The newly published Thrasher & Rallings analysis of May’s local election results has some interesting figures on gender balance amongst candidates and councillors:
30% of Conservative candidates were female
31% of Labour candidates were female
34% of Liberal Democrat candidates were female
29% of Conservative councillors are female
31% of Labour councillors are female
34% of Liberal Democrats councillors are female
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32 Comments
Do Thrasher & Rallings give a breakdown of councillors by age, by party?
Any more detail Mark? I kind of have the impression from my local situation (Shire County) that the percentage of female councillors is lower as you go up each tier (Town & Parish, District, County) and that that is true of all parties. any info?
Basically a third of cllrs and candidates are female in all parties.
So not very interesting at all…
I think the interesting bit is how low the figures are, not the difference between parties.
100% (so far) of respondants to this thread are male – So?
I did some research for Campaign for Gender Balance earlier this year and found that one of the reasons why we have fewer female than male councillors is that many female councillors stand down after starting a family. They simply don’t get the support they need to combine politics with raising young children. Many long-standing female councillors either don’t have kids or have grown-up children.
Given that people with young children are among the main users of Council services (eg schools!) this lack of representation seems particularly heinous and we need to do more to make politics at all levels more compatible with family life (for both male and female politicians).
Dinti Badstone: ‘We need to do more’ – brilliant. What, exactly? Most of us Lib Dems run a mile from the idea of all-woman shortlists at the top of the tree (which I think are a good idea), and instead we have a toothless ‘mentoring’ system with no measurable success at all. Do you mean improve child-care services available inside Council buildings? Do you mean re-organise scheduling for Council meetings etc all over the country so that the hours are much more family-friendly? Do you mean pay councillors more, so that there’s no need (for most people) to work for a living as well as running a family and a council seat? ‘Do more’ is a fine sentiment, and completely devoid of anything else.
Russ, suggestions of what and how we can “do more” are contained in the Campaign for Gender Balance report, which I sent to both leadership candidates at the start of the leadership campaign. Nick Clegg has promised to support all the recommendations. I did not get a reply from Chris Huhne. I hope to work with whoever is elected as our leader to take this forward so that “fine sentiments” are turned into action.
I find these numbers very sad. Family responsibilities make it very difficult for some women to fill MP posts, but councillor posts should be more possible. We do need more info here about whether particular groups are being effectively excluded — Dinti’s point about needing parents of school age children on councils is a good one. As is her reminder that there is already a report suggesting practical actions.
Whether MP or councillor, in a fair world it ought not to make a difference whether you have children or not.
It is important to bear in mind that for both parents, spending time with your children is important in order for them to feel loved. So what I find curious is that women are affected more than men in this regard. The reason why is that it has always been like this, the change in gender roles towards equality has not been completed.
I do not know the solution, so I look forward to finding out from the gender task force.
The Lib Dem Group on Islington Council, have 16 women and 8 men. We are the only Council in the UK with more female councillors than male. We have in the past year made significant changes to make the council far more familiy friendly, than in previous years. We have carers allowances, which allow councillors to pay for child care. Its true that the majority of female councillors do not have school age children. We know that it’s easier for male councillors with school age children as they usually have a partner at home caring for them (same with MPs) I agree with others, a third of councillors are female – not much to trumpet about!
A piece of good news for those of us who want to see a more representative set of councillors. Congratulations to Anood Al-Samerai who won a by-election in Southwark’s Riverside ward last night. Remember the name – she will go far!
Nigel & Martin: sorry I don’t have such figures
Geoff, I agree with your point that we have not yet reached gender equality.
Whatever our aspirations, the de facto reality is that women tend to have more child-rearing responsibility than men. I suspect that the fact that women on average earn less than men (exacerbated by time out from their careers for maternity, followed in all too many cases by being sidelined on their return to work… the equality commission says mothers of young children are the most discriminated against group in the workplace) is part of the reason that the traditional roles of “male bread-winner” and “female child-rearer” are still so sadly prevalent.
But you are right to emphasise that children need time and attention from both parents, which is why we need family-friendly policies for both male and female polititians.
(Meral, I’m delighted to hear that Islington is on the case!!!)
“I did some research for Campaign for Gender Balance earlier this year and found that one of the reasons why we have fewer female than male councillors is that many female councillors stand down after starting a family.”
I can’t see pregnancy being a really big factor.
That excuse is rolled out for just about everything.
If a woman goes into politics, and is at the first tier, it should take more than a baby to turn on a red light.
Could it be, that as per retail, teaching, hairdressing and nursing, it just really helps to be a man?
There is a bucket of drivel associated with many gender related stats.
For example only a social recluse living in denial would fail to grasp why so many young girls give up car-mechanics and construction etc.
