Economic Security

Connecticut Proves to be the Best State for Women, According to iVillage's Comprehensive Analysis of "50 Best to Worst States for Women"

Teaser:

iVillage, the content-driven online community for women, has commissioned an extensive analysis to rank all 50 states in order of which were best for women, and which have failed their female citizens.

Editorial:

From the press release:

iVillage, the largest content-driven online community for women, commissioned an extensive analysis to rank all 50 states in order of which were best for women, and which have failed their female citizens. Connecticut, which has healthcare coverage for over 90% of its female population and touts an educated population with more than one-third of women holding a four-year college degree, took top honors as the nation's best state for women. The five best states for women are revealed today on iVillage's iVote channel, the site's Election 2012 hub. Each day for the next 10 days, five more states will be unveiled in descending order, culminating in the worst states on March 23. States were judged on how women fared in terms of healthcare and wellness, economic well-being, parenting support, education, female representation in government, and reproductive rights.

The five best states in iVillage's ranking are:
1. Connecticut
2. Hawaii
3. Maryland
4. Massachusetts
5. California

[...]

To gather the facts for iVillage's "50 Best to Worst States for Women" list, 12 authoritative sources of data were consulted, including the National Council of State Legislatures, National Women's Law Center, National Partnership for Women & Families, the 2010 US Census FactFinder, and the National Network to End Domestic Violence. The categories of healthcare & wellness and economic well-being were weighted as top criteria, followed by parenting and female representation in government office. Education and reproductive rights also factored in. For the full methodology used to determine each state's rank, click here.

[...]

Source:

Virtual Press Office

URL:

http://www.virtualpressoffice.com/publicsiteContentFileAccess?fileContentId=754502&fromOtherPageToDisableHistory=Y&menuName=News&sId=&sInfo=

Date:

March 15, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Government That Looks Like America? Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Financial Regulatory Institutions

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 10:42am

Diversity in executive management is low at all agencies when compared to the percentage of people of color in the civilian labor force. Three agencies—the Federal Reserve Banks of St. Louis, Boston, and Cleveland—have no people of color in executive management.

From the Greenlining Institute

URL:

http://greenlining.org/publications/pdf/649/649.pdf

World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 10:18am

The 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development finds that women's lives around the world have improved dramatically, but gaps remain in many areas. The authors use a conceptual framework to examine progress to date, and then recommend policy actions.

URL:

http://go.worldbank.org/CQCTMSFI40

Female Longevity Offset by Lethal Gender Gaps

Teaser:

Women outlive men, while lagging behind.

Editorial:

From Women's eNews:

That was the parallax view presented last week at an annual summing up by the National Council for Research on Women, a New York-based network of 100 leading U.S. research policy and advocacy centers, which held a panel here at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Since 1980, women have lived longer than men in all parts of the world. In low-income countries, women now live 20 years longer, on average, than they did in 1980. In addition, over half a billion women have joined the world labor force.

At the same time, however, girls and women are often still treated as more expendable.

[...]

Source:

Women's eNews

URL:

http://womensenews.org/story/equalitywomen%E2%80%99s-rights/120313/female-longevity-offset-lethal-gender-gaps

Date:

March 14, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Engendering agricultural research, development, and extension

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 12:21pm

Research has shown that women, when given the capital and opportunity, make unique, positive contributions to development outcomes ranging from agricultural productivity to poverty reduction. It comes as little surprise, then, that agricultural research, development, and extension systems are generally more successful when scientists, researchers, and extension agents pay attention to gender issues. However, women continue to be underrepresented and underserved, and their contributions remain mostly untapped in national and international agricultural research. Worldwide, gender roles are culturally defined in all aspects of farming, from control of resources to production and marketing, and these definitions constrain and marginalize women. Even within the agricultural research community, most scientists and extension agents are male.

URL:

http://www.ifpri.org/publication/engendering-agricultural-research-development-and-extension

Have We Gone From a Mancession to a Shecovery? Not Quite.

Teaser:

The jobs numbers that came out on Friday looked so much better than what we’re used to—or at least didn’t suck quite as hard as usual—that there was some victory dancing in the blogosphere. And there are certainly some positive signs. But a premature victory for women once again reared its head.

Editorial:

From The Nation:

The fears of a mancession have returned in a new shape, as David Leonhardt wondered if we’re about to move out of the “hecovery” period—in which men made job gains while women lost them—to a “shecovery.” He points out that over the past two months, the number of employed men only rose by 83,000, while women were up 192,000 jobs.

There may be a problem with this data. A large part of the jump that Leonhardt saw in women’s employment is because the BLS, as it sometimes does, updated its population estimates, “finding” more women workers than had been previously accounted for. Yet it didn’t add those women evenly across the year. As Mike Konczal notes, “December showed women gaining 584,000 jobs as a result of statistical population adjustments that, in reality, should have been smoothed across a longer time frame.” The jump in women’s jobs is mostly artificial.

Still, the picture is starting to look better for women. Just as recently as August women were losing jobs, while men were getting back to work. Now women are starting to join in the economy’s very slow job creation: according to the National Women’s Law Center, they gained about one-third of the roughly 200,000 jobs added in January and February.

