Women in the United States still face an average wage ratio of 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. According to research from IWPR, the wage gap persists both across and within the most common occupations.
In the public sector, where pay information is publicly available, a smaller pay gap exists compared to the private sector. According to an IWPR/Rockefeller survey, three-fifths of private sector workers report that the discussion of wage and salary information is either discouraged or prohibited and/or could lead to punishment. The Equal Pay Act does not protect workers against retaliation for sharing salary information with coworkers.
Statement from Dr. Heidi Hartmann, IWPR President
“When the Equal Pay Act was signed into law 50 years ago, blatant employment discrimination and unequal pay for women working the same jobs as men was widely accepted. As we honor this date and 25 years of research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women still face a sizeable wage gap. The gap costs women hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes and reduces their retirement incomes.
As more women become the primary or co-breadwinners in households, their families suffer from the female wage penalty. By eliminating pay secrecy and preventing employers from retaliation against workers who share pay information, we can shine a light on gender discrimination in the workforce. This is the time to advance pay equality in order to benefit women, their families, and today’s economy.”
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. For 25 years, IWPR has informed policy in the United States and internationally by putting relevant, high quality facts in the hands of thousands of local leaders and advocates, increasing their ability to shape and implement legislation that benefits women and their families.
-END-
]]>
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
-END-
]]>Nearly 600,000 Oregon workers lack access to a single paid sick day, and approximately 287,400 lack paid leave benefits of any kind (including vacation) and would be eligible to earn sick leave under House Bill 3390. The proposed law would allow employees to accrue at least seven days of sick leave per year to use for their own illness or to stay home with a sick child or other family member. Sick days could also be used to seek services for domestic violence.
Analysis of government statistics shows that full time employees with sick leave benefits use only 2.5 days per year, on average, and half of all covered workers do not take any days off for illness or injury in a given year.
Savings to Oregon's employers come through reduced contagion at work, improved productivity, and reduced turnover. Current productivity losses, due to employees working while sick, are estimated at $8.3 million annually. Estimated cost savings to society through earned sick days come by preventing or shortening nursing-home stays when workers can care for family members, reducing norovirus outbreaks in nursing homes, and preventing unnecessary hospital emergency department visits.
“Earned sick days laws strengthen the economy by making jobs more stable and secure, and benefit workplaces, families, and communities by minimizing the spread of contagious illness,” said Barbara Gault, Vice President and Executive Director of IWPR.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. IWPR is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that also works in affiliation with the women's studies and public policy and public administration programs at The George Washington University.
-END-
]]>Washington, DC—This Mother’s Day, the United States is still behind all other high-income industrialized nations when it comes to providing paid leave to parents. And, according to a new analysis released today by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), employers are not filling the gap—despite many providing paid leave benefits beyond legal requirements.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) celebrated its 20th anniversary this year and provides eligible employees with up to 12-weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave for reasons that include to care or bond with a new child. The United States is one of only four countries in the world that does not provide paid maternity leave to workers.
Only slightly more than a third of all workers in the United States work in workplaces with paid maternity leave, according to the Family and Medical Leave in 2012 Survey. Even among the top 100 most family-friendly companies, as selected by Working Mother magazine, close to one in five only provide one to two weeks paid maternity leave, or none at all.
In good news, since 2006, paid leave for birth fathers and adoptive parents has become more common among Working Mother’s top 100 family-friendly companies. There has been a marked increase in the number of top 100 companies that are providing paid leave to adoptive parents, from 54 percent in 2006 to 80 percent in 2012.
“The evidence is clear: paid parental leave is good for children, for mothers, and for fathers,” said Barbara Gault, Ph.D., Vice President and Executive Director at IWPR. “The absence of paid parental leave is particularly pernicious for low-waged families, hurting both the current and next generation.”
“The evidence presented in the briefing paper shows that paid leave insurance is affordable and workable,” said Ariane Hegewisch, Study Director at IWPR. “All we are asking for this Mother’s Day is evidence-based policymaking for balancing work and family needs.”
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
-END-
]]>Women’s employment growth in April was aided by growth in Professional and business services (35,000 jobs added for women), Retail trade (32,500 jobs added for women), Education and health services (25,000 jobs added for women) and Leisure and hospitality (23,000 jobs added for women). While Government jobs decreased by 11,000 overall, women’s employment in this industry remained steady.
