Disparities

Bridging the CEO Pay Gap

Teaser:

The 20 top-paid CEOs have more than their multimillion-dollar pay packages in common, notes The Wall Street Journal: They’re all men.

Editorial:

From The Wall Street Journal:

A roundup of the highest-paid bosses from 2011 in an earlier Wall Street Journal article is a reminder that women are still a rarity in the corner office. And those that do make it to the corner office are earning far less than their male counterparts.

Kraft Foods CEO Irene Rosenfeld, the top-paid woman last year, ranked 62nd on the list of more than 300 chief executives compiled by Hay Group. With a total direct compensation of $15.5 million, she earned just 1/24th of what top-paid Apple CEO Tim Cook received. (Even considering Cook’s abnormally high pay compared to the rest of the list, Rosenfeld got just one-fifth of what No. 2 Oracle CEO Larry Ellison earned.)

Research suggests the pay disparity between the two genders begins forming early on. New female M.B.A. graduates earn on average $4,600 less than their male counterparts, according to a Catalyst study of graduates from 26 top M.B.A. programs around the world. By mid-career, that pay gap grows to $31,000.

[...]

Source:

The Wall Street Journal

URL:

http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2012/05/25/bridging-the-ceo-pay-gap/

Date:

May 29, 2012

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Paid Sick Days in Massachusetts Would Lower Health Care Costs by Reducing Unnecessary Emergency Department Visits

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 05/25/2012 - 10:33am

Thirty-six percent of working Massachusetts residents, or approximately 910,000 employees, lack access to paid sick days. This fact sheet reports findings from research by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) on how increased access to paid sick days would improve both access to health care and health outcomes in Massachusetts. The research also quantifies the savings gained by providing access to paid sick days to all workers, thereby preventing some emergency department visits in Massachusetts.

by Kevin Miller, Ph.D., Claudia Williams (May 2012)

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/paid-sick-days-in-massachusetts-would-lower-health-care-costs-by-reducing-unnecessary-emergency-department-visits

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Single Women Voters Focus of Democrats’ Equal-Pay Appeal

Teaser:

Bloomberg explains how the current legislative push for paycheck fairness is designed to appeal to single women voters.

Editorial:

From Bloomberg Business Week:

Unmarried women were among Barack Obama’s most loyal supporters in 2008, turning out in droves and delivering 70 percent of their votes to him. When many of them stayed home in the 2010 midterm election, Democrats lost the House and had their Senate majority trimmed.

Now, determined to get single women back, Senate leaders are reshaping their legislative agenda, advancing a bill to bolster workers’ ability to win pay discrimination lawsuits. A similar measure was blocked by Republicans two years ago, and proponents expect it to be rejected again, setting up a contrast between the parties over an issue that especially touches unmarried women.

It will be the third time this year that Senate Democrats will push for votes on policies affecting women, with the other measures focused on insurance coverage for contraceptives and programs for domestic violence victims.

They are aiming to fire up the 55 million single, divorced, separated or widowed U.S. women eligible to vote this year. While 60 percent of all unmarried women cast ballots in 2008, just 38 percent turned out in 2010, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. Democratic strategists see these voters as critical to helping return Obama to the White House and to retain Senate seats in Ohio, Virginia and other states.

“What is really at issue is their turnout rate,” Lake said in an interview. “Unmarried younger women plummeted in the turnout in 2010, and they came into this election cycle not very interested in the election.”

[...]

Source:

Bloomberg Business Week

URL:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-25/single-women-voters-focus-of-democrats-equal-pay-appeal

Date:

May 25, 2012

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Let Me Not Die Before My Time: Domestic Violence In West Africa

Submitted by asklar on Thu, 05/24/2012 - 11:42pm

A report from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) finds that in countries recovering from war in West Africa, domestic violence is the biggest threat to women's safety.