[...]

Source:

The Nation

URL:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/166742/have-we-gone-mancession-shecovery-not-quite

Date:

March 13, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Jobs Picture Improves for Women and Men

Teaser:

Analysis by the National Women’s Law Center of jobs data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that women gained 86,000 jobs in February – 38 percent of the jobs added last month. However, women have gained less than 12 percent of the nearly 2.2 million net jobs added since the start of the recovery in June 2009. The 7.7 percent unemployment rate for adult women in February 2012 is still slightly higher than their 7.6 percent unemployment rate at the start of the recovery.

Editorial:

From the National Women's Law Center press release:

“Today’s jobs data show that women are starting to share in the recovery, but they still have a long way to go,” said Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center. “Since women’s unemployment rate hasn’t improved since the start of this recovery, policy makers’ top priority should be to help create and preserve jobs for women as well as men.”

During the recession, the unemployment rate for adult men increased more than for adult women; at the start of the recovery in June 2009, adult men’s unemployment rate stood at 9.9 percent, while adult women’s was 7.6 percent. During the recovery, however, the unemployment rate for adult men dropped by 2.2 percentage points, to 7.7 percent in February 2012. Adult women’s unemployment increased by 0.1 percentage point since the start of the recovery, to 7.7 percent in February 2012. The 7.7 percent unemployment rates for adult men and women were unchanged since January 2012, which marked the first time those rates were equal since the start of the recession in December 2007, when they were 4.4 percent.

The long-term unemployment rate – the percentage of unemployed workers looking for jobs for 27 weeks or more – rose slightly for adult women last month to 44.0 percent; the long-term unemployment rate for adult men dropped slightly to 40.1 percent. The long-term unemployment rates for both adult women and men are substantially higher than at the start of the recovery.

[...]

Source:

National Women's Law Center

URL:

http://www.nwlc.org/press-release/jobs-picture-improves-women-and-men

Date:

March 12, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

House GOP look to reshape birth control debate

Teaser:

House Republican leaders are looking for a way to reshape the debate over the administration's new rule on birth-control insurance coverage before moving ahead with a bid to nullify the requirement.

Editorial:

From Reuters:

Representative Jeff Fortenberry, who has introduced legislation on the issue, acknowledged hesitation by some fellow Republicans to take on the incendiary issue. But he said a delay could give Republicans time to recast the issue as a question of religious freedom rather than women's rights.

"We'll keep trying to appropriately frame the debate about this core American principle," Fortenberry said.

Representative Pete Sessions, who heads the House Republican campaign committee, said party leaders are not backing off. "We're not hesitant to do anything," Sessions said. "The successful rain dance has a lot to do with timing."

House Republicans have taken a cautious approach after the Senate, mostly on party lines, rejected a measure that would have allowed employers with moral objections to opt out of birth control coverage and other services.

[...]

Source:

Reuters

URL:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/10/us-gop-birthcontrol-idUSBRE82813620120310

Date:

March 12, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Continued Job Growth for Women and Men in February

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 10:15am

According to IWPR analysis of the March employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,job growth improved in February with 227,000 jobs added to nonfarm payrolls. In February women gained 86,000 jobs (almost 40 percent, above their share for the past year) and men gained 141,000. The gap between women’s and men’s employment in February is 1.9 million.

The unemployment rates remained largely steady from January to February declining for women aged 16 and older (to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent) and unchanged for men (8.3 percent). Women’s employment growth was aided by strong growth in health care (49,000 jobs added overall) and food service and drinking places (40,800 jobs added overall).

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/continued-job-growth-for-women-and-men-in-february

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

The Dirty Thirty – March 2012 Edition

Teaser:

Roundup of recent anti-abortion legislation and regulations introduced across the United States.

Editorial:

From Politicususa:

On March 14, 2011 we first published a list of thirty pieces of Republican legislation “that Republicans are using to destroy America” and called it “The Dirty Thirty.” That original list has been updated several times and grown significantly although the list is incomplete, given there have been a thousand bills alone restricting a woman’s right to abortion. If most of the laws directed toward Women’s Reproductive Rights seem petty and punitive, well…they are. In fact, the goal of Republican legislation seems increasingly to be this: to punish the rest of us for not being like them.

[...]

There are over 20 new items on the newest list, including several 2011 items previously excluded, and also new pieces of 2012 legislation. An effort has also been made to provide updated news on the fate of various pieces of legislation and a new category, “Doomsday Legislation”, has been added thanks to continued Republican insanity.

Source:

Politicususa

URL:

http://www.politicususa.com/the-dirty-thirty-march-2012-edition/

Date:

March 12, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

GET INVOLVED

What We Do

NCRW is a network of leading university and community based research, policy, and advocacy centers with a growing global reach dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls. We also have a Corporate Circle comprised of senior diversity professionals from leading U.S. and global member companies and a Presidents Circle of college and university leaders who share our commitment. NCRW harnesses the collective power of its network to provide knowledge, analysis, and thought leadership on issues ranging from reducing women’s poverty to building a critical mass of women’s leadership across sectors.

NCRW Blog

Economic Security

Search NCRW