An interesting article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph:
Almost 200,000 women in two-parent families with dependent children have re-entered the workplace since 2011, compared with 185,000 who went back to work between 1996 and 2011, a period encompassing THREE Labour administrations.
The article contains perceptive comments by Laura Perrins, a former barrister, a leading figure in the campaign group, Mothers at Home Matter http://mothersathomematter.co.uk/:
I would say that the government has absolutely failed to be in any way family-friendly. They don’t seem to understand what family-friendly means – they think it basically means separating mothers from their young children. The Coalition are more interested in ideology and the gender politics of getting more mothers back into work than being family-friendly
They have dedicated themselves to separating mothers from their young children. The needs of children are completely ignored.
Later in the article it’s stated that the proportion of men of working age in employment has fallen from 92% in 1971 to 76% this year. How can anyone not see all of this as a state-sponsored initiative to drive women into work, regardless of the cost to women’s happiness, the wellbeing of men, and the nuclear family? The Conservatives in particular should be ashamed of themselves for their role in all this.