Family & Society

Gender roles are formed and reinforced from earliest childhood through family relations, social and cultural strictures and norms. Today, family structures are shifting as nuclear and extended families undergo transformations due to economic and societal changes. The traditional archetype of one father and one mother plus children reflects only 25 percent of families in the U.S. Parental roles are also evolving as single-parent, same-sex couples and adoptive parents become increasingly common. Laws and employment policies are gradually reflecting these changes but more effort needs to be focused on providing family-friendly support from affordable, accessible, quality child and elder care to flexible work arrangements.

Gender Equality Explorer

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 2:18am

GENDER EQUALITY Explorer provides free, 24/7, user-friendly access to data disaggregated by gender from the U.S. Census Bureau collected through the American Community Survey.

URL:

http://genderequalityexplorer.org/

Why Is "Opting Out" A Bad Word For Women?

Teaser:

Lately it seems I can’t have a conversation with a women’s expert without hearing the phrase “opting out.” “Thirty percent of working women will opt out of the workplace during the course of their career,” they tell me. “How can we ever expect to make progress when so many women opt out before they reach the truly high-powered positions,” they ask.

Editorial:

From Forbes:

When NY Times writer Lisa Belkin introduced the women’s world to the term “opting out” in 2003, she framed it as a revolution: highly educated working women were quitting their jobs in droves to stay at home with their children. “It’s not just that the workplace has failed women,” she wrote. “It is also that women are rejecting the workplace.”

Belkin wrote about a group of Princeton-educatedAtlanta mothers who had, by and large, taken the off-ramp from their successful careers to stay at home and raise children. To a one, they described their choice as just that: the decision towards the preferred path. ”I don’t want to be on the fast track leading to a partnership at a prestigious law firm,” one said. “Some people define that as success; I don’t.” ”Maternity provides an escape hatch that paternity does not,” said another. “Having a baby provides a graceful and convenient exit.”

Sure, they’re not furthering the feminist cause by staying home with their babies, but do a handful of moms not living up to their Ivy League potential really do much harm? In the weeks and months and ensuing media flurry, you’d certainly think so. “Opting out” became the phrase of choice for thought-leaders, researchers and women’s advocates for not just women who happily choose children over paychecks, but increasingly those whose choices are much more hard-pressed.

And ever since then, “opting out” has been a bad word.

[...]

Source:

Forbes

URL:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/02/28/why-is-opting-out-a-bad-word-for-women/

Date:

February 29, 2012

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Keeping Name After Marriage Makes Some See Wife As Less Committed To Husband, Study Says

Teaser:

Attitudes regarding whether women should take their husbands' names at marriage are becoming more conservative, at least among young Midwesterners.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

ccording to a new study, one of the few to look at name-changing attitudes over time, Midwestern college students were three times more likely to say that women who don't take their husbands' names are less committed to the relationship in 2006 compared with when the same question was asked in 1990. Midwestern women are also less likely than women living in the Eastern U.S. to say they want to keep their birth name at marriage.

In both groups, name-keepers are the minority, however. No national statistics are kept, but previous research suggests at least 90 percent, and possibly up to 98 percent, of American women change their names upon marriage.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/25/keeping-name-after-marriage_n_1301049.html

Date:

February 28, 2012

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KIDSCOUNT Data Snapshot on Children Living in High-Poverty Communities

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 11:45am

This Data Snapshot highlights newly available national, state, and city data in the KIDS COUNT Data Center that shows a 25 percent increase in the number of children residing in areas of concentrated poverty since 2000. The snapshot indicates how high-poverty communities are harmful to children, outlines regions in which concentrated poverty has grown the most, and offers recommendations to address these issues.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2012

URL:

http://www.aecf.org/KnowledgeCenter/Publications.aspx?pubguid={DF6A3A0E-9AA3-405E-9FB9-E1D9C80C5E5C}

Blame biological clock for dearth of women in math: study

Teaser:

Women are shunning academic careers in math-intensive fields because the lifestyle is incompatible with motherhood, researchers at Cornell University found in a study to be published next month in American Scientist Magazine.

