April 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. Florida Unemployment Insurance System: Barriers to Program Adequacy for Women, Low-Wage, and Part-Time Workers, and Workers of Color
2. Can Expanding the Use of Computers Improve the Performance of Small Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses?
3. No Minor Matter: Developing a Coherent Policy on Paternity Establishment for Children Born to Underage Parents
4. Proposed Welfare Changes Put Working Moms in a Bind
5. Losing Ground in the Best of Times: Low Income Renters in the 1990s
6. Health Coverage and Access Challenges for Low-Income Women: Findings from the 2001 Kaiser Women’s Health Survey

1. Florida Unemployment Insurance System: Barriers to Program Adequacy for Women, Low-Wage, and Part-Time Workers, and Workers of Color
April 1, 2004
Vicky Lovell and Maurice Emsellem
Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the National Employment Law Project

This report finds that Florida’s unemployment insurance system does not currently provide enough support for many of the most disadvantaged temporarily unemployed workers. Florida has the third lowest UI recipiency rate in the country, with only 33 percent of its unemployed able to access unemployment insurance benefits. The report also analyzes the solvency of the Florida unemployment trust fund and concludes that the system is in a good position to expand and reform. The authors offer a set of recommendations for Florida, including adopting the “alternative base period” to allow more people to qualify for UI, lowering the earnings threshold for UI benefit receipt, and reducing administrative barriers for individuals with limited English proficiency.

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/C354.pdf

2. Can Expanding the Use of Computers Improve the Performance of Small Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses?
March 2004
Robert I. Lerman, Caroline Ratcliffe, Harold Salzman, Douglas Wissoker, and Jennifer Gaudet
The Urban Institute  

This report looks at the importance of computer usage for the performance of minority- and women-owned small businesses. The authors find that women and minorities are less likely to own their businesses than white males are, and the businesses that they do own are less productive and have lower profits than other businesses. While their findings do not show gaps in computer use by race, ethnicity, and gender in their sample, their findings do suggest that the type and frequency of computer usage varies substantially among small firms, and that extensive computer use is correlated with higher productivity and profitability of the firms.

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310971_Computers.pdf

3. No Minor Matter: Developing a Coherent Policy on Paternity Establishment for Children Born to Underage Parents
March 2004
Paula Roberts
Center for Law and Social Policy

This policy brief reviews the social science research and current state policies on paternity establishment for children born to minors. About 150,000 babies are born every year to parents where at least one (usually the mother) is a minor. In many states, minors are not legally allowed to marry, bring a law suit to establish paternity without parental permission, or sign a voluntary establishment of paternity without parental permission. Roberts recommends that states modify laws regarding marriage, paternity suits, and voluntary acknowledgements so that minors have more control, and paternity can be established for the child’s best interest while the minors are still protected and receive adult oversight.

http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1079040143.88/no_minor_brf.pdf

4. Proposed Welfare Changes Put Working Moms in a Bind
March 4, 2004
Heather Boushey
The Progress Report: Center for American Progress

In this article, Boushey argues that any successes of the 1996 welfare reforms are not attributable to punitive measures included in the law, but instead result from the healthy economic conditions of the late 1990s. Boushey states that with presently high unemployment and slow growth, expecting more welfare recipients to find work is unrealistic. She further asserts that for welfare recipients, simply finding a job isn’t enough; in fact, access to child care and health care are key to self sufficiency for former welfare recipients.

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=35852

5. Losing Ground in the Best of Times: Low-Income Renters in the 1990s
March 2004
Kathryn P. Nelson, Mark Treskon, and Danilo Pelletiere
National Low Income Housing Coalition

This report uses US Census data to analyze the housing situation of low-income renters from 1990 to 2000 and compare their situations across the states. The authors find that shortages of affordable housing worsened in the 1990s, even though housing and income conditions improved for many middle and high-income households. The report finds that 56 percent of extremely low-income renter households paid more than half of their income for rent, and 74 percent of these households experienced at least one housing problem (including inadequate plumbing, crowded households, or severe housing cost burdens) in 2000. The authors recommend that affordable housing be made a state and federal priority, because strong economic conditions alone are not sufficient to solve the shortage of low-income housing.

http://www.nlihc.org/research/losingground.pdf

6. Health Coverage and Access Challenges for Low-Income Women: Findings from the 2001 Kaiser Women’s Health Survey
March 2004
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Using the 2001 Kaiser Women’s Health Survey, the authors examine the health insurance coverage and access to care of low-income women. The study finds that low-income women are twice as likely as other women to report fair or poor health, yet one-third of low-income women have no health insurance coverage, compared to only 9 percent of higher-income women. Further, the report shows that low-income women are less likely to receive regular care, and they lack access to preventative services such as pap tests and clinical breast exams.

http://www.kff.org/womenshealth/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=33095

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