Woman's Hour - Gender pay gap, 'Spicy' fiction, Is rugby safe? Labubu dolls

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

A new report, published yesterday, says Britain’s gender pay gap has been understated for two decades, casting doubt on the accuracy of official figures. It's news that might have big implications for women in the workplace and policymakers, from the Bank of England to ministers, who rely on these figures to make big economic decisions. Alex Bryson is Professor of Quantitative Social Science at University College London and worked on this research and Amy Borrett is a data journalist at the Financial Times. They join Nuala McGovern to discuss.Have you heard of 'spicy' fiction? Now worth £53 million annually, it's a genre that's booming, with sales of romance fiction up 110% between 2023 and 2024 in the UK. And it's mainly women reading these erotic novels, giving them chilli ratings depending on the level of explicit content, and sharing their across Instagram and TikTok. So, what's driving this trend? Nuala is joined by author Emma Lucy, who writes spicy fiction, and Stylist journalist Shahed Ezaydi to find out more.If you’ve been watching any of the Women’s Rugby World Cup you may have seen ‘high tech mouthguards being used. They will now flash red — signally potentially high impacts, requiring players to have a head injury assessment - a move aimed at improving player safety. So just how safe is it for women to play rugby? What are the risks of getting injured, and what is being done to mitigate those risks? We hear from Fi Tomas, women’s sports reporter at the Telegraph, Dr Izzy Moore, reader in human movement and sports medicine at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Welsh Ruby Union injury surveillance project lead, and Dr Anna Stodter, senior lecturer in sport coaching at Leeds Beckett University, former Sottish International player, who also coaches the university team.With queues leading out of the shops and reports of thefts, we look at the lengths to which some women will go to get their hands on the latest style must-have, Labubu dolls.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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Hello, this is Newell McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the program. I hope you had a good bank holiday weekend. Well, as the women's rugby world cup gets into full flow, we're going to find out about safety in the sport and also whether a flashing mouth guard could help concussion rates. Also, a new report says the country's gender pay gap has been underestimated for the past two decades. We'll hear how that could have happened and the possible implication. Now, if you've had the experience of a gender pay gap, and in particular, if you have advice on how to tackle it in the workplace,

we'd love to hear from you. I wonder, is there transparency between your male and female colleagues on what you are paid? Is salary something you felt or feel you can broach with your workmates? And also, did you take any action to rectify any disparities you may have found? Or maybe you came up against barriers. I'd like to hear the number is 8.4.5. 4-844 social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour

or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note the number is 0-3-700-100-444-4 Today we also want to look at why grown women are buying Labuboos millions of them, creepy, ugly or cute dolls depending on your perspective

that's something we'll discuss and we will also chat about spice and sauce in books. A genre of literature now worth £53 million annually. We're going to hear from women who write it and also who read it. But let us begin

with record wins and record attendances for the women's rugby World Cup as you might have seen. As hoped by Manny, the attendance record was broken on the opening night as 42,723 people watched England beat the states

in Sunderland. Also big wins for Ireland and Scotland some battling performances from underdogs, Brazil and Spain Brazil having their debut and you might have known on Friday if you were listening Women's Hour came live from Bladen Rugby Club

Gateshead ahead of their first game of the women's rugby World Cup it's a great listen you can listen back of course on BBC Sounds or perhaps you listened and maybe you were inspired to take an interest in the game and you've been watching the matches and you might have heard

and noticed about players wearing high-tech mouth guards. They will flash red, signaling potentially a high impact that could require the player then to have a head injury assessment. This is just one move that's aimed at improving player safety in the sport. But we're asking, how safe is it for women to play rugby? What are the risks of getting injured? How different is it to the men's game? Well, I'm joined by a number of women to talk about this. We have Fiona Thomas back with us, women's sports reporter at the Telegraph. Welcome Fiona. We have Dr. Izzy Moore, reader in human movement and sports medicine at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Welsh Rugby Union Injury Surveillance Project Lead. And we also have

Dr Anna Stodter, who is a senior lecturer in sports coaching at Leeds Beckett University. I should also say a former Scottish international player who coaches the university team. So we've a lot of experience here in rugby between my three guests. Fiona, let me start with. You know, let me start with you. As someone who's been covering the women's game for some time, do you think the game is safe for women? Hi, Nula. Thanks for having me on this morning. The short answer is yes. I do. I think you know, rugby is very synonymous, obviously, with head injuries and concussion, mostly due to the class action lawsuit, which is sort of overshadowing the sport at the moment. And for listeners who might not be familiar with that.

It's effectively a class action lawsuit brought by hundreds of former rugby league and rugby union players, mostly men, it must be said, who played predominantly during the amateur era, who were attempting to sue the sports governing bodies over negligence due to brain injuries linked to repeated concussions that they sustained, sadly, during their careers. And they alleged that the authorities did not do enough, frankly, to protect. them from repeated head injuries. I must also say that a handful of

women are part of that lawsuit. It's currently stuck in the high court and we don't yet know whether it will kind of progress to a full trial. But yeah, I think with any contact sport, there is an element of risk, right? There is an element of

head injuries like we see in the same way in football and even netball sometimes. So I think it it largely is safe. Yeah, well, let's get into some of the specific injuries. Izzy, as you are, a specialist in human movement and sports medicine. What about women's rugby and what they endure? Morning, thank you for having me on.

