Unknown Speaker 00:01 Let me tell you what we're trying to do though with the voice that we have. With working women in this country, we're doing our best to continue on focus of advising them on their work rights in the workplace. We're proposing policies and legislation that benefit working women. We're advocating with policymakers on the behalf of these working women. We still provide our research and our publications, and an analysis of women in work. And we report our findings to the secretary regularly. And of course, we will continue to do that with the public and with the President. The bottom line then is the women's Bureau is working for America's working women to make sure that their voices are indeed hurt. Over the past year since Carolyn has been on board she and I have been getting out there in the hinterlands in the real part of the world. And we've been meeting with women that are working in all kinds of arenas, as I've mentioned earlier, including flight attendants, fare factory workers, casino workers, TV writers, garment workers, secretaries, and they have some stories to tell. And I'll share a couple of them with you today. If you heard the one about the airline reservation, that's who was working very proudly for 20 years with a good work record. And during one of the times we were visiting, she showed Karen, a note that she had gotten from her supervisor. And around a two minute span of time was a no for him, Sandy's two minutes on accounted for, let's see what we can do to correct this. Now, airline reservation is our electronically monitored. So the whole issue of privacy and electronic monitoring is an issue of working women. And we're looking at that carefully. But her 20 year record of service was important. But that two minute absence was only unexplained. And so that was something to be looked at, according to her supervisor. And when we were out there in Las Vegas, we met with casino workers. And we were told the story of one woman who needed to work in flats because her height, her high heels, which were spikes that was part of the uniform had caused the foot injury. She asked the boss if she could work in flats for a little while left all her job was to serve people. And you could serve people in flats just as well as you can in high heels. And her boss said, No, you cannot work in flats, your job is to work in the uniform. And these spiky heels that are required are as much of your image as the Disney Land requirement to wear the goofy costumes of Mickey Mouse costume. That image there is just like your image here. It all goes together. We saw that was kind of not quite an analogy we want to hear but this is what they looked at in the work requirements. Or in other cases out there with a casino workers were their issue one uniform one size. And even though they're not told that you can't work as a pregnant woman, the size is not altered if your body says office. So it's not a direct affront what it is, it's not saying that you can't get pregnant, but after a certain number of months, you can't wear the uniform, what do you do, you can't come to work. Or lastly, when we met with Mississippi poultry workers, we found that until they got a union contract, many of them were limited to five bathroom breaks a week. So this is the kind of thing that we're seeing as we're going around the country. And all of it's not in. In the blue collar arena, we see some of these abuses in the white collar arena. One where we had an office worker talk to us when she told us about the expensive carpet that had just been installed and the supervisors want to make sure that the carpet wasn't ruined. So they voted the chairs down to make sure that there was no scuffing of the carpets. But what they didn't realize is that the secretaries could sit on the in the chair but they couldn't reach their computer terminals anymore. So there's a little justice in the world sometimes. Unknown Speaker 04:12 A few weeks ago, we hosted right here in New York City, a worker garment workers conference, and we were appalled to really affirm that the sweatshop has returned from the 20s. We had enforcement officers there and we talked at length with garment workers from all over the country. We talked about the gross violations of the wage and hour laws and its child safety laws. And we found women who were paid 96 cents an hour just because they were considered to be old and slow. We found all the same kinds of working conditions we found early in the 20s when the bureau was started that is doors locked so that people couldn't exit or children working in the area around plastic Flim Flam over Walk bags are children just working at the feet of their mothers. So we thought we could surely we couldn't be in a 20th century. But but we are. And going out there in the hinterlands and seeing what is happening is helping us to bring back policy recommendations to the people that can in fact change them. We hosted another meeting recently called labor law reform is a woman's issue. And we want you to know that it is we have experts come in and tell us the kinds of things that are going on, that need to be impacted. And we made recommendations to the Dunlop commission. So that we, we want them to be aware that as they're looking at how to change labor laws, that they take into consideration that the vast majority of the jobs that women are entering, which we're looking at and calling contingent work, where we see no benefits or fewer benefits, or relaxing of the of the security that used to be assumed to be a part of jobs. And we want people to realize that when they look at like the labor law reform, that is looked at from a perspective of where most of the new workers are working. And most of those new workers are working in jobs, that don't offer security and allow those a women. So everywhere we go all of the forms and the meetings, to no surprise, we find that as was mentioned earlier, flexibility is something that women want, and they need to balance their work and family lives. We do want flexibility as women's Bureau, we want it we know that women need it. But we don't feel that it should be used to explore women and rob them of the benefits, including health care. And that is what is being said is they're saying that oh to you, you need flexibility. So you probably need a part time job. But what you're getting is a part time job was nothing else. And so that's a violation of the spirit of what we're talking about. Employees can assume that a person will be loyal, when in the past loyalty came with security. And it came with benefits and good pay, and a sense that the employee cared about you. And so we're advising that the people that look at these things, look at flexibility. Yes, but not exploitation as part of that part and package. I was reminded by some of the remarks that was made earlier about the need for flexibility. And as I mentioned, I am a baby boomer in the 70s, I will have found myself as a single child of a parent of a child who was going to elementary school. And childcare was a personal problem, then I don't know how many of you can remember that as I look around you really young and ordinance. But even in the 70s, it was not raised to be an economic issue for employers. And I was as a black woman, the only one in management, the only single parent in management. Other men that were working as my co workers had their wives at home. And so they didn't realize that childcare was an issue because it wasn't for them. And so I needed a flexi time, which was not known in the 70s. That's a term and certainly as a manager, you couldn't ask for Flexi time, certainly, because you were a manager and you were supposed to be serious about your work. And even if I had known the term, Flexi time I couldn't have asked for for childcare, because childcare was a personal problem, see how it all goes again? So what did I do? What did I have to face as a single parent with not an extended family and the city in which I live, I had to send my daughter to live with her paternal grandparents for the first two years of school, because I couldn't ask for an hour later to come into work, so that I could take her to school on the way to work. And that was my only solution. So you talk about what happens when you can't find these good jobs you leave and that's what I did. As soon as I got an opportunity. I joined the women's Bureau and I was able to bring my daughter back home and she's she's there now with me still in my pocket. But But Lee she's home Unknown Speaker 09:03 and she's grown and she says Feldman. Hopefully she'll come out with gainfully employed gainfully employed soon. But those are the kinds of things that I brought to the women's Bureau personal experience when I came to the bureau in the 70s. And I can say to you clearly the small agency that we are, we have a commitment to three key issues. At this time. We're looking at dependent care from the perspective of what the government can do. We're looking at contingent work because it is a growing phenomenon that is going to hit women, more adversity, we feel that men and we are looking at enforcement, how to enforce the laws that are already on the books, and how to make sure that women know about those laws. So we have embarked upon a major campaign that's called don't work in the dark. And we have put brochures in English and Spanish around this country that describe for women, the rights that they are entitled to the right It's related to sexual harassment, the Family Medical Leave Act and pregnancy discrimination. We call it don't work in the dark, because we know a lot of women do not know what their working rights are. And the fourth piece that I didn't mention just now that we're focusing on is pay equity. And then the call that comfortable workplace that we believe is the next arena that women really need to concentrate on. Yes, we have had equal pay for equal rights on the books since 1963. But equal pay for work of comparable value, I guess can be summarized in one of the studies that I was going to quote from that says that childcare workers earn less than I think it's janitors. Yeah, in a number of jobs that men have childcare workers certainly earn less than one of the people that we talked to us, we will also out there in the country was another woman who had been laid off from auto work where she had earn $14 an hour. And what did