Disparities

Pay Matters: The Positive Economic Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and the Public

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 05/07/2012 - 10:22am

With a growing need for family-friendly workplace policies, a new study commissioned by the National Partnership for Women & Families, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, concludes that providing paid family leave to workers leads to positive economic outcomes for working families, businesses and the public.

The research, conducted by the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, finds that women who use paid leave are far more likely to be working nine to 12 months after a child’s birth than those who do not take any leave.

URL:

http://smlr.rutgers.edu/paymatters-cwwreport-january2012

Member Organization:

Center for Women and Work

State Health Flexibility Act Includes Anti-Abortion Clause

Teaser:

HR 4160, or the State Health Flexibility Act, introduced by Congressman Todd Rokita (R-Ind) and now added to the Republican budget plan, would force states to halt programs that provide funding for abortions for low-income women.

Editorial:

From Ms. Magazine Feminist Wire:

A bill introduced by Congressman Todd Rokita (R-Ind) would force states to halt programs that provide funding for abortions for low-income women. The bill, HR 4160 (PDF)or the State Health Flexibility Act, was introduced in March and has been added to the Republican budget plan. The bill would move Medicaid to a block grant model in which states are given blocks of money and can individually structure their low-income healthcare plans. Although the Hyde Amendment has prohibited federal funding of abortion since 1976, 17 states have programs that use state money to cover abortions for low income women as part of their Medicaid plans. HR 4160 would make this practice illegal.

Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert at George Washington University, says the bill "would block the only avenue left to states that wish to make safe and legal abortions accessible to low income women." Judy Waxman of the National Women's Law Center says the bill "would be a significant change from how current law operates today."

[...]

Source:

Ms. Magazine

URL:

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=13627

Date:

May 4, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Gender Segregation in Fields of Study at Community Colleges and Implications for Future Earnings

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 05/04/2012 - 10:30am

Postsecondary education yields myriad benefits, including increased earnings potential, higher lifetime wages, and access to quality jobs. But postsecondary degrees are not all equalin the benefits they bring to students and women tend to obtain degrees in fields with lower earnings. Women with associate degrees earn approximately 75 percent of what men with associate degrees earn (U.S. Department of Commerce and the Executive Office of the President, 2011). This wage gap occurs in part because women with AA degrees—like women at all degree levels—often work in lower-paid, female-dominated occupations (Hegewisch, et al. 2010).

by Layla Moughari, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Barbara Gault, Ph.D. (May 2012)

URL:

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/gender-segregation-in-fields-of-study-at-community-colleges-and-implications-for-future-earnings

Member Organization:

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

An Early Assessment of the Potential Impact of Texas’ “Affiliation” Regulation on Access to Care for Low-income Women

Submitted by asklar on Thu, 05/03/2012 - 10:44am

As a federal appeals court considers the legality of Texas’ family planning “affiliation regulation,” a new report provides a preliminary assessment of the impact of the Texas rule on preventive care access by low-income women.

“An Early Assessment of the Potential Impact of Texas’ “Affiliation” Regulation on Access to Care for Low-income Women,” released by the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative, reports on the impact of Texas’ “affiliation rule” on access to cancer screening, preventive health care, and family planning services by low-income women.

URL:

http://www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/departments/healthpolicy/dhp_publications/pub_uploads/dhpPublication_0900DA16-5056-9D20-3DFD539FF662D155.pdf

Understanding the Female Economy: The Role of Gender in Financial Decision Making and Succession Planning for the Next Generation

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 05/02/2012 - 11:08am

The Barclays Female Client Group, now in its second year, has launched a White Paper entitled: Understanding the Female Economy: The Role of Gender in Financial Decision Making and Succession Planning for the Next Generation. The findings show important distinctions into how men and women approach financial decisions differently and is the only research of its kind in the market.

URL:

http://www.barclayswealth.com/about-us/sponsorship/uk/understanding_female_economy.htm

Georgetown University will not offer student contraception coverage

Teaser:

Georgetown University president John J. DeGioia announced that the school will not adjust student health care plans to cover birth control.

Editorial:

From Catholic News Agency:

The president of Georgetown University cited the importance of Catholic identity in his announcement that student health care plans will not be adjusted to include coverage of birth control.

However, he also indicated that the D.C.-based Jesuit university will continue its practice of offering such coverage to employees.

In an April 26 email to the university community, President John J. DeGioia said that after “thoughtful and careful consideration,” the administration has decided to “continue our current practice for contraceptive coverage in our student health insurance for the coming year.”

DeGioia also said the university will not change its approach to contraceptive coverage for employees in 2013.

Georgetown’s current student health plan does not cover birth control for contraceptive purposes. But according to the National Women’s Law Center, employees of the university can choose between multiple plans, including some that include birth control coverage.

