From the abstract:
Gender gaps are pervasive in all walks of economic life and imply large losses in terms of foregone productivity and living standards to the individuals concerned and the economy. This new OECD report focuses on how best to close these gender gaps under four broad headings: 1) Gender equality, social norms and public policies; and gender equality in 2) education; 3) employment and 4) entrepreneurship.
Key policy messages are as follows:
- Greater gender equality in educational attainment has a strong positive effect on economic growth;
- Stereotyping needs to be addressed in educational choices at school from a young age. For example, adapt teaching strategies and material to increase engagement of boys in reading and of girls in maths and science; encourage more girls to follow science, engineering and maths courses in higher education and seek employment in these fields;
- Good and affordable childcare is a key factor for better gender equality in employment. But change also has to happen at home as the bulk of housework and caring is left to women in many countries. Policy can support such change, for example, through parental leave policies that explicitly include fathers.
- Support policies for women-owned enterprises need to target all existing firms, not just start-ups and small enterprises. Equal access to finance for male and female entrepreneurs needs to be assured.
See also:
- Press release
- Executive summary
http://www.census.gov/people/eeotabulation/data/EEO-Tables-2006-2010.xls
From the press release:
The U.S. Census Bureau released today the 2006-2010 American Community Survey Equal Employment Opportunity Tabulation. The tabulation consists of 107 tables about the labor force crossed by sex, race and ethnicity. The U.S. Census Bureau has produced this tabulation after every decennial census since the 1970s. However, for the first time, this tabulation uses American Community Survey (2006-2010) estimates.
The tabulation -- available on American FactFinder (the Census Bureau's online statistics search tool) -- is produced for the federal agencies responsible for monitoring employment practices and enforcing civil rights laws for the workforce. Employers use these estimates to measure their compliance with laws and regulations. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Employment Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the Department of Labor, and the Office of Personnel Management sponsored this tabulation.
The latest tabulation provides information about the labor force across several variables, including detailed occupations, industry, earnings, education, and age by residence, worksite and commuting flows for the nation, states, metro areas, counties and places. The estimates include new tables on unemployment status and citizenship status. The 488 detailed occupations in the tabulation are based on the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification.
The tabulation shows, for example, that women's representation increased in many health care occupations over the past decade. Women were 50 percent of veterinarians in 2006-2010, increasing from 40 percent in 2000. About 32 percent of physicians and surgeons were women, increasing from 27 percent in 2000. Dentists also showed an increase in female representation from 18 percent to 23 percent.
However, more women were employed as secretaries and administrative assistants than in any other occupation (3.8 million), followed by cashiers (2.8 million) and elementary and middle school teachers (2.7 million). Since the first Equal Employment Opportunity Tabulation based on the 1970 Census, secretary has been the largest occupation category among women.
See also:
Complete list of tables
Key Facts:
- Workplace homicides from assaults and other violent acts are the second leading cause of death for women while working.
- So far in the 21st century, an average of 552 work-related homicides occurred annually in the U. S.
- the fastest growing category of homicides in the workplace are committed by customers.
- Suicides in the workplace reached an all-time high of 270 incidents in 2010 and went down to 242 in 2011.
- As of 2011, the total Deaths from Violence and Assaults by Persons (combines work-related homicides and workplace suicides) equals 7,156 with an average annual death toll of 795.
This report presents earnings data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a national monthly survey of approximately 60,000 households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Information on earnings is collected from one-fourth of the CPS sample each month. Readers should note that the comparisons of earnings in this report are on a broad level and do not control for many factors that can be significant in explaining earnings differences. For a detailed description of the source of the data and an explanation of the concepts and definitions used, see the accompanying technical note.
]]>From the abstract:
Has any gender-based pay adjustment made by the states in the past 25 years had an effect on women's relative pay? The authors utilize a panel set of EEO-4 data on public sector employment by state to investigate the pay of women relative to men for 1999-2005. The authors find that there is a significant difference in the relative pay of women employed in states that have had a major pay adjustment in female-dominated job classes upward at any time in the past quarter century. Utilizing GLS multiple regression to predict the relative pay gaps by state, the authors find that women are better paid relative to men in the public sector than the private. The authors also find that women are better paid relative to men in Elazar's traditionalistic states as opposed to individualistic and moralistic ones, which are usually credited with having more progressive public policies.
From the abstract:
Do certain types of administrative processes better inhibit race and gender prejudices that may surface in the public workplace? We compare the effects of three distinct administrative settings on race, gender, and other biases in the workload assignments of state supreme court justices--important public policy making settings that have been understudied in public administration. In particular, we model the extent to which majority opinion-writing assignment processes exhibit prejudice in states that use randomized assignments, rotated assignments, or fully discretionary assignments, respectively. Our findings confirm that administrative process matters. We use theories of status characteristics and administrative oversight to explain the relationship between administrative context and workload assignment patterns. Based on data from all 50 states, we discover that prejudice exists but that certain administrative processes serve better than others to suppress race and gender biases.