she do, she addressed the need that she saw in the community, she became a childcare provider. But she worked from six to six officially, you know, she had to be there to for the parents to bring the children. And she was there to the parents came to get the children. She had a license to take care of 12 kids. And she would have an aunt helper, because that's a bit much for one person. And so we looked at her salary, and what did it look like at the end of a period of time, she was working for darling according our when you look at all that she was doing for them in have kids and the kind of money that she was bringing. So that's the reason that dependent care is very much on the books are the women's Bureau to deal with. And we're trying to do a number of things. As I mentioned, from the perspective of policy advisors, and advising women of what they should be doing. In the greater federal government, there is a piece a couple of pieces of legislation that we want to call your attention to, to please look at the childcare legislation of the Headstart Reauthorization Act is coming up this year for reauthorization, and welfare reform, and I don't need to go into that because limb has definitely put that on your minds. For fiscal 95, which starts in October, Child Care Development Block Grant comes up for reauthorization. So we want you to look at those pieces of legislation. And please see if it's going in the wrong direction. We have small voice inside the government, we need your big force outside the government. There's a couple of pieces of legislation on books now that a lot of poor women don't know about. That's one of them is the Earned Income Tax Credit, Unknown Speaker 12:59 is designed to provide income, even if you don't, if you haven't paid too much in for your income tax, you can still get the credit back. And a lot of poor women just don't even know about it. And so again, to just let women know that they can take advantage of the earned income tax credits, particularly for low income women, when we were asked to talk about what the government is doing, feel compelled to tell you about that when it leaves. And of course, many of you that do income tax know that you can deduct the credit for the amount of money that you pay for childcare. It's called the childcare dependent Tax Credit Act. It bothered me a lot because at the time, I don't know what it's like now, but the maximum age you could deduct childcare expenses from was 15. Now as a single parent who traveled during my job during my my daughter's upbringing, I was fortunate to have someone come in, you know, after bought a home, I was fortunate to have someone come in every time I travel, and so I could deduct the childcare cost. But when she turned 15, I couldn't deduct it anymore. And I couldn't, I couldn't understand why anyone would think I would leave a 15 year old at home by myself, which I would have had to do. I didn't do it, but I couldn't claim the credit anymore. So if you're looking for more than to look at, in your spare time, look at that law and see if we can be more realistic talk about being realistic. The people that are making these laws don't have to live with them. And as I mentioned, we can work on the inside to the extent that we can but we need to bring the awareness to your attention so you can work at it from the outside. When we look at the whole area of non traditional hours. The Women's Bureau has funded a project that will result in a publication called childcare for non traditional workouts and that will address the issue of I was in services for children after the six o'clock Hour. That's why we have a problem with the word daycare. It's not enough, if Pete every woman or man does not work from nine to five. And so we're putting this brochure out to advise you of the status of non traditional work hours. And that is part of the service that we provide as a women's bureau. We develop the statistical data, we put it out in our publications to make you aware of what's really happening. We have also funded a community project in a semi rural area of the country to assess what resources are available in that community to take care of children after six. And we're going to hold a public forum to bring in the employer community to help them address it. Once we uncover what the status of the situation is there. How many of you participate in worthy wage day activities? Right worthy wage day activities was Thursday of this year. It's the it's the movement to highlight the meager earnings of the people that take care of our most valuable assets. And that is our children. Were the wage Day is a project of a childcare helps childcare project out of I believe they out of California. And they highlight once a year, the salaries that these people get to take care of children. When Karen was that wish she was a participant in the word wage, they rally out west. But I too must admit I didn't hear a lot on the east coast, where the wage Day is celebrated every year, or is highlighted every year in April, which is an appropriate month because April is also the month of the young child. And it's also the month that Ms. Foundation is celebrating with us and other government agencies take our daughters to work day. We've heard about that one, right. That's on the 28th. And we're very pleased to say that we have co sponsor that. So we want you to look at those kinds of things, because it's the public outcry and the public getting together that raises these issues that makes legislate to sit up and take notice. Unknown Speaker 17:15 Okay, let me wrap up a bit by telling you a little bit more about the next thing that we're doing to assess where women are, we have just unveiled a major campaign called Working Women count. And those of you who were at our probation meeting yesterday got an opportunity to complete one of these questionnaires that we have distributed in New York City two weeks ahead of time. We're going to unveil this major campaign on May 5 in DC. And then Karen I in an entourage of people will conduct a tour throughout the country to highlight the work in women's count questionnaire. What it is, is a first ever for the women's Bureau, where we are asking 17 questions of the working women in this country are very brief survey that asked you what your work, what your work experiences and what your concerns are. And it even has a sentence or two on there for you a blank or to view to tell the President Clinton what your experiences have been. We have gotten, I think about 100 partners so far, we're trying to get 1000 partners. These are women's organizations, the media, businesses, trade associations, unions, that can distribute the questionnaire to their women, workers or their women constituents. In turn, they can even add a question or two for their benefit. And so that's why we call them partners. We are asking our partners to then take up the questionnaires tell them and send the whole bulk of them to the Washington office. We're going to conduct this campaign from May 5 through the end of the summer. In October, we're going to have a major state of the of the working woman's report. It will be a first ever from the Women's bureau. To date, our 100 partners have pledged to distribute this questionnaire to over 12 million working women. We are extremely excited about that. Our original goal was 100,000 women, what the response has been so overwhelming that we believe that by the time we finish talking it up to people, we will have more than 15 million questionnaires returned to the women's bureau. This is unheard of. When we talk to the policymakers about what you have told us when you want we cannot imagine that we can continue to be ignored. So again, for the first time ever the women's Bureau is really doing what we feel government should do. That is not only talked to You forgive you a vehicle to talk back to us. And so that's why in conclusion, I can just ask you to remember to let us do this good girl bad girl inside outside, we have expertise that you need, you have interests that we need to know about. And to the extent you could continue to work with us to make it happen for working women will be to the extent that we can move successfully into the next century thank you I want to Painting? Unknown Speaker 21:35 Have one question of fact, and one question of opinion. I'm the first one is what's the demography of the white women and children and families on welfare? That's for anyone to answer. And the second question, since I'm a unionized worker, in a large public hospital in New York City, what's the opinion of various of our panelists on the indispensability of unionization as a way forward, and if you want to mention any obstacles or pluses, whatever. Unknown Speaker 22:13 When you say the demography of white women on welfare, you're speaking, well, obviously, the income etc, cut off and men. Well, the very few men of any race and truth that receive welfare, there are some but it's the book of adults receiving welfare, all women, white women, in terms of geography, are all are all over the nation. But one of the things that I found by looking at the the level of benefits by state and part of it, I think, it's just an outgrowth of African Americans living in the South. But which is, of course, I'll talk about a little bit states are car clustered there. But that's why women do tend to live in states that have higher levels of benefits than do black witness just may just be a mainly a regional kind of thing. Also, in terms of just the racial breakdown. And I was actually surprised by by this, because you always say that, well, you know, blacks are disproportionately poor. But over half, roughly two thirds of poor people in this country still white. Well, that's true in terms of poverty statistics, but in terms of AFDC, actually, blacks are slightly more likely to receive AFDC an absolute number, then then, then White, so that I can't remember the exact bulk of that 38 point something 38 point something in terms of who receives AFDC, which, of course grows out of the fact that, again, we don't try to at all, can't reach everybody who falls below the poverty line, only the most destitute and black women tend to be the most destitute. So in general, in terms of your question of the demography of white women, there, I would say of that 38% of whites who receive AFDC that white women make up