on…)

Following the suit

Today saw the release of the latest basket of goods used to track price inflation by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The Consumer Price Index of frequently-bought goods is regularly updated, reflecting changing preferences and purchasing behaviour – new items are added, and goods which are waning in popularity are removed.  The departing item which caught my eye in the new version for 2022, is men’s suits.  This year’s basket of goods has dropped it from the list and added a formal jacket or blazer instead. The new item could be paired with formal trousers which are already included. These changes recognise a move away from matching suits towards something more casual, that many will recognise.

It’s easy to see this shift as all about the pandemic.  As Covid enforced, then encouraged, home-working for office staff, many found themselves at the kitchen table in ‘dress down Friday’ wear at best, sweatshirts and trackies for much of the time.  But, as for so many workplace trends, Covid might more appropriately be seen as an accelerator, rather than as the originator, of a movement.  After all, notoriously smart-dressing finance companies have been becoming less formal for years – Goldman Sachs relaxed dress codes for IT workers in 2017, and spread the policy company-wide in 2019, while J P Morgan blazed the trail in 2016.  Suit sales in the UK have been falling for several years, and some stores have stopped stocking them altogether. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that IT workers in finance were let off the hook of formal wear first, as tech CEOs have long made hoodies and t-shirts office staples, even in the most senior posts.

The shift in the ONS basket of goods, brings men’s clothing items more in tune with women’s.  Items for women include formal trousers and skirts as well as formal jackets, but no matching suits.  Perhaps as the numbers of women in the workplace have grown, the greater variety of women’s office apparel has influenced views on appropriate attire for men.  Historically, though, the tendency has been more for many professional women to imitate the neutrality of men’s suits, as I wrote here. Being taken seriously at work has often involved making muted choices in clothing and make-up. The nearest equivalent trend to the decline of the man’s suit for professional women, may be the precipitous drop in the sale of high heels in 2020 – but formal shoes remain the ONS’s basket for both sexes.

A couple of years’ widespread homeworking has, however, proved that productivity does not require many of the conventions of the office.  Casual wear and comfortable shoes have not proved damaging to many companies’ bottom line.  Teleconferencing apps may have transformed attitudes to workwear as much as to business travel.  But there are signs that these transformations are not all in one direction.  Constant online meetings led many to become even more appearance-conscious, investing in good lighting for the home-office, or even in cosmetic ‘tweakments’ to maintain and improve perceived status – and that’s true for men as well as women.

As staff begin to return to the office in person, there is also a desire among at least some of them to mark the change by getting back into smarter outfits, distinguishing time out in public from continually being at home. And it may be that this mix is where we are at – workers choosing clothing to fit the occasion rather than adopting a constant uniform. For most this will probably be a welcome freedom, but judging what to wear when, may be more challenging for some workers than others – and funding a versatile wardrobe may not end up any cheaper than buying a suit. As with many other challenges presented by hybrid arrangements, managers will need to be alert to inequalities and lead by example. 

Just as the office itself has yet to become history, there is a good chance that suits will stick around for a while yet. Even Mark Zuckerberg wears one when he goes to Congress.  If the current shift to hybrid working tells us anything, it’s that nothing need be the same every day – not where you work, or what you wear while you’re doing it. 

50 words for Party (with apologies to Kate Bush)

1  gathering

2  happening

3  blowout

4  beanfeast

5  wassail

6  at-home

Come on PM, you’ve got 44 to go,

come on PM, you’ve got 44 to go.

Come on PM, you’ve got 44 to go,

come on PM, you’ve got 44 to go.

7  symposium

8  debauchery

9  celebration

10 social

11 soiree

12 hop

13 fiesta

14 occasion

15 shindig

16 booze-up

17 hootenanny

18 high jinks

Come on Bojo, you’ve got 32 to go,

come on Bojo, you’ve got 32 to go.

Come on now, you’ve got 32 to go,

come on now, you’ve got 32 to go.

Don’t you know it’s not just the glitterati.

Let me hear your 50 words for party.

19 wine o’clock

20 merrymaking

21 icebreaker

22 bash

23 shenanigans

24 do

25 wine & cheese

26 convivium

27 BYOB

28 rave-up

Come on Bojo, just 22 to go,

come on Bojo, just 22 to go.

Come on Bojo, just you and the glitterati,

Come on now, just 22 to go.

Come on now, just 22 to go,

Let me hear your fifty words for party.

