International Women's Day webinar

FREE for ALL (please log in on the SOM website first). 

Accelerating women’s health and opportunities in the workplace. 
At the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158 (five generations from now) to reach full gender parity in salary according to the World Economic Forum. Focusing on the need to Accelerate Action emphasizes the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face. How can we accelerate action in the workplace for better outcomes? What are the workplace barriers?

Chair: Emma Persand
Emma’s work and expertise have been recognised by many, she was jointly awarded SOM’s ‘Outstanding Occupational Health Practitioner of the Year’ 2024, and gained the prestigious title of Queen’s Nurse in 2022. She is chair of the Women’s Health at Work Network, working collaboratively to develop inclusive work practices to build a better and safe workplace over the life course of women, non-binary and intersex employees.

Karen Messing: the design of work 25 mins and short Q and A
Karen will ask how women can navigate the workplace contradictions between protecting their health and attaining equality.  She will briefly present the current gender divisions among professions, tasks, and work activity, as well as the gendered interface between work and home demands.  She will briefly cover the major biological sex differences relevant to work.  She will describe several situations where women are forced to choose between becoming ill at work versus describing women-specific problems, making them vulnerable to accusations of not being “up to the job.”  She will present solutions that have been found in Canada and elsewhere.

Karen Messing is a Canadian geneticist and ergonomist. She is professor emerita in the department of biological sciences at the University of Quebec at Montreal and a member of the SAGE (Santé, Genre, Égalité) research team. She is known for her three books and many journal articles on gender, sex, occupational health, and ergonomics. She was given the Governor General’s Award for supporting women’s equality in 2009, the Yant Award of the American Industrial Health Association in 2014, and named an Honorary Fellow of the International Ergonomics Association in 2024, She was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2019.

Krystal Wilkinson: Work life inclusion – 25 mins and short Q and A
Krystal will discuss two strands of her research relevant to women’s health at work.  The first concerns broadening our thinking about the ‘work-life interface’ beyond the juggle of work and young children, to consider a range of issues across the life course.  The second concerns women’s reproductive health, and specifically the intersection of physical and mental health issues.  She will draw on research in different occupational settings, including male dominated industries such as Policing and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Krystal Wilkinson is an Associate Professor in Human Resource Management, based at the Centre for Decent Work and Productivity at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on health and wellbeing at work and tackling inequalities.  Current and recent research projects have focused on solo-living staff; those navigating complex fertility journeys; maternity management; mental health in pregnancy and post-birth; women’s reproductive health; and mental health.  She has published in leading academic journals in her field including Human Resource Management Journal and Work, Employment and Society, and featured in global media outlets. Krystal is passionate about knowledge exchange and is working with various stakeholders to raise awareness and create resources, including the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), national charities, campaign groups and employers. She is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and the first ambassador for the Maternal Mental Health Alliance.

Heejung Chung: Flexible working and women’s well-being – 25 min and short Q and A
Does flexible working – namely having more control over when and where you work/homeworking - really provide a better work-life balance, enhance worker’s well-being and gender equality? Flexible working can make workers work longer and harder. For men, this means more overtime, for women, this can mean more time at work and more time spent on childcare and housework. This explains why although part-time work can improve well-being outcomes of women, remote and flexible schedules do not. However, this is not inevitable, and we can change the context in which flexible working is used to make it better – including redefining the “standard worker” model to fit with the needs of modern-day families. This talk will bring together a body of research on this topic to talk about what we can do to make flexible working work well for workers’ well-being. 

Heejung Chung is the Director of the King’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and Professor of Work and Employment at King's College London. She is a comparative labour market researcher with a focus on flexible working, home/remote working, future of work, and (intersectional) gender equality. She has over two decades of experience of research and teaching and have worked with both national and international government agencies. She has published over 100 publications, including her recent book The Flexibility Paradox (Policy Press, 2022) and report Flexible working arrangements and gender equality in Europe (European Commission, 2024). 

Q and A – 15 mins
A fact sheet will be produced following the webinar.
 

FREE for ALL. You will then be sent the joining link.