‘Mothers who have children aged under 11 face greater discrimination in the job market than any other group…’
So today's Times reports the newly appointed equalities supremo, Trevor Phillips, discovered after completing a review of income inequality on behalf of Tony Blair.
Mr Phillips’ reaction to this discovery is reported to have been one of astonishment, thereby revealing himself simultaneously completely lacking in even an elementary grasp of economics and as such supremely well qualified for his new role as Chairman of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
Mercifully, he seems to have enough grasp of economics to know that, should this reaction of employers to the lesser availability for work of mothers of young children be economically irrational, market forces will in time educate them, as ‘big companies lead the way to attract the best staff, especially new graduates’.
Sadly, the limits of that understanding were revealed when the report when on to state that he wants the procurement managers of government departments to use their financial muscle to force such change by making ‘it clear that they would only deal with companies that were committed to equality and willing to publish a breakdown of their staff by ethnic minority and gender’.
Either it is an irrational prejudice on the part of employers to discriminate against mothers of young children when recruiting and promoting staff, or it is not. If it is, then market forces alone should be enough to remove the prejudice, since non-discriminating companies would have a competitive advantage over firms that discriminated against these women.
By distorting the market through the use of the monopsony power of government in the fashion proposed by Phillips, he is revealing that he does not trust market forces to deliver the desired result, and by so doing reveals that he doesn’t really believe employer reluctance to hire or promote (prospective) mothers to be the irrational prejudice he claims it is.
One thing looks certain. Small employers seeking government contracts will have their profit margins severely squeezed by having to comply with the red tape and positive discrimination to render them eligible for competitive tender. The result will be that marginal firms will go to the wall; fewer jobs for both men and women; and more overall inequality and a lower GNP. Nice one Trevor.