Economic Development & Security

Women are active players driving the economy, nationally and globally. They are important breadwinners for their families, grow most of the world’s food and are entering the formal and informal sectors of the labor market in increasing numbers. Despite their enormous contributions, women are still largely absent from leadership positions and their voices and perspectives are often missing from economic policymaking at the local, regional, national and international levels. To promote their wellbeing, women need access to adequate income and quality education to support themselves and their families. Women still earn less than men and make up a disproportionate number of the poor, both nationally and globally. In the United States, women’s wellbeing and advancement depend on their access to basic services, opportunities and safety nets, such as paid sick leave, affordable child care and elder care, advanced education, health care and adequate housing.

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Critical Issue: Measuring the impact of economic recovery efforts on women and families

Several experts from NCRW member centers are examining the impact of the Amercian Recovery and Reinvestment Act on women and low-income families. As efforts continue to restore and jumpstart the economy, it is critical that policymakers and the public be aware of how effective these efforts are at addressing the challenges faced by those left vulnerable by the recession, joblessness and the housing crisis. For more information, visit our Economic Stimulus Package page in the Projects and Programs tab.

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Blog Posts

By Lauren D. Appelbaum* Despite two quarters of GDP growth and a declining unemployment rate, 20,000 jobs were lost last month. Without 33,000...
By Deepak Bhargava* We put trillions of dollars on the line to rescue Wall Street from self inflicted wounds, yet at a time of historic unemployment...
By Linda A. Meric* As we mark the one-year ARRA anniversary, it’s time to look at strategies on the road to recovery.ARRA investment can...
On Valentine's Day, Linda Basch, President of the National Council for Research on Women, wrote an op-ed calling for greater gender equity:This...
Posted by Kyla Bender-Baird Calling all data geeks! The Bureau of Labor Statistics has made some really exciting changes to its monthly employment...

Member Experts

Dinah Asante is Executive Assistant to the President. She has an M.S. in Urban Policy from the New School and studied at Algonquin College in...
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Lynda M. Sagrestano, Ph.D. is the Director of the Center for Research on Women at the University of Memphis.  She earned a Ph.D. in social psychology...
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Nancy Biberman founded WHEDco in 1991 with the vision of restoring the South Bronx to the beautiful, bustling place it once was. WHEDco’s first...
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Natalia Cardona, is the Constituency Engagement Manager at the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID). Cardona has worked on issues of...
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Eileen Appelbaum joined the Center for Economic Policy and Research in 2010 after eight years at Rutgers University as Professor and Director of the...
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Radhika Balakrishnan, Executive Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, and Professor, Women's and Gender Studies, has a Ph.D. in...
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Rita Henley Jensen is Founder and Editor in Chief of award-winning nonprofit news service Women's eNews (www.womensenews.org) and its sister site...
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Dr. Mariko Chang is the author of the new book, Shortchanged: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It, and the main author of the...
Sari Pekkala Kerr is an economist and a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. She joined the WCW in 2010...

News

  • March 8, 2012

    Last month's long overdue hearing by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) revealed that shocking, blatant attacks on working women are going on more than three decades after passage of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which...


  • March 8, 2012

     In a bold move that could transform the composition of Canada’s corporate boardrooms, Catalyst issues a call to action for Canadian corporations to increase the overall proportion of FP500 board seats held by women to 25 percent by 2017....


  • March 8, 2012

    According to a new study from the Federal Reserve, due to be published shortly, between 1993 and 2006, there was a decline in the workforce of 0.1 percent a year on average in the number of college-educated women, with similarly educated spouses...


  • March 7, 2012

    The recent controversy over contraception and health insurance has focused on who should pay for the pill. But there is a wealth of economic evidence about the value of the pill – to taxpayers as well as to women in general.

     


  • March 6, 2012

     Kathy Krendl, President of Otterbein University, argues that today's woman is not only faced with many barriers -- fewer educational opportunities, lower wage prospects, higher unemployment numbers -- but is also faced with a tangible lack of...