Graph of the week - Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK and EU

The above graph is from a report from the Office of National Statistics that looks at poverty and social exclusion across the EU. The graph shows the percentage of each country's population that is at risk of poverty and social exclusion.

It is worrying that the UK, which is third richest country in the EU after Germany and France is only better than the EU average. It seems we are "all in it together."

For more info download the whole report here.

Happy International Women's Day - but we could do better in the UK

Today is International Women's Day and you can find out more here. For the past nine years the World Economic Forum have produced a report with the Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index for countries all across the world.

The 2014 report is now available and it does not really make good reading for a rich and well developed nation like the UK, which is ranked 26 out 142 countries. The UK is unsurprisingly behind the Scandinavian countries which are known for their good gender equality, but the UK is also behind countries like  Nicaragua, Rwanda, Latvia, Burundi, Ecuador, Slovenia and Bulgaria. The full rankings can be found here.

The UK is ranked 48 out of 142 countries for wage equality.

The detailed gender equality analysis for the UK can be found here and is shows we still have a long way to go to get full gender equality.