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From the June
2004 edition:
- Elsewhere
on the Web:
Caregiving grandparents; The Stepford Wives and Caitlin Flanagan; What
Barbara Ehrenreich learned from Abu Ghraib; Ronald Reagan’s bitter
legacy for women; Career Taxidermy.
New
study identifies long-term earnings gap
A new report from the Institute for
Women’s
Policy Research (www.iwpr.org)
finds that when men’s and women’s average earnings are compared
over a 15 year period, women in their prime earning years make only 38
cents for every dollar men earn.
The statistical method
for measuring the wage gap typically compares men’s and
women’s average earnings from one full year of full-time
employment; recent reports indicate that, on average, women
workers earn just 77 cents for every dollar earned by similar
male workers. The new study—authored by IWPR president
Heidi Hartmann and Stephen Rose—uses data from a multi-year
income survey (1983-1998) to analyze the earnings of male and
female workers age 26 to 54. Using the longitudinal data, the
authors found that over the long-term, women’s earnings
were 62 percent lower than men’s—more than two
times the 23 percent difference found in single-year studies.
According to Dr. Hartmann,
the standard method for calculating earnings inequality is
misleading because it “ignores the labor market experience
of over half of working women, who either work part-time or
take time out of the labor force for family care. The long-term
gender earnings gap measures not only women’s earning’s
losses in a given year, but also the cumulative effect on women’s
earnings of balancing family and work responsibilities.”
In addition to differences
in men’s and women’s patterns of workforce participation,
the study found that occupational segregation plays a significant
role in long-term earnings inequality. The authors developed
a three-tier system for analyzing the effects of occupational
segregation on women’s earnings, finding that each occupational
skill level (elite, good, and low-skilled)
was split into “a set of occupations that are predominantly
male and a set that are predominantly female.” In every
tier, female-dominated occupations paid less than male-dominated
occupations, even though all occupations grouped within a tier
required similar levels of skill and education.
The studies also attributes
a portion of the long-term earnings gap to the “self-reinforcing
gendered division of labor in the family”:
“First,
families need childcare and other activities to be performed.
Second, since the husband usually earns more than his wife,
less income is lost if the lower earner cuts back on her
labor force participation. Third, employers , fearing that
women will leave their jobs for family responsibilities,
are reluctant to train or promote them and may take advantage
of women’s limited opportunities by paying them less
than they would comparable men. Fourth, a set of jobs evolves
with little wage growth or promotion opportunities but part-time
hours and these jobs are mainly held by women. Fifth, an
ideology develops that proclaims this the natural order,
resulting in many more men in men’s jobs with higher
pay and long work hours and many more women working in women’s
jobs with lower pay and spending considerable time on family
care. Women without men particularly suffer from this ideology
since they often support themselves and their families on
jobs that pay women’s wages.”
Overall, the IWPR
report concludes that systemic, cultural and behavioral factors
contributing to the long-term gap in men’s and women’s
earnings are complicated and difficult to separate. “Discriminatory
treatment of women in the labor market (in hiring, working
conditions, promotion, or pay) or in labor market preparation
(access to training and education, for example) is certainly
important. Some of the difference is due to unequal social
norms at home and at work, and some is due to preferential
choices women and men make about work and home issues.” In
recommending policy solutions, the authors suggest stronger
enforcement of existing equal opportunity laws, increasing
women’s access to education and training opportunities
to prepare them for high-paying fields where women are underrepresented,
developing new legal remedies for the “comparable worth” problem,
making workplaces more family-friendly, expanding access to
paid parental leave, paid sick leave and affordable, high-quality
child care, part-time parity and “improving outcomes
for mothers and children after divorce.”
Sounds like a good
start.
