Written by: Susannah Streeter | Hargreaves Lansdown
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Since 2019, the ONS says the proportion of female workers working full-time has increased which is likely to owe something to greater flexibility in working arrangements since the onset of the pandemic.
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Average weekly hours for women have trended upwards from 26.5 in 1998 to 27.9 in 2022, a total increase of 1.4 hours per week.
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Average weekly hours worked by women were 0.5 higher in 2022 than in 2019.
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The ‘motherhood’ penalty has held back female financial resilience, but these trends indicate that women are making small strides of progress.
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Overall, UK productivity is set to remain highly sluggish with average weekly hours worked falling by 0.3 hours since 2019, as long-term trends of fewer men in full-time work continue.
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Compared with before the pandemic in 2019, average weekly hours for men were 0.9 lower in 2022.
The ONS has published data on average hours worked: Average hours worked and economic growth, UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
The motherhood and ‘good daughter’ penalties have been holding back female financial resilience, but the latest labour trends indicate that women are making small but positive strides of progress. We can see from the way the gender pay gap widens in our 40s that women laden with family responsibilities, such as being the main carers for children or elderly parents, have often been left behind in their careers. Fortunately, there are signs that this is slowly changing, partly thanks to greater flexibility from employers. The average weekly hours worked by women have kept trending upwards, increasing yet again since the pandemic by 0.5 hours a week. This may seem a marginal improvement, but it represents a sizeable increase over just three years, given that over a two-decade period, average hours increased by 1.4 hours. As the working world shifted to digital and employees showed they were productive at home, there has been a greater willingness to offer different working arrangements, such as hybrid patterns. This offers women more space to juggle caring responsibilities, without being tied to fixed presenteeism requirements. It’s crucial that businesses keep supporting these more flexible schedules, to ensure that women can continue to make progress and close gender pay, pensions and investment gaps.
There is, after all, still a long way to go. The pay gap between men and women is 14.9% when you consider all workers, and 8.3% when you focus on full-time workers, while data from the Department for Work and Pensions shows that the gender pensions gap is still at 35%. According to research for Hargreaves Lansdown, carried out by Opinium, 77% of men have savings and just 68% of women, while 45% of men say they invest, opposed to 28% of women.*
Enabling more women to take on more hours at work won’t just help boost career prospects but it will also help reverse the productivity problem plaguing the labour force. Overall, UK productivity is set to remain highly sluggish, with average weekly hours worked falling by 0.3 hours since 2019. This reflects the fact that fewer men are in full-time work with average weekly hours 0.9 lower in 2022 compared to 2019.’
*Opinium survey of 2,000 people for HL in October 2023.
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