Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress, and author of “A Women’s Nation Changes Everything,” says that change not only means most women work but that another key job – raising a family – is often left incomplete.
And when women, or men, try to take time out from employment to raise families, they’re penalized – women more so than men.
Boushey spoke at a time when women make up between 47% and 49% of the labor force, depending on which federal data are used, and when women’s wages are still only 78 cents for every dollar a man with the same qualifications and same or equivalent positions earns.
“And for the single-parent family, usually headed by a woman, that gap has been widening for some time,” Boushey warned.
The income gap narrowed a little in 2007-08 as men lost jobs in droves during the Great Recession, while far fewer women were put out of work. But it may widen again, she warned, as state and local governments cut budgets. Those cuts will disproportionately hit social services, which aid women and families and which disproportionately employ female state and local government workers and teachers.
That’s one adjustment that governments aren’t making, Boushey added – on top of many more that neither government nor society ever made. They included:
* A prejudice – and financial penalties in terms of lower wages and smaller pensions – against parents who take time off from jobs to raise children. The penalty is greater for women due to cultural attitudes of bosses, Boushey said. She admitted there is no good way, outside of law, to change that.
* Women on the job have few protections and are culturally trained not to speak up and protect themselves against discrimination on the job, or ask for a raise or promotions. Their best protection, she said, is being union members. But the private workforce is only 7.2% unionized. The next best protection is laws for paid leave and workplace flexibility, she added. Several states have paid leave laws.
“Beyond government, it takes a movement,” to gain rights for women in the workplace, Boushey said. “There’s no one fix. Paid sick days might help one group and flextime might help another.”
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
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Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress, and author of “A Women’s Nation Changes Everything,” says that change not only means most women work but that another key job – raising a family – is often left incomplete.
And when women, or men, try to take time out from employment to raise families, they’re penalized – women more so than men.
Boushey spoke at a time when women make up between 47% and 49% of the labor force, depending on which federal data are used, and when women’s wages are still only 78 cents for every dollar a man with the same qualifications and same or equivalent positions earns.
“And for the single-parent family, usually headed by a woman, that gap has been widening for some time,” Boushey warned.
The income gap narrowed a little in 2007-08 as men lost jobs in droves during the Great Recession, while far fewer women were put out of work. But it may widen again, she warned, as state and local governments cut budgets. Those cuts will disproportionately hit social services, which aid women and families and which disproportionately employ female state and local government workers and teachers.
That’s one adjustment that governments aren’t making, Boushey added – on top of many more that neither government nor society ever made. They included:
* A prejudice – and financial penalties in terms of lower wages and smaller pensions – against parents who take time off from jobs to raise children. The penalty is greater for women due to cultural attitudes of bosses, Boushey said. She admitted there is no good way, outside of law, to change that.
* Women on the job have few protections and are culturally trained not to speak up and protect themselves against discrimination on the job, or ask for a raise or promotions. Their best protection, she said, is being union members. But the private workforce is only 7.2% unionized. The next best protection is laws for paid leave and workplace flexibility, she added. Several states have paid leave laws.
“Beyond government, it takes a movement,” to gain rights for women in the workplace, Boushey said. “There’s no one fix. Paid sick days might help one group and flextime might help another.”
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.