A Report on the Developments in Women’s Ministry in 2020 womenandthechurch.org [email protected] WATCH Women and the Church A Report on the Developments in Women’s Ministry 2020 Introduction WATCH has been publishing an annual analysis of data based on statistics collected by the Church of England Research and Statistics Department. This year the report also includes a table comparing the proportions of women in roles defined as incumbents and those in roles defined as “incumbent status”, and one comparing the proportions of women in each diocese licensed to stipendiary roles with those licensed as SSM. Over these years the proportion of women holding stipendiary parish posts has been increasing in most dioceses. However, there are still only eight dioceses where more than a third of such stipendiary posts are held by women. • A significantly higher proportion of men are licensed to incumbent roles and a higher proportion of women are licensed to incumbent status roles. • Women clergy are more likely to be in SSM roles than stipendiary and in some dioceses the difference is significant. For example, in Rochester 70% SSM clergy are women but only 23% of stipendiary clergy. This raises a question about the culture of these dioceses, and whether women will be able to flourish in ministry there. • The majority of men are selected and trained while aged under 40, while for women the opposite is true. WATCH is aware that we have not considered the proportions of women clergy who are BAME. This is because we cannot find this information, despite asking. This is of concern, particularly because all professionals who work to promote an egalitarian culture will stress the importance of an awareness of intersectionality. However, we are glad to congratulate the Rt Rev Guli Francis-Deqani on her appointment as Bishop of Chelmsford. We also recognise that the role of lay women is not shown this year. The patterns shown in previous reports for the gender of LLMs continue to be very similar. It continues to be hard to find meaningful data on the many ways in which lay women contribute to the ministry of the church. This is a reflection on both the way women are regarded in the Church of England and also laity in general. General synod elections have been delayed a year. In 2015 32% of elected members of the House of Clergy were women and 50.5% elected members of the House of Laity*. We would like to encourage women to stand in General Synod elections this autumn in both the House of Laity and the House of Clergy. In 2015 there were some dioceses where no women stood for election. WATCH thanks those members of General Synod who have served an extra year, particularly those who have worked through Synod for greater inclusivity in the Church of England. *(Thinking Anglicans blog, Friday, 30 October 2015) Table 1: Proportion of stipendiary parish clergy who are women in each diocese Since 2012, WATCH has published the percentage of women in each diocese holding incumbent and incumbent status stipendiary posts. This group forms the majority of (paid) parish clergy. This year we compare the proportions of women in such posts over two year intervals from 2013 to 2019. • In 2019, in half of all dioceses 29% or more of stipendiary clergy were women, compared to 2013, when the median figure for the proportion of women in such posts was 23%. • In 2013, fifteen dioceses had under 20% women in stipendiary incumbent/incumbent status posts and in seven dioceses the proportion was 13% or lower. By 2019 five dioceses had under 20% women in such posts. 2 A WATCH Publication © 2020 TABLE 1 2013 2015 2017 2019 40% and over Ely 41 Ely 43 Ely 41 Ely 42 35%-39% Hereford 38 Truro 37 Southwell and Nott 38 Ripon and Leeds 38 Liverpool 37 Salisbury 37 Peterborough 35 Truro 35 30%-34% St Edmundsbury 31 Hereford 34 Hereford 33 Liverpool 34 and Ipswich Truro 33 Portsmouth 32 Gloucester 34 Manchester 30 Manchester 32 St Eds and Ipswich 32 Portsmouth 34 Peterborough 30 Salisbury 32 Durham 31 Manchester 33 Southwell 30 Southwell 32 Gloucester 31 Norwich 33 Worcester St Edmundsbury 32 Peterborough 31 33 Leicester and Ipswich Lincoln 30 Leeds 32 Peterborough 31 Manchester 30 Coventry 32 Portsmouth 31 Salisbury 32 Hereford 31 Gloucester 30 Southwell & Notts 30 Lincoln 31 St Albans 30 St Albans 31 Worcester 30 Bath and Wells 30 St Eds and Ipswich 30 25%-29% Bath and Wells 29 Bath and Wells 29 Bristol 28 Guildford 29 Sheffield 29 Liverpool 29 Derby 28 Newcastle 29 Leicester 28 Sheffield 29 Leeds 28 Sodor and Man 29 St Albans 28 St Albans 29 Leicester 28 Birmingham 28 Leeds 26 Durham 27 Guildford 28 Bristol 28 Salisbury 26 Leeds 28 Sheffield 28 Chelmsford 28 Chester 25 Leicester 28 Bath and Wells 27 Chester 