Title

40-hour Work Proposal Significantly Raises Mothers’ Employment Standard
by Vicky Lovell, Ph.D. (May 2003)

44 Million U.S. Workers Lacked Paid Sick Days in 2010: 77 Percent of Food Service Workers Lacked Access
by Claudia Williams, Robert Drago, Ph.D., and Kevin Miller, Ph.D. (January 2011)

2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area
by Barbara Gault, Ph.D. and Layla Moughari (September 2010)

(Produced by Washington Area Women’s Foundation, Urban Institute, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Trinity University, the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital) In 2003, Washington Area Women’s Foundation released A Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area, with the goal of presenting a clear picture of the lives of women and girls in the region—the District of Columbia, Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties in Maryland, Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Virginia, and the City of Alexandria, Virginia—that could be used as a basis for action.

A New Full-Time Norm: Promoting Work-Life Integration Through Work-Time Adjustment*
by Cynthia Negrey (July 2004)

(Cynthia Negrey is an Associate Professor Sociology Department, University of Louisville) This paper is an argument for a new, shorter, full-time work norm in the United States. It examines the context of “time famine” as a product of women’s increased labor force participation and an increase in household total employment hours, a caregiving gap, bifurcation of aggregate work hours, and a gap between workers’ actual and ideal work hours. Inadequacies of current alternative work-time arrangements and the Family and Medical Leave Act are addressed and some international comparisons are discussed. Following Appelbaum et al. (2002), the author argues for a “shared work/valued care” model of work-time allocation.

A Prescription for Good Asthma Care for Children: Paid Sick Days for Milwaukee Parents Parents’ Lack of Job Flexibility Hurts Children with Chronic Health Problems
by Vicky Lovell, Ph.D. (September 2008)

Asthma treatment is a priority for Wisconsin’s public health system, according to the Wisconsin Turning Point Transformation Team.1 The most common chronic health problem for children, asthma sent nearly 3,800 Wisconsin children to the emergency room in 2005, and more than 700 were hospitalized, at a cost of close to $4 million.

Access to Paid Sick Days in the States, 2010
by Claudia Williams, Robert Drago, Ph.D., Kevin Miller, Ph.D., and Youngmin Yi (March 2011)

An Economy That Puts Families First: Expanding the social contract to include family care
by Heidi Hartmann, Ariane Hegewisch and Vicky Lovell (May 2007)

A comprehensive family policy program is needed to make the U.S. economy more family friendly and to enable work- ers to combine work and family responsibilities more easily. Such a program is part of a new social contract that should spread the costs of family care beyond the immediate family and help redistribute the burden of care more equitably between men and women within the family.

An Estimate of Program Cost under Oregon Senate Bill 966, the Family Leave Benefits Insurance Act
by (December 2008)

Children First for Oregon requested that the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) analyze the Family Leave Benefits Insurance Act in order to provide lawmakers and policy advocates with information about the likely costs and use of a universal paid family leave insurance program in Oregon. This document presents that estimate.

Are Women Now Half the Labor Force? The Truth about Women and Equal Participation in the Labor Force
by Ashley English, Heidi Hartmann, PhD, and Jeff Hayes (March 2010)

For more than a year the news media have been tracking the moment when women might become half the labor force. In spring 2009, it was said it might happen in the next few months, by summer it was said maybe it would happen in the fall. By one measure, women’s share of employment reached a high of 49.96 percent in October 2009; still 113,000 fewer women than men were counted on payrolls that month, and as of March 2010 the gap has grown to about 360,000 workers. Although still a statistically significant difference, a gap that small is nevertheless close to equality, especially when total payroll employment in the United States is measured at nearly 130,000,000.

Assessing the Status of Women at the County Level: A Manual for Researchers and Advocates
by Misha Werschkul, Barbara Gault, and Heidi Hartmann (October 2004)

This manual provides instructions for analyzing the status of women at the county level. The manual allows advocates, researchers, and others within each state to assess women’s status at the local level, rank counties, and make cross-county comparisons, by ranking and grading each county on a set of indicators. Such analyses can be conducted for an entire state, a portion of a state, or a region including portions of several states.

