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Now the A Level results are out, a new set of young women and men will be going on to University or out in to the job market. New research by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, has found that men who go on to Higher Education will (over the course of their lifetime) earn on average £165,000 more than men who do not attend University at all. However for women, that figure rises to £250,000.

The study also found that women who drop out of their degrees are likely to suffer a wage ‘penalty’ – going on to earn less over their lifetime than women who never attended Higher Education at all. This is not the same for male dropouts, who can expect similar wages to their counterparts who never attended University.

So – what do these figures mean for young women making decisions this week about the next step in their lives post sixth form? Jenni talks to Ian Walker, Professor in the Management School at Lancaster University, who wrote the report.

After her marriage break-up Anne Morshead decided to move to rural Ireland.   There she met an amusing and charming man in a pub and was immediately attracted by his vulnerability and spontaneity.   When the tell-tale signs began to show that he was a heavy drinker she ignored the warning bells in her head.  Five years later Anne was struggling to extricate herself from a damaging relationship with an alcoholic. In her book Blind Drunk she frankly describes her experience and she joins Jenni to explain the effects of living with an alcoholic, and to provide guidance for others struggling to deal with the same problem. 

Jane Austen spin offs are not new, but author has written a novel which reimagines Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of those below stairs. She creates real characters from those people who have only appeared fleetingly in the novel….the story from the servants’ perspective: ‘If Elizabeth Bennett had the washing of her own petticoats’ Sarah thought, ‘she would be more careful not to trudge through muddy fields.’

After returning from a month long trip in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains in search of a primrose that hadn’t been seen for nearly 100 years, Sadie Barber will be telling us about the adventures of modern day plant hunters. Fiona Davison will be joining us to discuss how women have been enduring danger and hardship in order to pursue their passion for plants for centuries.

Seventy per cent of women in Japan still give up work as soon as they’ve had their first child. Recently a public relations company placed adverts on the thighs of more than three thousand  women in Toyko, saying the idea works because girls are happy for men to look at their thighs, and men like to look at them. So how is life for women in one of the world’s richest countries?