And what we see from the data and the database is growing in terms of what we understand in injury rates in women's rugby. And it's around about 1.5 inches. injuries per match occur in women's rugby. And if we compare that across to the men's side, the men's side have between three or four injuries per match. I should carry out that with, that number may potentially increase as the game becomes more professional, becomes better resourced. We have people with the skills and knowledge to be able to monitor the players more closely and record the data. So we have to remember that data may not be as accurate as we

we quite want it to be just yet. And we do, as Fiona has mentioned, concussion. It's still one of the priority injuries, even in the women's game. And it is looking like the rate of concussion is actually becoming on par with the rate that we are actually seeing in the men's sport. That's only been shown in the English Premier League data. What that means is that concussions are actually making a slightly bigger proportion of the injuries that we see in the women's game compared to the men's. So let's talk about concussion specifically. I mentioned mouthguards at the beginning, these flashing mouth guards. Some people have called them, you know, a goal towards safety, other people calling them a gimmick. How do you understand them, Izzy? How do they work for people

who haven't heard about them? So these mouthguards are essentially detecting how quickly the head is moving. That's what we're using that to measure. And the quicker that is moving or the accelerations or deceleration's being exposed to, we can put in a threshold, if you will, and if it goes above that threshold, then we can say, well, maybe there is a risk here that that's been a high impact event and let's pull them off to have a look at whether a concussion has occurred. Now, we don't have the evidence to be able to say this is a clear threshold. And If it goes above that, then it definitely is a concussion. There are so many other factors that come into play.

And in particular in the women's game, there's evidence out there that shows that the women can actually experiment these acceleration events, not just from direct contact with the head, like head-on-head contact that we see in the men's rugby more frequently, hence the law to try and lower that tackle height. They have like a whiplash effect as well. so a more uncontrolled movement of that head and that can come from being tackled it can come from the fool

hence why a lot of the work I know Anna has been involved in terms of coaching the technique is really important not just in how they engage but also how they fall because in women's rugby we also see high acceleration events from whiplash and body to ground in that falling as well

yeah and I hadn't really thought about it until I was preparing to speak to you three women, about women's necks. And let me bring in Anna here, Anna Stoddter. Men's necks, thicker, stronger at times. Talk us through a little bit about how injury perhaps can be more prevalent for women depending on some of our physiology. Morning, thanks for having me.

So my role is to do with coach learning. And actually, I work more with coach. to think less about the kind of physiology or the biological differences and more about how we can change the environment for women and the support around them to help them tackle more safely and more effectively. So things like the physical differences, they might be slow to change, but the systems around them, like having coaches who are well informed about the mechanisms of injury and the ways to work around that

is something that we can change and that's what I'm trying to do. Yeah, so let's talk about that. because we hear about the acceleration, about whiplash, for example, just coming back to the neck. What can you teach to try to prevent injuries like that? Yeah, so once I learned about these kind of injury mechanisms from the research, I began to see it in my own coaching practice.

So I teamed up with Dr Katrina McDonald, who's a colleague from judo, and we start to see if we could use some of the principles of falling and landing from judo. to inform coaching and rugby. So in judo and some other martial arts, learning to fall and land effectively is the first thing that you learn to do. And so we tried that with our players. And then we worked with World Rugby

and the high performance women and coaching group to create contact confident, which is fully available on the World Rugby website. And it's a set of video activities that coaches can use to better prepare their players for tackling and being tackled. You know, there was another aspect to it that perhaps like yourself

women come to the game later in life perhaps also we are creatures of habit and we learn certain ways to hold ourselves throughout our life and I'm just thinking coming to it at university for example compared to perhaps a boy coming to it in secondary school

the differences that that might make yeah absolutely and that's something that I experienced myself I take up rugby quite late in life, age 25, and at university I'd never played a contact sport before. And so no one actually taught me how to tackle before my first game of rugby, which is not ideal. And I was lucky enough to come away unscathed from that experience. But if we can put some things in place

that mean that we can encourage women to have that support around them or girls if they're taking up rugby as well, then they can have a much more positive experience of taking up rugby. And as you're right, it's traditionally not being seen as a sport for women. And so girls as they're growing up might not have been encouraged to do rough and tumble play, might not necessarily have those movement skills sort of ingrained to help them be effective and safe in a contact situation. So, yeah, we're trying to see what we can do to help develop those things. So coming to another part of the body,

and let me come back to you, Izzy, on this, breast injuries and breast pain have been highlighted as issues. And even when I was looking at, you know, some of the latest scores this morning, the pictures that are shown of women, you know, diving over that line. And of course, breasts are going to hit first on that grass. Talk me through a little bit of what people need to be aware of and what's happening. Yes, so breast health is one of the key. key areas when we think of female health broadly. And unfortunately, we don't really have the systems in place currently that will even record breast injuries or breast pain. So we have a

system that is built on have you missed training or have you been unavailable to play? And most women, what we see in the research is about half the women have experienced breast injuries when they play contact sports and indeed exercise-related breast pain. But they will keep going and they often, perhaps majority of the time, do not report it either because maybe they didn't know that they should report it, no one asked them. And when we look at actually even how we record our information, there isn't even a breast category in our surveillance system. So it falls under the chest. So even if you did, that data would almost be hidden within chest injuries.

And further to this, before 2020, there wasn't even a breast injury diagnosis in the normal systems that we use. So one was introduced in 2020, and we've got a paper that hopefully is going to come out this year or early next year that has more codes and more diagnoses for the breast, for the pelvic health and for pregnancy and postpartum rugby players as well.

