L-earning: rethinking young women's working lives

这项研究将调查年轻妇女（14至29岁）在学习期间-无论是在学校、学院还是大学-以及在完成学业后参加有酬工作的方式。它将研究性别不平等如何出现在年轻妇女最早的工作经历中，以及这些不平等如何随着她们的工作生活的发展而得到巩固或重塑。我们将探讨有偿工作如何适应年轻女性更广泛的生活和关系，包括友谊、家庭、与社区的联系以及她们不断发展的身份和自我意识。我们问这是如何不同的教育，比较毕业生和非毕业生，但也由种族，残疾，地理位置和社会阶层背景。大多数年轻人在完成学业或大学之前就从事有报酬的工作。对于那些在大学继续学习的人来说，由于学费上涨和生活成本增加，有偿工作越来越普遍。女生尤其有可能在学习的同时从事有报酬的工作。常见的工作包括保姆，零售收银员，女服务员和管家。一些学生在家庭企业中工作。其他人则从事涉及Etsy、Depop和Instagram等数字平台的创收活动。以前的研究表明，即使在这些早期形式的工作中也存在性别不平等。尽管如此，我们对年轻人第一次工作经历的细节知之甚少，也不知道这些经历如何产生长期模式，并建立男女工作生活之间的差异，我们知道这些差异随着工人年龄的增长而增长。事实上，尽管现在年轻女性在教育方面的表现优于男性，接受高等教育的人数也超过男性，但到了30多岁时，职业女性的性别薪酬差距会越来越大。这在很大程度上是由于职业隔离，以及妇女集中在更不安全和地位较低的工作。此外，妇女就业方面取得的许多进展因最近的经济中断而停滞，包括COVID-19大流行，政府部长、妇女慈善机构和商界代表表示担心我们有可能使先前在性别平等方面取得的进展倒退。为了应对这些挑战，现在是及时和紧迫的，要更密切地关注年轻妇女的工作生活，并提供详细的分析，说明她们如何进入、流动或陷入特定类型的工作。这项研究将采用不同的方法来捕捉不同的现象;例如，分析现有的国家调查，以找出大规模的模式、长期趋势和个人生活过程的趋势;重点小组和与180名年轻妇女的访谈，以深入探讨关键问题，包括对出色工作的看法、过去的经验和对未来的希望;并与国家利益攸关方代表进行访谈和圆桌会议，以确保研究满足广泛和多样化的受众，并产生广泛的影响。它将产生关于青年、工作和就业、教育和性别平等成果的新知识。这将影响整个社会科学的学科。它将为致力于挑战不平等和促进年轻妇女生活积极变化的政策制定者、工业、教育和第三部门组织带来好处。这项研究将由一个年轻妇女咨询小组指导，确保她们在塑造研究方面发挥核心作用。网站、新闻文章、项目报告、政策简报和最后活动将确保调查结果广泛传播给各种受众。调查结果还将在一部短片中传播，突出青年妇女的声音。这部电影将在一次宣传活动中放映，并在网上推出，同时开展一项全国性的社会媒体运动，以吸引广大公众，特别是青年妇女，参与关于青年妇女职业生活的更广泛的对话。

This study will investigate the ways that young women (aged between 14 and 29) participate in paid work alongside their studies - whether at school, college or university - and in the period after they have completed their education. It will look at how gendered inequalities emerge in young women's earliest experiences of work and how these get solidified or are remade as their working lives develop. We will look at the ways paid work fits and is reconciled within young women's wider lives and relationships, including friendships, family, connections to their community and their developing identities and sense of self. We ask how this varies by education, comparing graduates and non-graduates, but also by ethnicity, disability, geographic location and social class background. Most young people do paid work before they finish school or college. For those who continue their studies at university, paid work is increasingly common, due to rising student fees and the increasing cost of living. Female students are especially likely to undertake paid work alongside their studies. Common jobs include babysitter, retail cashier, waitress and steward. Some students are employed within family businesses. Others engage in income-generating activities involving digital platforms such as Etsy, Depop and Instagram. Previous studies have suggested that gender inequalities exist even in these early forms of work. Despite this we know little about the detail of young people's first experiences of work, nor how these may engender longer-term patterns and establish differences between men's and women's working lives that we know grow as workers get older. Indeed, even though young women now outperform men in education, and outnumber them in higher education, by the time they hit their 30s, working women experience a growing gender pay gap. A large part of this is due to occupational segregation, and the concentration of women in more insecure and lower status jobs. Moreover, many of the gains made in women's employment have been stalled by recent economic disruption, including the COVID-19 pandemic, with government ministers, women's charities and business representatives voicing concerns that we risk rolling back previous improvements in gender equality. To address these challenges, it is timely and urgent to look more closely at young women's working lives, and provide detailed analysis of how they enter, move around or get stuck in specific types of work. The study will involve different methods for capturing different phenomena; for example, analysis of existing national surveys for drawing out large-scale patterns, trends over time and over individual life-courses; focus groups and interviews with 180 young women to drill deeper into key issues, including views on good work, past experiences and hopes for the future; and interviews and roundtables with national stakeholder representatives to ensure the research meets a wide and diverse audience and has broad impact. It will generate new knowledge about young people, work and employment, education and gendered outcomes. This will impact academic disciplines across the Social Sciences. It will produce benefits for policymakers, industry, education, and third sector organisations working to challenge inequalities and promote positive change in the lives of young women. The study will be steered by a young women's advisory group, ensuring they have a central role in shaping the research. A website, news articles, a project report, policy briefings, and a final event will ensure findings are disseminated widely to a range of audiences. Findings will also be communicated in a short film, foregrounding the voices of young women. The film will be screened at a dissemination event and launched online, supported by a national social media campaign to engage broad sections of the public - and young women in particular - in a wider conversation about young women's working lives.