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Addressing Policy Gaps for Women and Girls in New Haven: Latest Report in IWPR Series on Status of Women

Posted on September 13, 2012 by

By Anlan Zhang, Tonia Bui, and Cynthia Hess

Two years ago, a diverse group of women with extensive ties to the New Haven community came together and asked, “What is the status of women and girls in New Haven?” The answer became the impetus for IWPR’s recent report, The Status of Women & Girls in New Haven, Connecticut.

The report, part of IWPR’s series on the status of women, was commissioned by the City of New Haven and produced in collaboration with the Consortium for Women and Girls in New Haven. The Consortium provided ongoing guidance and review from individuals working in diverse fields, including law enforcement, women’s health, education, philanthropy, and employment services.

This latest report in IWPR’s status of women series points to both the remarkable advances women and girls have made in recent years in New Haven and to the work that remains to be done to address the needs of female residents in the city. For example, women in New Haven, as in the nation as a whole, are active in the workforce and have made great strides in closing the education gap with men. But men earn more than women with similar levels of education and more than one quarter of New Haven’s female residents live in poverty.

The Status of Women & Girls in New Haven, Connecticut has four main goals:  to provide information on the status of women and girls in the city, to inform policy and program priorities, to create a platform for advocacy, and to provide baseline information to measure the progress of public policies and program initiatives. The report’s findings and analyses touch on issues such as employment and earnings, economic security, education, health and well-being, political participation, and crime and safety.

Among the report’s key findings is that attending to the disparities between women and girls from different race, ethnic, and socio-economic groups is a key to implementing changes that further women’s and girl’s continued advancement in New Haven. Women and girls from low-income communities in New Haven, who are predominantly black and Hispanic, disproportionately bear the burden of unemployment, poverty, poor health, and crime.

Many of the issues addressed in the report are interconnected, and understanding their combined effects on the lives of women and girls is crucial for creating public policies and developing program initiatives in the City of New Haven. Some of the public policy recommendations mentioned in the report include encouraging employers to be proactive agents in remedying gender wage inequities; supporting women-led, women-initiated businesses and female-specific programs in New Haven; implementing career and education counseling for girls beginning in elementary school; and creating a comprehensive health curriculum in the New Haven School District that addresses physical and mental health, including the prevention of dating violence and the advancement of reproductive health.

The report also shines a spotlight on the critical importance of having well-established local data sets and the means to collect reliable data that can be disaggregated by sex, race, and ethnicity. These resources can help track progress on key indicators for communities such as New Haven.

Co-chairs of the Consortium for Women and Girls, Chisara Asomugha and Carolyn Mazure, describe the report as “an unprecedented effort to paint a clear and compelling picture of New Haven’s women and girls.” A June convening to present the findings brought together more than 500 attendees, including advocates for women and families, demonstrating the enormous interest in this research.

As the United States moves away from the deepest economic downturn in the many decades, policymakers need to understand and take into consideration the unique needs of women and girls. The Status of Women & Girls in New Haven, Connecticut is an invaluable tool for policymakers and advocates striving to improve the New Haven community and one that can serve as a model for other communities nationwide addressing similar policy issues.

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Election 2012: What Can We Learn Now from Women’s Equality Day?

Posted on September 5, 2012 by

This article by Susan Bailey is reposted from the blog, Girl with Pen (girlwpen.com).

This year marked the 41st anniversary of Women’s Equality Day, marked each year on August 26th to commemorate the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment which granted women the right to vote in 1920. For many not actively engaged in women’s issues, it’s merely another in a long list of little known awareness days. But this election year’s escalating anti-woman rhetoric is crazy making. I feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into the land of the absurd. When ‘rape’ and ‘legitimate’ can be used in the same breath and women and men of reason are called upon to counter medieval constructs of female biology, I need the lessons of Women’s Equality Day. Maybe others do, too.

Women’s Equality Day originated after New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug proposed August 26th be so designated in honor of the 1920 ratification of the Woman’s Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The designation reflected the renewed energy of the ‘second wave’ of the feminist movement. It was an attempt to reclaim lost history.

By the 1960‘s, the struggles preceding the final ratification the 19th amendment had been largely forgotten. If school books mentioned women’s rights at all, a single sentence usually sufficed: “Women were given the vote in 1920.” The 70-year battle for women’s suffrage was not considered a significant part of our national history.

Beginning at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and continuing until 1920 when the Tennessee legislature became the 36th state required for a two thirds majority, women battled for a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. They organized, lobbied, protested and picketed. Their efforts were mocked and ridiculed. Protesters were arrested, jailed, and force fed though tubes shoved down their throats. Leaders did not always agree on tactics. But women persisted. Far from being given the right to vote, women fought hard to win it.

Some of the rights women worked for and achieved over the years have remained controversial. There are many battles still to be fought and re-fought. The right to vote and to run for office is not one of these. It stands unquestioned.

