Safety Nets

Women in the United States frequently lack basic services that are taken for granted in many other parts of the world. To be able to live in economic security, they require educational opportunities; paid sick leave; affordable, quality child care and elder care; as well as portable health care and adequate retirement benefits to protect them throughout their lives. While programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Food Stamps are available, they do not go far enough. More robust safety nets are needed to lift and keep women and their families out of poverty.

The Affordable Care Act and Women’s Health: White House Roundtable

Teaser:

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments over the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s sweeping and controversial health care reform law, the White House hosted a roundtable discussion on the law’s impact on women and families. WebMD and 10 female-focused websites and bloggers were invited to join the discussion with Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle and Deputy Assistant to the President for Health Policy, Jeanne Lambrew.

Editorial:

From WebMD:

The Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010 and is rolling out over the course of four years. Its biggest impact, extending health insurance to approximately 30 million people, doesn’t kick in until 2014.

DeParle said that the biggest criticism of the law that contains the most misinformation is “that it does nothing to control costs.” As an example, she said that Medicare spending per beneficiary is about the lowest it has ever been. Lambrew added that the White House plans to release information Thursday indicating that premium growth has slowed for health insurance.

Another criticism DeParle addressed was the individual mandate, the part of the law that requires everyone to purchase health insurance. The mandate’s legality will be debated during next week’s Supreme Court hearings. “A lot of people think that the so-called individual mandate is a huge new imposition on their liberty based on what they’ve heard from some, when, in fact, for many, most, I suppose, Americans, nothing is going to change,” DeParle said. “They’ll just check a box that says ‘Yes, I have insurance.’” The government will help cover the cost of insurance for those who can’t afford it.

[...]

Source:

WebMD

URL:

http://blogs.webmd.com/breaking-news/2012/03/the-affordable-care-act-and-womens-health-white-house-roundtable.html

Date:

March 21, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Expert Profile

Location:

United States

34° 5' 48.0336" N, 117° 43' 11.2044" W

See map: Google Maps

Member Organizations:

Applied Women's Studies Program

Professor Deborah A. Freund is the 15th President of Claremont Graduate University (CGU) and is an internationally known health economist and outcomes researcher. She is particularly known for her work on total knee replacement and Medicaid. She brings extensive administrative experience to her service as president of Claremont Graduate University. Freund was vice chancellor and provost at Syracuse University from 1999-2006, and held the title of Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Economics from Syracuse’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs beginning in 2004. In addition to her faculty position at the Maxwell School, she was a senior research associate at the school’s Center for Policy Research. She came to Syracuse University from Indiana University Bloomington (IU) where she was vice chancellor and dean of the faculties, and special advisor to the president and vice president of the IU System on Academic Affairs for five years.

Location

Claremont, CA 91711

United States

34° 5' 48.0336" N, 117° 43' 11.2044" W

See map: Google Maps

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Expert Profile

Location:

United States

35° 7' 29.2764" N, 89° 56' 15.306" W

See map: Google Maps

Member Organizations:

Center for Research on Women

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 from the University of California, Berkeley and held NIMH-funded postdoctoral fellowships at UCLA and the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her research interests include barriers to economic self sufficiency for women, maternal and prenatal health, adolescent sexual behavior, teen pregnancy, HIV prevention, sexual harassment in school, domestic violence, and gender and work stress. Her work is oriented toward applying psychological theory to understand and intervene on social problems and advance theory development. She collaborates with individuals in health and community agencies, to highlight the role of contextual factors in health processes and outcomes, with the goal of taking a more integrated approach to prevention and intervention in the public health sector.

Location

Memphis, TN 38152

United States

35° 7' 29.2764" N, 89° 56' 15.306" W

See map: Google Maps

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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

It Takes Women to End Global Poverty

Teaser:

Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours and produce half of the world's food. Yet, women earn only 10 percent of the world's income and own less than 1 percent of the world's property.

