Woman's Hour - 23/03/2010

Anne Pinney from Barnados and Harriet Sergeant from the Centre for Policy Studies discuss what needs to be done if more teenage mums are to stay in education. Seventy per cent of teenage mums are currently not in education or training but when the school leaving age rises to 18 in 2015 it will affect the 20,000 girls who become teenage mums. Social reformer and suffragist Eleanor Rathbone MP (1872-1946) is best known for being the architect of the family allowance, but she also went on to champion the cause of refugees fleeing persecution in Nazi-occupied Europe before and during WWII. Jane Garvey talks to Susan Cohen, author of a new book about this aspect of Rathbone's life. There's live music in the studio from Sue Richardson, who performs as a singer and trumpet player. Since leaving school she has toured the world playing in big bands and appeared at the Last Night of the Proms. The Selfish Society and why we need more empathy in public life. In her new book, psychoanalytic psychotherapist Sue Gerhardt argues that our society is heading or indeed has already arrived at a kind of consumer mania where values such as care, attention and empathy are ignored at all levels of society. She discusses these issues with Kate Stanley, director of Citizens, Society and Economy at the Institute for Public Research.