But a key result the women and men who fought for suffrage expected, equal representation of women in elected office, remains elusive. Ninety two years after women won the right to vote, women make up barely 17 percent of the U.S. Congress. This percentage leaves us tied for 78th place with Turkmenistan in global rankings of national elected representatives.

At the state level it’s not much better. Women hold 23.4 percent of statewide executive offices and 23.8 percent of the seats in state legislatures this year.

Although I find it hard to believe given our current national discussions, I realize that some may still ask why it all matters.

Of course, neither women nor men march in lock step, or agree on every issue. Certainly many men support women-friendly legislation and there are women who vote for anti-woman initiatives. But studies repeatedly show that women, no matter what political party they represent, tend to sponsor and vote for legislation and programs that support women and families in larger percentages than do their male colleagues.

Women do not “misspeak” about rape and its consequences. Women will not fall in line with statements or policies that imply that women are governed by our bodies, rather than our minds.

U.S. Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) and his fellow travelers may be the last gasp of a crumbling patriarchy; I for one certainly hope so. Or they may be better described as part of a larger set of global fundamentalist efforts—of various origins—attempting to control women and their bodies. Maybe it’s some of both. But ‘last gaspers’ and fundamentalists can be equally dangerous and destructive. We cannot turn away in disgust. We cannot fool ourselves that lies and pseudoscience will fade away.

Our strongest weapon in the battles ahead may be the one our foremothers won for us. The 20th century began with women winning the right to vote. The 21st century is the time to fulfill the promise inherent in that victory. More women need to run for office. And RIGHT NOW we ALL need to canvass, phone bank, donate and vote for candidates who will fight for women’s equality. It won’t happen any other way.

Susan McGee Bailey, Ph.D., served as Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), and a Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies and Education at Wellesley College for 25 years. Following college she taught in Asia, Latin America and the United States; experiences that fostered her commitment to gender equitable education.

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IWPR Recommends Thorough Assessment of DC’s Paid Sick Leave Law

Posted on September 4, 2012 by

By Caroline Dobuzinskis

In honor of Labor Day and the 44 million workers around the country who lack paid sick leave, IWPR released a briefing paper that recommends the Auditor of the District of Columbia conduct a thorough and complete review that shows the impact of the city’s paid sick leave policy. In March 2008, the District of Columbia joined San Francisco to become only the second jurisdiction in the United States to pass a paid sick days law. Reviewing the law for the breadth of its impact on businesses, workers, and the economy, is important as legislation moves forward in other parts of the country.

Since the passage of the DC paid sick days law, the city of Seattle and the state of Connecticut also added legislation to provide workers with paid sick days. Seattle’s paid sick leave law was actually implemented over this Labor Day weekend. Other state and city jurisdictions across the country are considering similar paid sick days legislation since access to paid sick leave can be crucial for helping workers maintain their health and well-being.

Access to paid sick days is important for working families and especially important for women since they tend to be primary caregivers for children and elderly relatives. When a child needs to stay home from work because of the flu, it is important that a worker be able to securely afford the time off to be a caregiver.

DC’s was the first law to require provisions for victims of domestic violence to seek aid or services. Time off accrued under the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act can also be utilized to seek medical, legal or other services to address domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

As one of the pioneering cities to pass a law requiring paid sick days for its workers, DC may serve as an example for other jurisdictions considering similar laws. According to research from IWPR, there are significant benefits to having paid sick days laws that impact employees, the general public, and businesses. Based on a survey of workers and employers in San Francisco who were affected by that city’s paid sick leave law, IWPR found that two-thirds of businesses supported the law. IWPR research analyses have also shown that workers who have access to paid sick days tend to have better self-reported health.

Under the current DC paid sick days law, the Auditor of the District of Columbia is required to conduct a review, based on an audit sample of District businesses, to ensure that the law is being properly implemented and that employers are not circumventing requirements through hiring patterns. But to meet the end goal of the Auditor’s report, which is to assess the economic effects of the law on the private sector, IWPR recommends a more complete assessment.

IWPR recommends that the Auditor undertake a survey of workers and employers to ensure that compliance is being undertaken. A survey of workers would help to get the full story on how well the law has been implemented or its effectiveness in covering workers who may need to take time off when they or a family member is ill. This survey would also help determine if workers are aware of the law. In surveying workers for an assessment of San Francisco’s paid sick leave legislation, IWPR found that many workers covered under the city’s paid sick leave law were not aware of it.

Also, IWPR recommends that the Auditor take advantage of data sources that already exist that can provide evidence of any net effect of the law on the number of businesses and employees in the District. Finally, IWPR recommends the creation of an advisory committee with experts on paid sick leave, lending greater context and better evaluation to the study.