Editorial:

From Women's eNews:

While American women still earn about 77 cents for every dollar men earn and continue to work hard to close the salary gap, women in other parts of the world earn a mere 30 to 40 percent of what men do.

These are the women who never made it to a classroom, who often forgo already scarce food for themselves to feed other family members, who are unable to start their own businesses and who are likely to die in childbirth or from a preventable disease due to lack of basic health care.

The ability of families worldwide to pull themselves out of poverty -- through education, health and food security -- disproportionately rests on the shoulders of women.

Just ask Barbara Ayisa of Ghana. In her village of Affumkrom, she spends her day growing onions and maize, while taking care of her children. Her husband provides some economic support, but is engaged in other activities, leaving Barbara to manage the household. She benefitted from assistance that teaches her how to store her maize until she can sell it at the best price, earning the most she can for her family.

[...]

Source:

Women's eNews

URL:

http://womensenews.org/story/economyeconomic-policy/120308/it-takes-women-end-global-poverty?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email

Date:

March 11, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

The Economic Impact of the Pill

Teaser:

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.

Editorial:

From The New York Times:

The recent controversy over contraception and health insurance has focusedon who should pay for the pill. But there is a wealth of economic evidence about the value of the pill – to taxpayers, as my colleague Motoko Rich writes, as well as to women in general.

Indeed, as the economist Betsey Stevenson has noted, a number of studies have shown that by allowing women to delay marriage and childbearing, the pill has also helped them invest in their skills and education, join the work force in greater numbers, move into higher-status and better-paying professions and make more money over all.

One of the most influential and frequently cited studies of the impact the pill has had on women’s lives comes from Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz. The two Harvard economists argue that the pill gave women “far greater certainty regarding the pregnancy consequences of sex.” That “lowered the costs of engaging in long-term career investments,” freeing women to finish high school or go to college, for instance, rather than settling down.

[...]

A study by Martha J. Bailey, Brad Hershbein and Amalia R. Miller helps assign a dollar value to those tectonic shifts. For instance, they show that young women who won access to the pill in the 1960s ended up earning an 8 percent premium on their hourly wages by age 50.

[...]

Source:

The New York Times

URL:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/the-economic-impact-of-the-pill/

Date:

March 7, 2012

Affiliate:

Women react to Rush's apology: Not accepted?

Teaser:

The outcry over Rush Limbaugh calling birth control activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute,” seems to have worked. Several days after his attempt to slut-shame the Georgetown University law student, Limbaugh issued a rare apology on his website, saying "in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize."

Editorial:

From MSNBC:

The outcry over Rush Limbaugh calling birth control activist Sandra Fluke a “slut”and a “prostitute,” seems to have worked. Several days after his attempt to slut-shame the Georgetown University law student, Limbaugh issued a rare apology on his website, saying "in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize."

The conservative radio host also claimed he wasn't against birth control, according to a transcript of his show.

But the apology may be too little, too late for scores of women who felt personally stung by the attack.

[...]

Source:

MSNBC

URL:

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/02/10564407-women-react-to-rushs-apology-not-accepted

Date:

March 5, 2012

Affiliate:

Rebuilding Hope: Polyclinic of Hope Care and Treatment Project A Holistic Approach for HIV-Positive Women Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 2:57am

The Polyclinic of Hope in Rwanda takes a comprehensive approach to combating gender-based violence for genocide survivors affected by HIV by facilitating support groups, encouraging income generation activities and providing HIV testing and treatment services.

This case study was prepared by the AIDSTAR-One project. As an AIDSTAR-One partner organization, ICRW provided technical oversight on this publication. The full case studies series and findings are available at AIDSTAR-One.

Saranga Jain, Margaret Greene, Zayid Douglas, Myra Betron, and Katherine Fritz
2011

URL:

http://www.icrw.org/publications/rebuilding-hope-polyclinic-hope-care-and-treatment-project

Member Organization:

International Center for Research on Women

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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.

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