Media Round-Up: February 2023

Date Posted: Thursday 13th April 2023

WBG’s Dr Sara Reis was quoted in this piece for I news on how current statutory maternity pay leaves many mothers in a precarious financial situation: ‘Statutory maternity pay is sexist and not enough’: Mums reveal pain of crippling debt

Our childcare lead Sarah Ronan was interviewed for this Bloomberg UK piece on the affordibility and accessibility of early education and childcare: UK Getting It ‘Totally Wrong’ on Soaring Child Care Costs

She also appeared on LBC’s programme with Tom Swarbrick, explaining how the government knowingly underfunds childcare as the hourly rate that providers are being paid is not enough to meet the costs they face in delivering the care. She also responded to recent rumours around childcare expansion and reiterated that the government needs to get the funding right before expanding free hours and making the problems even worse.

In her newsletter for i news covering housing in the UK, Vicky Spratt referenced our findings that there is currently not a single place in the country where it is affordable for a woman on her own who has an average income to buy or rent a home.

The Telegraph also covered the gender housing gap, quoting WBG’s Dr Sara Reis pointing out that women face the biggest difference in housing affordability to men in the East of England: How much more it costs women to get on the housing ladder than men

Dr Sara Reis was also quoted in this article in the Independent reporting on the ‘Backlash over suggestions Kate Forbes won’t want Scottish first minister job because she’s had baby’, stressing that it is not women’s lack of ambition that forces them to take a step back from their career after having a child but the lack of affordable childcare.

WBG’s Erin Mansell wrote a piece for Public Sector Focus in which she makes the case for a green and caring economy: Care Jobs are the Jobs of the Future

Together with the TUC, Fawcett Society, Pregnant Then Screwed, and the Equality Trust we wrote a letter to equalities minister Kemi Badenoch in opposition of the government’s planned Anti-Strike-Bill (Minimum Service Levels Bill), stressing that public services with a predominantly female workforce including health and education would have their fundamental rights to strike affected by the bill. The Guardian reported: Anti-strike bill discriminates against women, say campaigners