NEW RESEARCH & ANNOUNCEMENTS

New Report and Website
Pathways to Equity: Narrowing the Wage Gap by Improving Women’s Access to Good Middle-Skill Jobs

IWPR launched womenandgoodjobs.org, an interactive, searchable database of middle-skills jobs, allowing users to identify pathways for women workers to access better jobs.


Half of the gender wage gap is due towomen working in different occupations and sectors than men. Improving women’s access to good middle-skill jobs can help close the wage gap and improve women’s economic security. IWPR's Pathways to Equity Initiative, launched with a new report and website, explores job changes that can improve women’s economic standing and meet employers’ demands for skilled workers.

Read Coverage:

U.S. News & World Report "Op-ed: Closing the Gender and Skills Gap in STEM" by Heidi Hartmann and Chauncy Lennon
Fortune "Getting More Women Into These Jobs Could Help Close the Pay Gap"
MarketWatch "Here's One Way for Women to Stay Out of Poverty"
BloombergBusiness "For More Money, Women Need to Aim for Welding and Mechanics Jobs"
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IWPR Releases First Ever Status of Women in the South at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA

On February 25th, ahead of Super Tuesday, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College hosted an event to release the first ever Status of Women in the South report in Atlanta, GA. The report grades each of the 14 southern states in 6 topic areas related women’s political, economic, health, and social status. The event focused on the economic and political power of women in the South, with a particular focus on women of color. Panelists and presenters discussed report findings and delved into the broad themes of power and diversity, reflecting on the pace of progress, the implications of the data for varying sectors of society, and how leaders and the public can catalyze change.

See photos and highlights of the event and speakers on Facebook and Storify.

Read Coverage:

The Atlantic “Why gender inequality is more acute for women in the South”
The Tennessean “Tennessee women still experience pay inequality”
Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “On Second Thought”
AL.com “Equal voice, equal pay: It's time for women to vote with their wallets”
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The Gender Wage Gap: 2015; Earnings Differences by Race and Ethnicity
A new IWPR fact sheet finds that progress on narrowing the weekly wage gap in the United States has not only stalled, but reversed. The ratio of women’s to men’s median weekly full-time earnings declined from 82.5 percent in 2014 to 81.1 percent in 2015, increasing the gender gap to 18.9 percent from 17.5 percent last year.

The new fact sheet also highlights earnings differences by gender, race, and ethnicity, finding that black women saw the smallest gains in weekly earnings among women, while black men were the only group to see no weekly wage growth at all. Earnings for a full-time week of work leave Hispanic women well below, and Hispanic men and black women not much above, the qualifying income threshold for receipt of food stamps of $606 per week for a family of four.

Read coverage:

Marketwatch “Gender wage gap widens in 2015"
ThinkProgress “The Gender Wage Gap Just Got Bigger"
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Equal Pay by State
A recent IWPR fact sheet highlights data on the impact of equal pay on the state economy for each of the 50 states plus Washington, DC. The analysis finds:

Equal pay would cut the poverty rate among all working women by more than half in 28 states. In 16 states, the poverty rate among single mothers would fall by more than half if working single mothers were paid the same as comparable men. In all states, poverty among working single mothers would fall by nearly a third or more. California’s working women would have earned $51.8 billion more dollars with equal pay, an earnings increase that, by itself, is greater than the entire economy of South Dakota ($45.9 billion).
Read coverage in MarketWatch.

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Journal of Women, Politics & Policy
The Journal of Women, Politics & Policy (JWPP), edited by IWPR President Heidi Hartmann, explores women’s roles in the political process—as voters, activists, leaders in interest groups and political parties, and office holders, and examines the impact of public policies on women’s lives. This multidisciplinary, international journal presents the work of social scientists who study the world through a gendered lens and uncover how gender functions in the political and policy arenas. Throughout, the journal places a special emphasis on the intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, class, and other dimensions of women’s experiences.

Some recent JWPP articles include:

“Gender Roles, Motherhood, and Politics: Conservative Women’s Organizations Frame Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann” by Ronnee Schreiber
“From Miss World to World Leader: Beauty Queens, Paths to Power, and Political Representations” by Magda Hinojosa and Jill Carle
“Women’s Equality, Candidate Difference, and the Vote” by Susan Hansen
“The Dynamics of Earmark Requests for the Women and Men of the US House of Representatives” by Corina Schulze and Jared Hurvitz
“Obscuring Gender Based Violence: Marriage Promotion and Teen Dating Violence Research” by Carrie Baker and Nan Stein
To see the current and past editions of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy and download articles, please click here.

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IWPR IN THE NEWS
Pay Equity and the Gender Wage Gap

A Fusion article “5 Things Young Women Workers Want to See Change” cited IWPR research on the gender wage gap (March 11, 2016).

The Nation article “The Whole World Still Needs Feminism” cited IWPR research on the gender wage gap (March 11, 2016).

The Washington Post highlighted IWPR research on the gender wage gap in “It’s 2016, and Women Still Make Less for Doing the Same Work as Men” (March 8, 2016).

Fortune cites IWPR statistics on when the gender wage gap will close in the U.S. in an article “1 in 5 HR Managers Admit that Women at Their Companies Get Paid Less Than Men” (February 26, 2016).

Status of Women in the U.S.

SELF published an article, “Where’s The Best Place To Be A Woman In The Workforce? (Answer: Not Here)” that cited IWPR’s finding on when the wage gap will close (March 15, 2016).

IWPR Study Director Jessica Milli was quoted in an article in TheStreet “Some Companies Just Don’t Get it When it Comes to Women in the Boardroom” (March 10, 2016).