Before and After Welfare Reform: The Work and Well-Being of Low-Income Single Parent Families
by Institute for Women's Policy Research (May 2003)

This Fact Sheet highlights select findings from IWPR’s new report, Before and After Welfare Reform. The report examines the income sources and employment patterns of low-income families, utilizing longitudinal data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation to shed new light on the characteristics and well-being of low-income single parent families just before and roughly three years after the implementation of welfare reform.

Before and After Welfare Reform: The Work and Well-Being of Low-Income Single Parent Families
by Avis Jones-DeWeever, Ph.D., Janice Peterson, Ph.D., Xue Song, Ph.D. (May 2003)

The purpose of this report is to contribute to federal and state policy debates through an examination of the changing characteristics and economic well-being of low-income single parent families in the context of welfare reform. In so doing, this report examines the employment characteristics, income sources, poverty status, and demographic characteristics of low-income single parent families before and after the implementation of the 1996 welfare reform.

Best and Worst States for Women
by Ed. Amy B. Caiazza (December 2001)

Better Health for Mothers and Children: Breastfeeding Accommodations under the Affordable Care Act
by Robert Drago, Ph.D., Jeffrey Hayes, Ph.D., and Youngmin Yi (December 2010)

This study examines new workplace protections for nursing mothers under federal law. We report current patterns of breastfeeding, and provide the first estimates of coverage rates under the law, as well as the first projections of the likely effect of the new protections on increasing rates of breastfeeding in the United States. The research represents part of a broader body of work undertaken by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research on balancing work and family commitments. The research was made possible by grants from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Beyond 50: A View of Economic Security in the States
by Sunhwa Lee, Ph.D., and Lois Shaw, Ph.D. (January 2002)

Report can also be accessed through the AARP website at http://www.aarp.org/money/budgeting-saving/info-2002/aresearch-import-297.html

Beyond 50: a view of economic security in the United States
by Sunhwa Lee and Lois Shaw (March 2002)

Black Girls in New York City: Untold Strength and Resilience
by Avis Jones-DeWeever, Ph.D. (February 2009)

Black Girls in New York City: Untold Strength and Resilience provides an often unseen portrait of the lives of Black girls living in the city of New York. The report offers an overview of literature as well as an analysis of original data collected through focus groups and written surveys. The findings uncover some of the specific challenges and daily struggles faced by girls of African descent, while also identifying their strengths, triumphs, and modes of survival. Ultimately, the report lays out a plan for how those issues, particular to the experiences of Black girls, can best be addressed through the concerted efforts of family, community, and policymakers, and through the self-determining work of these girls themselves.

Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling: A Proposal to Modernize Women's Benefits
by Carol Estes, Terry O'Neill, and Heidi Hartmann (May 2012)

This report examines the valuable role women play as caregivers to both their children and to their aging parents. It looks at the impact of widowhood, and the difference in life expectancy between men and women and how that affects a growing number of older women --espeically those over age 86-- who are living below the poverty line. And it examines the special role that Social Security plays in meeting the income security needs of women from communities of color.

Brief Of Amicus Curiae The Institute for Women's Policy Research in Support of Respondents
by The Institute for Women's Policy Research (January 2011)

IWPR submits this brief in support of Respondents who are seeking affirmance of the order of class certification generally, and specifically, certification under Rule 23(b)(2). Title VII is a remedial statute providing “make whole relief,” including injunctive relief, to those subjected to discrimination in the workplace.

Building a Stronger Child Care Workforce: A Review of Studies of the Effectiveness of Public Compensation Initiatives
by Jennifer Park-Jadotte, Ph.D. Stacie Carolyn Golin, Ph.D. Barbara Gault, Ph.D. (November 2002)

Child care providers are among the lowest paid workers in the United States. Inadequate compensation has led many qualified practitioners to leave the field for higher paying jobs, decreasing the quality of available care. At the same time, families continue to deal with the persistent problem of finding affordable high-quality child care at a time of growing need. Increasing awareness of this problem has prompted policymakers, advocates, and practitioners to help qualified staff earn higher wages and remain in their field. In this report, we review preliminary findings on the implementation and early effects of publicly supported compensation initiatives on the child care1 workforce.