Still
a Man’s Labor Market: The Long-Term Earnings Gap
By Stephen J. Rose and Heidi I. Hartmann for the Institute for Women’s
Policy Research, June 4, 2004
Press
release (in .pdf)
Full
report (in .pdf)
For
more depressing news about earnings inequality, read the
MMO summary of another new report in Doing
the math on earnings inequality
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Update
on women’s health care coverage
The Kaiser Family
Foundation (www.kff.org) published
a new fact sheet on Women’s
Health Insurance Coverage this
month. The research brief discloses that nearly
16 million women between
the ages of 18 and 64 are uninsured. In 2001, 46
percent of uninsured women reported they needed
but did not receive medical care in the previous
12-month period, and 40 percent did not fill a
prescription due to the cost. Overall, 18 percent
of non-elderly women in the U.S. are uninsured;
40 percent of poor women and 26 percent of single
parent women lack health care coverage. Other key
findings:
- Eight out of ten
uninsured women are in families with at least one person
in the workforce, either part-time or full-time
- Two-thirds of non-elderly
women in the U.S. have health insurance through employer-sponsored
coverage, although women are less likely to receive coverage
through their own employers than men (39 percent compared
to 53 percent, respectively). More than 1 out 4 of women
who receive employer-sponsored coverage as dependents and
are “more vulnerable to losing their health care coverage
should they become widowed or divorced.”
- In 2003, a typical
insurance premium for individuals cost $3,383 and $9,068
for families. Workers typically picked up 15 percent of the
premium costs for individuals and 27 percent for family coverage.
- Only 72 percent
of employer-sponsored health care plans cover contraceptives
and only 46 percent cover abortion.
Kaiser
Family Foundation:
Women’s
Health Policy Facts:
Women’s Health Insurance Coverage
More
news on women and health care from Women’s
eNews:
(www.womensenews.org)
U.S.
Women Lack Health Insurance, Access to Care
By Molly M. Ginty, March 21, 2004
Research by the Kaiser Family Foundation that shows that a significant
number of U.S. women under 64 lack health insurance and that others face
barriers to adequate care.
Medicaid
Coverage Disappears for Low Income Women
By Molly M. Ginty, May 31, 2004
A new report that shows states are restricting Medicaid coverage
for low-income women.
Candidates
Offer Very Different Health Care Plans
By Molly M. Ginty, May 18, 2004
As George W. Bush and John Kerry go into the election season, they
take very different approaches to healthcare policy.
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Global
study finds U.S. lags behind many nations in support for working families
A new report from
the Project
on Global Working Families at Harvard University finds
that while the United States is among the world’s leaders
in ensuring the right to work regardless of gender, race, age and
disability, it lags far behind most nations in guaranteeing working
conditions that allow workers to care for children and other family
members. The U.S. is one of the only countries the fails to provide
paid leave to women after childbirth, ensure workers paid leave
to recover from short- and long-term illnesses, and guarantee working
women’s right to breastfeed.
The
Work, Family, and Equity Index: Where Does the United
States Stand Globally? is the first
endeavor that systematically defines and measures successful
public policies for working families globally. It finds
that the safety net for working families in the U.S.
is weak, with middle-income as well as low-income workers
here facing many more serious obstacles to caring for
dependents than working adults in many other nations.
The Work,
Family, and Equity Index examined policies
in 168 countries and found that:
- 139 countries provide
paid leave for short- and long-term illnesses, with 117 providing
a week or more annually. The U.S. provides only unpaid leave
for serious illnesses through the Family & Medical Leave
Act, and fails to guarantee a single day of paid sick leave.
- 163 countries offer
guaranteed paid leave to women in connection with childbirth.
The U.S. does not; no federal law guarantees a single day
of paid maternity or maternity related disability leave.
- 45 countries ensure
that fathers either receive paid paternity leave or have
a right to paid parental leave. The U.S. guarantees neither.
- At least 76 countries
protect working women’s right to breastfeed. The U.S.
does not, despite the fact that breastfeeding significantly
reduces infant mortality and may have other important health
benefits for children.
- At least 96 countries
mandate paid annual leave. The U.S. does not.
- 40 countries have
government-mandated evening and night wage premiums. The
United States does not.
- At least 98 countries
require employers to give workers a 24-hour period of rest
each week. The U.S. does not.
- The U.S. is tied
for 92nd out of 154 countries in the area of pre-primary
student-to-staff ratios.
The study found that
the U.S. does as well as many nations in guaranteeing the right
to attend schools and to work. The U.S. has done more to provide
support to the elderly than the young.
The
Work, Family, and Equity Index:
Where Does the United States Stand Globally?