about 35% of all AFDC recipients. And like the black women, they are the absolutely most destitute and tend to be similar in terms of things like family size, in terms of attitudes. They also, at least in this survey, conducted in November 93 that tried to oversample people who received AFDC they have very similar views, in terms of the welfare system, both in terms of the sort of problems they see with it. And in terms of the sort of things They think of collusion. And that's the last thing I wanted to say is that one of the things, and I mentioned this to someone during the break that the Congressional Black Caucus has been asked to do, by welfare mothers is to put together and they've agreed to do within the next two weeks, is to put together public hearings, that would not just talk to the experts, but they would also have half a day hearing of people who are welfare mothers of different racial groups to come in and talk about what they think should be done to transform the system. And one of the things that emerged already in discussions with the some welfare mothers who had asked me to do this is that many of them say, they've already gone through these training programs several times so much so that they're now helping the trainers teach them, but yet they The problem is they can't find jobs. Unknown Speaker 25:54 So then the largest number of of AFDC recipients is not white, but welfare in the broad category that has a larger number of white recipients. Yes. Unknown Speaker 26:05 Okay. What I'm saying is, the largest number of poor people are certainly white. The larger the people who fall below the official poverty line there about I think it's 38.8% of all AFDC recipients are black as of 1999. To and 38.4%. I think it is, because it's 38 point something I may have a little rough, but 38.4% of white. So that means that even in absolute numbers, they're slightly more of just very slightly more blacks than whites who are AFDC. Unknown Speaker 26:41 There's a missing 20% Unknown Speaker 26:43 Oh, those are Hispanics, Asians, others. Unknown Speaker 26:51 Because we've spent a good deal of time on your first question, I think I'd rather let someone else ask another question rather than having it just so Unknown Speaker 26:58 we don't overlook the question of unionization? Oh, it seems like it's a really critical question. It doesn't have to be wishing for more fessor Williams that answers? Thanks. Unknown Speaker 27:11 I was going to answer the question regarding unionization, because as you know, the director of the women's Bureau is formerly the founder of nine to five, which is the Association of working women, which he also made a pot of the SEIU union, district nine to five, she's a strong advocate for the benefits that can come to women workers, if they unionize. We have a publication on it. The whole experience of unions and women, and we'll be glad to send them to you. What we found is that women in general and minority women in particular, have a greater benefit by being in a union than others recently, especially. And we're encouraging the unions to look at family friendly policies as they fight for benefits in within the companies that it would be most helpful to have them to advocate for things like dependent care, and Flexi time and other kinds of flexible alternative work patterns. So in the old sense of the term, we feel that the unions need to like I say, Look at what new kinds of things they can fight for. But we have seen a general benefit for the minority woman and the woman in general, in the in the most recent years. We also looking at how the non unionized states are fought have fallen behind tremendously. And that's why I mentioned about the statistic in Mississippi where we found a general benefit for the poultry workers who are mainly women. That happened for them as a result of unionization. So in some of the areas of the country, the South especially where there is very little organizing that we could see benefits for workers, if they do tend to organize Unknown Speaker 29:16 their care. It's a wonderful development to see a union woman at the head of the women's Bureau and she's such a wonderful spokesperson for everyone. Unknown Speaker 29:23 So pass that on to her. You might also know that the glass ceiling commission which will be represented today, we're glad Joyce Miller is also hated by a union woman. Joyce was from New York and she's down in DC plugging away, trying to make sure the glass ceiling is in an issue again, that deals with all kinds of women, not just women at the top corporate area. Unknown Speaker 29:51 I was just going to add one thing, which is that there has been some tension around the issue of flexibility and that's been alluded to as it relates For the union movement, and I think that has been because it's been very, it's very difficult to distinguish between what's voluntary and what's imposed sometimes, and that there's a lot of women who voluntarily want to work fewer hours. And they may not even the benefits, but they if they don't, if they do need them, it's very, very bad that they don't have them. But that the whole issue, there's been a real, it's been very hard to get people in unions comfortable with the notion of voluntarily wanting to cut back on work, wanting to work out of the home, as opposed because of the great fear of historic exploitation of those very things. And I think if the, you know, that is not an easy question, I think that is a very deep issue within it's not only a union issue, because for everything that might move forward, potentially, there could be abuses that would be conceived of as moving backward. And the the only or the only thing I would say, secondly, is that there, you know, unions in this country have not been growing very much and whether they grow or not, there's clearly a need for more collective voice. And that even companies that don't have unions seem to move these issues, and most companies I work with have very small unionized populations. But it seems to me one of the things that's been lacking in terms of the force of moving this issue forward, has been voices, like women's networks, or groups of people with similar issues, who tried to have a voice within whatever institution, Marian, and that is sort of in the spirit of things that lead to unions. But even if they're on unions, I think there's tremendous opportunity for a more collective voice on these issues. And it really has not been there for most of the 20 years people have suffered individually with these issues, even though down the office next to them, and the office next to them, and the office next to them, is often people having exactly the same issues, which make no business sense and which a constructive, larger voice would probably really have, in fact, the flu third, so Unknown Speaker 32:10 we have the next question. This is for whoever on the panel wishes to respond. I'm curious what steps you've taken within your own institutions to support flexibility and assure that women feel supported in the workplace. And also, and that the culture itself supports people using those and taking advantage of those policies, but also how you ensure that those policies reach equally to men, and that we don't inadvertently reinforce stereotypes that only women need flexibility, because women are the caretakers or you know, whatever. And so how we ensure that men feel equally invested in both supporting flexible work policies, and also taking advantage of them. Unknown Speaker 33:04 I was going to speak last because the government has, we have a flexi time, we have a number of policies that are family friendly and worker friendly. And in the women's Bureau, which is 95% of women, we have a very positive culture of acceptance of the work and family responsibilities. And we certainly do not make the differentiation between their use of it and the few men that we have in the bureau. Unknown Speaker 33:36 Well, it's I feel like Sheila, when she answered the first question, this is such a complicated question. It's hard to simplify it. I think in general, you want to have an organization. And it's very hard to do it, actually. But I certainly try it, our organizations have to have a sense that what matters is your contribution, what matters are your results and how you get them as less important. And that does permeate certain organizations and tends to permeate small organizations, I think it probably tends to permeate women driven organizations. So you sort of see it in the culture, not so much in the policies when it happens. In terms of men, you know, it's hard to know how to make that change in Sweden, where in the night, I think it's 1970, that Sweden starts encourage men to take parental leave, and it's at its height, it's reached like 25%, even though it's a national policy, to require that men do this. So I think to some extent, the fact I guess, where we all know that the real solution for women inequality is for men to do more in this area. And if men were more interested in families, women could do more. On the other hand, that is a very slow change. So I don't personally consider it a failure. If I see a company when 90% of the people who take advantage of flexibility are women. It would be to Heather, theoretically, if it were men I don't think we have to apologize for. It's not as though if more men did it, it would necessarily mean and men, it wasn't it wouldn't make the women's advancement more important simply because men took it. So I think we've spent too much time worrying almost in the preclude politically correct sense that the work and family issues should never be construed as women's issues. I mean, there's all this talk about this. And I think that it's, it's certainly true that we want everybody be concerned about family, and we want men to participate. But if, in fact, these have much more important effects on women's lives, for whatever reason, whether it's biology socialization, I don't even I can't even begin to know how deep this onion layer gets peeled. But it seems to me we shouldn't worry as much as we have historically about the fact that men are doing it, we should just get on with letting women do it and having them succeed at the same time. Because I think it's a no win situation. Unknown Speaker 36:01 Catalyst has 40 employees, 38 of them are female, we are totally flex time. I mean, we have