Which I know you've worked on with that. But I'm wondering, or I was wondering, as I looked at this, you know, boxing, so many women that are really coming to the fore in that particular sport as well. And they obviously have rules around. But I was trying to think, like, for women playing rugby and their breasts, what can be? Like, is there any sort of shield? I know that might sound crazy. But, you know, is there something that can protect them? So for exercise-induced breast pain, which a lot of, not just rugby,

but others, having an appropriately fitted and supportive sports bar, that really helps minimise the breast motion, and that's the key thing for exercise breast pain. For the breast injuries, their breast protection is really in its infancy. That's what I was wondering. We don't have, to my knowledge, any studies which have got breast protection, which falls under the rules of regulations of rugby, that have been shown to be effective

and that's because A, we don't have the data so we don't know what breast injuries are before let alone when they then wear it and most players aren't aware of any and there isn't really something that I think is discussed and we need more resource and funding in that area to really explore the breast health. Let me come back to you Fiona on this.

Is there more that governing bodies for rugby need to be doing to make the game safer for women? I think just what, just how he touched upon there, you know, we historically have used annual injury reports from the men's game and literally just transferred them, like copy and paste them into the women's game. And we really need to start maybe acknowledging that there are specific gender considerations for female players, such as breast pain, breast injuries, stress urinary incontinence, which I know is he's done a lot of work on as well, whereby women are literally getting tackled that intra-adominal pressure on what could be their dysfunctional

pelvic floor is causing them to leak urine on the pitch, which can be hugely embarrassing. And like we've already mentioned, these issues, these injuries are not currently considered time-lossed injuries. So, you know, that's why they aren't being talked about. They aren't being reported as much by women. They aren't being logged. And, you know, in terms of that protection piece, just going back to the breast protection debate, you know, you could say, well, every rugby union player should be wearing a helmet, but that's not how we treat concussion. So it's a bit of a grey area at the moment. And I don't think we should, I think first and foremost, that awareness piece still needs to be worked on and flagged by rugby's authorities. I know World Rugby are, I think, funding some research into ongoing research into breast health and breast injuries at the moment.

And that's why you probably didn't see a lot of women over the weekend, slide over the whitewash, like you say, because we can't just copy what the men do because your boobs are going to take a hit. It's so true. I do want to read a little, actually, of a statement which we received from World Rugby. player welfare is at the heart of everything we do in rugby while there is a risk of injury as with any sport there's solid evidence to show the huge benefits of playing rugby

from fitness to mental health that they outweigh the risks in partnership with world leading experts world rugby produces free of charge resources aimed at specifically female players including strength and conditioning programs tackle technique training and guides on topics including pelvic

breast and menstrual health and I do just want to go back to the legal case which is rumbling along, which Fiona mentioned to us at the top. They said, why, we cannot comment directly on the ongoing legal action, we would want anyone involved to know that rugby listens, we care, and we never stand still on player welfare. And they talk about concussion guidelines in rugby have always been

and will continue to be guided by the latest scientific consensus. It's so interesting. I know there's more to get into on women's safety in this sport. But let us take a moment to look forward, Fiona. what can we it's Saturday right August 30th the next games are on

they'll be on BBC 2 and I player England Scotland Wales they're all up yeah they're all up Wales face a massive test against Canada in Solford their tournament

will sort of be on the line after that opening lost to Scotland Scotland take on Fiji also in Solford Island meets Spain and England they're up against Samoa

who were the second ranked lowest team in the tournament, the amateur. So, yeah, lots of juicy action to come. Thank you very much for joining us. I should say 2025, it's the Summer of Women's Sport on the BBC. Names will be made. And it's BBC 2 and I player where you can catch all the games. Thanks to Fiona Thomas, Dr. Izzy Moore and Dr. Anastor for enlightening us on the safety in that sport.

Now, juicy, said Fiona. I'm going to turn to spicy. Have you heard of spicy fiction? The sub-genre of romance appealing mainly to women with erotic content and chilly ratings to rate the level of explicit content. Sales are booming, sales of romance fiction up 110% between 2023 and 2024, that's in the UK,

and worth a stonking £53 million annually. But what's driving this boom? And what is it about spicy fiction? That is getting women so hot under the colour. Well, if you have a recommendation, I better throw it out 84844. And I'm joined in studio by the author Emma Lucy, who wrote Live Ranch Love. Good morning. Good to have you with us.

So this is a spicy romance novel which follows a British influence of Rory who runs away to her late, great, aunts ranch in Colorado, and meets grumpy cowboy Wyatt. I think you can guess what happens next. I'm also joined by journalist Shahed Adi, who loves romance novels and investigated the boom in popularity of spicy fiction that was for stylist earlier this year. Well, shall we begin? How would you define spicy spicy fiction? I'll start with you, Emma.

I would define spicy fiction, I think, as it's romantic fiction, but they tend to have different levels of more graphic content, so more erotic content in it. like you said earlier, we have different chilly levels, so some can be, you know, a lot less, but a lot of these novels will have some sort of content in it that is more erotic, more graphic, describing the actual actions that are happening. Do you think, Isha Head, that it's different to what we traditionally classified as erotica? I think it has similar threads, but I think the boom that we've seen recently is definitely a lot more, I'd say, diverse and inclusive. Like I think there is a rom-com or a spicy rom-com

for everybody, no matter of kind of background. If it's like a queer rom-com, if it's seen in a different kind of cultural backgrounds or different chilly ratings, there is definitely something for everyone, which I think 20 years ago probably wasn't quite the case. So I said spice with spicy. Also then I came across sauce. Yes, that's another name for it. But it's the same.

