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Ruth Lister

Ruth Lister

Ruth Lister is Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University. Her teaching interests focus mainly on poverty and income maintenance and on women’s welfare and citizenship. She is currently acting as a consultant on a Joseph Rowntree Foundation funded project, Living through change in challenging neighbourhoods, and has recently been a member of the National Equality Panel. Prof Lister is a Trustee of the Community Development Foundation, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Smith Institute, and a former Director of the Child Poverty Action Group.

Web: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ss/staff/lister.html
  • Equality

    Did the Budget pass the fairness test from the perspective of women and families?

    21st July 2010 — Filed under: Equality

    Ruth Lister Ruth Lister

    When we apply the fairness test, our starting point is, rightly, the overall distributional impact according to income level.  But gender and family-friendliness are also important factors when deciding whether the Budget passed the fairness test.

    The Conservative Manifesto promised to ‘make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe’.  In a recent speech, Nick Clegg declared that the government’s agenda for children and families stands ‘at the heart of our coalition’. [1] Yet in some ways it looks as if families with children have been singled out to bear the brunt of cutting the deficit and there is no attempt to assess overall how the Budget will or will not contribute to this family-friendly agenda.

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