[...]

Source:

Catholic News Agency

URL:

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/georgetown-university-will-not-offer-student-contraception-coverage/

Date:

May 2, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Nebraska Women’s Health Equity Report 2012

Submitted by asklar on Tue, 05/01/2012 - 10:48am

A report issued by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Women’s Health Advisory Council shows that while Nebraska is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, women of color continue to experience disparities in deaths, health outcomes, preventive care, health care access, and social determinants of health.

From 2007-2009, Black women in Nebraska were more likely than women of other racial/ethnic groups to die from cancer, heart disease, and stroke. American Indian women and Hispanic women were more likely to develop diabetes, and American Indian women more likely to die from the disease.

[...]

URL:

http://dhhs.ne.gov/publichealth/Documents/Womens_Equity_Report.pdf

Obesity affects job prospects for women, study finds

Teaser:

An Australian study finds that obese women are more likely to be discriminated against when applying for jobs and receive lower starting salaries than their non-overweight colleagues,

Editorial:

From EurekAlert:

The study, led by The University of Manchester and Monash University, Melbourne, and published in the International Journal of Obesity, examined whether a recently developed measure of anti-fat prejudice, the universal measure of bias (UMB), predicted actual obesity job discrimination. The researchers also assessed whether people's insecurity with their own bodies (body image) and conservative personalities such as, authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation were related to obesity discrimination, as they are related to homophobia and racism.

Psychologist and lead researcher Dr Kerry O'Brien said the nature of the study was initially concealed from the participants to avoid biased results, and simply advertised as a study on whether some people are better at personnel selection than others.

[...]

Source:

EurekAlert

URL:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/uom-oaj043012.php

Date:

May 1, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Don’t Call Women the Richer Sex!

Teaser:

Examines the perception that women are outpacing men in the workforce.

Editorial:

From The Daily Beast:

Are women really on track to become “the richer sex” and replace men as primary breadwinners in American families, as recent headlines suggest? Not quite. The notion that women are outpacing men on the job has become a popular media narrative over the past few years. But the data on which it’s based don’t hold up.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that, in fact, we’re in the middle of a “mancovery”—while women are slipping backwards. Between June 2009 and June 2011, women lost close to 300,000 jobs, while men gained more than 800,000. “We've never seen a recovery like this,” the National Women's Law Center's Joan Entmacher told NPR, “where two years into the recovery women are doing so much worse than men and are actually losing ground.”

Still, the popular perception is that women are soaring. Much is made of the “fact” that more than 40 percent of American women are their family’s breadwinner. In her recentTime magazine cover piece (adapted fromher new book, The Richer Sex), for example, journalist Liza Mundy cites 2009 Bureau of Labor Statistics data saying that one in four women outearn their spouses. This claim was picked up by scores of media outlets.

But look a bit more closely at the numbers, and the picture doesn’t seem so rosy for women. Which women are advancing? Andwhich men are backsliding? The answers are important if you are going to talk about who’s getting “rich.”

[...]

Source:

The Daily Beast

URL:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/28/don-t-call-women-the-richer-sex.html

Date:

April 30, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Breast-feeding hurts moms' earnings, study finds

Teaser:

Breast-feeding comes with an often-overlooked cost to new mothers, according to a new study by Phyllis L.F. Rippeyoung, an assistant professor at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, and published in the American Sociological Review.

Editorial:

From MSNBC:

Breast-feeding comes with a cost to new moms that is often overlooked, according to a new study published in the American Sociological Review. The study looked at data from 1,313 first-time mothers in the U.S. who were in their late 20s or 30s when they gave birth.

Women’s incomes dropped precipitously when they choose to breast-feed for six months or longer -- and they remained low some five years after the babies were born, says the study’s lead author, Phyllis L.F. Rippeyoung, an assistant professor of sociology and coordinator of women’s and gender studies at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Rippeyoung’s interest in the hidden costs of breast-feeding was sparked by personal experience. When she became a mom, she was flooded with information about the benefits of breast-feeding -- including the suggestion that it would save her money.

“I thought that it was weird that they were saying it was free,” Rippeyoung remembers. “I was a grad student at the time driving back and forth between teaching and classes, and my milk was drying up since I couldn’t drive and pump at the same time. It was a very difficult thing, but I had to stop breast-feeding. If I’d continued I couldn’t have worked at the same time.”

The data for the new study came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which included information about the moms’ jobs and incomes, as well as stats on their family life, including the decision to give their babies formula or to breast-feed for a short duration (less than six months) or a long duration (six months or more).

[...]

Source:

MSNBC

URL:

http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/27/11415639-breast-feeding-hurts-moms-earnings-study-finds?lite?ocid=twitter

Date:

April 30, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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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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