The steps recommended in IWPR’s briefing paper could help to create a more effective and comprehensive assessment of DC’s Accrued Leave and Safe Leave Act that would serve as a model for other cities. Understanding how the law will is being implemented will demonstrate its full impact beyond the books, serving as a living example for other cities to help improve health and well being of their workers.

Caroline Dobuzinskis is the Communications Manager with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

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Revisiting the Poverty Rate: New Measure Shows Less Inequality

Posted on August 24, 2012 by

By Jacqui Logan

A recent IWPR fact sheet, “A Clearer View of Poverty: How the Supplemental Poverty Measure Changes Our Perceptions of Who is Living in Poverty” by Jocelyn Fischer, examines the recently developed Supplemental Poverty Measure. The new measure—created in response to concerns about the adequacy of the official federal poverty measure—uses both post-tax income and federal in-kind benefits to assess the resources of families and individuals. The most salient aspect of the new measure is a more accurate poverty threshold. Each year, the new measure will be released along with the official measure by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

IWPR’s fact sheet compares the poverty situation in America as described by the new Supplemental Poverty Measure to that described by the official measure, which takes into account only cash resources when determining income. IWPR’s analysis found two quite different pictures of poverty according to the two measures.

The overall poverty rate is higher under the Supplemental Poverty Measure (15.9 percent poor) than it is under the official poverty measure (15.1 percent poor). Moreover, IWPR’s analysis shows there is less inequality in poverty between different demographic groups under the Supplemental Poverty Measure than under the official poverty measure.

While both men’s and women’s poverty rates are higher under the Supplemental Poverty Measure, men’s poverty rate (14.1 percent under the official poverty measure and 15.2 percent under the supplemental measure) rises numerically and proportionately much more than women’s poverty rate (16.3 percent under the official measure and 16.6 percent under the supplemental measure), thus decreasing inequality between men’s and women’s poverty rates.

Similarly, there is less inequality by race/ethnicity under the Supplemental Poverty Measure than under the official measure. Furthermore, when compared wtih the official measure, the supplemental measure indicates less inequality in poverty between persons of different age groups and between the married and the unmarried.

Overall, use of the Supplemental Poverty Measure reveals a higher rate of poverty in the United States and changes perceptions of whom we consider poor.

For more information on IWPR’s research on poverty and its impact on women and families, please visit our website.

Jacqui Logan was a Research Intern with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research during the summer semester.

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New BLS Data Confirm Unequal Access to Paid Leave Among U.S. Workers

Posted on August 16, 2012 by

By Kevin Miller and Caroline Dobuzinskis

Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) on access to and use of paid leave by American workers. This is the first time the ATUS has included questions on leave-taking among American workers, with a module paid for by the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau.

The findings from the 2011 Leave Module of the ATUS reveal that many American workers lack access to paid leave from their jobs, though access varies by worker and occupational characteristics. Overall, 59 percent of workers in the United States have access to paid leave; 4 in 10 American workers lack access to paid leave. This reflects IWPR research analysis that found that 44 million workers in the United States lack access to paid sick leave and that only 58 percent of private sector employees in the U.S. had access to paid sick days in 2010.

Overall, the newly released BLS data on leave access and use by American workers confirm large disparities in access to and use of leave, especially paid leave. Workers with lower wages, Hispanic workers, workers in poorer health, and workers in jobs that put them in direct contact with the public (e.g., sales or hospitality workers) are less likely to have access to leave from their jobs and are more likely to lose pay when they do take leave.

Findings Show Large Gaps in Access to Paid Leave Among U.S. Workers

Men and women have similar rates of access to paid leave, with 60 and 58 percent of male and female workers with access to paid leave, respectively. The reasons for taking leave tend to differ between gender, with more women tending to take leave for illness or medical treatment for themselves or a family member.

Based on educational levels, there are large disparities in access to paid leave. Workers with college degrees are far more likely (72 percent) to have access to paid leave than workers without a high school diploma (35 percent). The BLS data also show large gaps in access between Hispanic and other workers. Hispanic workers are less likely to have access to leave (43 percent) than are non-Hispanic workers (61 percent). White, black, and Asian workers have similar rates of access to paid leave (59, 61, and 62 percent respectively).

Among full-time workers, those in the top quartile of earnings are the most likely to have access to paid leave (83 percent have access), while those in the lowest quartile are less likely (50 percent have access). Seventy-nine percent of workers in the financial industry have access to paid leave, while only 25 percent of those in the leisure and hospitality industries—which include food service—have access to paid leave. Workers in the private sector are less likely to have access to paid leave (57 percent) than are workers in the public sector (76 percent).

Taking Time Off Can Mean Lost Wages for Many Workers

Though over half of workers have access to some kind of paid leave, and 90 percent have access to either paid or unpaid leave, in an average week only 21 percent of workers took leave (including either vacation or sick time) according to the BLS.

