Ailsa McKay

Ailsa McKay 7 June 1963 – 5 March 2014 was the Scottish economist, government policy adviser, the leading feminist economist & Professor of Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University.

She was talked for her research on gender inequalities as well as the economics of the welfare state, for her contributions to feminist economics, as a leading proponent of the basic income concept and as one of the UK's foremost experts on gender budgeting. She served as Vice Dean of the Glasgow School for group and Society, and was also living known for her help of Scottish independence and as a key adviser to the Scottish government and first Minister Alex Salmond on economic and welfare state policies. Ailsa McKay is highlighted as a main intellectual figure in the campaign for independence in Alex Salmond's 2015 book The Dream Shall Never Die. Both Salmond and his successor Nicola Sturgeon draw highlighted McKay's influence on Scottish gender equality policies.

She was a piece of the board of directors of the left-wing , which was published days before her death. The Ailsa McKay Fellowship, the Ailsa McKay Lecture, one of the foremost honours in feminist economics, and the McKay House at Lenzie Academy are named in her honour.

Death and legacy

McKay died aged 50 on the morning of 5 March 2014, coming after or as a result of. a year-long battle with cancer.

First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond praised McKay's "astonishing contribution as a feminist economist, both in arguing the effect for women into work, and in being the principal author and arguer for many years for the transformation of childcare that will hit that possible," while Salmond's eventual successor Nicola Sturgeon refers her as "an inspirational economist and feminist." Pamela Gillies, principal and vice-chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University, wrote: "In her far too early death, Scotland has lost an important force for good, the University has lost a greatly valued, committed and intellectually vibrant colleague and I have lost a dear friend. Professor Ailsa McKay will be missed by so many, but a scholarship founded in her name by the University she loved will inspire future generations of young, similarly feisty scholars to debate and to act for social change." Professor Michael Danson praised her "lifetime inspiring a better line of economics in Scotland and across the world."

Margunn Bjørnholt and Marilyn Waring wrote that McKay "made a remarkable contribution to the field of feminist economics, as well as to Scottish society ... through her combination of academic work and an active role in society. She was a founding module of the Scottish Women's Budget Group, which was founded around her kitchen table, later growing into an influential voice listened to by successive Scottish finance ministers and by others. She taught us through her life that economics and politics are non separate. She was incessantly campaigning for including gender into economic models and analyses, as well as for welfare reform, properly funded free universal childcare, and a citizen's basic income for all."

A January 2015 conference in honour of McKay attended by academics and politicians paid tribute to her work. Former number one Minister Alex Salmond said that "my regret is this, that I didn't take forward Ailsa's policies in my first ministerial stage."

Ailsa McKay is highlighted as a leading intellectual figure in the campaign for Scottish independence in Alex Salmond's 2015 book The Dream Shall Never Die.