Women do ask for pay rises – they just don’t get them. That’s according to research by Cass Business School and the universities of Warwick and Wisconsin. The theory that women get paid less than men because they are not sufficiently pushy in the workplace is not true. Women are as likely as men to ask
I have no recollection of my first day at school. I was four-years-old so it’s not surprising that I can’t dredge up the memory. I do recall, however, refusing to return to nursery after being scared witless by Father Christmas. Back then (late 1970s), kids were dropped off at a new school and expected to get
Ill-health or disability is forcing one in eight people to stop working before they reach the state pension age, according to the TUC. The union found almost half a million people have had to leave work for medical reasons within five years before they were due to retire. In March the Government announced an independent
Companies have cut new graduate jobs for the first time in four years because of fears about the economy since the Brexit vote. The number of vacancies has fallen by 8 per cent compared with last year, according to the Association of Graduate Recruiters’ annual survey. The Times reports that the latest figures follow four
The gap between the best and worst performing energy firms is the widest ever, according to Citizens Advice. Small energy firm Extra Energy attracted 80 times more complaints than the best performing supplier SSE between April and June. Extra Energy received 1,791 complaints per 100,000 customers, which was worse than its record low of 1,682 complaints
Pensions advice allowance. It’s not the sexiest of phrases but, if all goes to the Government’s plan, this new proposal could help millions of pensioners. So, what’s it all about? Well, it goes back to George Osborne’s final Budget earlier this year. At the time, he said that the existing tax exemption for employer arranged
August saw a ‘slight pick-up’ in house price growth despite the Brexit vote, according to the Nationwide building society, but the outlook is still ‘clouded’. The building society said prices rose by 0.6 per cent compared with July, making the average cost of a home £206,145. Prices in August were 5.6 per cent higher than a year
We Brits love a good anniversary – and a round number. This year we’re celebrating, among other things, the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth and the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. It’s also been 350 years since the Great Fire of London, the devastating blaze which burned for four days and in the process wiped out more
After a glorious Bank Holiday weekend, there’s depressing news for young people this morning: more than a third of them have debts of almost £3,000 and experience significant concerns about money. A survey of 2,042 people aged 18 to 24, conducted for the Money Advice Trust by YouGov, found that they borrowed using credit cards, overdrafts
A shift in house price momentum is underway in the UK, as southern cities start to slow down with the north taking their place at the top of the leaderboard. The Telegraph reports that Glasgow has emerged as the city with the fastest growing quarterly house prices, according to Hometrack’s monitor of the biggest 20 cities in
Pensions: about as easy to understand as the theory of relativity. Successive governments have pledged to simplify and clarify the UK pensions system. Each one has failed. If anything, the financial ins and outs of our retirement have become ever more complex. Now the powers that be have made changes to the state pension. If,
Some people are being hit with an unexpected tax bill after unlocking their money from a pension pot, according to Citizens Advice. Others are facing reductions in welfare payments owing to the income received by releasing the funds. ‘Pension freedoms’ began in April 2015. Since then, anyone aged 55 and over has been free to withdraw as
There’s nothing like the issue of the gender wage gap to get people going. Research published yesterday by the Institute of Fiscal Studies revealed that women earn 18 per cent less than men on average. The IFS also found that the gap widens after women have children, raising the prospect that mothers are missing out on
Investors took £5.7 billion out of UK-based stock market funds and a further £470 million from property funds last month in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the EU, according to latest market figures. The Guardian reports that statistics from data company Morningstar show that some of the money appears to have been redeployed to
Women who return to work part-time after having a baby continue to earn less than men for many years afterwards, according to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The wage gap between men and women becomes steadily wider in the years after babies are born, the IFS says. Women miss out on promotions and
When I moved to Manchester from London a few years back, I hummed and hawed over what to do with my VHS collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With seven series and a total of 144 episodes, carting them more than 200 miles north was no small undertaking. In the end, I took them with
Britain’s biggest estate agent expects UK house prices to fall 1 per cent in 2017 before recovering in 2018 because of economic weakness caused by uncertainty following the referendum decision on 23 June. Countrywide says that the Brexit vote will have an impact on the economy generally, which will feed into household incomes and possibly delay decisions to move
Britain’s obsession with property has propelled the country’s net worth to an estimated £8.8 trillion, an increase of 6 per cent (£493 billion) compared with the end of 2014, The Guardian reports. A surge in house prices in 2015 offset the UK’s decline in savings, the slow recovery of the banking sector and the Government’s
It’s A level results day, the final hurdle for teenagers hoping to fly the coop and go to university next month. But new research suggests that parents with children approaching university years could find their youngsters living at home for years to come. Figures obtained by Aviva reveal that the number of students living with parents
As acronyms go, it’s a good one. PANK. It stands for ‘Professional Aunt, No Kids’. I’m a fully paid-up member of this group, a 40-something professional woman with little interest in kids of my own but an overwhelming love for my sister’s four-year-old daughter. Now I can’t pass a newsagent without buying the latest Peppa
