Anne Liddon, Science Communications Manager at CRE, responds to comments by local MP Guy Opperman about employment for older women.
Women Against Pension Inequality – the “Waspis”, – and also fellow MPs, shouted down Tynedale MP Guy Opperman recently when he suggested that the millions of women in their sixties who are facing a sudden hike in their pension age should get back into work via apprenticeship schemes. Arguments about perceived injustices involved in such changes abound; while most people nowadays would agree that both sexes should be treated equally, for many years a prevailing narrative of growing mechanisation and increasing leisure implied that this could be achieved by allowing everyone to retire earlier, an aspiration that now seems absurd.
Putting such debates aside, however, what is wrong with the idea of learning new skills in your sixties? Adult education classes bulge with older learners, keeping their brain cells and social networks alive. But is further employment training for older people really the best use of public and private resources? Apprenticeships are funded from a levy on employers and general taxation. Do either companies or the tax payer relish the prospect of investing in training people who may only be working for a further ten years or so? Even more seriously, won’t these older apprentices be depriving younger people of opportunities?
Perhaps Mr Opperman could approach the problem from a different perspective. As an MP who represents a largely rural constituency in an area that includes several market towns, he might consider some results from research carried out by Newcastle University’s Centre for Rural Economy on rural in-migration. We know that a significant proportion of people in their fifties and sixties who move to the countryside either do so with the intention of setting up a small business, or decide to take such a step once they have settled there. Many of these are women who create micro businesses, working from home.
Small businesses may, of course, grow, begin to provide employment, train workers in new skills, and act as a key driver in the UK economy. Some may even develop into much larger enterprises. Two of the underlying principles from the Government’s Industrial Strategy Green Paper are: “Supporting businesses to start and grow” and “Driving growth across the whole country”. The aspiration expressed within this document is for more innovation that reaches well beyond the larger towns and cities. What an opportunity this could offer for women – and men – who have accumulated decades of experience and skills that they could now use to set up their own small firms.
Such developments could be a particular benefit in the countryside, where both young and old often struggle to find local employment. The Rural Coalition has called on the UK Government to take positive action to “deliver a support programme for rural businesses and community entrepreneurs” and an investment in some underpinning services to help kick start new enterprises could prove very fruitful. Our research in CRE certainly suggests that rural firms are an underexploited resource in the UK economy. We know, for example, that many more of these firms have goods suitable for trading abroad than are currently exporting. As products are increasingly traded on-line, accessing markets abroad should become more achievable, if small companies are actively encouraged to do so.
Improvements in infrastructure such as mobile phone coverage and broadband where it is currently lacking are, of course, essential. But more targeted advice and support are also needed to encourage new and growing companies to fulfil their potential, particularly in rural settings. Greater acknowledgement and help for women as well as for male entrepreneurs, better access to business expertise and sources of financial investment, would surely be a more imaginative, and potentially a more useful approach, than sending women in their sixties on apprenticeship schemes. Rather we could be helping them to set up businesses that could provide such apprenticeships, training opportunities for younger people and longer term gains for the UK economy.