June 30, 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.       Expanded Sick Leave Would Yield Substantial Benefits to Business, Employers, and Families

2.       Still A Man’s Labor Market: The Long-Term Earnings Gap

3.       Employment Rates for Single Mothers Fell Substantially During Recent Period of Labor Market Weakness

4.       Moving Forward: Head Start Children, Families, and Programs in 2003

5.       Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Americans on HIV/AIDS: Part Two – HIV Testing

6.       The Effect of Teach for America on Students: Finds from a National Evaluation

1. Expanded Sick Leave Would Yield Substantial Benefits to Business, Employers, and Families
June 15, 2004
Vicky Lovell, Ph.D., Barbara Gault, Ph.D., and Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research

This fact sheet discusses the prevalence of paid sick leave and the costs and benefits of expanding paid sick leave. New proposed federal legislation, known as the Healthy Families Act, would mandate that employers with 15 or more workers offer a minimum of 7 days of paid sick leave. According to the researchers at IWPR, paid sick leave coverage is currently inadequate, as more than half (54 percent) or 66 million workers have no sick leave coverage, and only 27.3 percent of all workers have 7 or more days of leave. The fact sheet points out that the costs of the new program would center on employers who currently provide fewer than 7 days of sick leave and would include wages paid when workers stay home sick and some worker replacement costs. According to the authors, the benefits of the legislation include reduced contagion in workplaces, less absenteeism, increased worker productivity, faster recovery times, lower turnover rates, and lower health care costs.

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/B243.pdf

Full report No Time to Be Sick: Why Everyone Suffers When Workers Don’t Have Paid Sick Leave, by Vicky Lovell, is available at:

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/B242.pdf

See also IWPR President Heidi Hartmann’s statement on the Healthy Families Act:

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/HHStatementonHealthyFamiliesActJune2004.pdf

2. Still A Man’s Labor Market: The Long-Term Earnings Gap

June 2004

Stephen Rose, Ph.D., and Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research

According to this new report, women, in their prime earnings years, earn only 38 percent of what comparable men earn. The researchers use a 15-year panel survey to analyze the long-term gender gap and find that the average prime age working woman earned only $273,592 in the 15-year period, compared to the average working man, who earned $722,693 (in 1999 dollars). Rose and Hartmann argue that the conventional method of measuring the wage gap is misleading, because it ignores the labor market experience of men and women who work part-time or who take time out of the labor market for family responsibilities. The report also analyzes the impact of marital status and children on men and women’s earnings. Interestingly, they find that among men, rarely married men (married 0-2 years of the study) have the lowest earnings and least work effort, while among women, rarely married women have the highest earnings and most work effort. The authors state that the reasons for the continued gender gap in earnings include gender segregation in the labor market; sex discrimination in hiring, pay, and promotion; differential access to education and training; and differences in hours worked between women and men.

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/C355.pdf

3. Employment Rates for Single Mothers Fell Substantially During Recent Period of Labor Market Weakness
June 22, 2004

Arloc Sherman, Shawn Fremstad, and Sharon Parrott

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The researchers find, using official data from the U.S. Department of Labor, that after substantial gains in the employment of single mothers in the mid- and late-1990s, the proportion of single mothers who are employed fell from 73.0 percent in 2000 to 69.8 percent in 2003. The employment rate for single mothers has fallen more than for other parents and all adults. During this period of labor market weakness, when single mothers are increasingly unemployed, the number of families receiving TANF assistance nationwide continues to fall. For the authors, this raises questions about the extent that the TANF safety net responds to economic conditions. The report concludes a discussion of some factors that may influence the falling TANF caseloads, including complicated application procedures, increased stigma around receiving welfare, and misunderstandings about time limits and sanctions.

http://www.cbpp.org/6-22-04ui.pdf

4. Moving Forward: Head Start Children, Families, and Programs in 2003

June 2004

Katherine Hart and Rachel Schumacher

Center for Law and Social Policy

This policy brief, the fifth in a series of analyses of Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) data, provides detailed information on the Head Start program in the 2002-2003 program year. The authors analyze information on Head Start children, families, and programs. The report shows, for example, that in 2003, 27 percent of Head Start children had a primary language other than English and 13 percent had a disability. The brief also finds that 72 percent of Head Start families had one or both parents working in 2003 and 57 percent of Head start teachers had at least an associate’s degree in 2003.

http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1088017582.58/HS_brf_5.pdf

5. Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Americans on HIV/AIDS: Part Two – HIV Testing
June 2004
The Kaiser Family Foundation

Using a national representative survey, researchers with the Kaiser Family Foundation analyze the racial and ethnic disparities in HIV testing. They find that almost half of Americans say that they have ever been tested for HIV, and African Americans and Latinos are more likely than whites to say they’ve been tested. The most common reason reported for not being tested was not thinking they were at risk (72 percent of those not tested). The study finds that misconceptions about testing continue, as 23 percent of those tested had the impression that the testing was a routine part of the physical exam. The researchers also found that a stigma related to HIV testing persists, especially among Latino and African American interviewees.  They also found that 36 percent of people said that they need more information on the different kinds of HIV tests that are available.

http://www.kff.org/hivaids/7095.cfm

6. Effects of Teach For America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation
June 9, 2004
Paul T. Decker, Daniel P. Mayer, and Steven Glazerman
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

This study compares the educational outcomes of students of Teach for America (TFA) teachers and students of other novice, non-TFA teachers in order to analyze the effects of the Teach for America program. The report finds that students of TFA teachers outscored their schoolmates on math achievement tests and matched their performance in reading. The report found that the effects of TFA were similar for boys and girls across racial and ethnic groups, and in different grade levels. The study also found that TFA teachers reported more problems with student disruptions and physical conflicts, but the researchers state that this may reflect differences in teacher expectations and perceptions rather than actual differences in classroom management.

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/redirect_pubsdb.asp?strSite=PDFs/teach.pdf

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