But it's yeah, spicy. Spicy seems seems to be kind of the common term now or saucy as well, seems to be coming in as well recently. There's a new bookshop in, not Dinghill called Socey Books. I saw that. I did see that. So definitely that kind of shows us a little bit of the boom that's happening. What do you think is behind it, Chad? I think there's a few things. I think the rise of book talk, which is the book community on TikTok, has seen a massive boom and kind of people recommending books to each other, a big kind of readership and community aspect on that

platform, which has seen kind of publishers pick up on that and maybe publish books, maybe they weren't going to publish a few years ago. But there's such a big readership on TikTok that that's kind of been behind the boom but also I think it's a form of escapism and I think a lot more people need escapism now from kind of the bad news you see in the world and also maybe even modern dating culture and you hear like dating apps

so people are feeling crappy on dating apps and they want to escape into a world of kind of spicy rom-coms or kind of romance fiction. And Emma is nodding her head there so I read your debut your novel Live Ranch Love and the sex scenes are quite intense at times You go a number of chapters and then it kind of goes for it.

How do you decide what to include or not include? I think I read a lot of spicy romance anyway. So I think it's kind of a mix of including things that I've been influenced by. So what I've read and I think has I found quite fun to read. So scenes I think would be fun. But also, yeah, just things that I think would be interesting. And I think kind of like what I had said, I think with the modern dating culture now, I like to include scenes that prioritize women's pleasure and show not just like women being satisfied,

but like an inequality in the scene and the man listening to what the woman wants and, you know, throwing in a little bit of fantasy there that people might enjoy. But I think that is kind of a bit of what drives me in what I choose to write. And when did you first turn to a moment? writing it? A couple of years ago now, I'm 27 now, Jess, so I always forget to say that, but I kind of got back into reading a few years ago and spicy romance is what I enjoy reading and I think I was just inspired by the books that I had read and... Like what? Oh my gosh, there's so many. I mean, if we're talking about cowboy romance,

you have Elsie Silver and Lila Sage. They write spicy cowboy romances. And I was coming across these books, I was like, oh, I hadn't seen this before. And I was like, oh, this is really fun. And this is like a form of escapism because it is showing how you can find a partner that listens to you, that wants to make you feel good and but also be romantic as well. And I think I just really enjoyed that. Cowboys are your weakness. I think so, yeah. Huge trend now.

It's which I found out I was not aware of that previous. But there you go. You learn all sorts of things, whether you're listening or presenting Women's Hour. Shahid, you are a big reader. I thought I was a big reader. But you're reading about 80 books a year. Yeah, about 80, 90 books a year. What is it?

And mainly romance? I'd say about half a romance in the year, yeah. Okay, that's a lot of, what I was about to say, hearts, flowers, sex, romance in here. What is it that draws you in? Like I said, it's escapism. for me. I don't tend to really veer towards kind of sci-fi or fantasy. My escapism kind of from, I don't know, work or

like just general life or stress or anxiety is me picking up a romance book at the weekend and kind of going into someone else's love story and kind of experiencing that. I so remember a cousin of mine who used to do that but it was Milds and Boone back in the day and she'd be gone for the weekend she used to sit in the window seat

and like all around her were like just hundreds of Milds and Boone books. Yeah, that's me now but just with kind of book-tock books or books I get sent through work and I have so many, I mean, I'm running out of space at home, but that's just me at the weekend. I pick a couple of books up and I'll sit in the garden or if it's when to sit in my living room and I will just with a cup of tea and I will sit, read it kind of cover to cover just because they're so engaging and they're so fun to read that I can't really put it down. Okay, let's

get into some more terms. Lady porn. What do you think ever? I think it depends how you, how you see porn. I think often this term is used in a derogatory way to suggest that it's like embarrassing or shameful that women are reading these things. But I think if you see it as something that is ethical and a healthy way of exploring your sexuality, then I can understand. Smut. I think smot's being reclaimed now.

I think people have used it in a derogatory way when they're trying to kind of, and there's a lot of snobbery around this kind of genre of fiction. But actually, I think people in the community are reclaiming the word smut and are using it positively. Well, on saucy books, that bookstore we mentioned, they did have, I saw it up in the court. Smock corner, yeah.

The smart heart. The smart heart is it. The smart hut. Fairy porn. Hmm, fairy porn. So I don't read that much romanticise. So that's what it relates to. So that it relates to kind of the...

So romanticies and again a new sub-genre. I'm not new, but it's kind of exploded recently with kind of books like A Court of Thorn and Roses and Fourth Wing. And they are kind of exploring romantasy and explicit content, but in a fantasy part of the world. So that you've got like fairies and dragons and God knows what. But yeah, fairy porn I can understand. But again, it depends on how you kind of view porn.

I'm wondering, Emma, as well, when I was reading this, public place, might have had my hands kind of over parts of it. But I'm wondering, do you blush out your, or this is, you're just like, O'Fay with it now, and you can write about erotic sex scenes without blushing? Yeah, I think it is very normal for me now, although I was writing one on a train the other day and I was sat next to an old lady. and I did think I probably should move my laptop around a little bit. She could be another potential reader for you. She could be, exactly. But I don't think I'm not particularly phased by it, but I think that's because I read so much of it and write it now.

But I know that it is something that some people are, you know, still maybe feel a little bit of shame around. Or stigma or something. Yeah. Or whether it's appropriate. I don't know for somebody else to see. But, you know, the cover of your book, for example, it could almost be young adult,

if you know what I mean, it's like a boy and a girl kind of cartoonish figures back to back and we've spoken that these books are popular on TikTok but some feel that it's too easy for these sort of books to get into the hands of children or teenagers.