IWPR analysis of the BLS payroll data shows as of April, women have regained 83 percent (2.3 million) of the total jobs they lost in the recession from December 2007 to the trough for women’s employment in September 2010 (2.7 million). Men have regained over 65 percent (3.9 million) of the jobs they lost between December 2007 and the trough for men’s employment in February 2010 (6 million). In the last year, from April 2012 to April 2013, of the 2.1 million jobs added to payrolls, 1 million or 49 percent were filled by women, and 1.1 million or 51 percent were filled by men. The gap between women’s and men’s employment is 1.8 million jobs in April, substantially less than at the start of the recession (3.4 million jobs in December 2007).
According to the household survey data reported by the BLS, the unemployment rate for women aged 16 and older decreased to 7.3 percent in April from 7.6 percent in March. The unemployment rate for men aged 16 and older increased slightly from 7.6 percent in March to 7.7 percent in April. Among single mothers, the unemployment rate was 10.3 percent in April compared to 10.7 percent in March. As of April, 11.7 million workers remain unemployed.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
-END-
]]>About the Institute for Women's Policy Research
IWPR conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. IWPR is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that also works in affiliation with the women's studies and public policy programs at The George Washington University.
Occupations dominated by women provide lower earnings: Four of the ten most common occupations for women, ‘maids and housekeeping cleaners, ‘waitresses,’ ‘cashiers and ‘nursing, psychiatric and home health aides,’ have median earnings for a full-time week of work that are insufficient to lift a family of four out of poverty. Women are more than twice as likely as men to work in occupations with poverty wages.
“The most common occupations for women show how far women have come, with good earnings in many occupations,” said Dr. Heidi Hartmann, President of IWPR. “But they also show the desperate, and all too common, problem of low pay for many women.”
Women ‘insurance sales agents’ face the largest gender wage gap; women’s median weekly earnings of $641 are only 64.3 percent of men’s median weekly earnings of $1026. ‘Retails sales persons,’ among the twenty largest occupations for both women and men, have an earnings ratio for women of 64.3 percent. Latina women’s median earnings in sales occupations are only 45.5 percent of white men’s earnings, the group with the highest median earnings in all sales occupations.
“Year after year, it is occupations with high commission payments that do worst for women,” said Ariane Hegewisch, IWPR Study Director. “Given lack of pay transparency, we have to rely on lawsuit evidence showing that women are not less likely to work hard in these jobs, but are less likely to be given the higher earning accounts or work in the big buck sales departments.”
The fact sheet is updated annually by IWPR and provides median earnings for the twenty largest occupations for women and men and distributions across occupational groups by gender and race, based on weekly earnings data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Current Population Survey.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
-END-
]]>In the last year, from March 2012 to March 2013, of the 1.9 million jobs added to payrolls, 49 percent were filled by women. The gap between women’s and men’s employment is 1.8 million jobs in March, substantially less than at the start of the recession (3.4 million jobs in December 2007).
Women’s employment growth in March was aided by growth in education and health services (28,000 jobs) and professional and business services (11,000 jobs). However, women lost 12,000 jobs in manufacturing in March.
IWPR analysis of the BLS payroll data shows that, as of March, women have regained 77 percent (2.1 million) of the total jobs they lost in the recession from December 2007 to the trough for women’s employment in September 2010 (2.7 million). Men have regained over 63 percent (3.8 million) of the jobs they lost between December 2007 and the trough for men’s employment in February 2010 (6 million).
According to the household survey data reported by the BLS, the unemployment rate for women aged 16 and older decreased to 7.6 percent in March from 7.7 percent in February, while the unemployment rate for men decreased from 7.8 percent to 7.6 percent. Among single mothers, the unemployment rate was 10.7 percent in March compared to 11.0 percent in February. As of March, 11.7 million workers remain unemployed.
There has been improvement over the past year in the average (mean) number of weeks spent unemployed and looking for work from 39.5 weeks in March 2012 to 37.1 weeks in March 2013. However, the average duration of unemployment was longer in March than in February when the mean was 36.9 weeks and the median was 17.8 weeks.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
-END-
]]>
Washington, DC—A recently released report, The Status of Women and Girls in West Virginia, shows women in the state have made gains in education and entrepreneurship, but still face disproportionate levels of poverty and a gaping gender wage gap. This report was written by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) in collaboration with the West Virginia Women’s Commission (WVWC).
