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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Teaser:
Recent Census data indicates that women earn 77 cents on the dollar compared to men--but for women of color, that wage gap is even higher.
Editorial:
From the Center for American Progress:
Although social and political efforts have been made to close the wage gap and in turn the wealth gap, recent Census data still indicates that women earn 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. For women of color the gap is even wider: Black women earn
69.5 percent, and Hispanic women
60.5 percent, compared to the earnings of their white male counterparts.
The wage story is just as unequal for single mothers: They make less than men, less than married women, and less than women without children. Adding race to the equation, single mothers of color are hit hardest by the wage gap.
Studies show that single mothers of color are much more likely to live in poverty and face significant barriers to creating wealth. Lower wages can often prevent families from engaging in asset- and wealth-building mechanisms such as pension plans because of fewer job benefits and resources. Lower earnings can hinder families from investing and saving their money, a key strategy for building wealth. Additionally, wealth not only impacts economic security but long-term retirement security as well.
While it’s recognized that the racial
wealth gap is widespread there is a critical need to understand the intersection of race and gender in accumulating wealth.
[...]
Source:
Center for American Progress
URL:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/04/pay_equity_color.html
Teaser:
Kristin Maschka argues that there's a relationship between United States tax code and the pay gap.
Editorial:
From the Huffington Post:
Even that 73 percent number is too rosy, because it only looks at a snapshot of mothers and men employed in a given year.
But mothers also spend more years out of the workforce than anyone else, usually to care for family. So the financial impact of mothers' employment patterns becomes clear only when we look across the years. The lifetime earnings of women are just
38 percent of the lifetime earnings of men.
Now that's a gap.
One of the reasons more women drop out of the workforce is because United States income tax policy is designed specifically to encourage them to drop out.
Yes, you read that right.
[...]
URL:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-maschka/equal-pay-day_b_1427171.html
Teaser:
Guest post by Sandra Fluke encouraging an end to the gender pay gap.
Editorial:
From CNN:
[...]
A significant gender pay gap still persists. That's why we cannot be passive as we acknowledge Equal Pay Day, which marks the day when a woman's earnings catch up to what her male peers earned in the previous year. To millennials, it's startling to see that
women still earn just 77 cents to the dollar of what men earn. Women of color are hit especially hard: African-American and Hispanic women earn 70% and 61%, respectively, of what white men earn. Without any male income in their household, single women and lesbians may feel the pay gap effect all the more. This wage gap costs working women and their families more than $10,000 annually and jeopardizes women's retirement security.
This gap isn't just about women making different choices in their careers. Even after accounting for occupation, hours worked, education, age, race, ethnicity, marital status, number of children and more, a difference of 5% still persists in the earnings of male and female college graduates one year after graduation. After 10 years in the workplace, that gap more than doubles to 12%.
Today we are fortunate to have critical laws like the
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which overturned a 2007 Supreme Court decision that made it harder for women -- and all employees -- to pursue federal claims of pay discrimination. Although this important law restored fairness for workers who want to use federal law to challenge cases of discriminatory pay, it only addresses one piece of the larger puzzle. More needs to be done.
[...]
URL:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/17/opinion/fluke-equal-pay-for-women/
Women’s median earnings are lower than men’s in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women.
by Ariane Hegewisch, Claudia Williams, Vanessa Harbin (April 2012)
URL:
http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/the-gender-wage-gap-by-occupation-1
Teaser:
Interview with actress Geena Davis, also Chair of the California Commission on Women, on Governor Jerry Brown's budget proposal to eliminate the commission.
Editorial:
From Calbuzz:
A long time advocate for women and girls, six years ago she founded The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, which works with the entertainment industry to increase the presence and reduce the stereotyping of female characters in media aimed at children. She was appointed to the commission two years ago by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and elected chair last month. Governor Jerry Brown in his budget proposal has recommended eliminating the commission, so we asked Calbuzzer Susan Rose to interview Davis about the controversy and her work on behalf of women.
Q: What difference has the state Commission on the Status of Women made in the lives of women?
A: The Commission has served as an important link between many communities and the government throughout its 47 year history, focusing on those who most need a voice—the working poor, those with limited English language ability, incarcerated women, and those with least access to state government and services. The Commission has partnered with numerous groups throughout California and held public hearings around the state, thus making state government both more accessible to these groups and benefiting state government by bringing these voices to Sacramento.
[...]
URL:
http://www.calbuzz.com/2012/04/how-geena-davis-hopes-to-save-womens-panel/
Even in New Jersey’s highly educated workforce, with 44 percent of adults possessing at least a two‐year degree, almost a fifth of adults age 25‐64 have started college but never finished.
Inexpensive policy changes can enable the state’s agencies and colleges to improve college completion rates in the state and simultaneously meet workforce goals, according to a new report,Close, but No Degree, by the Center for Women and Work (CWW) at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.
URL:
http://smlr.rutgers.edu/cww-report-close-but-no-degree
Teaser:
A nationwide study, conducted at Oregon State University in Corvallis, found that women get only about 18 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day, while men get 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise daily, on average.
Editorial:
From Everyday Health:
For objective results, the research team tracked the daily physical activity of more than 1,000 men and women across the country via accelerometers worn by the participants.
Published in the journal
Preventative Medicine, their findings reveal women aren't even coming close to the recommended 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week. Stats from this study line up with the results of a recent
survey from the American Heart Association, which found that only 12 percent of Americans report regular practice of three key healthy habits (good nutrition, exercise, and oral care). The biggest excuse was lack of time.
But failing to get 30 minutes of physical activity per day hurts your health, according to the study authors.
"It's pretty striking what happens to you if you don't meet that 30 minutes a day of activity," says Bradley Cardinal, PhD, a OSU professor of social psychology of physical activity who co-led the study, in a release. "Women in our sample had better health behavior. They were much less likely to smoke, for instance, but the lack of activity still puts them at risk."
[...]
URL:
http://www.everydayhealth.com/high-cholesterol/0412/fewer-workouts-greater-health-risks-for-women.aspx
Salary.com has created an online salary calculator for stay-at-home moms.
URL:
http://www.salary.com/what-s-a-mom-worth-in-2012/
Teaser:
According to a new National Center for Health Statistics report, while 40% of American births are to unmarried mothers, most of those are to cohabiting couples.
Editorial:
From Time:
About 1 in 4 babies are now born to unmarried couples, a rate that has nearly doubled since 2002, according to a recent report from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The government has previously said that more than 40% of births are to unwed mothers, but the new report offers details showing that most such births occur in couples who aren’t married, but are living together.
“It’s thought that usually in births outside of marriage, one parent isn’t present. But many couples are cohabiting and these children do have two parents present,” says report author Gladys Martinez, a demographer in the CDC’s division of Vital Statistics.
The
new data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics was based on in-person interviews with more than 22,000 men and women aged 15 to 44 during 2006 through 2010, as part of the National Survey of Family Growth. The researchers then compared the data to a similar 2002 survey.
[...]
URL:
http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/13/more-unwed-couples-are-having-babies/
State by state factsheets from the National Women's Law Center.
At the time of the Equal Pay Act's passage in 1963, women working full time, year-round were paid merely 59 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Enforcement of the Equal Pay Act and related civil rights laws has helped to narrow the wage gap, but significant disparities remain and must be addressed.
URL:
http://www.nwlc.org/resource/wage-gap-state-state-2012-fact-sheets