I'd like your thoughts on both of that. I'll start with you, Emma. I think that you know, these books are normally advertised and marketed as being for adults. I think that, yeah, there will be potentially teenagers who will come across these books. But I think that, I mean, I was reading fan fiction when I was in my teen years.

So I would have come across things like this. But I think it's probably, you know, up to maybe the parents and the bookstores to make sure that, you know, the teenagers aren't coming across this content. It's not being sold to them. Yeah, I agree. I think the way that these books are marketed, you know, like you said, the covers are very visually, could be mistaken for a young adult book. But I think it is up to kind of parents and booksellers. There could be a wider conversation about age restrictions, but then I don't know how. how that would be put in place with books and how you could really police that.

So, yeah, maybe it's kind of to the discretion of booksellers and making sure that they're in the bookstore, like, really quite advertised, like this is explicit content. Do you, let's talk about the chili ratings, because we talk about the spice level. And we didn't get into too specifically, Emma, but there are some explicit sex scenes. I mean, what would you give your books in a chili rating?

I, based on, like, reviews I've seen, I would probably say mine was like a three or four out of five, but I have read books that have much more like erotica in them. Yeah. And you get into the specifics of who does what to who, etc. But I'm wondering with sexual practices and there's certain things that are controversial that we've talked about on this program, for example, do you have a line? I think my line would be making sure that everything is consensual and ethical.

and what I think is a healthy relationship. There are obviously books that explore things like kink a lot more, but if it's done in a consensual way, I think that's, yeah, that would be my line. It just has to be consensual. Because a lot of these books now come with content warnings at the front. That's what I was about to ask. So it'll tell you exactly what's in the book

and which practices are in the book and will warn you just in case something is triggering or you don't really want to read that trope. There is also the cleaned-up romance collection on Instagram and so it provides guides to help people skip the sex scenes without missing the plot points.

This is interesting because I think there is romance that people can read that isn't explicit so there is I think something for everyone in the genre so I find it interesting that people are cleaning up books

so that they can still read them without kind of reading the explicit content but yeah I mean if you do really want to read a popular book on Book Talk and you don't want to read those scenes and I think there is a place for something like that. Books like this, even if they're slightly different of previous iterations, have often been minimised in a way,

be it Milds and Boone, for example, if we throw that out or perhaps even some of what they would have called bonc busters back in the day, even back on the screen. If it comes to Jilly Cooper, do you feel they're being taken seriously? I think they are being taken seriously more now. I do think there still is a stigma towards them with, you know, using these phrases like lady porn, it's normally done in a derogatory way. But like with all those statistics that you said at the beginning, it is a huge genre and it's doing so well.

But I think that there is probably an element of, I would personally say, misogyny, sexism that means that there is a stigma against it because it's, I don't know, strange for women to want to enjoy something like that. On their terms. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Emma Lucy. Shahid Azadi

Thank you both so much for coming in I was talking about Emma's debut novel which I read but her new one is riding the line out on the 11th

of September thanks both for coming into studio thank you so much thank you now lots of you getting in touch we're going to talk about the gender pay gap next here's Julia

she says she can hardly believe that women are still battling the gender pay gap in 2025 she says I wrote a school essay on this subject almost 60 years ago I made the case for equal pay and my male teacher wrote on it very good you almost convinced me

he was joking I think talking about this because a new report out this week has found that Britain's gender pay gap has been understated for the past 20 years so the gender pay gap is the percentage difference between average hourly earnings for men and for women

the report called the representative of annual survey of hours and earnings I believe abbreviated to ash and its implications for UK wage Age policy states that the O&S, which is the Office for National Statistics, has consistently underreported that gap. And this news could have implications for women in the workplace, as policy makers from the Bank of England to ministers who rely on those figures

have to make then obviously big economic decisions. The report has been co-authored by Alex Bryson, Professor of Quantitative Social Science at the University College London, and he joins me now to discuss his findings. I also have Amy Borett, a data journalist from the... Financial Times. Welcome to both of you. Alex, how come this report came about? Thank you for having me. We have a big project called the Wage and Employment Dynamics Project where we try to improve data quality for all sorts of surveys and government statistics

to improve policymaking. This is one of them, the annual survey of hours and earnings. It's used by the low pay commission to set the minimum wage. It's the official source for gender wage gap. And we were concerned about the possibility that some employers were not responding to the survey. It's an employer survey. They report on the earnings of their employees. And the intention is to hit a 1% random sample of all employees in employment. Before COVID, only two-thirds of employers were responding. That's a problem in itself, but that fell even more during COVID to about 50%. This is despite the fact that employers are required under the law to respond to the survey.

The problem here is non-responders are fundamentally different to the responders. Specifically, they pay lower wages and they have bigger gender wage gaps. So what we were able to do was reweight the data, essentially bringing those employers back in and what did we find. We found an underestimate in the gender wage gap. By how much? One percentage point. So let's take the last year that we looked at was 2023. The ONS figures show a gap of 8.2%. Men were being paid 18 pound 14 at the median, women 16 pounds 65. But when we reweight the data to make it fully representative, we find that both men and women were being paid lower hourly earnings than was thought by the ONS, £17.71 for men, £16 pound 11p for women. That's a 9% gap. So it's gone up by about