part time, leave at 330 come attend to it is such a small number. Our surveys bear out what what you know, which is even where men do not go to work for a family related reason it's their day at childcare, and then something happens to the kid they call in sick, the women disclose what it is that has kept them away from work. It is it is standard, I do think that it is a question and I pure myself doing it to children, when men do it will that legitamate the fact that women do it? And what and what in fact, does it mean when we asked for that? Unknown Speaker 36:53 I just want to say just one thing, one place that I think and hope this is not true of a women's college isn't so you all can tell me. But one place where I think that women have not done enough to help women is in academia, that I think female professors don't often really try to work at such policies for support staff, who are predominantly women, even down to just think of even the sort of office space where we don't where is the female professors have the the sort of decent interviewing offices and yet they have very flex time just by the nature of the work, whereas the women who actually have to stay there from nine to five, at least, really have very poor workspace. And oftentimes, we don't try to see if there are flextime policies, I think in academia, we could definitely do more to try to work out these very arrangements that we talk about in speeches, right. Yes, Unknown Speaker 38:01 I have a question for Miss Williams. First of all, I like her thank thank thank her for being here, because I'm also from Maryland. I'm from Rockville neighbors. And I do I have a two part question for you. The issue of time has been discussed, especially by Miss Rogers, and, you know, trying to live your life around your job. And that my question is two parts. Why is it that welfare mothers should do have the time to spend with their kids, or not helping their kids? Violence is disproportionately high among young black men. You have high teen pregnancies, children out of wedlock, drug abuse, etc? To what extent can these women be held responsible? And why aren't they doing anything to stop their kids? And my second question is, when other ones are perpetuating the generational tendencies, and the SEC, my second question is, to what extent can the government change this trend? And to what extent must change come from within? Okay. Unknown Speaker 38:53 Well, the hard questions, I think that welfare mothers are like everybody else that is they differ, that we have this for some reason, we can believe that. There are some middle class parents that failed and some did succeed. And so and not even and within families, you of course, have some children, who goes out of the straight and narrow way that their parents want them to go and others who get in tremendous trouble. And we can accept the extraordinary variability of families within middle and upper classes. Well, I think we have to do that with with people who are poor to that. So to say that, why aren't welfare mothers aren't doing many, many welfare mothers are definitely doing certainly as much as they can in terms of discipline. Many, many welfare mothers are are bringing up children who go on despite the extraordinary hardships to go on to college, to go on and then succeed in many, many ways. I mean, indeed, if one looks at this out of Mobility, what at least has become a fairly, still small but fairly significant black middle class, many of those people have been people who began their lives on welfare. So first off, I'd like to disabuse you of this notion that welfare mothers are somewhere laid back not trying to discipline their children. On the other hand. Unknown Speaker 40:21 On the other hand, I don't think we can also forget that welfare mothers and their children live in the same society that the rest of us do, there is no way a parent can be the only influence that our child gets. And that we have to look at the kinds of communities that we have actually, we as a society, have actually dictated by our policies that these parents live in to understand the kinds of influences they're battling. And the sort of final thing on that is, in fact, if we really one of the critical questions about welfare reform, is what really do we think we're going to be getting, and this is something that Francis Pittman, one of your new yorkers here raises a lot of discussions is that what what do we really think that we're going to get better from requiring a welfare mother to flip a hamburger or pick up garbage along the streets and leave her community that we're getting right now? These are people who are the only source of glue and stability in most of the poor communities right now. So that indeed, if we think there's deterioration in crime and violence, and today, in all likelihood, that's going to actually worsen once these mothers are not not really there. Now, your last question, I think, was how much can government do and how much can individuals do? Obviously, it's got to be a combination of the two government cannot do everything. And that's why government shouldn't try to be dictating what kind of family you should have, what kind of what is the, quote, moral structure of families, and even women have sort of given up now even saying that there ought to still be the freedom to choose not to marry, I still think there's some people out to have that bright steel, but at any rate us to say that government can't do all the dictating on that side also means the government, in and of itself, by itself, cannot, can cannot turn around. The sort of dilemma that we find in in poor communities is going to take also individual efforts, but those individual efforts for them to work, have to go hand in hand with at least a minimal amount of resources to make it possible. And what we find if we look at the decade of the 1980s, is it's no mystery to say that things deteriorated. So I mean, look at what happened, actually AFDC benefits in real terms were cut by 40%. over the decade of the 1980s. If you'd look at why family life got worse, it all, a lot has to do with government policy, if you take the House Ways and Means Green Book of 1993. So this is a governmental source. And they look at what is it that cause welfare dependency to grow, or among whites, and among blacks, they say that there were different trends, they say that white in places like New Hampshire itself, etc, which is the fastest growing state, in the in the 1980s. In terms of welfare applications, of course, almost no blacks were there. And the rate of growth was fastest there, but it was the market. It was the fact that we had all this corporate downsizing, and we had all this sort of moving plants overseas for low for cheap labor, and all of the forces of the market. If you look at what caused the whoever population to grow among blacks, the green book says that it was really the the blacks were already in coming into the eight is pretty devastated in terms of market forces, but it was government policy that caused the growth. So I think that we're going to have to have a combination of private sector initiatives and public sector initiatives that at least provide the basis for individual efforts to care. Unknown Speaker 44:18 Thank you. I think we have time for two more questions, one over here. And you'll have the last word. Unknown Speaker 44:26 My question is in response to something that Ms. Wellington had brought up in her talk, you had suggested that one way that we as women can achieve success in the workplace and getting flexible time is looking for companies that have a supportive environment and are supportive from the top but there are still a number of women, such as myself, I'm in construction, who are in fields where there are still no women at the top or at the bottom even and I wanted to know what everyone's Unknown Speaker 44:53 checking out your muscles. Unknown Speaker 44:57 I wanted to know what said suggestions or encouragement or anything that anyone on the panel had to say to address that issue. And I think that we can always be in positions where we're looking for women who are going to support us from the top, some of us are still in positions where we are trendsetters, or maybe in the same positions that you were in 30 years ago. Unknown Speaker 45:27 If one, if in your field and there are some women in in your in New York, in construction, there are some, there are some important initiatives, in fact taking place in Chicago, and because I was out there, and they're a similar, similar thing. If if there are no women that you can find up there, look across there to whom do you sell, from whom do you buy? What kind of networks do you participate in? As a woman entrepreneur? They are there. And those are questions that you can ask yourself and answer and then can ask of others having first examined yourself. I've been trying to do that lately. And I would suggest that there are now a number of organizations that are that are supportive of women, entrepreneurs and non traditional work, there are a number of academic centers that are producing work that would be helpful if they're, if you can't look up, look across. Thank you. Unknown Speaker 46:39 I actually think that my question was just answered, because my experience in law has been that women don't choose to move from unfriendly places to friendly places, that there are very few friendly places to choose from, and that we are being frozen out out of the market altogether, or taking jobs that are substantial. Unknown Speaker 47:02 woman makes it, there's incredibly high expectations that she will do it. So when she doesn't do it, if she's one person who doesn't do it, it becomes a generalization about that person, which I'm not sure it's true. My own experience has been that over these 25 years, women are much more likely to do it. As the years have progressed. I think in the very early years of women's getting into positions of power, it was such a fragile situation for them, they felt so vulnerable. Anyway, as I said, in my own remarks, they want it to be thought of not just as a woman, but as a real productive senior member of the team or person who has something to contribute. So there was a great fear that anything one did to sort of emphasize the female status was going to sort of demean the whole person. But I personally think that has gotten a