Our study explores whether certain types of administrative processes in the public workplace can inhibit managers from acting on personal race- and gender-based prejudices. Public administrators routinely face competing value priorities, and these can include personal biases and self-interests. Scholars and practitioners therefore have an abiding interest in public servants' discretion and factors that influence the exercise thereof.
Research on street-level bureaucrats suggests that public administrators exercise discretion in a variety of ways.1 Public servants make choices that are other-serving, often assuming the role of citizen advocates, even if it means acting beyond the rules. Extending representative bureaucracy theory, researchers also demonstrate that public servants can use discretion to actively improve services and outcomes for citizens ...
]]>... Historically, mothers have been reluctant to make waves, and women's lack of progress toward the C-suite has been shrugged off as a by-product of personal decisions--a shift in priorities, the fire in the belly extinguished or tamped down. Women fall behind by choice, so the thinking goes. Recent research, however, shows that even when women maintain their professional ambitions, motherhood often triggers strong and blatant workplace bias.
Companies have begun paying a steep price for that bias. Working mothers have become more likely to sue their employers for discrimination, and juries increasingly inclined to award them large settlements if gender bias appears to have played a role in derailing their careers. A new field of employment law, family responsibilities discrimination, is taking off. ....
]]>From the summary:
There's no question that 2011 was a truly seismic year for reproductive rights in the U.S. More than 60 laws damaging women's access to reproductive health care passed in 24 states, an unprecedented assault on women's health care. And this year, the powerful aftershock has further strained women's reproductive autonomy. As of July, 15 states had already passed around 40 harmful laws--marking another year of unbridled animosity toward women.
The similarities between 2011 and 2012 don't stop there. The Center for Reproductive Rights once again has responded to these attacks with force, taking aim at several laws that are brazenly unconstitutional and threaten to have a severe impact on women and their health.
The Center has documented the scope of this latest chapter of anti-choice aggression in the 2012 Mid-Year Legislative Wrap-Up. The report includes details on the most significant restrictions passed as well as the Center's ongoing response to several measures.
]]>From the abstract:
Power is at the core of feminist theories of sexual harassment, although it has rarely been measured directly in terms of workplace authority. Popular characterizations portray male supervisors harassing female subordinates, but power-threat theories suggest that women in authority may be more frequent targets. This article analyzes longitudinal survey data and qualitative interviews from the Youth Development Study to test this idea and to delineate why and how supervisory authority, gender nonconformity, and workplace sex ratios affect harassment. Relative to nonsupervisors, female supervisors are more likely to report harassing behaviors and to define their experiences as sexual harassment. Sexual harassment can serve as an equalizer against women in power, motivated more by control and domination than by sexual desire. Interviews point to social isolation as a mechanism linking harassment to gender nonconformity and women's authority, particularly in male-dominated work settings.
From the abstract:
Trend analyses indicate that the union movement is becoming less white and more female. In this research, the author examines the transitions of persons in and out of the union movement in order to understand whether diversification is due to behavior or structure. Results indicate that African Americans transitioned comparatively faster than others from nonunion to union employment, even after controlling for industry and occupation. Latina/os also display evidence of an above-average preference for union representation, with transitions into unions suppressed by immigrant status. For women, the growing demographic numbers appear to be due to the relative stability of the industry or occupation in which persons are employed. In general, the findings for part-time workers, education, and annual trends point to an increasingly challenging environment for unionizing over the decade.
It's time to stop fooling ourselves, says a woman who left a position of power: the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here's what has to change.
Responses:
Shut Up, Sheryl Sandberg: Millennial Women Reject Role Models, Mentors
Source: J. Maureen Henderson, Forbes Woman, July 2, 2012
Having It All and a Hot Dog Stand
Source: Kyra Cavanaugh, Huffington Post, June 29, 2012
How Women (and Men) Can Have It All--Now
Source: Elizabeth Gregory, June 27, 2012
Why Can't All Parents Have More?
Source: KJ Dell'Antonia, New York Times, July 5, 2012
Anne-Marie Slaughter: Why One Woman Reached The Top, Then Left
Source: Lisa Belkin, Huffington Post, June 21, 2012
Anne-Marie Slaughter Answers Her Critics
Source: Garance Franke-Ruta, The Atlantic, July 1, 2012
The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is far too low. A full-time worker earning the minimum wage makes just $15,080 per year, below the poverty line for a family of three. From 1968 to 2010, incomes for the top 1 percent of earners increased by 110 percent, but the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has fallen by 31 percent. If the federal minimum wage had kept pace with the rising cost of living over the past 40 years, it would be $10.52 per hour today.
Women are disproportionately harmed by a low minimum wage because women--and especially women of color--are much more likely hold low-wage jobs than men. The typical woman earns 77 cents for every dollar the typical man does, and the fact that women are more likely to be minimum-wage earners than men contributes to that disparity. This gap is especially distressing now that two-thirds of mothers are either the breadwinners or co-breadwinners for their families.
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