1 percentage point from 8.2 to 9.0. ONS have been trying to do something about this. So there are 2024 figures out now. We need to look at those and we are rapidly trying to crunch the numbers to compare and contrast what O&S have done to try and improve response rates and how that might have impacted the 2024 figures, but we haven't done that yet. And I will say from the ONS, they've told us that waiting schemes for surveys are complex. We welcome this academic research, which looks into one specific alternative to how we gather these statistics. The O&S is currently carrying out a review of Ash, the annual survey of hours and earnings,

looking at a wider range of options. We regularly scrutinise these methods to ensure they continue to be relevant and aligned to best practice. For example, in the 2024 that you're mentioning there, Alex, a survey, we improved the methodology to validate survey returns, which improved representation of higher earners. So let's see what happens with that. But let me throw it over to Amy. What were your thoughts when you heard particularly about that 1% difference in the gender pay gap? Hi, so yeah, I think that one percentage point difference, and we're talking about a percentage point here, not just a percent, which is obviously a bit.

a bigger gap when we're talking about a gender pay gap that's still 7% is that, you know, obviously there's a degree of uncertainty in all estimates, but the more uncertainty, the more it's obviously affecting policymakers' decisions, and it's coming in the context of a much broader issue with the surveys and the data put out by the O&S. And, you know, this is the latest in a string of quality issues that have been raised and uncertainty about, you know, how accurate the estimates are. it makes my job harder. It certainly makes the job of policymakers harder. So it's something that, you know, the onus is coming under a lot of scrutiny for, and I think perhaps rightly so. And what might implications be of these figures differing so much?

Well, for the gender, the gender pay gap, obviously, you know, we've been moving in a certain direction. We're closing the gap at, I would say, quite a slow rate, it seems. That direction of travel is still the case in these new adjusted figures that Alex and his colleagues have put together, but it suggests that maybe we're still further away from pay parity than we thought. If policymakers are using those numbers to make decisions, then maybe they're not implementing as many changes as they would have been if they thought, you know, they realized what the true figures were. There might also be other things like the minimum wage, where the direction of travel might be different to what the figures suggest. And that's

perhaps got even bigger repercussions in terms of the decisions that people are making. That's interesting. Let me throw that back to you, Alex, about the minimum wage, because we do know that women are often in lower paid jobs. What impact do you think, tell me what you found and tell me what impact you think it may have? The minimum wage is a policy initiative came in in the late 1990s. The minimum wage has been going up gradually relative to median earnings over a long period of time. And the government had a target to hit two-thirds. So to set a minimum wage that was two-thirds median earnings in 2024, our study shows that they actually met it one year early. That's because they set the minimum wage a little bit

too high. The responders to the survey have higher wages than those who don't respond. So when you adjust it, we discover that everybody's average earnings are a little smaller than we thought. So that means that if you set two-thirds median earnings at the true number that we should have seen, then the minimum wage was a little higher than it should have been. In a sense, that's been good news, especially for women who are disproportionately impacted by the minimum wage because it was a little higher than it would have been if they'd used the methodology that we deployed. But I think going forward into the future would be more cognizant of these problems of non-rescent. response in the survey. There are improvements that ONS are going to be making. And I think maybe

we'll be using our methodology, hopefully in the future, to assist the low pay commission in setting the minimum wage and making sure they have more accurate data. You mentioned about companies not responding, even less after the pandemic. I mean, is there a way to force companies? You say they are legally complied to? I think it's really important. not to use the full force of the law in this case. It's quite possible that the government can use enforcement mechanisms, but encouragement is much, much more sensible, I think. That's the softly, softly approach,

the Office for National Statistics have been adopting, but clearly they're going to have to do more. We're far away from the response rate that we need to get fully accurate data here. and there is no substitute for ensuring close to full response rates in this survey. So I think this is partly a resource-related issue, and I'm glad to say the Office for National Statistics has recently had a review of its job and has decided to hunker down and focus much more carefully on its core statistics and the surveys behind those, and this includes the annual survey of hours and earnings.

so I have an expectation that things will be improving going forward. Amy, your thought smaller firms have been underrepresented. Why does that matter? So the smaller firms, as well, like said earlier, they tend to have a larger wage gap and they tend to have lower earnings on average. And because if that's not waited for appropriately in the survey, that's going to give up a different kind of estimate than if those were accurately reflected.

I think the interesting point talking about what Alex mentioned on enforcement is that obviously in an ideal world we'd have 100% response rates. And so actually on the enforcement side, maybe that's not something we want to look at, but somehow increasing those survey responses is key because even if you change the weightings, if you don't have a high response rate, there's always going to be a level of uncertainty. But I think one of the big concerns will be whether you're putting a disproportionate of pressure on smaller companies to reply because, you know, taking part in these consequences, kind of surveys might be something that they are resource constrained, you know, in doing.

And so that's potentially why there is a lower response rate there. Really interesting. I am hoping, yeah, I'm hoping going forward that we don't have to rely on a survey of 1% of employees and that we can go to the full data that are owned and administered by HMRC. This is called the pay-as-you-earn records. We will have as pay-as-you-earn slip. if we can make those research ready in a secure environment for academics and policy analysts, we can go straight to the full data, at which point we no longer have to worry about survey response rates.

At the moment, we can't do that because it doesn't include the hours information. It includes your earnings, but not the hours. And what we're really interested in in comparing wages is hourly pay, And so we really need those hours data in there. And we and my team are trying to encourage government to move in that direction and hopefully in the future we'll get there. Really interesting. Alex Bryson, who co-authored that report.

