IWPR co-sponsors “Making WIA Work for Women” Briefing

On April 7, IWPR co-sponsored a Congressional Staff Briefing “Making WIA Work for Women.” Congress is likely to consider the reauthorization of the 1998 Workforce Investment Act (WIA) in the near future. WIA provides states with federal funding for local employment and training services.

In her opening remarks, Carolyn Williams, panel moderator and Director of the Human Services Department for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, explained that WIA was designed to provide services for both the unemployed and the employed.  WIA can help all women, especially unemployed and low-wage workers, move into careers with decent, family supporting wages. Ms. Williams said that encouraging women to train in non-traditional careers should be a priority in WIA because such jobs pay more than traditionally female careers. She explained that she herself had decided to become a journeyman electrician because it provided her with the ability to support herself.

Carolyn Williams, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (left), and Dr. Marie-Louise Caravatti, American Federation of Teachers, at the Briefing “Making WIA Work for Women

Ms. Hegewisch challenged the notion that such occupational segregation (and the consequent gap in earnings) is due to ‘choice.’ The key concept in economics is not choice, she said, but constrained choice. Many women’s choices are constrained by lack of information about pay or training opportunities in higher paying “male” careers, and by the lack of welcoming training programs for women. IWPR research suggests that many low income women would consider non-traditional careers, had they been given better information.

Dr. Marie-Louise Caravatti of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) also focused on women’s lack of complete information. She explained that rapid economic and technological change combined with a lack of information can cause markets to fail, leading to inefficient and unsatisfactory market outcomes that justify and require intervention. The AFL-CIO has suggested that the United States should adopt the United Kingdom’s concept of “learning representatives” to improve employees’ access to information about skill requirements and training opportunities. “Learning representatives” are employees who, often with the help of their union, become experts on training opportunities in their sector and provide advice to their peers. In the United States such advisors could work with local WIA Boards.

Susan Rees, of Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW), said that women who come to One-Stop-Training Centers often face multiple barriers. They might be victims of domestic violence, might have been out of the labor market for a long time, might be older women who are seen as too old to train or might face other age-related discrimination, or might be single mothers without readily available childcare or transport. One promising route into self-sufficiency is training in nontraditional fields for women, including training for “Green Jobs.”

Finally, Mimi Lufkin, of the National Alliance for Partnership in Equity, stressed that the United States will not be competitive if it continues to exclude almost half the potential talent from traditionally male occupations in science and technology. She argued that states need to be held accountable to create change on the ground. The Carl Perkins Career and Technical Education Act provides a good accountability model by requiring states to collect performance measures that include the shares of women and men who are recruited to, and who complete, non traditional training programs. Mandating such performance measures in WIA would not require additional data collection from states: states would simply be required to run an additional formula in a computer program. Including such measures and linking them to performance goals in WIA would send important signals on the importance of non-traditional training for women to policymakers and training providers.