Editorial:

From Reuters:

Universities have long been criticized for hiring and evaluation policies that discriminate against women, but the findings of this new study point to the female biological clock as a main reason why so few women end up as professors in fields such as math, engineering, physics and computer science.

A woman who wants a family looks at the rigorous path to a tenured position and considers how old she will be before she can start a family and how little time she will have to raise her children. Many of those women opt for a more flexible career.

"Universities have been largely inflexible about anything other than the standard time table, which is you kill yourself for years and only then would you consider getting pregnant," said Wendy Williams, a human development professor at Cornell who co-authored the study with her husband, Stephen Ceci.

Williams and Ceci analyzed data about the academic careers of men and women with and without children. Before women became mothers, they had careers equivalent to or more successful than their male peers. But once children entered the equation, the dynamic changed.

Women in other academic fields such as the humanities and social sciences face similar hurdles and often leave academia as well. But because there are so many women in those Ph.D. programs, enough ultimately stay to amount to a critical mass of female professors.

In math-heavy fields, however, women make up a tiny minority of the graduate students. So when the rare few who make it through a Ph.D. program leave because universities are insensitive to their needs as mothers, the net result is virtually no women represented on faculty rosters, the study said.

[...]

Source:

Reuters

URL:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-women-math-idUSTRE81G17V20120217

Date:

February 21, 2012

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Young Mothers Describe Marriage’s Fading Allure

Teaser:

Sixty-three percent of all births to women under 30 in Lorain County occur outside marriage, according to Child Trends, a research center in Washington. That figure has risen by more than two-thirds over the past two decades, and now surpasses the national figure of 53 percent.

Editorial:

From The New York Times:

The change has transformed life in Lorain, a ragged industrial town on Lake Erie. Churches perform fewer weddings. Applications for marriage licenses are down by a third. Just a tenth of the students at the local community college are married, but its campus has a bustling day care center.

The New York Times interviewed several dozen people in Lorain about marriage here. What follows are their stories.

Young parents spoke of an economy that was fundamentally different from in their parents’ time, and that required more than a high school education for fathers to be stable breadwinners. They talked of how little they trusted each other to be reliable mates, and of how the government safety net encourages poor parents to stay single.

[...]

Source:

The New York Times

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/young-mothers-describe-marriages-fading-allure.html

Date:

February 21, 2012

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'Panks' Happy to Remain Aunties Only, Sans Kids of Their Own

Teaser:

Millions of PANKs (professional aunt, no kids) are opting not to have kids, finding fulfillment in bonding with their nieces and nephews instead. Their numbers are growing: Nearly 20 percent of American women reach 40 to 44 childless, compared with 10 percent in the 1970s, said a 2008 Pew Research Center report.

Editorial:

From the Kansas City Star:

For Jennifer Emmert, it's the best of both worlds. Emmert loves kids and spends tons of time with her six nieces and nephews, from outdoor activities to sleepovers at her place. The 30-year-old is engaged to be married, but she's perfectly happy living up to the name of one of her favorite books: "Childless and Loving It."

"I'm completely content with adoring and smothering my nieces and nephews and keeping my life the way it is," said the Minneapolis resident. "I absolutely love and adore them, and I love and adore when they go home."

Emmert and millions of other PANKs (professional aunt, no kids) are opting not to have kids, finding fulfillment in bonding with their nieces and nephews instead. Their numbers are growing: Nearly 20 percent of American women reach 40 to 44 childless, compared with 10 percent in the 1970s, said a 2008 Pew Research Center report.

Choosing not to have children doesn't mean a woman has no use for children. As aunts they can forge loving relationships with nieces and nephews - whether in the role of friend, mentor or sounding board - and strengthen ties with their siblings.