It just isn’t safe for schoolgirls to do those apprentoceships.
The media & broadcast work experience projects also have a hi-rate for sexual exploitation.
Basically it is like this, male orientated groupings focus on compliance & adaptive mechanisms with female candidates.
I actually had a Home Office (lady) eplain to me why it wasn’t such a bad idea to transport female prisoners in the same van as convicted rapists.
The light bulb is not even there in Great Britain!
The mothering uniform the British army issued to pregnant soldiers might also answer a few questions.
Well, it was just like a 1950s army tent.
“the equality commission says mothers of young children are the most discriminated against group in the workplace”
Simply not true.
The most abused sector is the slave & trafficked labor component.
The EOC in Britain also had a reputation for incompetent work. They didn’t do risk assessments.
The UN for example pointed the finger of blame ( in large measure) at equal oppotrunities in the USA for some of the human rights atrocities in that society.
There is a big price to be paid for not-thinking.
Being the lesson the UN tried to bang into the heads of US Equal Opportunity officials.
In answer to Tazia @ 15, I do not know how I would find the time to raise a family, have a full time job and be a councillor.
There are only so many hours in the day. The problem with being a Lib Dem councillor is that you have to go the extra mile in terms of campaigning and getting yourself known, or else you will lose.
Nigel – Rallings & Thresher do a breakdown of councillors by party but not AFAIK by age.
I suspect that to get details of the gender split they must have done some sort of survey though so they may well have asked the age question.
I have seen in the past age statistics done by somebody like the LGMB
“In answer to Tazia @ 15, I do not know how I would find the time to raise a family, have a full time job and be a councillor.”
This means tht Lib Dems rely upon the pregnant and barefoot to cover life at the camp whilst the legionaires go forth in stabbing mode?
On the other side of the coin I watched a Brit documentary about teenage boys looking after babies. The USA is the same, it would be a mechanism for extinction.
A number of points:
1. Can we stop beating ourselves up on this? We do our best; the factors that are behind much of the problem are the problems of our society not of our party.
2. Most Councils will either provide or pay for childcare. All of the councils in Cambridgeshire do.
3. There are inherent conflicts; mothers would often like council meetings to be in the daytime. However, this then has the effect of being against our agenda of reducing the average age of councillors (the last figure I saw was 58) by allowing more people to work and be councillors by having evening meetings.
4. In my experience, the biggest problem with the recruitment of female councillors is a lack of support from their partners, especially when they have children.
5. Companies and employers are even less supportive of women employees being councillors than male ones.
To solve some of these problems, we need to adopt a series of new policies, some of which might prove difficult enough to get through our party let alone past the powers that be!
I understand your point Martin (20) but surely we surely we should have the ambition to change society and to do so by leading by example?
Most of the councillors I know of either gender are grandparents so I suspect childcare of itself is only part of the story. Although I’m sure there is plenty that could be done to remove the barriers that women who are parents face when it comes to being involved in politics.
It seems to me the two biggest jobs are to challenge the culture of machismo politics and to challenge the people who are doing the selecting.
The first is a long and complex task that probably warrants a whole separate topic to do it justice. It’s to do with language, institutionalised confrontation, working hours etc.
But the second is simple enough. GBTF needs to target council groups directly. To work with groups and local parties to examine their selection procedures; to encourage them to identify how they could select more women (I have a hunch that might start with, “don’t leave it to ageing men to go looking for candidates”); and to support them in implementing changes. And, of course, it doesnt start with selecting council candidates – it’s about involving more women and young people at all levels in the party.
But it we shouldnt just leave it to the GBTF. One of the most depressing things about the current leadership contest has been the appalling dependency culture it has exposed – in a party that is supposed to be about empowering people. Whether it is membership recruitment, selling our message or sorting out gender bias we dont need to be told what to do by the party leader. If we care about it we could just get out there and campaign.
Have come late to this discussion thread but wanted to point out that children isn’t the only issue – getting women to feel confident enought to put their names forward needs to be looked at too – perhaps assertiveness training tailored specifically towards women?
We need to look at the beginning of the problem – not the end.
I agree with assertiveness training, although if it is targetted only towards women then unassertive men will be left out!
In reply to MArtin 20, most mothers would NOT like meetings in the daytime. Evening chilkdcare is easier to obtain than any other time; afternoon meetings played havoc with collecting from school.
I have been a councillor for 12 years, which is longer than I have been a mother (just) and it is very difficult to combine with a full time job and parenthood. Of course we make it even more difficult in this household because my husband is also a councillor and is Deputy Leader!
I’m afraid if you have school-aged children as I do you have to be fairly determined to be a councillor. And if you are a woman – with all the additional issues about being the main carer and not the main breadwinner – the difficulties are even greater.
