How can we engage more with economics?

This week we spoke with economist Dr. Mary-Ann Stephenson, who is a director of the Women’s Budget Group.

To start off, we discussed how young women can engage with economics and how we can link some of the broader economic topics with our everyday finances.

“I think one of the problems is economics is presented as this really complicated and difficult thing, and that the economy is outside of us,” says Stephenson. “First of all, we need to recognise that we are the economy, what we do, the work we do, the things we buy and sell, the unpaid work we do, is all part of the economy. A lot of the conversations that young women are having are actually economic conversations.”

But unfortunately, the language that’s used to discuss the economy, with terms like fiscal or monetary policy, macroeconomics, and others, can be off-putting, according to Stephenson. But she’s got a few suggestions to get over that hurdle – in addition to reading our newsletter of course!

Stephenson says we need to stop using jargon and make sure to explain it when we have to use it. She also suggests some resources that provide useful explainers, such as Rethinking Economics. Her book recommendations include: Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth and Who Cooked Adam Smith’s dinner? by  Katrine Marçal.

A part of the Women’s Budget Group’s aim is to make economics more accessible. One of the ways in which organisation does this by holding workshops. There, Stephenson says, they start having a conversation about what actually matters to people, what they think is a sign of a healthy economy, before moving on to discussing things like what the GDP actually is.

“You need to meet people where they are,” she adds.

And what can women do to improve their own financial lives?

Stephenson says of course it will depend on individual situations, but one thing to think about is how you organise your household finances if you’re doing unpaid care work, so that you’re not effectively being penalised.

Women’s Budget Group has effectively been around in some form since 1990, to provide responses to government budgets and analyse the impact from a feminist point of view. So how have things changed since then and are women taken into account when economic policy is set?

Stephenson says they should be, but in practice there is a long way to go.

“One of the things you have in the Equality Act is you have to have due regard of the impact of policy on people with protected characteristics, and sex is one of them. Unfortunately, what you tend to get is a tick box approach and any kind of analysis happens at the end when the policy is already developed.”

As there will be an election in a months’ time, we couldn’t help but discuss what the impact of a Labour government might be on women’s lives.

But for Stephenson, it’s tough to tell, because the election manifestos are increasingly light on detail.

There are a few areas, however, that she is concerned about.

“We know what the Conservative party’s commitment is in terms of early education and childcare, but we don’t really know what Labour’s commitment will be. On adult social care, there has been a commitment from the shadow secretary of state for health and social care Wes Streeting to “do for care in the 21st century, what we did for health in the 20th century”, but it is not clear what that means in practice.

“We’re very concerned about the cuts that have happened to social security since 2010, which left many people receiving benefits thousands of pounds worse off,” Stephenson added.

“Our main concern is that both main parties have made commitments not to take on additional debt and not to increase taxes. That’s going to lead to cuts on spending on public services. The Labour party seems to be mirroring Conservative pledges but it is really not clear what services they plan to cut. That’s the bigger question.”