Women, who tend to have more caregiving duties for children and older relatives, were slightly more likely than men to take leave from their jobs during an average week (23 percent compared with 20 percent). Of women workers who took leave in an average week, 35 percent did so either to care for their own medical needs, for those of a family member or relative, or to provide elderly care or child care, compared with 25 percent of men who took leave for the same reasons.

Workers who characterized their health as fair or poor were somewhat less likely to take leave in an average week. But those who did were more likely to take unpaid leave compared with those who characterized their health as good. Sixty percent of workers in fair or poor health took unpaid leave, compared with 38 to 39 percent who characterized their health as good, very good, or excellent (most of whom took paid leave). IWPR’s analyses of the costs and benefits of paid sick days in several states and cities nationwide have found that access to paid sick days improves workers’ self-assessed health, reduces costly emergency department visits, and reduces health care costs to private and public insurers.

Reflecting the lack of access to paid leave in many service-oriented jobs, workers in management, business, and financial operations were much less likely to take unpaid leave compared with workers in service occupations (20 percent took unpaid leave compared with 66 percent). Of those workers in the leisure and hospitality industry who took leave in an average week, 86 percent took unpaid leave. Only 13 percent of workers in this industry took paid leave.

Mirroring the inequality in access to paid leave that exists across income levels, workers in the top quartile of earnings are twice as likely to have taken paid leave in an average week (82 percent) compared with workers in the lowest quartile of earnings (40 percent).

These new findings reaffirm the lack of equal access to paid leave that can leave many workers without economic or job security if an illness should arise for themselves or for a family member. Without access to paid leave, many workers simply cannot afford to take time off. Workers who are sometimes forced to work while ill tend to be those who are most likely to come into contact with the public and spread contagious illness. Women, often those caring for family members, tend to be disproportionately impacted because they are more likely to work in part-time jobs and tend to have lower earnings than men.

Visit IWPR’s website for more information on IWPR’s research on paid sick days and the impact on paid sick days legislation on workers and businesses.

Kevin Miller is a Senior Research Associate and Caroline Dobuzinskis is the Communications Manager with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

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Being a Student Parent: My Experience and How Policy Is Improving for Student Parents Today

Posted on August 1, 2012 by

By Ann DeMeulenaere Weedon

As part of my work as a summer intern at IWPR I have had the privilege of working with the Student Parent Success Initiative (SPSI). The SPSI report, Improving Child Care Access to Promote Postsecondary Success Among Low-Income Parents (2011), reflects my personal obstacles to higher education. Lack of access to childcare was the sole reason I did not attend college earlier and it is the reason many student parents struggle to complete their education. I am an IWPR intern, a single mom, and a graduate student at the age of 42 because I could not do these things when my children were young. I am sharing my story here as a thanks to the SPSI team at IWPR for research that improves the lives of student parents. I hope this serves to add some personal context to the SPSI research.

Like many people, when I graduated high school I was unsure of the career I wanted to pursue. I decided some life and work experience would help me choose. For a year, I worked for a citizen lobby organization where I felt like the work I was doing was important and made a real difference. The job paid well (for a recent high school graduate) but there were no benefits as I was considered an independent contractor. Shortly after leaving that job, while working a part-time temp job, I discovered I was pregnant. I was 19 years old, had no secure, permanent job, and no health insurance. If I could find a job while pregnant, at that time, any health insurance company could consider my pregnancy a pre-existing condition and deny coverage. In 1996, the Health Insurance and Portability Act made it illegal to treat pregnancy as a pre-existing condition. At the time of pregnancy, Medicaid and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (the AFDC program that was ended in 1996) were my only real options to provide for my child and pay for the costs of his birth and my prenatal care. I reluctantly accepted the assistance but planned to move on as soon as possible.

After the birth of my child I intended to get my college degree. I qualified for grants to pay tuition but I would need assistance paying for childcare. I was told that childcare assistance was available if I was working but not while in school. If I got a job to pay for childcare for the hours I was in class I would lose most of my state benefits since I would now have an income. The state would assume I could use this income to pay for food and living expenses so they would cut my aid and I would not have money to pay for childcare. I felt trapped; there was no way for me to get the education I needed to improve my life and that of my child. Mine is a story shared by many mothers. Those on assistance are often discouraged from pursuing education over employment. This prompted Diana Spatz to found LIFETIME, an organization allied with SPSI that helps student parents successfully achieve higher education.  You can read more about her story on the organization’s website.