lot better. I hope that my own experiences was women in power, either through networks that I'm in is that women care I get not every woman. I mean, again, we can't generalize about all women here. But that is much more likely now. That a woman with power feels this tremendous responsibility. And I think that's why she'll say what she did about boards, it may not be the only thing she thinks about and sometimes and that doesn't mean she's going to choose a woman over a man if a man clearly can do the job and get her results better. And it shouldn't mean that because that wouldn't help us. But I think a woman is much more likely today and much more likely than a man, statistically, even though I can prove it to you to care about these issues and to help mentor younger women. And that that is going to help us a lot in the long run. And again, I don't know if that's in fact, I don't know if there's a study that someone can quote on this. But I feel very strongly that that's what's happening. Do any of the other ladies have an opinion on it? Unknown Speaker 48:56 I agree, I don't know of any study, in part, it would have to be longitudinal and, and the launch isn't there. Unknown Speaker 49:06 I agree. And personally, all of the good jobs I've ever had were meant to to me by other women. Unknown Speaker 49:21 I'm sorry, if you look at the Supreme Court Justice considerating. We have to say that you shouldn't have five women on Supreme Court. But they're not even considering women of diversity. Well, Unknown Speaker 49:47 if Hillary were president, would it be different? I want to thank our panelists for a wonderfully intelligent morning. You've given us thank you Unknown Speaker 50:06 And I want to invite you all to lunch. We have gone with the good weather plan, which means that lunches are available on the plaza in the upper level of this building just outside. And there are tables available upstairs inside or on the lawn outside. Please be at your afternoon panels at 215 thanks see you later. And we have a request for Jane Euro if she's here, could she come to the front? Unknown Speaker 50:49 Wine and cheese in such upstairs. Before we begin I'd like to say where to thanks to my staff, Isabelle Oh Cha just taking her seat there. Who is thank you demonstrated a truly remarkable capacity to remain gracious under stress. And our smart, outstanding outrageous group of students who keep us and the center going. They've been labeled today the green women in honor of their T shirts. Unknown Speaker 51:20 I'm delighted now to introduce our closing speaker of the day Heidi Hartmann beginning in the mid 1970s, Heidi Hartmann and economist trained at Yale University wrote and as the article circulated, rewrote an essay called the unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism toward a more progressive union. It's a well reasoned, humane argument that the solution to women's inequalities lies not only in social structures, and not only in economic structures, but of course in both and that feminists must address both in equal measure. The article became the centerpiece of a 1981 book called Women in revolution. And in that, guys, I would venture to say that it's become one of the classic assignments in the Women's Studies curriculum. Today, Heidi Hartmann is director of the Washington based Institute for Women's Policy Research, which she co founded in 1987. The institute produces a wide range of studies on policy issues of importance to women and work in recent studies that Dr. Hartman has co authored. The Institute has examined the implications of low wage work for Family Well Being the Need for Family and Medical Leave, explored labor law reform and asked what do unions do for women. An examination of the impact of the glass ceiling on minorities and women is another recent report, as is one on strategies for moving single mothers on welfare out of poverty. As if this isn't enough, a few days ago, she couldn't take my phone call because she was busy testifying before the United States Senate, on how various of the proposed new health care reform laws would affect women. In short, giving her wide range experience Heidi Hartmann could be this entire conference all by herself. It's my great pleasure to introduce Heidi Hartmann. Unknown Speaker 53:20 Well, I'm very pleased to be here, and I'm very relieved that I wasn't the entire conference. But it's nice to be thought of as having such overarching powers. It's always a pleasure for me to be back at Barnard College. It's a college where one of my best friends from high school went and where a woman who was a couple years ahead of me in college, went and she's here today from Toms River. Hi Celia. Denise, where are you? There I'm a hair sister Elaine, can you see which one of you is at Barner now is one of your partner now Elena's? Yes. All right. Great. She, she was in my brother's class in high school. So it's like old home week. But seriously, Bernard has a very long history of educating women. And the scholar in the feminist conference has a very long and venerable history as well. And it's really a special pleasure to be here at the 20th anniversary conference. I've certainly been to more than a few of the scholar and the feminist conferences over the years. And I'm pleased to be here again. I guess I want to begin today by reviewing the enormous economic changes in women's lives and in family life as a result of that have occurred over the last few decades and take a look at how our public policies are responding to these changes or as is more often the case or failing to respond to these changes. These public policies, as as many of us know, are really hopelessly out of date. I also want to spend a few minutes looking at the attack on single mothers and thinking about what we can do to combat That attack. It's amazing to me even that, first that I have been studying these changes in women's economic lives for about 25 years now. It's actually 25 years since I entered Graduate School of Economics at Yale University. I thought I might still start with the story about that I was a young thing then. And in fact, I was a young married thing then. And there were four women entering graduate school in economics that year at Yale, out of a class entering class of about 45. And two of us were married. Now, remember that, I think I was two years older than the others. I was 23, because I had worked for a couple of years. So of the four women who were between 21 and 23, starting graduate school, two of us were married, the year was 1969. Now, that's just a change just right there. But most interestingly, I remember that during the first semester, the two women who weren't married, came up to the two women who were married and said, you're already married, what are you doing here? So, yeah, I think it's sort of shows how much things have changed. But even though I look at these numbers all the time, and I study them more or less constantly, I'm always amazed every time I go back and look at them, which is usually seriously every three or four years, I take another look at them to see what's happened in the data. And I'm really always amazed to see how much things have changed. If you want to just start by taking a look at figure one, hoping I'm going to be able to find my figures. Unknown Speaker 56:46 There there. This is, of course, some of the data that is probably the most commonly known to you about the increase in women's labor force participation. And what the labor force participation rate is, is the proportion of all women in the population that are in the labor force. Figure one looks like this. Lots of lines. And this figure on women's labor force participation might look a little bit different from the ones you've usually seen. This one is by cohort. So if you, each one of the lines on the graphs follows a particular group of women who were born in a five year period. So for example, I could find mine is diamonds, sort of about in the middle, that's 1941 to 1945. And we started out with the at age 20 to 24 50% of us were in the labor market, it dipped down in the childbearing years of 25 to 29. In fact, I did have my first child at age 26, and increased over our lifetime so that the age we are now 45 to 49 70% of us are working, that's how this graph works, okay. And you might be able to see on it depending on your age, you might be able to see on it your mother's cohort. Or if you're a little bit older than me, you might be able to see your daughter's cohort on this chart. And you can look at this and see just the many different ways in which women's labor force participation has increased first, of course, most obvious is that each cohort starts out in the labor market higher than the one before. But also each cohort works more and more over their lifetime. And in particular, for these recent cohorts, the ones born in 1951 word later, there's virtually no drop out during the childbearing years, there's no drop out from the labor market. One thing that you can see on the chart, another way in which women's labor force participation is increasing, is that they're working more hours, so that for the nine year eight year period between 1979 and 1987, just to take an example, married women increase their hours of labor force participation by about five weeks. And also, overtime. Despite all that we hear about part time work, temporary work, contingent work over the last 20 years, a larger proportion of women is working full time year round than ever before. So there's been a tremendous increase. In women's labor force participation, it's now about 50% of mothers of children under one, two thirds of all mothers, three quarters of mothers whose children are our school age. And in fact, because of this age effect, that is, the younger you are the more you work that you can see this on the chart. Today, mothers have a higher rate of labor force participation than non mothers. And non mothers are counted as a non mother in this data once your last child hits age 18. So you're still a mother but you don't have children at home. And so the older women work less than the younger women, so mothers are actually working more than normal. There's one way of summarizing it to say is that a woman born in 1940, could expect to work 12 years as an adult, not so very many, equal to about a third of the years that men would work. But a woman born in 1979, or