Women in West Virginia face a higher gender wage gap than women in all other states except Louisiana and Wyoming. The gender wage gap in West Virginia is 31 percent, compared with 21 percent for the nation as a whole. On average, women in West Virginia who work full-time, year-round earn $29,000 compared with $42,000 for men.
In some good news for the state, the number of women-owned businesses increased by nearly 3,500 between 1997 and 2007. One recent study shows that the state has experienced faster-than-average growth in the revenues women-owned firms contribute to the economy. Additionally, the proportion of women who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 11 percent in 1990 to 18 percent in 2010.
While more West Virginia women are obtaining higher education than two decades ago, as of 2010, West Virginia ranked 51st out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for its proportion of women with a four-year college degree.
According to the report, in West Virginia:
Tonight at 7:00 p.m., IWPR’s President Dr. Heidi Hartmann will present these findings as the keynote speaker for the “Stand for Women” Conference at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia.
More information about WVWC is available on their website.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
]]>Washington, DC–New research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) finds that, at the current pace of progress, the wage gap between working men and women will not close until the year 2057. This updates previous research from IWPR showing that the wage gap would close in 2056 because slow progress in recent years moves the goal for equality one year further away
“We might be living in space by the time women earn the same as men,” said Dr. Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D., President of IWPR. “With women now nearly half the labor force and breadwinners in a large number of families, the wage gap should already be a relic of the past.”
While the wage gap has been closing since the 1960s, progress slowed in the 1990s. The last decade has seen very little progress on closing the wage gap.
Among full-time, year round workers in the United States, women earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2011 (the most recently available data). IWPR research has also found that men earn more than women in the most common occupations.
According to IWPR’s analysis of weekly earnings for full-time workers, the wage gap actually widened last year. The ratio of women’s to men’s median weekly full-time earnings (not including self-employed) was 80.9 percent in 2012, a decline of more than one percentage point since 2011 when the ratio was 82.2 percent. The wage gap grew in all major race and ethnic groups. Growth in lower paying jobs and loss of public sector jobs for women may have contributed to the most recent shift.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
-END-
]]>
In 33 states, women in green jobs earn at least $1,000 more per year for full-time year-round work than women in the overall economy. Overall, the national gender wage gap for women in the green economy was 18 percent in 2010, compared to 22 percent in the economy as a whole. Women in Maryland do best in the green economy, with a gender wage gap of 8 percent, compared with a gender wage gap of 19 percent for all full-time, year-round working women in Maryland, according to 2010 data.
There are large variations between the states in the gap between women’s share of green jobs and all jobs overall. Washington, DC, has the smallest gap at 4 percentage points while Maine has the largest at 24 percentage points.
Women are missing from the fastest growing green occupations. For example, many new jobs are expected to be added for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technicians, but fewer than two percent of HVAC technicians in the United States are women.
“This research shows a striking absence of women in mid-level technical occupations in the green economy,” said Ariane Hegewisch, Study Director at IWPR and lead author of the study, Quality Employment for Women in the Green Economy: Industry, Occupation, and State-by-State Job Estimates. “Even more striking is the lack of discussion of this drastic gender imbalance in green jobs reports by state-level workforce development agencies.”
“As green technologies are becoming more integrated, we have an opportunity to tackle the virtual absence of women and girls from the well-paid technical careers that utilize these advances,” said Dr. Hartmann, President of IWPR.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies.
-END-
]]>Women and girls make up fewer than one in four students in STEM CTE programs, fewer than one in six students in manufacturing and architecture- and construction-related CTE programs, and fewer than one in ten students in transportation, distribution, and logistics CTE programs.
Yet, women and girls comprise more than 80 percent of students at the postsecondary level enrolled in CTE programs in “Human Services,” which prepare them for lower-paying positions such as child care workers and hairdressers. The median hourly earnings of hairdressers are $10.85. In comparison,the median earnings of automotive body and related repairers are $18.36.
“This Women’s History Month, and forty years after Title IX required equal access to education, it's time to turn our attention to an area where progress truly has been minimal,” said Fatima Goss Graves, of the National Women’s Law Center and vice-chair of the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE). “Young women continue to comprise just a small portion of students in career and technical education programs that are crucial pathways to middle class jobs. It's imperative that young women have the same access to CTE programs that lead to high wage and high skill occupations—their economic security depends on it.”