The activities that aunts share with their young relatives vary widely and evolve as the kids grow up.

[...]

Source:

Kansas City Star

URL:

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/14/3428137/panks-happy-to-remain-aunties.html

Date:

February 14, 2012

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Washington House Passes Gay Marriage Bill

Teaser:

Washington state lawmakers voted to approve gay marriage Wednesday, setting the stage for the state to become the seventh in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

The action comes a day after a federal appeals court declared California's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, saying it was a violation of the civil rights of gay and lesbian couples.

The Washington House passed the bill on a 55-43 vote. Supporters in the public viewing galleries stood and cheered as many on the Democratic side of the House floor hugged after the vote.

The state Senate approved the measure last week, and the bill now goes to Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, who is expected to sign it into law next week.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/washington-gay-marriage_n_1264038.html

Date:

February 9, 2012

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The Wage Gap Between Moms, Other Working Women

Teaser:

Moms earn up to 14 percent less than women who don't have children, says a University of New Mexico study. Host Michel Martin discusses the gap with UNM economist Kate Krause; Dina Bakst of A Better Balance, a workplace rights organization; and Dawn Porter, founder of Trilogy Films and a mother of two.

Editorial:

From NPR:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but maybe you just need a few moms in your corner. Every week, we check in with a diverse group of parents for their common sense and savvy advice.

This week, we want to talk about the wage gap. Now, you've probably heard about the persistent wage gap between men and women. The most recent census data shows that, on average, women make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes and that gap has closed in recent decades, but it still persists.

But now, researchers have also found a wage gap between moms and other working women. Women who have children now earn 7 to 14 percent less than women who do not have children. That's according to economist Kate Krause of the University of New Mexico, and she identifies a number of possible explanations for this phenomenon and we want to hear her perspective on why this is.

But we also want to figure out if there is something that women who are mothers or want to be mothers can do about this if they want to. So to have that conversation, I'm joined now by Kate Krause. She's a professor of economics at the University of New Mexico, as we said. She's co-author of the research we just mentioned. She's also the mother of two daughters.

Dina Bakst is co-founder and co-president of A Better Balance. That's an organization that advocates for working families. She's the mom of three daughters.

Also with us, Dawn Porter. She's a former television executive and she's founder of Trilogy Films and she has two sons.

[...]

Source:

NPR

URL:

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/07/146522483/the-wage-gap-between-moms-other-working-women

Date:

February 8, 2012

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Ending Child Marriage: Insights From Desmond Tutu And Mary Robinson

Teaser:

Child marriage is one of the most shocking and disturbing practices facing girls around the world today.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

Every year, ten million girls are forcibly married before the age of eighteen, many as young as twelve or thirteen years old. That is something like 25,000 girls a day. These young girls suffer sexual abuse and domestic violence and are frequently forced to become mothers at a very early age, putting them at a much higher risk of maternal injury and death. The epidemic of child marriage has mostly received little attention and continues unabated year after year. An organization called The Elders, a group of global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007, seeks to change that, launching an ambitious Global Partnership to End Child Marriage called Girls Not Brides that aims to stop the harmful practice in one generation.

This week, a delegation from The Elders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, will visit India with a focus on girls' development and the impact of child marriage. The primary objective of the Elders' visit is to learn about the causes of child marriage in India, discuss the harmful impact of child marriage on human rights and development, and to encourage local efforts to end the practice. The Elders will meet political and business leaders, UN and NGO representatives, members of the media, and communities affected by child marriage. Because of its large population, India is home to an estimated one third of the world's child brides. The Elders will visit New Delhi and Patna and will also attend a regional meeting hosted by Girls Not Brides.

I asked Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson about the implications and factors contributing to child marriage and their hopes and goals for the Girls Not Brides Partnership.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-schnall/desmond-tutu-and-mary-rob_b_1254218.html

Date:

February 8, 2012

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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.

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