at the period in which one of my children was born, can work, can't expect to work 29 years, or three quarters of the working life of men. Now this graph doesn't show what's been happening to men's labor force participation. But actually, it's been falling, men's labor force participation has been falling. And women's has been rising. And it really doesn't take a PhD in economics to figure out that, oh, they might meet in the middle, they might stabilize it more or less the same amount of labor force participation, they're certainly rapidly moving in that direction. What does this increase in work by women mean for families, you might want to take a look at figure two. Figure two looks like this one. I mean, you came to Barnard College today to get these figures, right. Unknown Speaker 1:01:11 This chart looks only at families with children. So I thought that would be of particular interest. And it does a show what I heard many speakers say this morning, and I'm sure you've heard in your workshops as well, that what we thought of as the traditional couple with a male earner and a woman at home, has fallen to only 22% of all families with children. The dual earner couple with both the mother and father in the labor force is by far the most common type at 47%. So low women earners are a fairly common type almost as common as the traditional family with the man in the labor market in the woman at home. They're up to almost 20%, where the mother is actually working in in the labor force. There is a mistake on the graph which I want to alert you to the next line, which says single men earners, these would be single fathers who don't have wives is not in fact, single fathers that line is no earners as the line beneath it that single fathers, okay. In the no earners category are undoubtedly some people who are very wealthy, a place some of us might like to be, but it's also some people who are very poor, who are probably subsisting on on AFDC and other poverty programs, most of whom are single mother families. And so the bottom line is really, single parent families were the fathers in the labor force, and there's no wife. So I think what this shows is, is in general, you know, women's increasing financial responsibility for families, there are almost as many families that are supported by a woman alone today, as their are supported by a man alone. The only difference is that the family supported by a man alone usually has a wife at home to help take care of the family, whereas the family supported by a woman alone doesn't have the way. So families are really changing and among married couples as well. Women are contributing a lot to their economic well being. I think the other thing this means for policy is that we no longer have the traditional division of labor, which has informed all of our public and private policy, the notion that the man is the worker and the woman is the nurturer. I think what we have now is a situation in which the average worker comes to the labor market encumbered, attached to people that the worker needs to take care of. When this many women are in the labor market, men can no longer be assumed to have a wife at home, who is taking care of all those details and leaving him free to pursue his career without any attention to his family or home life. It's certainly still true that men are not doing as much as women and men are perhaps not as encumbered as we would like them to be. But there's no question but that is the direction in which we're moving. And I think that the extent that you see corporations paying attention to this is at least partly because they realize that if they don't pay attention to these issues, it's affecting not only their women workers, who they increasingly depend on, but also their their male workers. And I know a lot of the effort at this conference today has been to look at, you know, how the private sector has been able to deal with these changes. So what I want to call our attention to in this closing talk is the public sectors role as well. How do we update our public policies to deal with this new reality? How do we create public policies that take as the new norm a sort of androgynous work or nurture? Who is the citizen? That is the person that our public policy should be aimed at? Not the family in which there's a division of labor have a traditional worker and a nurturer at home, but a set of individuals who are all worker nurturers and whose needs must be taken care of I think if we look at it, what we could say is that as economic actors, women have become a lot more like men, increasing their education and their work effort and their financial responsibility for themselves and their families, and to some extent, and as I said, not enough, men have become more like women of necessity, taking on a larger share of hands on family responsibilities. And I do believe that that these trends are going to continue, I don't think there's any going back. I want to return to women's lives for a moment, though. And just note that in general, women are marrying later, I don't think, I hope, first of all, there are more than four women in graduate school in economics at Yale right now, although I can't swear to that. And I and I would venture to guess that of those who are under 23, half of them are not married, as we were back in 1969. So women are marrying later, as are men, men and women are divorcing more women are having fewer children. And they're spending more time alone without men, but including with children, fertility has been falling for all women, you know, as much as we hear about the teenage birthrate explosion in this, this and that fertility is actually down for all these groups. Unknown Speaker 1:06:15 But the big difference is that fertility is increasing outside marriage, and decreasing in marriage. So the proportion of births that are occurring, outside marriage is increasing, actually, fertility was lowest in this whole post war, post war period in 1986. And it has been rising slightly since then. And of course, as usual, no one is exactly sure why, given more birth, outside marriage and more divorce, women will experience more single parenthood since it's usually women, not men who keep the children. Two thirds of all mothers are expected to be single parents at some point in their lives. So I know one thing I tell young women when I'm lecturing audiences of college students is to prepare for that. Chances are at some point in your life, you will be taking care of children on your own. And as you saw, although my graph kind of divided the different family types, with children into those that were earning and those that weren't, we put them all back together, you would see that single parents are right now 27% Of all families with children. I want to look for a minute at the attack that seems to be going on against against single parents in particular single mothers and see if we can understand that a little and and think about what to do about it. I would say that in general and but even this is not always true. The increase in women's labor force participation is only occasionally the subject of hand wringing and dismay. Although most social observers recognize the critical women, the critical role that women have played in increasing family incomes. It is true that some still occasionally bemoan the lack of a mother at home baking cookies. But the increase in births outside marriage and the prevalence of single parent families, it seems to me is always a subject of dismay and despair. There was a recent Washington Post article in February, Bill razzberry, one of our favorite, somewhat conservative, occasionally liberal African American commentators was quoting William Eggleston, a domestic policy adviser to the president. And Boston was supposedly cited as saying that the debate on the disintegration of the family is over. Because everyone now understands that the disappearance of the two fat parent family is very harmful to children. But he also goes on to note and to cry that most young people 70%, according to a recent poll, do not believe any stigma at all should be attached to unmarried parents. So if we are a certainly among the young, relaxing, you know, the social, cultural and moral stigma against out of wedlock births. Is this debate really over? Or should it be? I mean, obviously, the main reason we're concerned about single parenthood is that these families are disproportionately poor. If there's a two parent family, only about 8% were poor in 1992, but 46% of single parent families are poor. And of course, it's worse for for single parent families who are of color. But the interesting thing about this trend toward increased non marriage and childbearing outside marriage is that it's occurring for all ages, and in all income ranges. And it's also occurring in all countries. And the causes for the trend are still not fully understood. But one obvious explanation and I think it's obvious and I think we should own up to it is the greater economic autonomy of women. It's because women are working that they can more easily survive outside marriage, and they can in fact, have children without male financial support. Right now, as an economist, what we're usually taught, I mean, it really surprises me that economists haven't risen up to protest this attack on single parenthood and said, well, but if this is what these people are choosing, it must be what's right. Because we all know that revealed preferred is social and Norton, a good, you know, choice, we believe in choice. But they're not saying that. But there is one economist who is saying that Elaine McCreight, who's at the University of remote of Vermont argues that the problem, the reason for all this rise in non marriage, is it men have failed to adjust their marital expectations to the new realities, the marriage market fails to clear, it's true because women cannot find marriageable partners, the women the marriageable. It's true. Although, well, if you try enough times you might find one. Unknown Speaker 1:11:07 But if you bet at first you don't succeed, it fails to clear the marriage market because women can't find partners who are willing to form more egalitarian partnerships. That's what she would argue that men have just not adjusted to the new realities and women are working and they can support themselves. So it's true, however, that women pay a