Vicky Pryce’s new book, Women vs Capitalism, is an urgent call to reform capitalism so that it stops failing women, a call to deal with the pressing issues facing women today: the gender pay gap, the glass ceiling, and the obstacles to women working at all. Women everywhere are more likely to affected by any slowdown in the economy and by the AI revolution to come, and thus more prone to move to the poverty line.
The current capitalist system, focussing on short term profits, does not allow for the wider societal and economic implications of not employing women at their skill level to be properly priced, with the result that women’s’ contribution to the economy remains undervalued. Productivity and growth suffer, not only in the advanced nations but across the world.
Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, and former joint head of the UK Government Economic Service.