Read about the features from Women’s Day, Runnymede Trust’s bulletin on older BME people, unemployment among young black men and the same-sex marriage debate in today’s ‘The week that was…’

Last week, 8 March was celebrated as International Women’s Day. We published a round-up of highlights from the web, which included Google’s Women’s Day Doodle, the Guardian’s interactive world map, a video of a suffragette march from 1913 and more. Read the Women’s Day round-up to catch up on features from Women’s Day.

The Runnymede Trust has published its Winter Bulletin with the theme ‘older black and minority ethnic people’. The features in the bulletin address the general and more specific issues and challenges older BME people may face in Britain, such as pension, social care, sense of belonging etc. The bulletin can be downloaded from the Runnymede website.

New figures provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that more than half of young black men are unemployed. They are twice as likely to be jobless as their white counterparts. Unemployment rates for young black men and women combined at the end of 2011 was 47.4 per cent, up from 28.8 per cent three years ago. By contrast, for whites in the same age group, it rose from 15 per cent in 2008 to 20.8 per cent in 2011.

The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is intensifying its campaign against the government’s plan to legalise same-sex marriage by 2015. In a letter being read in 2,500 parish churches, the Church’s two most senior archbishops say the change would reduce the significance of marriage. Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem minister for equality, challenged the Church’s position on same sex marriage saying that the Church does not ‘own’ marriage.

Came across something interesting? Let us know – Equality.and.Diversity@lse.ac.uk.