Project on Global Working Families at Harvard University, 2004
Full
report (in .pdf)
June 16,
2004 Press
Release from
the National Partnership for
Women and Families (www.nationalpartnership.org)
on the findings of The
Work, Family, and Equity Index
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Get
Well Soon:
National Partnership reports millions of
American workers lack paid days off to care for sick kids
The National Partnership
for Women and Families (www.nationalpartnership.org) has a new report on the lack of sick leave benefits
in the United States. Get
Well Soon: Americans Can’t Afford to be Sick offers
a comprehensive assessment of state and federal
measures governing sick leave. According to the
National Partnership, the findings of the report “paint
a picture of need and neglect.” Although
all states provide sick leave to their own employees
and most state workers are allowed to use sick
leave to care for family members, no state guarantees
private sector workers access to paid leave (although
California now provides some private sector workers
with paid family and disability leave). Only eight
states (California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Minnesota and Washington)
received above average grades for their paid leave
policies; 22 states were assigned a failing or
near-failing grade. Meanwhile:
- Almost half of
all private sector workers (47 percent) and over three-quarters
of low-income workers have no paid sick days.
- 86 million American
workers (both public and private) do not have paid sick days
to care for sick kids.
- 49 percent of all
working mothers report they do not get paid when they stay
home to care for a sick child.
- 34 percent of low-income
parents reported that caring for their sick child caused
problems at work—12 percent said it led to a loss of
pay and 13 percent said it led to a loss of promotions or
jobs.
The National Partnership
also announced that Senator Edward
M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Rosa
DeLauro (D-CT) recently introduced The
Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee
seven paid sick days per year for full time employees and a
pro-rata number for part-time employees.
Get
Well Soon: Americans Can’t Afford to be Sick
The National Partnership for Women and Families, June 2004
Press
release
Full
report (in .pdf)
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Elsewhere
on the Web:
From
Tom Paine.com (www.tompaine.com)
Granny’s
Manifesto
By Mary Bissel, June 4, 2004
“More than 4.5 million American children live with their grandparents—most
often because parents are unable to provide care. These grandparent-headed homes
keep kids out of foster care and save taxpayers billions of dollars each year.
But holes in funding and social services threaten this most important safety
net. Attorney Mary Bissell spells out the steps required to keep the system in
balance.”
From
AlterNet (www.alternet.org)
Stepford
Wife: You've Come the Wrong Way, Baby
By Lakshmi Chaudhry, June 18, 2004
Wha's the connection between the bland makeover of a 70s horror flick
about men who turn their wives into sexy, submissive robots and Caitlin
Flanagan? AlterNet editor Lakshmi Chaudhry thinks the cookie-baking zombies
in The Stepford Wives v2 reflect the desire of the new anti-feminists
to return to a happier time when wives knew their place and were content
within it.
What
Abu Ghraib Taught Me
By Barbara Ehrenreich, May 20, 2004.
“A certain kind of feminism, or perhaps I should say a certain kind of
feminist naivete, died in Abu Ghraib. It was a feminism that saw men as the perpetual
perpetrators, women as the perpetual victims and male sexual violence against
women as the root of all injustice.”
From
Women’s eNews (www.womensenews.org)
Time
to Bury Reagan’s Legacy for Women
By Martha Burk, June 11, 2004
In a special commentary, Martha Burk, head of
an organization representing 6 million women,
argues President Reagan injected into Republican
politics
a strain of virulent anti-woman policies that continues to infect its
ideology.
From Fast Company Magazine (www.fastcompany.com)
Career
Taxidermy
by Shoshana Zuboff, June 2004
“Career taxidermy makes dead models of work and family look alive. …A
century ago, managerial capitalism was invented along with the template for the
modern career. It reflected the biology and sociology of employees then. Biologically,
they were men. Sociologically, they had wives caring for home and family. Careers
followed the inverted “U” curve, starting out in early adulthood
and progressing to retirement, and career advancement was an exercise in moral
development. The men who suppressed their individuality to conform to the organization
got promoted …This template has been stuffed and mounted.”
— MMO,
June 2004
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Previously
in MMO Noteworthy ... |