29 craic

30 Saturnalia

31 revelry

32 ceilidh

33 jump-up

34 epulum

35 bee

36 blast

37 fete

38 binge

39 gala

40 bacchanalia

41 ball

42 hoedown

43 drop-in

44 banquet

45 jamboree

46 carnival

47 reception

48 wake

49 work event

50 party

Menu for a Downing Street Meeting

Cheeseboard

Edam fine evening

Gouda you to stay on

Paneer of respectability

Hallouming disaster

(Off: Shropshire Blue)

Wines

Veuve Clique-oh

Syrah not Syrah

Chablis treated populace

Bojo-lie Nouveau

Pizza

Four Seasons (of gatherings)

Pals’zone

Fun-guise

Sides

Garden please

Chips (down)

Women and Equalities – where now?

Over the years I’ve written about the lack of priority given to the post of Minister for Women and Equalities.  It’s a jointly-held portfolio, not a freestanding office, having been occupied alongside an array of ministerial positions since its inception, as Minister for Women, in 1997. In the last decade, it’s been performed alongside a bewildering range of offices, including Minister of Culture, Education and Defence, with the office of Home Secretary, and, until yesterday, the Department of International Trade (DIT).  Liz Truss now keeps the Women and Equalities brief as she moves from DIT to her major new role as the UK’s Foreign Secretary.

Back in 2018, when Penny Mordaunt moved to become Minister of Defence, while continuing to be Women and Equalities minister, there were grumblings about there being sufficient capacity to fulfil the role effectively along with a demanding ministerial post.  Surely the demands of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office are even greater? There must now be new questions around the priority given to Women and Equalities issues in government. As the pandemic has highlighted and entrenched inequalities in British society, a strong voice on Women and Equalities issues is essential to any Covid recovery strategy.

In the Institute for Government’s review of yesterday’s reshuffle, previous incumbent, Nicky Morgan, who held the post while Education Secretary, was quoted on the dangers of Women and Equalities’ issues being ‘squeezed out’ by the workload of a major ministerial office.  Today, Liz Truss will benefit from the fact that the Government Equalities Office (GEO) is now housed in the Cabinet Office, rather than moving around according to where the Women and Equalities brief sits, and so support staff are readily on-hand.  But, if anything, the recognition that the GEO should not continue to move pillar to post with ministerial changes, strengthens the case for the Women and Equalities post to be a freestanding, full-time one.  Another opportunity to make it so was squandered yesterday. 

Meanwhile, Labour has appointed a Shadow Secretary of Women and Equalities as a position in its own right for the last few years.  However, Marsha de Cordova, the most recent officeholder, resigned two days ago, and has not, at time of writing, been replaced. Both sides of the House therefore have questions to answer in terms of commitment to this area.  At a time where issues around social determinants of health, childcare, and pay gaps related to gender and ethnicity (I could go on …) are all high on the agenda, the Women and Equalities role should not be either part-time or unfilled.

The Zombie Office …

In spite of regular reports of its demise throughout the Covid crisis, the office looks set to make a return in our working lives.  We’ve all learnt a lot about what works online, and what fails to thrive, as the pandemic has gone on (and on …). The office will return re-animated, but in exactly what form, remains up for grabs.

Last summer, as the world emerged from lockdown 1, there was a lot of talk of never going back. Several Big Tech firms had given their workforces the option of an entire year working from home (WFH), and city-centre business districts remained resolutely empty. But as many transitioned from working-from-home rookies to fully fledged remote and flexible workers, the idea of the death of the office may have lost some of its initial appeal.  Twitter boss, Jack Dorsey, was widely quoted as offering staff the option to work from home ‘forever’, but it’s become clear that the intention is for ‘hybrid’ arrangements to be sustained long-term, whereby staff work part of the week from home and part in the office.  This pattern is now anticipated throughout Silicon Valley, with Google encouraging a return on-site from September, based on an expectation that staff will live within commuting distance of offices, where they will be regularly present, if not full-time. 

Of course, not all jobs can be done from home. The WFH trend is a distinctly white-collar, often also a middle-class, middle and upper-management one.  However, it is an influential development, with ripple effects beyond those who are able to take it up – the fact that some people can work remotely has impact. Where, conversely, staff are required in their workplace – factory, supermarket, hospital, etc. – the contrast of options for flexing is an issue in itself: people notice what is going on elsewhere.  The emphasis on flexibility for well-being in the workplace, means that on-site employers may be encouraged to look at more diverse flexibility – e.g. 9-day fortnights, varied start times, or job shares.  But a recent CIPD survey found that other forms of flexible working were much less widely anticipated by employers, than the option of working from home.  It’s therefore likely that the choice of flexible working will remain unevenly distributed after the Covid era has passed.