The birth of my first child was over 20 years ago and I am currently taking classes towards my Ph.D. It took much longer than it should have to get here. I had to wait to begin until my son was in school, attend part-time, and rely on the help of student loans. At the completion of my doctorate degree I will be facing the repayment of those loans.  The SPSI project at IWPR has recently shed light on the debt burden of single student parents like myself in their fact sheet, Single Student Parents Face Financial Difficulties, Debt, Without Adequate Aid (May 2012). Among the research findings, single parents are much more likely to need financial aid to enroll in postsecondary education and are more likely than traditional students to say that financial difficulties are likely to result in their withdrawing from college. If they do it make it through, they often face staggering lingering debt: Single student parents have between 20 and 30 percent more student debt one year after graduation than other students. The figures are startling and I am glad that IWPR is making visible my lived experience.

In addition, IWPR recently released a fact sheet The Pregnancy Assistance Fund as a Support for Student Parents in Postsecondary Education (July 2012) that details two programs funded by the Pregnancy Assistance Fund (PAF) to offer support to pregnant and parenting students. I could not be happier that programs are finally being created to help women in these circumstances. PAF is also part of legislation under the Affordable Care Act. We have a long way to go but this is encouraging progress.

It is my hope that this information will make an impact on policies and programs at the national, state and local levels and help other parents attend college. I am grateful for the opportunity to work for such a wonderful organization dedicated to improving women’s lives and to assist on a project to help students like myself. Thank you IWPR and the SPSI team!

Ann DeMeulenaere Weedon is the Communications Intern at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

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Rallying Together Around Issues Critical to Women and Families at NOW Conference 2012

Posted on July 24, 2012 by

IWPR staff and interns attended the NOW Conference in June.

By Ann DeMeulenaere Weedon

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) had the opportunity to participate in the National Organization for Women’s (NOW) national conference in Baltimore, Maryland in June. The annual conference is the largest gathering of women’s groups and advocates in the country and attracted several accomplished leaders in women’s policy and advocacy, including Representative Carolyn Maloney, Dr. Bernice “Bunny” Sandler (responsible for the enactment of Title IX), political strategist and MSNBC commentator Krystal Ball, and playwright and women’s advocate Eve Ensler.

By participating in or moderating a number of conference panels and presentations, IWPR researchers and other policy experts facilitated a “Mothers and Caregivers Summit” that took place over two days of the three-day convention. With the country on the steps of a possible care crisis as Baby Boomers begin to age, raising awareness on issues related to mothers and caregivers is particularly timely. This also being an election year, it is a crucial time to shine the spotlight on the importance of economic and family supports for women, who are more likely than men to act as caregivers for children and older relatives.

The conference summit consisted of four panel discussions on topics including the importance of family leave and paid sick days for the well-being of women and their children, trends in women’s employment such as occupational segregation and the gender wage gap, family economic and retirement security, and means to improve access to quality jobs for women and people of color. IWPR staff presentations from the summit can be found on IWPR’s website.

In one of the first panel discussions of the conference, IWPR Research Analyst Claudia Williams and Helen Luryi, Work and Family Policy Associate at the National Partnership for Women and Families, discussed the progress of state-level of paid sick days campaigns across the nation. Williams highlighted the importance of this legislation in reducing contagion, ultimately benefiting employee productivity and reducing health care costs, as found in IWPR’s cost-benefit analyses of paid sick days policies. IWPR has analyzed the impact of a nationwide paid sick days policy on health care costs and employment, as well as the cost-benefits of paid sick days legislation in states and cities considering such laws (including New York State, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Denver, Colorado). Nationwide, access to paid sick days could save approximately $1 billion in health care costs according to a November 2011 report from IWPR.

In discussing other topics such as the gender wage gap, Social Security modernization, unemployment insurance, asset-building, and jobs in the “green” industry, IWPR researchers were joined by other experts such as Dr. Martha Burk, who spoke about her role in the push for paycheck fairness in New Mexico, and Web Phillips of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, who discussed proposed reforms to Social Security and ways in which they would help or harm women and their families.

In May, the NCPSSM, the NOW Foundation, and IWPR released a report that looked at the challenges facing older women and called for affordable changes to modernize Social Security to better support women’s economic security. Recommendations included improving survivor benefits, providing Social Security credits for caregivers, providing a more adequate benefit to those who have spent most of their working lives in low-wage employment, and restoring student benefits to children of disabled or deceased workers until age 22 when the child is attending college/vocational school full time.

Dr. Heidi Hartmann receiving the NOW Woman of Vision award on Saturday, June 30, 2012. Photo courtesy NOW/NOW Foundation.

This year’s NOW conference, titled with the theme “Energize! Organize! Stop the War on Women!” called upon the next generation of young advocacy leaders to speak up on issues important to women. But the conference was also an opportunity to look back on significant accomplishments and achievements. Several women’s leaders were honored for their work, including IWPR’s Dr. Heidi Hartmann, who received the NOW Woman of Vision Award for significant contributions towards improving the lives of women and girls in the United States. The award’s honorees have a strong commitment to women’s issues and have, over time, developed, communicated, and realized their vision by engaging with other leaders in women’s policy and advocacy. “I am deeply honored to be recognized by the National Organization for Women and to have the importance of economic issues for women be given visibility by this award,” said Dr. Hartmann.