We've been speaking about. He's a professor of quantitative social science at the University College London. And we also had Amy Borish, data journalist, at the Financial Times. Here's a message from Gemmish says I'm a teacher in Scotland and pay scale is the same for all teachers. However, there's still a pay gap because, as with most professions, it is women who reduce their hours due to childcare responsibilities. Women make up the majority for the teaching profession

where are underrepresented in management positions. Women's inequity is complex and requires more systemic changes. Also, going back to some of our sports safety we were talking about, a very different sport to rugby, but F1 Formula One drivers do specific neck strengthening exercises due to the G forces experienced when racing and also the terrifying crash impact forces. In my sport, motorcycle racing, we all wear helmets.

Why do rugby players not wear appropriate padded helmets that might soften impact forces? Let me bring one more. Ellie, injuries to the external genitalia need to be considered. I played at a university and another player got a completely accidental laceration to the vulva because they were having to wear men's team shorts. 844 if you would like to get in touch. Now, have you been at a festival over the Bank of Hall? weekend or perhaps over the summer, enjoying live music, the DJ sets, and quite a lot of sunshine, let's be honest.

Well, last week I got to speak to Sister Bliss. She's a DJ. She's a founder of the dance music legends Faithless that sold more than 20 million albums, three number one records, a mass close to a billion streams. And Sister Bliss herself, she's a classically trained musician. She started out DJing in London and helped build a sound that gave electronic music emotional weight. And she joined me to talk about her new album, Champion Sound. and discussing the revival of interest in 90s music and her music, she said she welcomed the decision of some clubs to put a sticker over the camera of a phone

before people came in to dance. People have been dancing since the beginning of time. They're lost in music. There's definitely a very different energy at certain clubs where people just come to film themselves. But now there's a wave of people who've seen how we enjoyed ourselves in the 90s and really let go and discovered that sense of collective freedom

and possibility, and now they're setting up clubs where you put a sticker over the camera on the phone before you can come in. And I have to say, I'm all for that policy. I totally understand that artists become someone these days because they go viral on the internet. And that comes from people taking clips. But to stand on a dance floor just filming the DJ, it just, you're cutting yourself off to all those possibilities and also, you know, somatically living in your body. Just thinking of that, somatically, in the body of what you're doing. It's a whole immersive experience for me. That's what dance music did for me.

It gave me a community. It gave me a sense of myself. It gave me a sense of connection. I've never lost that. For better or worse, we've referenced that in Faithless with Maxie's lyrics from songs like God is a DJ and We Come One. They always had another message, which was actually, if you take this energy in a room, you could have world peace, which sounds trite, but it's actually extraordinary. of all these people with different lives and different problems

from different races, sexualities, genders are all dancing under one groove. Why can't the world be a better place? Sister Bliss there. You can go to BBC Sounds to listen to the full interview. It's Wednesday, the 20th of August, that particular episode. Thanks very much, the Sister Bliss. Now, do you know your Labubu from your Lafou? These are goblin-like toys

and they've gone from niche collectible to the subject of frenzied cues, there's viral TikToks, there's even shop floor scuffles over the summer. Between grown women, might I add. LeBoubu is the real McCoy. Lafou, that's a fake. But it is all part of a selling strategy

that's based on scarcity. And it's one that's led Pop Mart, which is the retailer for Labuboos, are reporting a huge boost in their profits. So we want to talk about what's behind the trend in just a moment. But first, I want to bring you fans that we spoke to that we're queuing up outside the Pop Mart store on Oxford Street in London. Currently, it is 10, 12 in the morning.

We are queuing outside of the store on Oxford Street. It goes towards the end of the block. We're queuing for a Lubbubu. It's a type of plush toy. It's a collectible that you can hang. You can seat. it down. There's lots of different types of them that everyone loves and wants. So I'm kind of new to the hype, but I have been seeing them across social media recently. My mom actually started

collecting them during Christmas when we were abroad in the Philippines. Yes, I've got them on different bags. Some people put it on the lapel, just their little companion. Honestly, it's pretty much everywhere. It's viral. On social media, it has been for a really long time. They've become so popular that some people have actually begun, like, cutting them off people's bags and stealing them. Some people might think it's weird because it's a little monster, but yeah, I think they're quite cute. Now on the hunt for some for my friends and my sister. Just some of the people that are taken with Lubbos. I am joined by Professor Leon Niao, who is assistant professor in the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong, along with the fashion writer, Lauren

Cunningham, in studio with me. Good morning to you both. Lauren, we need to describe it first off. Good morning. I will describe a Lubbubi. So you may have seen them around as soft plush toys. They've got long bunny-like ears that are a little bit fuzzy and they've got this grin that some people think are sweet. Or devilish. Some people think it's a little bit creepy. And they've got these little triangular teeth.

And then you'll see people attaching them to their bags or to their jackets or just holding them like toys in their hands. How big are about this big? Okay, the radio listener. The radio listener. About the size of a... a tall glass. About the size of your hand.

Yeah, about the size of your hand. Yeah, a little bigger maybe than your hand. They're small. They're small. People talk about this as part of kedalting. Explain. Yes. Am I pronouncing that correctly?

You are pronouncing that correctly. So I spoke to a number of fashion psychologists on this, including Carolyn Mayer, who wrote the book on fashion psychology. And basically the whole idea, like we're seeing with bag charms, like we're seeing with people mix and match funky prints at the minute, where the world is a little bit scary. And there's a lot going on that's stressful and not nice. We're reaching to things that make us feel like children again. So whether that's Labibu, whether that's your outfit, whether that's something else,

we're reaching to these things that make us feel safe and make us feel just good again and youth and young and like we're going to have fun. And I suppose it is part of a gang that you belong to in some ways. I did see, you know, you don't have to go too far to see Madonna, I think, birthday cake, La Boo Boo Birthday Cake, the K-pop band, Black Pink, are massive. Yeah. One of their members also is a fan. But I'm wondering, you know, is this any different to other crises, do you think, Lauren?