financial penalty for living outside stable partnerships with men, because obviously, their family incomes are lower than if there were a male earner present. But I would argue that women appear to be voting with their feet, I'm going to be a neoclassical economist here for a moment and say that women are voting with their feet, they might prefer to choose to have a suitable male partner, if they could find one, but finding none that meet their standards they prefer to go without. And of course, there are some women that don't find men attractive at all. And they also have a right to support themselves, and they are doing so and they are more able to do so than they have been before. Now, one of the questions this, you know, neoclassical model of choice raises is whether for women, or in or in particular, black women who have much higher rates of non marriage are also voting with their feet or their low marriage rates, relatively more reflective of the lack of choice of the lack of marriageable males who can support them. You know, this was a sort of famous theory of Bill Wilson's that the male marriageable pool was falling among black men. And so there weren't enough black men for black women to marry. Now, that was a very provocative statement. And there have been tons and tons of naturally statistical studies trying to measure this. And one of the recent ones, says that only some of the non marriage among blacks can be explained by the relative lack of eligible men, and that some of it is unexplained and some of it we can presume, in fact, has the same reasons for non marriage among blacks as among whites. I think Linda Williams addressed that point where she said, you know, why is the Green Book of the US government looking for a different explanation of trends among black women than white woman? Maybe in economic terms, they're fairly similar. Given your ability to support yourself, and the inability perhaps of men to support themselves or to support you any better. Your your choice, your best choice, maybe it's an Strange choice, all choices are constrained, is to be on your own. And while the downside of non merits has been amply decried by by Bill gorleston and others, I think the upside deserves greater attention. Most of the increase in teenage childbearing is as we've seen, it's not an increase in fertility. Fewer teenage women are having babies today than anytime previously. It's an increase in childbirth outside marriage. What is it so great to get married as a teenager? Or isn't your choice better to postpone marriage? So not being forced into an unfair, unfortunate marriage at an early age, I think is certainly a positive development for women, such as being able to escape an abusive partner. These were all things that were not possible for our mother's generation, in many, many ways. And so, we have an increased economic autonomy. These are there are positive aspects of non marriage that are good for both women and their children. You know, a lot of studies show that in single parent households even standardizing for income, more of the resources take take a single family, single female headed households with children and a male female one and a male one was children and put them all at the same per capita income level and the woman's family with children will devote enormous ly more resources to her children than will the married couple family, or the male only family. So again, even in a world of limited resources, it's not clear that non marriage is necessarily bad for children. Women do devote more of the resources that are at their disposal to their children when they have them. So I think that we have to take another look at this non marriage and really ask what it is that that people are attacking. And I'm gonna try to come back to that at the end, I certainly think that preventing early childbirth is the best pass, and we should have more access to birth control, etc, than we do, and certainly more access to abortion. But once children are born, the problem of supporting them adequately has to be faced by the society, and they can either be supported outside marriage, or marriage can be encouraged, you know, where we could do both. Unknown Speaker 1:15:59 I would say that at this point, our public policies affecting poor families are just as hopelessly out of date as those that affect all families AFDC, which was originally designed to allow poor mothers to stay home with their children, rather than forced family breakup, which could occur at that time, if a mother was forced to place her children in an orphanage in order to allow her to work. This AFDC program has steadily declined and its benefit levels so that the average is now $375 per month for a single mother and, and two children. And political support for the program has eroded. It is quite ironic that the very purpose for which the program was created to keep women from having to put their children in orphanages so they could work is now what is being advocated by Charles Murray, and other right wing people, as Linda Williams talked about so eloquently this morning. The value of these benefits has been declining. And the actually the proportion of all female headed families that are supported by welfare has actually also been declining. Now, here's a little known fact we're all used to knowing that, you know, disproportionate share of poverty is borne by single women with children. But the average single mother with children is much less poor today than she was 30 years ago. And fewer single mothers with children, as a proportion of all of them are supported by welfare than was the case 20 or 30 years ago. Well, how can that be what's happening, what's happening is that the other families got out of poverty, even faster than the single mothers. But still, single mother families also have gotten out of poverty. So again, it's something that's not quite what what you expect, if we listen to the right wing, we would assume that all single mothers, especially all Blacklands, are being supported by welfare. And it's costing us a bundle. And as Linda pointed out, there aren't so very many of them, and we're certainly not giving them any money to speak up. So I think what we need is a new and more realistic set of policies that can address the income security needs and family care needs. In a world of new economic realities, a world of economic realities in which women are working and in which men's jobs really don't provide enough to support entire families anyway, even when desirable men are available. I think we also want policies that, that very validly very upfront, acknowledge women's need for greater economic autonomy, and greater self determination. That's a very valid goal of social policy. If, you know, we talk about goals of social policy, we say it's important to make citizens not dependent make them independent, to make them empowered to make them strong. But if you think about that in terms of women, then we're not so sure we're not really so sure that we want to support women's greater economic autonomy. It appears that if we support women's greater economic autonomy, they don't marry as much. They don't marry men as much. Let's see, before looking at before looking at public policies for a moment, let's look at how women get money. You know, whenever I'm asked, and again, this is my my really sick training and economics that has done this to me. But whenever I'm asked the question, as I inevitably frequently asked by reporters, what do women want? I always say women want money. Unknown Speaker 1:19:39 And where do women get their money in our society? Well, they have three sources of money. One is from men. They can get married and men make more money than women. So not always, but chances are, if you marry, you'll have access to more income than if you don't The second way you can get money is the market, going out and working, starting your own business. And that that's where women have been going to get more and more of their money then moving into the market. And the third way is estate through public programs. Now, theoretically, you could survive on any one of these sources of money. Many women, for example, felt that marriage was a perfectly good way to support yourself for your life, you've got married, took care of him took care of your kids did that your whole life long, and there was nothing wrong with that? No, it was perfectly respectable. And it was way for an economic livelihood for many women. Other women don't marry work all their lives. And, and some people, you know, totally dependent people have to depend on the state for their whole lives, such as the disabled, for example. And that too, is a perfectly respectable means of getting support. We should, as a society take care of those who cannot support themselves. So all three of these are perfectly legitimate ways to get support. Oh, one of our favorite interchanges in Washington has been with Senator Moynihan. Now, it just happens that Senator Moynihan was chairing this committee on finance the other day when I was testifying on health care reform, but mostly we know him through his work on welfare reform. Now, he was quoted in the paper quite recently as saying, you know, under his watch, welfare won't be abolished. I thought that was a good thing. But he's also been the person you know, most upset about single parent families and most wanting to do something about them. And at a conference on poverty. My colleague, Roberta Spalter, a sociologist and research director at IW, PR, asked him, tell me Senator Moynihan, I believe you're over 65. Do you collect social security? He said, Yes, yes, I collect social security. Well, do you feel dependent on the state because you collect social security? No, I'm not dependent on the state because I collect social security. I worked for that. I earned that I contributed to that program. Well, for people, Senator Monahans, age, Social Security has been the biggest giveaway of all time. I mean, people who until quite recently, people who retired, took much more out of the system than they ever put in over their working lives. Like our generation, the baby boomer generation, we're going to be the first generation that's going to put in as much on average as we take out. But it has been an enormous transfer program from current workers to retired workers. But it was done in the form of the