IWPR thanks NOW for organizing a successful and engaging conference! We look forward to continuing to energize and inform conversations and dialogues on women’s issues as the year unfolds. Watch for upcoming IWPR research on women and caregiving, as well as on work/family supports, access to paid sick days, and access to quality employment for women and minorities. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay informed!

Ann DeMeulenaere Weedon is the Communications Intern with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

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Celebrating Title IX: On Track for Equality, Beyond the Sports Field

Posted on June 22, 2012 by

By Ann DeMeulenaere Weedon

This week marks forty years since the passage of Title IX, an amendment that forbids discrimination on the basis of sex in public education or in any educational program or activity receiving federal funding. Also known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, Title IX has a long history of being associated with women’s access to sports programs but the law has much wider, perhaps less visible, applications for gender equity in education.

At a congressional briefing on Wednesday, June 20, the National Coalition for Women & Girls in Education (NCWGE), of which IWPR is a proud member,  presented their newly released report Title IX: Working to Ensure Gender Equity in Education with findings on how Title IX is impacting areas such as access to education for pregnant and parenting students, sexual harassment in schools and colleges, single-sex education, and education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields and career and technical education. Congresswoman Gwen Moore addressed the significant milestone of the fortieth anniversary, but also cautioned that there is still much work to be done to achieve equality in educational programs. Even with successful women as role models some young girls still hold very limited ideas about what careers are right for them. “This ought to be a point at which we can break through,” said Moore of the fortieth anniversary.

According to the panelists at the briefing, the biggest hurdle to advancing equality in education is low awareness of what Title IX entails, such as lesser-known requirements aimed at improving access to education for pregnant or parenting students. Even though Title IX clearly makes this illegal, some schools still use pregnancy or motherhood as a reason for excluding girls from school.

A lack of awareness about Title IX requirements affects how sexual harassment and same-sex education programs are addressed in schools. Catherine Hill, Director of Research at AAUW, framed the sexual harassment problem as a need to make administrators understand that the law requires simply providing the same protections from harassment to students as to faculty and staff. “We want schools to not just react but to prevent sexual harassment,” said Hill.

Galen Sherwin of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) spoke about the growing trend of sex-segregated educational initiatives. Limited research has been done in this area yet—because anecdotal evidence suggests they work—educators are implementing these programs in direct violation of Title IX requirements. These types of programs sometimes teach girls by using examples involving makeup and wedding dresses, while teaching boys with themes from sports and hunting. According to Sherwin, most often these programs are small-scale and go unnoticed by school district authorities. When an individual program is discovered, actions are taken but such a reactive response is unlikely stop such practices nationally.

Panelist Betty Shanahan, Executive Director and CEO of the Society of Women Engineers, emphasized the need to open up STEM fields to women and people of color and “leverage our nation’s strength—our diversity.” Shanahan said, since women who leave engineering programs tend to have higher GPAs than the men who choose to stay in these programs, “we don’t need to fix the women, we need to fix the environments.” A recent IWPR briefing paper, cited in the report, uncovered an alarming trend of a decline of women studying STEM fields at community colleges within the last decade.

The panel participants agreed that Title IX was crucially important legislation and, in the past forty years, women have made great strides in education. The biggest take away from the briefing was that most people are not even aware of what Title IX covers. Panelists emphasized the need to both encourage and insist on compliance in a carrot and stick approach. Suggestions for improving compliance with Title IX included requiring the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education to conduct compliance reviews and encouraging school districts to conduct their own self-evaluations.

Ann DeMeulenaere Weedon is Communications Intern with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

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An Introduction to Paid Time Off Banks

Posted on June 20, 2012 by
By Andrea Lindemann Gilliam

This blog was originally posted on the CLASP blog.

Many people have heard of Paid Time Off (PTO) banks, but the contours of such policies are often little understood, especially outside the human resources world. To shed light on PTO banks, CLASP and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) have released a report using Bureau of Labor Statistics data to explore what is known, and what needs more study, about PTO banks. This report is a first step in understanding PTO banks so that further questions about PTO banks and how they affect low-wage workers and their employers can be explored.

PTO banks are an alternative to traditional paid leave plans. PTO banks consolidate multiple types of leave (paid vacation, sick, and personal days) into a single bucket, which workers can draw upon for absences. About 19 percent of private industry employees in the U.S. have access to a PTO bank. PTO banks are more common for higher wage and full time workers and are more likely to be offered at larger businesses.

