Work - Life Balance

Women [and men] today are seeking greater flexibility in their jobs to balance more effectively their work and family responsibilities. Lack of such arrangements often forces women to opt out of pursuing their career goals. When they return to work, women find themselves at a disadvantage in terms of earnings, opportunities and promotions. Employers who adopt more flexibility in the workplace allow women and men to lead more productive and effective lives.

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:

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:

Educated women quit work as spouses earn more

Teaser:

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.

Editorial:

From Reuters:

That contrasts with growth of 2.4 percent a year between 1976 and 1992.

The result: the labor force in 2008 had 1.64 million fewer such women than if the growth rate had kept up its earlier trend, slightly more than 1 percent of the total workforce in that year.

[...]

Source:

Reuters

URL:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/08/us-economy-women-idUSBRE8270AC20120308

Date:

March 8, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Enforcing the pregnancy bias law of 1978? Long overdue

Teaser:

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 requires most employers to treat pregnant women the same as other applicants or employees.

Editorial:

From UPI:

emale firefighters required to take pregnancy tests--and test negative--to be hired.

A pregnant truck driver fired after requesting "light duty" work per her doctor's recommendations.

A pregnant sales clerk told to get an abortion by her supervisor.

Stories from the dark ages of working women's history? Sorry.

[...]

Source:

UPI / Womens' eNews

URL:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2012/03/07/Enforcing-the-pregnancy-bias-law-of-1978-Long-overdue/WEN-9161331139301/

Date:

March 8, 2012

Affiliate:

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, Business, and the Law

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 10:36pm

Women, Business and the Law is a World Bank report that presents indicators based on laws and regulations affecting women's prospects as entrepreneurs and employees, in part drawing on laws contained in the Gender Law Library. Both resources can inform research and policy discussions on how to improve women's economic opportunities and outcomes.

URL:

http://wbl.worldbank.org/

Supporting our Military Families: Best Practices for Streamlining Occupational Licensing Across State Lines

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 2:07am

This DoD report explains the hardship military spouses face as they move from state to state with their service member. As a result of the many moves associated with military life, spouses working in professions that require state licenses or certification bear a higher high financial and administrative burden, since credentials often do not transfer from one state do to another state. This burden negatively impacts the chances for employment for more than 100,000 military spouses.

URL:

http://www.defense.gov/home/pdf/Occupational_Licensing_and_Military_Spouses_Report_vFINAL.PDF

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

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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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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