The under-representation of women and girls in programs leading to higher paid careers is not uniform across the United States, however. According to analysis of performance data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, seven states had secondary school enrolment rates for girls in nontraditional programs that were at least 10 percentage points higher than the national average of 28 percent; ten states had post secondary completion rates for women in nontraditional programs that were at least 10 percentage points higher than the national average of 27 percent. In transportation, distribution, and logistics CTE programs, the field with the lowest share of women and girls, enrolment rates in secondary schools in four states were at least twice the national rate.
“It is important that training for higher-paying occupations includes women and girls, and that girls are introduced to nontraditional careers, particularly in STEM fields, at a young age,” said Barbara Gault, Vice President and Executive Director of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a member organization of the NCWGE. “To secure strong futures for girls we need to address obstacles to high-paying careers, such as sexual harassment in the classroom or unintentional bias in mentoring or advising.”
The Perkins Act provides an opportunity to promote more gender equity in training programs and includes accountability measures for states. “Many state and local CTE directors count the nontraditional accountability measure and the accompanying provisions in the Perkins Act among the key reasons for their state’s success in improving students’ participation in and completion of nontraditional CTE programs,”said Mimi Lufkin, Chief Executive Officer of the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity.
The CTE Task Force of the NCWGE and the National Coalition on Women, Jobs and Job Training (NCWJJT) make several recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the Perkins Act when up for reauthorization in the near future, including:
“Our experience teaches that affirmative programming is necessary to ensure women’s access to these higher paying, nontraditional occupations,” said Susan Rees, Director of Policy at Wider Opportunities for Women and convener of the NCWJJT and NCGWE CTE Task Force that produced the research. “The nontraditional performance measures in the Perkins Act focus states on the need for tackling gender inequality in routes to high paying careers; they need to be maintained and strengthened when the Perkins Act is reauthorized.”
Segregation in training programs has repercussions on women’s earnings throughout their lifetimes and is a significant contributor to the persistent wage gap. According to IWPR, the typical woman now makes 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
The findings in the report are based on a new analysis by NCWGE and NCWJJT of state-by-state reports on student enrollment and course completion in secondary and postsecondary career and technical education that were submitted to the U.S. Department of Education.
This report was prepared as a summary of an analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity, the National Women’s Law Center, and Wider Opportunities for Women, under the auspices of the National Coalition of Women and Girls in Education and the National Coalition on Women, Jobs and Job Training.
]]>“Women in North Carolina, historically and according to the most recent data, have strengthened the state’s economy and local communities in many ways,” said Cynthia Hess, Ph.D., IWPR Study Director and author of the report. “Their participation in areas ranging from the workforce, to local and regional politics, to social justice movements has shaped policies and will continue to do so in the coming years.”
Over the last two decades, the workforce in North Carolina became more diverse, more educated, and more likely to work in professional and managerial occupations. Women’s educational levels and workforce participation rates vary across different regions of the state, with more rural areas seeing lower rates. In both 2008 and 2010, women in the state participated in elections at a higher rate than men, showing interest in the policy decisions that will affect their families, workplaces, and businesses.
Remarkable progress has also been made in preventive health and teen pregnancy. The teen pregnancy rate in North Carolina has steadily decreased in recent years, from 76.1 per 1,000 for teens aged 15–19 in 2000 to 49.7 per 1,000 for teens of the same age range in 2010.Women in North Carolina are more likely than their counterparts in the nation as a whole to report having received a pap test or a mammogram.
According to the report, between 1990 and 2010, in North Carolina:
Despite having generally higher levels of education then men, women still face lower earnings. But at 82.5 cents for every dollar earned by men, North Carolina has a smaller wage gap than the nation as a whole.
Women are twice as likely as men to work in the not-for-profit sector and more likely to work for state and local government than men. This reflects similar trends at the national level, meaning women are more likely to be affected by cuts to education and health care sectors at the lower levels of government.
While some are women are achieving higher levels of education and career positions, more are falling into poverty. The recession significantly affected both women and men in North Carolina and, in 2010, 9.1 percent of women and 11.7 percent of men were unemployed, both higher rates than in the United States overall.
Thirteen percent of all households receive food stamps in North Carolina, where food insecurity disproportionately affects households compared with the nation as a whole. Slightly more than one in ten single women (12 percent) with children under five and incomes below the qualifying poverty threshold receive any cash assistance, a lower proportion than in the United States overall.