Many low-wage workers don’t have access to any paid leave at all; 41 percent of low-income working parents (with household incomes below twice the federal poverty level) do not receive paid sick leave, vacation days, personal days, or other forms of compensated leave. Low-wage workers are less likely to have access to any paid time off regardless of whether it is in a traditional form or as a PTO bank. While 51 percent of employees in the lowest wage quartile have access to paid vacation time, only 9 percent have access to a PTO bank. In comparison, 89 percent of employees in the highest wage quartile have paid vacation time and 28 percent have access to a PTO bank. This means that millions of workers face difficult decisions like whether to take a needed day off work to care for a sick child or visit the doctor and risk losing a day’s wages (or even their jobs).  Paid leave not only helps keep workers and communities healthy, but helps workers balance work and family obligations and stay productive.  Unfortunately, there is no federal standard requiring these types of paid leave.

In Washington, D.C. an employer with experience of PTO banks has good things to say about how paid leave has impacted his workers and their business. Bradley Graham, co-owner of Politics & Prose, said in a recent BNA Human Resource Report article that ‘‘Some employers worry that too generous a leave policy will be abused by workers and will cost the company too much money in missed hours,” but that “employees have appreciated [their PTO policy] and it has not been abused.” Graham noted that he thinks the policy shows respect for the staff and makes economic sense. You can also see Graham explaining how Politics & Prose implemented the D.C. Sick and Safe Leave Act in a recent Spotlight on Poverty video. Spotlight on Poverty is a CLASP-managed initiative to highlight perspectives on issues affecting low-income families. In that same article, Stacey Bashara who helps run a web development firm in Chicago, discussed what PTO banks have meant for her employees. Bashara is also a supporter of the Illinois paid sick days campaign.  CLASP will continue to research and investigate PTO to identify pros and cons for low wage workers.

PTO banks are just one vehicle employers may use to give employees paid time off. While this paper is a start in understanding PTO banks, the real work is ensuring that workers at all wage levels have access to some form of paid time off so they can take care of their own health and that of their families without losing income or a job.

For more information, read Paid Time Off:  The Elements and Prevalence of Consolidated Leave Plans. IWPR has information available on Family Leave & Paid Sick days online.

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Obama is Right About His Wage Gap Statistics

Posted on June 13, 2012 by

By Heidi Hartmann

Despite recent criticism from “The Fact Checker” blog on The Washington Post, there is nothing at all misleading or biased about President Obama’s use of the 77 percent figure as a measure of wage inequality between women and men in the United States. Women’s median earnings for year round, full-time work in 2010 of $36,931 amounted to 77.4 percent of what men’s median earnings for year-round, full-time work were in the same year ($47,715). These numbers come from the Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) and include the non-institutionalized civilian population who are either self-employed or work for wages or salary and are 15 years of age or older. These data are reported on an annual basis each year in August or September by the Census Bureau based on a household survey they conduct. This particular earnings series—annual median earnings for full-time, year-round workers—has the longest history, most likely explaining why it is the most frequently cited data series. It is the series on which NOW’s famous pin saying simply 59¢ was based, as that represented the wage ratio back in the late 1960s when NOW was founded. Because this data series has the longest history, its wage ratio serves as a well-known index to measure trends over time.

A Variety of Wage Gap Numbers

There are a range of numbers given for the wage ratio or gender wage gap (generally the gap is 100 percent minus the ratio, so with a ratio of 77 percent the gap is 23 percent), stemming from different data sets or different ways of analyzing the data. Each can be correct, depending on what the analyst wants to study. Each data set and methodology yields estimated pay gaps. Each is based on a survey, generally of a sample of all households, though wage data can also be gathered from samples of employers or of administrative records such as unemployment insurance or Social Security earnings records. Generally no data set is complete; all are subject to both sampling and non-sampling errors. Furthermore, different researchers may choose to extract different elements of data. For example, some researchers may restrict the age range of workers to prime age adults, those aged 25 to 54, in order to compare those for whom education is generally complete but who have not yet reached retirement age. To illustrate the burden of inequality faced by women of color, some researchers might compare the earnings of minority women to white men; others restrict the comparison of the earnings of minority women to those of minority men. Both ways can be correct depending on what one wants to illustrate.

In the United States, researchers generally restrict the comparisons to those who work full-time, whether on a weekly basis or an annual basis, but in other countries, for example Canada, total earnings of all workers (both those who work full time year-round and those who work part time or part year) might be compared in a gender wage ratio. If we do that in the United States we get a wage ratio of 72.4 percent and a larger gap of 27.6 percent. Although the Post‘s fact checker claimed that President Obama picked the wage ratio that made gender inequality look the worst, he clearly did not—he could have picked this one.