Meanwhile, there’s growing awareness that the hybrid workplace itself has the potential to increase, as well as diminish, workplace inequalities.  The use of technology to bring teams together has made remote working possible, and is clearly here to stay.  But managers will have to work differently in order for hybrid working to be successful in the long-run.  If some are in the office and others dialling in from home, it’s important that the office workers don’t hog the advantages of being in the room – visibility and side conversations that may lift them apart from their colleagues.  To counterbalance these tendencies, many workplaces encourage meetings to be run with everyone using their own device – so that whole team experiences a meeting in the same way, and any bias towards ‘presenteeism’ is reduced.  It’s also important that managers themselves model hybrid working, and that they look to promote remote workers, as well as those on-site.   Without mitigating efforts, hybrid working could reinforce existing gender gaps, as more women may work remotely to accommodate caring responsibilities.  And without some experience of office life, picking up insights on-the-job, younger workers could find their progression slowed, so that prolonged WFH can disadvantage new entrants, relative to established members of the workforce. 

A transformational aspect of mass home-working in the pandemic has been the fact that many companies have reported that productivity has gone up. The CIPD survey found that two-thirds of companies reported productivity remaining the same or rising. This goes against a previously widely-held view that WFH would reduce productivity, and that workers may ‘shirk from home’.   However, a ‘blurring of boundaries between work and home’ is frequently cited as a negative of homeworking, and one which is connected with working longer hours and an ‘always on’ mentality.  These trends feed into the preference for hybrid arrangements.  A number of studies indicate that most would prefer to work 2 or 3 days per week at home in future, with the remainder of the week back in the office.  The WFH trend has also highlighted the value of coming together physically to brainstorm and solve complex problems, and to foster innovation.  While the serendipity factor of the water cooler conversation, or the chance meeting in the corridor, may be overplayed, most people gain from in-person collaboration, and technology has yet to replicate all the benefits of being together in a room.

One of the players in London’s commercial real estate world has published a report showing that as companies adopt hybrid models, the actual amount of office space required may not shrink as much as is sometimes anticipated.  This is because companies will have to maintain capacity for peak office occupancy – the days when most people are in. Before Covid, it was already clear that ‘de-densification’ (allowing more square footage per employee) was beneficial for productivity, and the need to allow for social distancing is likely to have amplified this trend.  Most companies are tied into leases with a few years to run, meaning that any downsizing is delayed for most businesses.  Overall, it is therefore estimated that with the average number of days per week in the office dropping from 4.3 to 3.1, the decrease in demand for office space will amount to 9%.  While this is not insignificant, it’s rather less dramatic than is often suggested.  

Another driver towards a return to the office is the effect of what one FT article memorably referred to as the ‘blancmange’ of bland working days – the monotony being oneself at home all the time.  There has been a less easy separation of ‘work self’ and ‘home self’ during lockdowns, than in normal times.  Perhaps the pandemic will leave a legacy of a shift to what management manuals call bringing the ‘whole self’ or ‘authentic self’ to work. Months of Zoom calls mean that colleagues often know what each other’s homes and families look like, in a way that was not the case before.  This could inspire a greater long-term focus on well-being and sharing of personal issues at work; or it could be that this trend is constrained by the much-forecasted impending increase in unemployment, as government support to employers is wound down, and a proportion of businesses fail.  There may then be a more demanding labour market, where personal well-being is less prioritised.

It’s important to remember that the WFH of the pandemic is different from homeworking in more normal times.  Perhaps the future of work has become such a hot topic partly because of the lack of other activity in our lives – when leisure and social life kick in again, will we devote so much attention to it?  Maybe we’ll just revert to our old selves, as historians tell us we’ve done so often, after previous pandemics or crises …It will require purposeful management to ensure that the office emerges from its zombie state revitalised, rather than simply ‘undead’ ….

Making a meal of it

It’s been over a year now since I last ate inside a restaurant.  There’s a sentence I never thought of writing before Covid. It shows just how much life has changed… I’m one of those with a Spring birthday, celebrated in the shadow of restrictions for a second time, and it’s made me think about how much I miss the treat of eating out.  Around this time last year, I was cancelling the reservation for a birthday dinner with friends – not long before, I’d had my last restaurant meal.