social insurance, you saw your nickels and dimes from your paycheck go into that every week. And you feel it's your right you feel it's yours. You certainly don't think of yourself as dependent, but state benefits. And that's why, you know, we shouldn't think state benefits are so terrible. state benefits are great. Many people depend on them and certain points in their lives. And we have set up a system of public insurance called Social Security, in which the current workers support the people who worked earlier and are now retired. That's the way we set it up. And it works, and everybody loves it. So I think we shouldn't disparage the state as a source of income, it's certainly a key source for women. Now, of these three sources, we've already looked at men as a source of income. And we've observed that route is declining, for whatever reason. Let's look at the market as a source of income for a moment. And there you have to look at your addendum graphics, this page. Unknown Speaker 1:23:35 If you look at the one called the female male wage gap over the life cycle, this is one of our favorite graphs that IW PR. It's depressing all our favorite graphs that IW PR are extremely depressing. But what this shows is the median annual earnings for full time year round workers, we're only looking at full time year round workers there by age, and there's male and female. And it's not too surprising. The male line is the higher line and the female line is the lower line. And it sort of shows that for men, and this was 1989 data, it's sure it's 1994. Now, but believe me, not that much has changed. It shows up for men, their peak earnings occur at age 50, to 54. And an average you know, taking all men, the corporate executives down to the janitors and the truck drivers, etc. The average was 35,000 a year at that time, and it really wouldn't be all that much higher now. And there are peaks occurs at that age 50 to 54. Now, for women, you can look at where their peak is. First of all, it's a little misleading to talk about a peak for women, because it's pretty darn flat. But, but if there's a peak it occurs earlier at ages 40 to 44. And it's $22,000 a year and the gap at ages A 25 to 29. One measure the gap there, it happens to be about $4,000. But interestingly, these women at 40 to 44 are, which is, if I may say, so I am past my prime that was the prime of, you know, my earning ability. And it was the same as a man starting out at age 25, to 29. kind of pathetic, that a woman in her prime years, you know, is going to get as much out of the labor market on average, as a woman as a man just starting out. So we labeled this, the real glass ceiling for women. And this, I think, is what Joyce Miller means when she says, you know, she wants to look at the sticky floor as well as the glass ceiling. If you think that women at the higher ends are doing exceptionally better turn the page over. I thought y'all might be interested in this chart, since we all like to believe we're in the top of the heap rather than in the middle or the bottom. And we labeled this one who is poised to break through the glass ceiling. And we looked at all the executives, administrators and managers who earned over 52,000, a year in 1990. And then looked at how many of those were earning in different categories above that. So of all the males, that 29% of all males are earning above 52,000, a year, for example, in who are already in management, but only seven and a half percent of all the females. And interestingly, when you look at the females, you don't see a whole lot of difference between white females, black females, or Latina Hispanic females, they're all at about six to 7% of the women who are managers are making over 52,000 a year. Whereas for white men, it's about 30%. And for black and Hispanic men, it's substantially less. So this shows you that Unknown Speaker 1:27:01 you know, even looking at one of the highest status, occupational groups, and looking at the high earners, that there really, relatively speaking, very few women sort of poised at that level to break through the glass ceiling. So when you look at what many women can get out of the market, you know, you sometimes get a little discouraged. But it's interesting that, to me that as much discrimination as women face in the labor market, as much less that they earn there than men do. Women have still been moving toward the market in droves. There's just no question about it, the market has is a source of income for women. And it looks like and, you know, in a capitalist society based on wage labor, based on selling your labor power to earn a living, it looks like to women as good a way to earn a living as any a better way to earn a living than depending on a man. And I think it is. I mean, it is there's no question about it. And that's why women have been voting for that. So but that just gives you some ideas, you know, we already knew that although we can get something from the market, you know, we we certainly do get get less than men. Now I want to look at what the state can do. And I've already mentioned social security, as a major source of income support for older people. Unemployment insurance is a very important source of support for people who lose their jobs. And welfare has been an important source of support for poor women. And I certainly hope it will continue to be so Nancy Fraser has US political scientists, maybe or philosopher Sociology from Northwestern, whatever her field is, I'm not sure has pointed out that we're almost the only advanced industrial society that has no income security program for mothers, as mothers, other than welfare, which is for down and out mothers. Most Western societies and Eastern societies that are advanced in any industrial sense, have three tiers of social support, Social Security for the elderly, we have that assistance to mothers takes the form of a child allowance or a paid maternity leave, which in some countries lasts three years. In some countries two or one year, you know, if you've been working and you get a paid maternity leave, whether or not you're married, you probably wouldn't have to go on welfare, you know, because you'd have paid maternity leave for those few years while your child is very young. And of course, they provide more childcare and so on. And then the third type that most countries have is welfare. For those who are who just are simply not able to make it in a capitalist society can't get a job, can't keep a job aren't enough jobs, and need help. And most societies have that we're the only society that really has as the only support for mothers are sort of down and out program. And I think, you know, I don't know what to attribute that to except that we we moved across the sea and we started from scratch and when we did that we lost a lot of goods. Things that were in the European tradition about using the state to take care of each other, and developed a more individualistic, competitive, cowboy type of capitalism than these other societies have. So I'm just want to end with asking you to take a look at the last graph, which is in the staple package. And it is the chart of well of different policies that we could be advocating now. Naturally, I can't find my copy of this chart, and we got an extra. And we arranged them according this was a chart that Bobby spa throughout the night developed, we arranged them according to the three sources of income that women get from the men from the market, and from the state. Talk about, you know, what does marriage do? And these goals across the top? These are the goals, we thought that, you know, we should explicitly evaluate public policy on does it reduce poverty? does it reduce dependency or the potential or exploitation? On the job on men on the state? does it reduce inequality between men and women income inequality between men and women? does it reduce income inequality between black and white women, or other ethnic women? does it reduce inequality, income inequality? Among women, based on class, and if you look at marriage, for example, the policy that all of Washington is now touting, right. And I certainly couldn't have agreed with Linda Williams more than when she said, Gee, you know, I think women still have a right not to get married. Unknown Speaker 1:31:45 You'll see that it does, it does give women more access to men's income. But it does make them more dependent on men. And it does absolutely nothing to reduce class inequality or race inequality. And then there's some other policies that have been touted like child support, and one child support assurance in which the government would give you the child support if your husband or the father of your child didn't give it to you. And that I think, would reduce class inequality and racial inequality. But I have one that's sort of a further extension of that, that I'd like to propose. And I call it the sperm tax. And I think that because children are really a social good and are important for society as a whole, that all men should have to contribute to their support. Whether or not they've ever fathered an actual child, or whether or not they've ever been married, or, or ever even ever been with a woman, what difference does it make? Yeah, who cares where you do it in the shower, we don't care. And I first, I first mentioned this idea at an early conference, a conference for the Union for radical political economics. And I said, you know, this tax would really be a good idea, because we would be taxing, we will be taxing what men really want. Sex. And we will use, we will use that tax to support something we all need, but often avoid supporting which is children. But I wasn't really sure how we could enforce the tax. And then a young woman said, well, well, I work in the field of medical technology, and I don't think it would be hard at all. We could implant meters and and know, you know, how your posts you know, if you have a postage meter, you have to take it down to the post office every six months, have it read. And, you know, this is what men could do. And while we were there having their meters read, we could give them condoms and instruct them and contraception and family planning and how to diaper children and lots of other things we want them to know. But, but seriously, this, you know, this somewhat amusing example is, is by way of saying that I think that something like a sperm tax