| Like the snow, you can't have failed to notice the emails and adverts falling all around you for International Women's Day. But away from the promotions and pumped-up affirmation, Bloomberg's Helen Chandler-Wilde takes a cold hard look at the gender pay gap in 2023: "Women typically earn less, own fewer assets and are less likely to be in the top roles in business." There are bright spots within this challenging overview. The pay gap is narrower than it was (in 1997, women overall were paid 27.5% less than men, in 2022 that was 14.9%) but it's still pretty wide. Women are now better represented on company boards but there are still too few women at the top of British business. Wealth is not a pretty picture: "The UK investment gap — the difference between the amount invested by men and by women — is bigger than the GDP of Switzerland." For those without children — another piece here suggests (probably obvious) that never marrying and not having kids is good for your bank balance: "Women who stay single and don't have kids have more wealth than all other never married groups. Those women are more likely to have real estate than their male counterparts and save more, too." For those with children, the government does appear to have got the message that more help on childcare in next week's Budget would help labor market participation by women. And that in turn would, erm, help the labor market, perhaps the biggest problem for the economy right now. Earlier this week, Phil Aldrick and Joe Mayes reported that Hunt is eyeing solutions on child care in the budget. As Therese Raphael writes today — it's about time. "The issue of child care has gained political salience in Britain," she writes, pointing out that the UK is one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child. What else will be in next week's Budget? This scoop here from Alex Wickham and Kitty Donaldson suggests defense spending is in line for a boost. The military is set to receive billions to address vulnerabilities exposed by the war in Ukraine, including in drones, air defense and electronic warfare. Likely to be "in the single figure billions of pounds," the money is needed to restock weapons that Britain supplied to Ukraine over the last year and to secure improvements on existing stocks. Ben Wallace has been very vocal in his requests for extra cash and is usually fairly good at applying the political pressure to get what he wants. Notably, he is one of the only cabinet ministers who has remained in position over the Johnson, Truss and Sunak administrations. Elsewhere, Joe Mayes and Philip Aldrick report that Hunt is considering giving British firms extra tax relief on investment spending in order to boost economic growth in his spring budget. It comes after Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves yesterday said Labour would review the country's business tax regime to boost investment. I'll leave the last word to Bloomberg reporters: "The UK has had a long-standing issue of weak investment relative to its G-7 peers and Sunak and Hunt are keen to tackle the problem. Hunt's challenge is finding a solution that is consistent with his efforts to repair the UK's public finances, which remain in a fragile state after the chaotic premiership of Liz Truss last year roiled markets." Seven of the UK's 10 largest listed companies have failed to comply with the FCA's new gender-diversity quotas, a reminder of the scale of the challenge facing businesses as they look to improve diversity in their upper ranks. AstraZeneca, Unilever and Rio Tinto are among the firms to miss the Financial Conduct Authority's gender-diversity requirements of at least 40% female board directors, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report. Rio Tinto also doesn't have a woman in a senior board position. | 
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