Violence against defenceless women. You can be against it on many grounds. Cruelty, injustice or the rank cowardice of the bigger, stronger males who inflict it. But have you ever opposed it in the name of economic efficiency? We’ll explain this bit later, dear readers. First. the news item which prompted today’s little trope.
Fresh from previous hamfisted maladminisatrations, our beloved UK Government is due to preside over further budgetary reductions in our local governments and regional councils. And this will have a very dire effect in one area dear to the hearts of LSS readers; those shelters where women absolutely in the last stages of desperation can go to escape the attentions of their violent partners. And, according to Jessica Murray of the Guardian,[1] these centres are about to face what amounts to their final and irretrievable closures, dozens of them. Cruel. Barbaric, even. But is it also bad economics?
One of the surest ways to economic success is to ensure the mental and physical health of the workforce. Starving children make bad learners. So do the traumatised, anxiety ridden wretches who emerge from troubled, violent marriages. If you want a good workforce in twenty years’ time, start investing now. If there is such a thing as a British disease, it is underinvestment, particularly in human capital, in the name of balanced budgets and maintaining an ancient social hierarchy. Historians agree that Britain’s decline began in the late Victorian era, when its undernourished and undereducated workforce could no longer compete with those of advancing rivals. And just to show that nothing has changed, here we go again. save the mothers, educate the children and you might just get a few good workers. But doing things the way the current Government does them will just replicate the cycle again for another generation. And down we go again.
#jessica murray #domestic violence #domestic abuse #womens refuges
Learning, Science and Society 