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http://fortune.com/2015/06/11/how-women-can-restore-americas-middle-class/
USA – HOW WOMEN CAN RESTORE AMERICA’S MIDDLE CLASS
Peter D. Kiernan – June
11. 2015
As women dominate U.S.
college campuses and more start running their own businesses, they may very
well be the solution for rebuilding U.S. prosperity.
Before World
War II raged, 12 million women comprised a quarter of America’s workforce.
Conflagration drew another 6 million into the war effort. Many became Rosie the
Riveter at factories, ably replacing men sent abroad. Women didn’t just fire
rivet guns. They ran farms and 3 million worked for the Red Cross. Another 200,000
served in uniform.
When peace
reigned, the old order returned, sending millions of women back home or to
lower paying jobs. Many wanted careers, but middle class families seemed
determined to carry on with one breadwinner. During the 1950s, one woman in
three entered the workforce.
The 1960s
changed things. Within months of the birth control pill’s approval, President
Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women exposed wage gaps that women had
endured. Kennedy tackled education, Social Security benefits, and hiring
practices; uncovering ample evidence of discrimination.
Within a
year, the Equal Rights Act was amended to prohibit gender-based wage
discrimination. As Kennedy signed the 1963 Equal Pay Act, women earned 58 cents
for every dollar a man did.
President
Johnson’s 1964 Civil Rights Act included language preventing discrimination
against women. Courts tackled reproductive rights yet women continued to face
unfair practices as a matter of routine.
But history
has a funny way of breaking what will not bend.
In the
1960s, 70% of families had a stay at home parent. The intervening fifty years
reversed that and more. Women in the United States have positioned themselves
to run things. Forget your glass ceilings, this is the new Feminomics.
By spring
2010, women comprised 51% of America’s professional workers (up from 26% in
1980). And they are just getting warmed up.
Today 70% of
American women with children earn a paycheck. Millions more American women are
attending college than men. At 1950 graduations 120,796 women earned 24% of the
college degrees. By 2009, women earned 60% of the sheepskins and 1,849,200
degrees.
Fifty years
ago, 40% of women got bachelor’s degrees in education and 2% in business. Now
it is 12 % education and 50% business.
In graduate
schools, women earn 60% of the master’s degrees and half the PhDs. Medical
schools report that women hold 51% of the seats and at law schools women
represent just under half of their enrollment. More than 100,000 women take
GMAT tests to get MBA’s. In 1997, women were 39% of MBA students. By 2007 the
number exceeded 44%.
These
leadership degrees mean that women have gone from looking for jobs to looking
for careers. Now 40% of all households in this country have a woman as the sole
or lead breadwinner—heading towards majority.
Most
accountants are women, a third of physicians and 45% of the associates in law
firms. Already women hold most banking and insurance jobs.
Yet women
comprise only 20% of the math, science, and technology majors, and just 14% of
Fortune 500 officer positions (3% of CEO slots). Only 16% of Fortune 500 board
seats are occupied by women.
The time has
come for an economic empowerment zone for women.
Lack of
leadership on job creation has brought labor force participation rates to new
lows for both sexes. Women’s participation rate is steady at 55%, but
unemployment among young black women exceeds 20%. And 15% of young Latina women
are unemployed.
Young white
women are doing as poorly as young white males—11% are unemployed.
Still, women
control 85% of purchasing decisions — $7 trillion in spending. And they are
crucial to home economics. In the 1970s women contributed 2 to 6% of the family
income. Today, it’s 42%. Often women determine who maintains their middle-class
status. In 2005, over 77% of top quintile families had two or more wage
earners.
That’s why
closing the wage gap is a vital ingredient of middle-class revival.
What bean
counters who decry the economic benefit of higher education ignore is that
college is the best cure for unemployment. Risk is left out of their equations—
not so for American women. Our economy is dependent on building a wider skill
base. Workers who educate and retrain themselves will benefit in this war for
talent. Women are leading the way.
Some studies
show women as more willing to train for new careers after layoffs. But those
studies are too localized to be determinative.
With
millions more women than men attending college, greater flexibility for career
change and renewal training, and their leadership in business creation women
have become the vital flex factor in the labor force.
It makes no
economic sense to pay them less. Pay parity will boost our economy.
We are way
past Mommy-care. Corporations must coordinate work with child
care–telecommuting, flexible hours, child-related leaves of absence must be
offered as a matter of course. If not women will go out on their own.
In the past
decade, women have started more privately owned companies than men at a rate of
two to one. (Yet 75% of venture capital goes to men.) Women-owned enterprises
employ nearly 8 million people and have combined revenues of $1.4 trillion
according to a study commissioned by American Express Open. Every minute of the
day a woman starts a new business in this country.
But trouble
lurks for poor working mothers. Public and private-sector initiatives don’t
touch them. They can’t get benefits from female-friendly companies. Child care
is too expensive. Families cope with school-days that bear no relationship to
their workday. And 72% of black children are born to single moms.
Economic necessity and doing the right thing will converge as a matter of economic empowerment. Paying women what they deserve is the best boost for our middle class and the key to restoring our economy.