The report, called "Let Me Not Die Before My Time: Domestic Violence In West Africa," reveals that "across Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone, years after the official end of these countries' brutal wars, women are being intimidated, threatened and beaten with shocking frequency."

Though domestic violence is a global issue affecting about one in three women worldwide, IRC chose to focus on these three West African countries to show how the problem can become more severe in post-conflict environments.

The report is based on 10 years of research and direct interaction with women and government leaders in Liberia, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. All three countries were embroiled in violent civil wars a decade ago, and those tensions remain.

URL:

http://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-file/IRC_Report_DomVioWAfrica.pdf

Report on a 2020 Perspective for Women in Turkey (2011/2066(INI))

Submitted by asklar on Thu, 05/24/2012 - 11:19pm

The European Parliament this week adopted a report urging Turkey to follow up on its recent work toward securing gender equality and women's rights.

The report, written by Socialists & Democrats Member of European Parliament Emine Bozkurt, lays out a series of goals for Ankara to accomplish by 2020 in raising the status of women to fully equal members of Turkish society as Brussels and Ankara seek to breathe life into the country's stalled EU accession bid.

The Dutch lawmaker's report was accepted unanimously by the legislative body's Women's Rights and Gender Equality Commission in March, and Tuesday was approved by the entire EP meeting in a plenary session, with 590 votes in favor, 28 against and 53 abstentions, the Italian news agency ANSAmed reported.

(From UPI)

URL:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A7-2012-0138+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN

Can Suing for Equal Pay Really Close the Gender Wage Gap?

Teaser:

Bryce Covert wonders if lawsuits for equal pay really will push the cultural shift needed to make equal pay a reality.

Editorial:

From The Nation:

Senator Barbara Milkulski is holding a press conference later today to press the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act she recently introduced. But didn’t President Obama already kill the gender wage gap? Not quite. While Obama has long been touting the first bill he signed once in office, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, it only provides a woman more time to file a claim of discrimination. The Paycheck Fairness Act would go further by ensuring employees can discuss their salaries with each other—since it’s hard to root out pay discrimination if you don’t know how you stack up against everyone else.

Lilly Ledbetter certainly helps women who want to bring lawsuits against their employers by giving them more time to do so. In that way, Obama’s first act did recognize the problem of pay discrimination. But it’s a baby step forward in the march toward equal pay.

The numbers since its signing bear that out. According to Bloomberg, the number of pay discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission actually fell from 2,268 when Obama signed the Act in 2009 to 2,191 last year. Meanwhile, the pay gap has widened from 77.8 in 2007 to 77.4 percent in 2010.

So what will it take to make the wage gap disappear? Why wouldn’t clearing the way for lawsuits get us there? Part of the answer is that Ledbetter only nibbled at the edges of an enormous, systemic problem. As I’vepreviously written, the causes of the gap range from a too-low minimum wage to decreased unionization levels. These kinds of issues won’t budge on a large scale even if women are emboldened to sue for equal pay.

[...]

Source:

The Nation

URL:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168030/can-lawsuits-really-close-gender-wage-gap

Date:

May 24, 2012

Affiliate:

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Stay-at-home moms more depressed

Teaser:

Gallup finds that stay-at-home mothers are more likely to report having ever been diagnosed with depression than moms who work outside the home

Editorial:

From UPI:

Stay-at-home moms are much more likely to report having ever been diagnosed with depression than moms who work outside the home, a U.S. survey indicates.

Gallup officials said they looked separately at non-employed mothers who were looking for work and those who were not looking -- to distinguish between those who might be employed because of circumstance rather than by choice. Both groups were more likely than employed mothers to report anger, sadness and depression, the survey said.

Non-employed women with young children at home were more likely than women with young children at home who are employed for pay to report experiencing sadness and anger the day before they were surveyed.

[...]

Source:

UPI

URL:

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/05/20/Stay-at-home-moms-more-depressed/UPI-29631337487501/

Date:

May 23, 2012

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Waitress's Wages Leave Little to Take Home

Teaser:

Waitstaff struggle to put food of the table.