I remember that occasion particularly because it was a night spent with my son in Manchester.  Each year I’ve gone to see him in his new home and treated him to dinner beyond a student budget.  Last year it was in the most pre-lockdown setting imaginable. Deep inside a hulk of Victorian architecture, we ate small plates, preceded by drinks in a sort of enclosed palm court.  A huge interior full of people – remember that? The buzz of someone else’s conversations; the clink of ice, glasses, cutlery. There were signs of things to come in the plentiful supply of hand sanitiser, and the wider than usual hip swerves when passing people by. It was the epitome of city dining. Soon afterwards, our son was back, not to return to university for months…

Going out for a meal is a way of getting to know a place – I don’t know Manchester well, so I’ve treated it like any unfamiliar city – find somewhere good to eat and absorb the atmosphere.  Food can be an entrée in more ways than one.  Want to know what makes somewhere tick? Book a table and find out. Restaurants and cafes are an important part of what defines a city’s character. This last year has also shown how food is major site of inequalities.  Manchester’s own Marcus Rashford has put food poverty on the agenda and given everyone who can afford a meal out pause for thought.  He has amplified the power of the hospitality sector to provide for the least well-off, while the industry is still struggling to keep afloat on takeaway and click-and-collect models.

As the third lockdown drags on, favourite haunts seem like a mirage ahead – sooner or later it will resolve into the weight of pushing a door open, the smell of fresh coffee, eyeing a chalked blackboard, being handed a menu… Eating out is an opportunity for conversation and shared experience, as well as a chance to try something new.  That novelty is missing right now.  Experimenting with recipes at home is something still available in Covid world – a way of exercising a bit of creativity and relieving monotony, while enjoying something with whoever you’re cooped up with.  But I can’t wait for the sensation that comes with saying, ‘I’ve found this place I think you’d really like – shall we book?’ And I’d love not having to clean up afterwards…

Merry ParadoXmas …

The government has decided to go ahead with easing Covid restrictions for a few days in December, to allow up to three households to get together for ‘traditional’ family Christmases.  These extended household bubbles have already attracted some controversy, for a variety of reasons.  First, there is the issue of indoor mixing as a cause of viral spread. Some members of the SAGE committees – which provide science advice to the government – say that an increase in levels of infection following the festive period is ‘inevitable’.  There we have Paradox number 1 – social mixing over Christmas is not risk-free, and may indeed lead to increased pressure on the NHS in January.  This is a time of year when there is a tradition of hospitals being in winter crisis, even without Covid.  And yet, government ministers are clear that a version of the Christmas show must go on….

Apparently, ministers feared that they would face a ‘mutiny of the mums’ if no interaction between households was allowed.  Without the chance to see elderly relatives on the one hand, and adult children on the other, there was concern that people would simply rebel and make their own arrangements, throwing Covid caution to the wind.  But this view brings us to Paradox number 2 – a poll conducted for the Observer a couple of weeks ago, found that most people would prefer a Christmas with restrictions, to a January of further lockdowns. So, the demand for ‘traditional family Christmases’ this year is unclear.  And, of course, this wouldn’t be one of my blogs, if I didn’t point out the inherent sexism in the notion that mothers are the ones who want all the palaver of ‘traditional’ Christmas.  Men have children and parents too, and, as it’s 2020, some do cater and care for them alongside their partners, or even alone…. It might also be said that it’s a bit late for the government to start worrying about what women think of Christmas, since their approach to many of women’s urgent problems, around employment and childcare, has been to push them firmly down the ladder of priorities.  Paradoxically – number 3 – some mothers might be quite relieved at the thought of a streamlined Christmas, having often had to juggle so many extra responsibilities during this strange year. 

And the sexism issue doesn’t stop with the ‘mutiny of mums’ – the advice presented to government declared that as women do most of the organising around Christmas, “Messaging should be supportive of women adapting traditions and encouraging those around them to share the burden and to be supportive of any alterations to adapt for Covid-19 restrictions”.  As you can imagine, social media was full of comments about the 1950s wanting their festivities back, while at the same time, many reflected that the stereotype of women of being run off their feet with Christmas obligations, still rings true – Paradox number 4.  Meanwhile ‘those around’ women – who I imagine must be men – are encouraged to do their bit to make Christmas great again – or something … This ‘messaging’ is remarkably unclear!

So, what can we do this Christmas and what is ruled out? Well, advisors are reported to want people to draw up plans for their Christmas gatherings (being sure to include women in this planning – sigh) and to keep things low-key, involving as few people as possible.  They suggest meeting people outdoors, instead of inside over a meal, or postponing meeting until Spring or Summer if possible.  They also recommend that where you do mix indoors over Christmas, you should avoid physical contact, avoid board games with shared pieces, and some even go as far as to say that guests should bring their own crockery and glasses (but I’m not quite sure how that melds with washing everything up together – perhaps you wrap the dirty plates in newspaper and take them back to yours to clean??) Oh, and keep the windows open while you’re at it …. Covid Christmas sounds wonderful doesn’t it?