28 Derby 25 Lincoln 28 Norwich 27 Oxford 28 Gloucester 28 Worcester 27 Chelmsford 26 Derby 26 26 Liverpool 25 Derby 27 Chester 26 Durham 26 Portsmouth 25 Chester 26 Coventry 26 Sheffield York 26 Chelmsford 25 Newcastle 26 Lichfield 25 Norwich 25 Oxford 26 Southwark 25 Oxford 25 Southwark 26 Birmingham 25 20%-24% Newcastle 24 Guildford 24 York 24 Canterbury 24 Oxford 24 Southwark 24 Sodor and Man 24 Winchester 24 Birmingham 23 Newcastle 23 Canterbury 22 Rochester 23 Chelmsford 23 York 23 Lichfield 22 Blackburn 21 Durham 23 Birmingham 22 Winchester 20 Lincoln 23 Canterbury 21 Worcester 23 Coventry 20 Guildford 21 Rochester 20 Southwark 21 Truro 21 Exeter 20 Norwich 20 15%-20% Carlisle 19 Bristol 19 Exeter 19 Carlisle 19 Coventry 19 Carlisle 19 Rochester 19 London 19 Lichfield 19 Exeter 19 Carlisle 18 Chichester 16 Rochester 19 Lichfield 19 Exeter 16 York 19 Sodor and Man* 18 (Channel Islands) 15 Sodor and Man* 18 Europe 16 Bristol 17 Blackburn 15 Canterbury 17 Winchester 15 14% and under Blackburn 13 London 12 Blackburn 14 Europe 14 Winchester 12 Chichester 10 London 14 London 11 Chichester 12 Europe 11 Channel Islands 12 Bradford 6 Europe 9 Chichester 6 Wakefield 0 *Information derived from C of E statistics published annually 3 A WATCH Publication © 2020 • In 2019 the dioceses with the lowest proportion of women of stipendiary incumbent status were Exeter and Chichester with 16%, and Europe with 14%. The Channel Islands also have only 15% of such posts held by women. • Ely remains the diocese with the highest proportion of women in such roles, but the proportion of women has not increased since 2013, remaining between 41% and 43%. We would not like to think that this is a natural ceiling for the proportion of women in stipendiary parish ministry. • We note that from 2013 onwards, some dioceses have consistently increased the proportion of women by a significant amount. eg Liverpool, from 25% to 34%; Worcester from 23% 33%, Bristol from 17% to 28%. • In other dioceses the proportion of women has decreased: eg Hereford from 38% to 31%; Sheffield from 29% to 26%. • The dioceses of both archbishops continue to be in the lower half of this table. In Canterbury only 24% of stipendiary parish clergy are women and in York only 26%. We do not have any information to indicate whether dioceses have strategies to increase the proportion of women among their clergy or even if they monitor gender diversity. All dioceses will be aware that diversity is important in being able to respond to a changing world and use the gifts of all the people God has called. Dioceses need to monitor diversity, including the proportions of women in all roles, in order to create strategies to increase diversity. Table 2: Comparison of incumbent and incumbent status roles of female stipendiary clergy Parish clergy can be licensed as “Incumbents” or to a post which is classified as “incumbent status”. In general, most people in a parish do not know, and certainly don’t worry about, the legal status of “their vicar”. This is why in our annual analysis of proportions of stipendiary clergy who are women (table 1) WATCH combines these two groups because the sort of role they have is so similar. However, clergy with jobs which in the church might be regarded as “more senior” or carrying more responsibility such as Team Rector, or the vicar or rector of a large church, are normally licensed as incumbents, and roles such as Team Vicar or priest-in-charge are normally classified as “incumbent status”. A complication in making comparisons between dioceses is that different dioceses have different proportions of clergy licensed as incumbents. In Blackburn 92% of clergy are classified as incumbents, while in Worcester the proportion is 53%. However, a comparison of the proportion of female clergy classified as either incumbent or incumbent status in each diocese showed at once that women are under-represented in the group of incumbents and over represented in the group of incumbent status clergy. It is clear that a smaller proportion of women clergy are licensed to posts traditionally regarded as carrying more responsibility. There are only three dioceses where more than a third of clergy licensed as incumbents are women, and no diocese has more than 38% women in such roles. In 21 dioceses, the proportion of incumbents who are women is 25% or lower. However, if we compare clergy classified as “ incumbent status”, the proportion of women with such roles is 33% or higher in 29 dioceses. In seven dioceses, over 50% of “incumbent status” clergy are women. It is also worth noting the dioceses where there is a significant difference between the proportions of women who hold these two sorts of licence.