I don’t think assertiveness training tailored specifically towards women is necessary, the issue is that they don’t want to do it.
Women just don’t want to be in politics, because politics is wrong for them.
The Lib Dems have been no more successful than anybody else.
The median age for the presenters of this year’s Miss Italia contest was 70, the winner, Silvia Battisti, was 18
There might be a lesson there, old fogies and young girls delivering what the people want.
“It seems to me the two biggest jobs are to challenge the culture of machismo politics and to challenge the people who are doing the selecting.”
The Lib Dems have tried to do this how?
Maybe the under-representation of women on Councils merely represents the fact that quite a few decide that raising a family is just as an important contribution to society than getting involved in local politics. Guys are notoriously more susceptible to getting immersed in non-family activities.
I would also take issue with Geoff’s definition of fair in his statement “Whether MP or councillor, in a fair world it ought not to make a difference whether you have children or not.”
As he comments later, there are only so many hours in a day and children need a lot of time and attention. So I don’t quite see the definition of “fair” that pretends that someone who does not have children is not going to be able to dedicate more time to a Councillor position, and therefore find it easier to stay on top of their brief.
Of course, you can argue that it might be useful to have Councillors that input their advice and do not read every document passed in front of them, but of course this rather goes against the Lib Dem centrally approved approach of very intensive “pavement” politics.
One other fact that should be taken into account before we start rabbiting on about gender equality is to factor in any difference between the male and female homosexuality rate (I don’t know whether such a difference exists, but I know I have far more male than female gay friends, but maybe that’s just ‘cos I’m a bloke). Such people are significantly less likely to have children so if children are one of the big pulls away from getting involved in politics (and I think that may well be the case) you might expect gays to be overrepresented in politics. Any difference in the male and female homosexuality rate could quite easily affect the overall gender balance in local politics. [caveat – all this is strictly hypothetical as I haven’t been able to dig out the figures, maybe someone else has them to hand?]
20. “Can we stop beating ourselves up on this? We do our best; the factors that are behind much of the problem are the problems of our society not of our party.”
Well, yes and no. We are all part of the society that offers fewer opportunities to women than men in nearly all professions, when we are being Lib Dems and when we are doing everything else. True, we can’t win a battle at this level alone, but we have to recognise that the problems facing our party are the problems facing all of us all the time.
“One other fact that should be taken into account before we start rabbiting on about gender equality is to factor in any difference between the male and female homosexuality rate (I don’t know whether such a difference exists, but I know I have far more male than female gay friends, but maybe that’s just ‘cos I’m a bloke).”
Counting gays is not a rewarding strategy. There are a variety of risks.
If one defines gay or homosexual, one takes the risk of having the definition, thrown back in your face at a later date.
One could have the lowest estimate and highest estimate co-existing and accepted by an organization at the same time.
That has now happened in North America and it is just silly. It makes people out to be manipulators.
The “recognizably homosexual” standard used in relation to the usual sesitive issues doesn’t have much of a demographic.
There is not much funding for services to be obtained with that citation.
I think a wag pointed out that there were more Martians & stranded aliens in New Mexico than gay people.
Another wit pointed out that the “recognizably pedophiliac” category was looking a little on the slim side as well.
It is hard to beat a census form. If somebody says they are gay, that should in most circumstnces be good enough.
In response to Nigel@1:-
The LGA & IDeA publish a regular survey of cllr statistics, including age.
Here are the headline 2006 stats compared to 2004:-
Non-white councillors: Proportion increased to four per cent – compared to 3.5 per cent in 2004
Gender: 69.3 per cent male; 29.3 per cent female – compared to 70/29 in 2004. (Some census returns did not state gender)
Average age: 58.3 (compared to 57.8 in 2004)
Aged under 25: 0.3 per cent of councillors are under 25 (same as 2004)
Aged 25-39: 7.4 per cent of councillors are aged 25-39 (6.9 per cent in 2004)
http://www.lgar.local.gov.uk/lgv/aio/23396
provides more details
My own experience as a county councillor with young children in the early 90s was that it was difficult to juggle all the demands, but possible. I would not have dreamt of standing, had it not been for Andrew Duff supporting and encouraging me. He and Peter Lee then pushed me to apply to be approved as a ppc.
All parties need to actively work on recruiting cllrs from all parts of our communities, just as much as ppcs.
Party training also gave me considerable confidence, and the GBTF/CGB support was vital too. But both of those only work because many people are prepared to volunteer their time and energy, and we need more people to help, especially with increasing the number of bme candidates for elected office at all levels.
Worth a look:
“A Woman’s Place is in the Chamber” by Power Inquiry’s Pam Giddy back in 2000 when she was at Charter 88.