Government advice also highlights the ‘intimacy paradox’, whereby after a while in social situations we tend to let our guard down, because we don’t see our close contacts as potential threats (Paradox 5). All of the above might well explain why many are already forgoing the challenge, and hunkering down to a more minimalist do, with little or no inter-household contact. Paradox 6 – you might express your love for others by not hugging them, or not seeing them at all.  This leads to the final paradox, that people actually seem to be ahead of the guidance in many cases. One behavioural scientist from Sage, Steve Reicher, has written a piece in the Guardian which emphasises that the government could ‘bridge the chasm’ between issuing instructions from on-high, and real living conditions, by providing active support for safe decisions.  For example, a pandemic fuel allowance would make keeping windows open in winter more affordable; extra public holidays next year would make postponement of Christmas more attractive – Christmas can be a rare, guaranteed holiday for the most hard-pressed workers. 

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of Christmas under Covid. Perhaps, to coin a phrase, it’s not just paradoxical, but ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ – that should be fun to open on the day. And if you are thinking of playing a board game, why not make it Risk, a defining word of 2020…

A new era for working women?

‘Covid-19 could be the start of a better era for women who work’ declared the headline in the Financial Times the other day, immediately catching my eye.  The article , by Sarah O’Connor, outlined how across the globe the pandemic has provided a rare opportunity to reorganise labour markets to benefit working women.  Key to this process is reform and expansion of childcare, and recognition that flexible working – rejecting presenteeism – should be widely available.  I don’t necessarily disagree with the diagnosis or proposed solutions – and it’s clear that the pandemic has put these issues into sharp relief – but I’m rather more pessimistic about governments’ (certainly our government’s) commitment to the task. 

And it seems I’m not alone. Over on Twitter Oxford academic Abi Adams-Prassl pointed to ‘government silence’ on childcare issues, and the need for an ‘ambitious strategy’ to address this.  Furthermore, unlike previous recessions, the Covid crisis is hitting women’s work hardest, in the UK and elsewhere.  Many of the sectors which have been temporarily shuttered or limited in their scope of operations – e.g. retail, hospitality, personal services, the arts – are also female-dominated areas of employment.  And for those who have been able to work from home, all signs are that the burden of childcare and domestic labour falls on women more than men. I’ve explored this issue in a number of blogs over the last few months (e.g. here and here).  Analysis by the TUC showed that redundancies among women rose by nearly 80% in the second quarter of this year, while the equivalent figure for men stood at just over 20%.

Meanwhile, an article in the New York Times explores how American women are increasingly dropping out of the labour force in the Covid era. Figures show how the people leaving the workforce – becoming economically inactive, rather than unemployed and seeking future work – are overwhelmingly women.  What’s driving this female exodus from paid employment? The writer argues that it’s the persistent gender pay gap, which means that in many couples it still often makes sense for women to do the bulk of unpaid labour and care on top of paid employment.  They consequently suffer the kind of burnout that leads to retreat from the workforce. It’s easy to see how this could become a more general trend in many countries, including our own.  Here, a number of surveys have indicated that women are bearing the brunt of stress in the shift to remote working alongside childcare responsibilities (e.g. here), and it’s been shown that mothers are more likely than fathers to be furloughed for childcare reasons, and once furloughed to be more exposed to redundancy risk. Just at the time when the gender pay gap could be widening (the NYT article suggests it could rise by up to 5% in the States) our own government has suspended the obligation to complete gender pay gap reporting, so any evidence of these trends could fail to be captured properly.   

The childcare sector has been neglected throughout the pandemic, and many early years and after-school settings have struggled to re-open fully.  Without access to formal childcare – and with restrictions often preventing the use of informal childcare by family members – many parents find their employment options constricted.  Without the web of support underlying parental employment, the system begins to fall apart.  Hence the frequent call to recognise childcare as infrastructure – it’s not just roads and public transport that enable us to take up jobs, but childcare too.  Until we see politicians donning aprons and working playdough with the same frequency and alacrity that they put on a hard hat and high-vis jacket, we’re not likely to see support for parental employment revolutionised. So, I’m afraid that on the Covid crisis being the beginning of a transformation of women’s opportunities, my glass remains half-empty rather than half-full. After all, as the Prime Minister recently demonstrated in a carpentry workshop, he does not exactly know the drill … Build Back Better? I’d as soon Call Care Core.