Editorial:

From Women's eNews:

Like many tipped workers, Dunder has trouble making ends meet because of an obscure federal provision called the tip credit, which has established a sub-minimum wage for tipped workers at $2.15 per hour, or $4,333 a year for a full-time worker. Forty-five states have established slightly higher sub-minimum wages. For example, Michigan pays $2.65 an hour.

The federal full minimum wage is $7.25 per hour or about $15,000 a year for a 40-hour work week.

Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC-United), a New York-based national nonprofit restaurant worker organization, wants to raise and index the federal minimum wage for tipped workers to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage.

They say the hike is needed to provide a livable income. Tipped workers, the group says, are more likely to fall into poverty than those who receive minimum wage. Servers rely on food stamps at nearly double the rate of the general population.

[...]

Source:

Women's eNews

URL:

http://womensenews.org/story/labor/120522/waitresss-wages-leave-little-take-home

Date:

May 23, 2012

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G(irls) 20 Summit: Catching Up With Women Farmers

Teaser:

Dr. Rekha Mehra of the International Center for Research on Women recounts her visit to a village in Tanzania and growing international support for women farmers.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

Like their sisters all over the developing world, women farmers work hard to grow food for themselves and their families, and for sale. They plant and tend, fertilize and weed, harvest and process -- in short, do all it takes to produce a crop. But they don't get much in return. Their yields are low and, even if some crops are sold, the women may not see any income since men who take the crop to market may not feel obliged to share it.

When international development projects come around to try to change these conditions, they don't always reach out to women farmers. They assume that the women are not the "real" farmers because they don't own land or go to market, or because they have other household responsibilities such as fetching water and caring for children.

However, studies done in many developing countries show that women undertake a variety of farm work along with their household chores. Despite this reality, women are left out of projects that offer new technologies, improved fertilizers or training in practices that could help them produce more. Other studies show that when women have the same access as men to such farming resources, women could produce more, earn more and live better lives.

Fortunately, there is growing support for women farmers like those I met in Tanzania. It comes from the highest levels in global agreements like the G8 L'Aquila Food Security Initiative -- which committed $20 billion over three years for sustainable agriculture development -- and policies such as the United States Agency for International Development's Feed the Future initiative.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-rekha-mehra/girls-20-summit-women-farmers_b_1525514.html?ref=impact

Date:

May 21, 2012

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Should Women Use Humour in the Boardroom?

Teaser:

Lynne Parker reflects on an article by Daniel Boffey in the Observer newspaper entitled 'Why women's jokes fall flat in the boardroom' which reviews the findings of a study by Dr Judith Baxter, a linguistics expert, about women's behaviour in the boardroom. The study raises questions about how women use humour in the workplace, specifically the boardroom, the ultimate 'boys club' where even some of the women wear trousers.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

If a woman employs the direct, masculine approach to any sort of confrontation in business, in or out of the boardroom, she is more often or not described as 'aggressive' or 'bossy'. Men are more comfortable with a woman flirting her way out of a situation than confronting them.

I've just been quoted in an article by Daniel Boffey in theObserver newspaper yesterday entitled 'Why women's jokes fall flat in the boardroom' which reviews the findings of a study by Dr Judith Baxter, a linguistics expert, about women's behaviour in the boardroom. The study raises questions about how women use humour in the workplace, specifically the boardroom, the ultimate 'boys club' where even some of the women wear trousers.

Having spent the last 10 years listening to and watching nearly 2,000 female comedy acts, and 35 years working in business and the media, I can confirm that women's humour is not always as self-deprecating at Dr Baxter's study would have us believe. I don't profess to be an 'expert' and can only take as I find, but women's humour is evolving.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynne-parker/should-women-use-humour-i_b_1530748.html

Date:

May 21, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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