August 2, 2004

IWPR’s Research News Reporter is distributed monthly to highlight inventive, informative, innovative, and sometimes controversial research relating to women and their families. Each selection includes a short description of the research and either a link to the report itself or a citation. We sometimes include short pieces in their entirety.

In this edition:

1.       The Price of School Readiness: A Tool for Estimating the Cost of Universal Preschool in the States

2.       Medicaid: A Critical Source of Support for Family Planning in the United States

3.       The State of America’s Children 2004

4.       Job Displacement over the Business Cycle, 1991-2001

5.       Women at Work: Looking Behind the Numbers 40 Years After the Civil Rights Act of 1964

1. The Price of School Readiness: A Tool for Estimating the Cost of Universal Preschool in the States
July 2004 (Pre-Publication Version)
Stacie Golin, Anne Mitchell (Early Childhood Policy Research), and Barbara Gault
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research

This new report provides a step-by-step guide for estimating the cost of a high-quality, state-based, universal preschool program for children aged three to five. The model is designed to evaluate various policy proposals for expanding or universalizing preschool service. The authors summarize existing research on the benefits of early childhood education, describe the model’s basic structure, suggest data sources for cost information, and provide a demonstration of the model’s use for designing a universal preschool program in a fictitious state. The report also details how different assumptions can affect the costs of a potential program.

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/G713.pdf

2. Medicaid: A Critical Source of Support for Family Planning in the United States
April 2004
Rachel Benson Gold, Cory L. Richards, and Usha R. Ranji, and Alina Salganicoff
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alan Guttmacher Institute

This issue brief summarizes recent findings from the 2003 Current Population Survey on family planning services and coverage for Medicaid beneficiaries. The authors find that Medicaid is currently the single largest source of public funding for family planning services and supplies in the United States. They also report that Medicaid is an especially important program for women, as seven in 10 Medicaid beneficiaries over the age of 14 are women and 10.6 percent of women of reproductive age were enrolled in Medicaid in 2002. The authors also summarize legislation that increased family planning coverage in the Medicaid program, including the creation of a legal entitlement to family planning services for Medicaid beneficiaries and the establishment of a special 90 percent matching rate (the proportion of the service cost for which beneficiaries will be reimbursed from the federal government) for family planning services and supplies.

http://www.kff.org/womenshealth/7064.cfm

3. The State of America’s Children 2004
July 2004
Children’s Defense Fund

This book is an important resource that summarizes national and state data on children’s well-being – including information on nutrition, child care and early childhood development, education, child welfare, and juvenile justice. The researchers find, for example, that one out of every six children live in poverty and 9.3 million children are uninsured. In addition, the book reports that more than half of incarcerated juveniles are minorities, and girls are the fastest growing group in the juvenile justice system. The book also provides information on recent policy developments, best practices, and policy recommendations, including helping families overcome barriers to employment, making high quality teaching and student leadership a top priority, and increasing investments in youth crime prevention programs. 

http://www.childrensdefense.org/pressreleases/040713.asp

The book is also accompanied by a web tool with state-by-state information on children’s well-being and state rankings on several indicators.

http://www.childrensdefense.org/data/childreninthestates/default.asp

4. Job Displacement over the Business Cycle, 1991-2001
June 2004
John Schmitt
Center for Economic and Policy Research

According to this briefing paper, between 6 and 11 percent of all workers were displaced at some point from 1991 to 2001. The study analyzes data from five Displaced Workers Surveys, a national survey that is conducted every two years by the Bureau of the Census, and uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics definition of displacement, which states that a worker is displaced if they had held the lost job for at least three years, were not expected to be recalled within six months, and lost their job due to ‘plant closing,’ ‘insufficient demand,’ or ‘shift abolished’. The most common cause of displacement, according to the surveys, was plant closing. The report also looks at the economic outcomes of job displacement and finds that approximately half of all displaced workers did not receive unemployment benefits and that many displaced workers and particularly older displaced workers faced long-term unemployment and lower wages upon reemployment.

http://www.cepr.net/publications/displaced_workers.htm

5. Women at Work: Looking Behind the Numbers 40 Years After the Civil Rights Act of 1964
July 2004
Debra L. Ness, Jocelyn C. Frye, and Quyen Ta
The National Partnership for Women and Families

This report analyzes the progress in women’s equality in employment since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 using newly available data on discrimination charges filed between FY1992 and FY2003 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency responsible for enforcement of Title VII, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment. The authors find that sex discrimination filings increased by 12 percent and sexual harassment charges increased by 29 percent over the period. The report also provides detailed information on the number of claims for pregnancy, national origin, race, disability, and age discrimination.

http://www.nationalpartnership.org/workandfamily/WomenAtWork.pdf

This edition of IWPR’s Research News Reporter was prepared by Misha Werschkul.