Another even smaller wage ratio (and larger wage gap) was generated by IWPR in our report entitled Still a Man’s Labor Market (February 2004), where based on a different data set, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, on a survey of households conducted by the University of Michigan, we calculated that across 15 years, prime age women earned just 38 percent of what prime age men earned, for a staggering gender gap of 62 percent. This ratio is just as valid and just as accurate as others. It is telling us that across a 15-year period the typical woman in the United States earns only 38 percent of what the typical man earns. As the study points out, the reason women earn so much less across 15 years is that they spend more time out of the labor market; women typically work both fewer years and fewer hours per year than do men. No one would take this measure as a measure of discrimination by employers, but as a measure of women’s economic independence or lack of it or of what women contribute to family income across 15 years, this is an excellent measure. This type of life-time measure was used by the United Kingdom under the Labor government.

A larger wage ratio and smaller wage gap is generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the Current Population Survey by looking at median weekly earnings for full-time workers each week of the calendar year and then combining those medians to get an annual median weekly earnings figure. Currently this ratio is a bit higher than the annual ratio released by the Census Bureau, standing at 82.2 percent for 2011. As an IWPR fact sheet shows, in some years, these two ratios are virtually identical, yet the Post fact checker made a big deal of how President Obama chose the lower ratio. Not so, President Obama just chose the most commonly used wage ratio. And, contrary to the fact checker’s claim, there is nothing superior about the weekly measure. It is not, for example, more inclusive: on the one hand it includes some workers who work full-time but not all year, but on the other hand it excludes the self-employed. It also underestimates earnings from annual bonuses—a substantial part of income in some high paying professional jobs and a source of income where a number of law cases show that women lose out.

In many countries an hourly wage ratio is used to avoid the measurement problem of full-time male workers working slightly more time than full-time female workers. Since, in the United States, some workers are paid on an hourly basis and others on a weekly basis, using either measure requires calculating a consistent wage measure, and the BLS does not routinely generate an hourly wage rate for all workers.

Response to Criticisms of the Wage Gap Measure

The most frequent criticism I hear of the wage gap is that it is comparing apples and oranges—it’s not comparing women and men in the same jobs or women and men who have the same education or same college major or whatever, and therefore the whole gap cannot be considered the result of pay discrimination. Interestingly, I don’t know of any individual or group who claims the whole pay gap is due to discrimination, so I don’t know why so much hot air is spent saying that it isn’t all due to discrimination. Many economists, sociologists, and other researchers have spent years trying to identify how much of the gap can be explained by factors that might reasonably affect wages, such as work experience, education, and so on. Generally in these analyses what cannot be explained by reasonable factors is considered possibly or likely the result of discrimination. Several comprehensive literature reviews that have been published in peer reviewed scholarly journals conclude that about 25 to 40 percent of the wage gap remains unexplained. But most of these studies do not assess whether some of the differences observed between women and men that might help explain the gender wage gap, like college major, are themselves the result of discrimination or of limited choice sets faced by women and men. In a world where most social workers are women and most engineers are men, few women and men may consider training for occupations that are nontraditional for their gender.

Much is also made of women’s choice to bear children and to spend some time out of the labor market as a result. But is that just a woman’s choice, or is it also a societal necessity? Years after that labor market absence should women still be suffering a wage penalty for that societal necessity? Or should society try to equalize the playing field by providing paid parental leave, encouraging fathers to share equally in child rearing, and providing subsidized, high quality child care to facilitate both parents’ return to the labor market?

The Case for Government Action

As Rachel Maddow recently pointed out on her news show, the existence of the wage gap should not be in dispute—the gap is there as measured in all the data sets released by federal government agencies. What is being argued about is whether that gap is meaningful; whether, if we can explain it by several reasonable factors, we don’t have to worry about it; whether we can pretend it isn’t really there. Conservatives, as she pointed out, tend to argue there is no gap, at least no gap that can be attributed to employer discrimination and therefore no gap that government policy needs to address. Liberals, in contrast, tend to argue there still is employer discrimination (with several horrendous cases of it coming to light each year as women bring legal actions against a wide variety of employers, despite the difficulty of doing so), and that, furthermore, a case can also be made for minimizing the negative economic effects of child bearing, particularly on women.

If we generally believe that women and men are equally talented and work equally hard on the job, that they tend to value the same things about work (such as making money and having some flexibility on the job), then they ought to be able to find opportunities in the labor market that pay them about the same. Yet while the evidence suggests that women and men generally do have equal ability and work equally hard and have equal value preferences, the evidence also suggests that they do not find labor market opportunities that tend to pay them about the same. In my view, this makes the case for government intervention.

The gender wage gap is a good measure of the lack of equal earnings between women and men in the labor market. Many women and men believe the gap should be smaller, that such a large gap as we have in the United States is unfair and reflects an unfair tendency for women to get paid less for what they do than men get paid for what they do. Moreover, such unequal pay inevitably leads to the misallocation of our human resources and a general reduction in U.S. productivity. Not only do women and their families suffer from unequal pay, but our society as a whole suffers as well, a circumstance that furthers the case for government intervention.

Heidi Hartmann is the President of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

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