You know, Beanie Babies or Let's Go Back Back, Manchi's. I think the difference we're seeing is people from the fashion community are really welcoming them. So you're seeing them at Fashion Week, whereas you wouldn't really see a beanie baby there. You're now seeing them in high fashion settings. people are putting their lububis on handbags worth £10,000 or more. That's the difference we're seeing. So they've sort of become, yes, a toy, but also a high fashion item. That's hard to get hold of.

How much? How much are the labubis? Yeah. They can start around £15 if you're lucky enough to buy one. But if you're looking on reselling, they can be upwards of £100,000, even 500 for the ultra-rear ones. Let us bring in, Professor Leon Jiao. So part of the marketing of Labubu's professor is the idea of the blind box. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, sure. So basically when someone wants to buy a Lubbubu, there are some products where they can just go and buy a specific one. But with most of the series, they don't know exactly which one they'll get. So usually it's one out of six possibilities. a lot of the consumers would be looking to get a specific one, and they only have one out of six chance of getting that specific one. And of course, it was just mentioned that there are also those secret rare ones that appears one out of 72 boxes,

were in some cases one out of 144 boxes. So it's like upping the ante, right, trying to make it more covetable and also more marketable. Yes, the idea is, I suppose, to get. get people to purchase more of those boxes. But there is some concern here that people might be purchasing products that they do not necessarily want. So, for example, to try to get the secret rare lububu, we have had people purchase multiple sets. So there are six boxes in each set, but they have to purchase multiple sets to try to get, rather, that ultra-rare laboubu.

I mean, I've seen these articles in the garage in Glamour magazine, in the Wall Street Journal that talk about potential blind box addiction. But is that, I mean, too sensational a term to use? Yeah, I wouldn't use the term addiction. You know, there's debate, even in the realm of whether video game addiction is something that we should be referring to as addiction. But I think it's fair to say, as in the articles, they spoke with people who have said they've experienced various harms because they engage with these products and spent

in some cases thousands of pounds on these products. Because we talked about some and resale value, Lauren, for example. But apparently some could even sell for as much as $10,000? I think so, but I think you're looking at the ultra rare ones and a person who's very determined to get one. And where is this taking place online? It's basically... Online.

So you've got, you know, there's someone Farfetch, which is an ultra luxury fashion platform. There's some on stock X, which is a resale site, usually for trainers. Now we're single little BBs on there. And I'm sure there's some private dealers going on there somewhere. What about this idea, Professor, of scarcity? What do you think it is about humans that they then want this thing that becomes somewhat rare or valuable? Well, I suppose it's viewed as something that other people might not necessarily be able to possess, right? And in some cases, say, for example, with the most recent series, the secret rare one, its smile is rainbow-colored, its teeth.

So for the usual ones, it's just white teeth, that thing, that grins. But for the secret rare, the teeth are a rainbow. So it's definitely a bit more special. With this as well, Lauren, do you see the craze dying down? Because usually these things, they have a peak and then it goes. But then when I was reading, these seem to be on the go for about five years now. Yeah, so they launched in 2019 in the soft toy version. But I would say from a fashion perspective,

we started seeing them across street style fashion weeks in February. So for the fashion world, it's relatively new. And I think that maybe launched it along with, like you said, You've got K-pop stars like Lisa from Blackpink posting it to over 100 million followers. You've got people picking up on the trend. I personally don't know what way it's going to go. It could go one way where we might have luxury brands, start doing accessories for Labibu's. You can get fake versions now.

Or we might go the other way where we're not going to be talking about them next year. And I think that is probably one of the biggest issues we have with Labibos. And this talk about being addictive behavior for blind boxes? I have obviously not a psychologist myself but I would say we used to buy McDonald's Happy Meals for the excitement of a toy that we didn't know we were going to get it's not anything new

we've had this a long time so very interesting and I know Labou has been responding a pop march should I say who makes the Labububes they talk about traditional toys are primarily for children to play with pop toys target young adults between 15 years old

and 40 years old in general who seek emotional value from expressing personality and attitude and talks about the blind boxes in particular that they're inspiring repeat purchases

due to unpredictability and fun. We did ask spoke to Lubu and asked them for a statement on blind boxes and gambling but they didn't get back

to us on that. We'll see exactly what happens with Labuboos over the next year will they manage to stay within fashion probably not because things generally

go out of fashion within a few months. I would presume so. So we may have some landfills full of Lubbubis. Oh gosh. On that note, Lauren Cunningham, thanks for joining us. Also, Professor Leon Zhao, thanks to you too. I want to let you know that tomorrow I will be speaking to Miriam Robinson about her debut novel.

And Notre Dame is burning. It is brilliant, this book. I devoured it over the past day or two. It discusses the experience of losing a baby. It talks about betrayal, breakups and moving on. on an awful lot to speak about, so I'm looking forward to speaking to Miriam. You'll find that discussion right here on Woman's Hour tomorrow, 10 a.m. on Radio 4. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

I'm Mark Still, and for BBC Radio 4 from Shadow World, this is The People v. McDonald's. Hi, boys and girls, how you doing today? It's Ronald MacDonald, your friend. And boy, gosh, by golly, we're going to have a lot of fun today. The longest running trial in English history. I just felt totally burnt out and I wasn't really able to carry on. A gardener and a former postman against a global fast food giant. Corporations should not just be able to suppress people. With secret surveillance, spies and life-changing deception.

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