“There are under-recognized challenges and underserved communities, including single mothers, that need to be addressed through improved policy and programs,” said Beth Briggs of the North Carolina Council for Women.
Women also continue to need supports in areas related to domestic violence, sexual assault, and access to reproductive health services. Between 2010 and 2011, more than in four out of five of those served by domestic violence programs and 89 percent of those served by sexual assault programs funded by the North Carolina Council for Women were female. In 2008, half of women in North Carolina lived in a country without a known abortion provider, compared with one-third of women in the United States as a whole.
While progress continues to improve the overall status of women in North Carolina, the state’s national ranking is quite low in areas such as workforce participation (36th) and the percent of women living above the poverty line (39th). The report recommends that employers take steps to address the wage gap; that education and child care supports are increased, especially for low-income women; and that services and supports for victims of domestic violence are also expanded.
The Status of Women in North Carolina was produced with funding from the North Carolina Council for Women, Wells Fargo, Women to Women at the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, Women For Women at the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, The Women's Giving Circle of Cumberland County, and the Women's Fund at the North Carolina Community Foundation. By comparing data to IWPR’s 1996 report on the status of women, IWPR tracked progress for key indicators since 1990 to reveal findings that can inform decisions for policymakers, leaders, advocates and other stakeholders.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. IWPR is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that also works in affiliation with the women's studies, and public policy and public administration programs at The George Washington University.
-END-
]]>Women’s employment growth in February was aided by strong growth in professional and business services (32,000 jobs added for women), education and health services (24,000 jobs added for women), retail trade (21,000 jobs added for women), and leisure and hospitality (10,000 jobs added for women). However, women lost 4,000 jobs in government in February.
IWPR analysis of the BLS payroll data shows as of February, women have regained 74 percent (2 million) of the total jobs they lost in the recession from December 2007 to the trough for women’s employment in September 2010 (2.7 million). Men have regained nearly 62 percent (3.8 million) of the jobs they lost between December 2007 and the trough for men’s employment in February 2010 (6 million). In the last year, from February 2012 to February 2013, of the 2 million jobs added to payrolls, 931,000 or 47 percent were filled by women, and 1,035,000 or 53 percent were filled by men. The gap between women’s and men’s employment is 1.8 million jobs in February, substantially less than at the start of the recession (3.4 million jobs in December 2007).
According to the household survey data reported by the BLS, the unemployment rate for women aged 16 and older decreased to 7.7 percent in February from 7.8 percent in January. The unemployment rate for men decreased from 8.0 percent in January to 7.8 percent in February. Among single mothers, the unemployment rate was 11.0 percent in February 2013 compared to 11.7 percent in February 2012. As of February, 12 million workers remain unemployed.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. IWPR is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that also works in affiliation with the women's studies, and public policy and public administration programs at The George Washington University.
]]>Of the over 649,800 private sector workers in Portland, about 121,300 currently have no earned leave benefits of any kind and are eligible to receive leave under the proposed new legislation.
“Earned sick days are an inexpensive, but important, basic workplace benefit that help workers care for themselves and their families, and access health services,” said Barbara Gault, Vice President and Executive Director of IWPR.
Earned sick days can also reduce business and public health costs by cutting down on the spread of disease at work, helping employers avoid paying for low productivity, holding down nursing-home stays, reducing norovirus outbreaks in nursing homes, and preventing unnecessary hospital emergency department visits.
IWPR’s analysis of government statistics finds that workers typically take fewer paid sick days than they earn. When workers receive a maximum of five days off work for earned sick days, they miss an average of 1.3 days annually for illness and injury, excluding maternity leave. About half of all workers who are covered by earned sick days policies do not take any days off for illness or injury in a given year.
“Employers in Portland who offer earned sick time talk about improved employee retention, higher morale, a healthier workforce, and appreciative customers,” said Andrea Paluso, Family Forward Oregon’s Executive Director. “Earned sick days is a modest policy that will have a big impact. At a time when many in the health care community, policy circles, and the general public are concerned about high and rising health care expenditures, the cost savings available from making earned sick days universal should receive serious attention.”
The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. IWPR is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that also works in affiliation with the women's studies, and public policy and public administration programs at The George Washington University.
-END-
]]>