A special TWO WEEK edition compiled by Donna Seymour.
More women’s voices needed in Albany. Despite its reputation as a progressive state on many issues, New York is woefully behind the curve when it comes to the female participation in state lawmaking. Just 21 percent of state Legislature seats are held by women, ranking New York 33rd in the nation for female representation. Not that the rest of the nation is lighting any gender-equality fires politically: the national average is only 24 percent, despite women accounting for 52 percent of the total population.The days of such lopsided representation should be put in the rear-view mirror in New York — and many another state.
Female College Grads Enter Lifetime of Wage Gaps. Employers can be expected to lowball women on starting pay, says a salary negotiator. That begins a wage gap for the college-educated that widens over time and leaves a woman accumulating a $1 million deficit. Third story in the Bias Price series.
Why Women Doctors Make Half of What Men Do: Medicare’s Doctor Gender Pay Gap. Female doctors are pulling in only about half as much money as their male counterparts in the Medicare system — the nation’s largest insurer — according to a new study by NerdWallet Health. While Medicare pays both men and women equally for providing the same service, several factors may contribute to women earning much less over the course of a year. This study shows how the gender pay gap is affecting the nation’s more than 800,000 physicians.
For Women in Tech, Pay Gap Is Unusually Small. Female computer scientists make 89 percent of what men in the same occupation make, controlling for age, race, hours and education, according to data from Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University labor economist and expert on women and the economy. For engineering managers, pay is just about equal for men and women.
Those numbers are significantly better than in other professions, including finance (66 percent), medicine (71 percent) and law (82 percent).
Study Finds Gender Pay Gap Widens When Workers Are Rehired After Layoffs. A new study by researchers at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sheds new light on the gender gap in pay. The study found that when a company lays off workers and then rehires them once the economic situation improves, the gender pay gap tends to widen.
The study found that in these situations the gender pay gap widens regardless of age, race, education, or seniority. But the widening of the pay gap tends to be less pronounced at firms where women make up a large percentage of the management team.
Meet The Woman Who Did Everything In Her Power To Hide Her Pregnancy From Big Data. Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University, had an idea: would it be possible to hide her pregnancy from big data? Thinking about technology—the way we use it and the way it uses us—is her professional life’s work. Pregnant women, she knew, are a marketing gold mine; a pregnant woman’s marketing data is worth 15 times as much as the average person’s. Here’s what she found: hiding from big data is so inconvenient and expensive that even Vertesi doesn’t recommend it as a lifestyle choice. (She presented her findings at the Theorizing the Web conference in New York last week.)
Eldercare: The Forgotten Feminist Issue. As writer Jane Glenn Haas pointed out, eldercare isn’t sexy enough to be a feminist issue. It lacks the naughty allure of reproductive rights, the seductive appeal of body image. It doesn’t even have a sassy Lean In-like catchphrase. But it should be a feminist issue, since the numbers show that women are most likely to shoulder the responsibility of looking after parents in their twilight years, and the most likely to live well into those twilight years. A lot of them have missed out on career and educational opportunities. A lot of them—like my mother and her friends—are doing this by the skin of their teeth, with scant to nonexistent resources. A lot of them will outlive their spouses (if they have them), exhaust their pensions (if they have them), and die alone.
Boomers working to stay employed during golden years. More baby boomers are working harder to keep their skills up to date, searching for future job opportunities and focusing on their health to make sure than can remain working after they turn 65. According to a report by the USA Today, 65 percent of baby boomers plan to work passed 65 or not retire at all due to concerns about health care and their income. The report, which cites findings from a Harris Poll says that baby boomers are taking steps to make sure they can work longer. Forty-one percent of those polled said they are keeping their skills current and 16 percent said they are networking to meet people and line up future opportunities.
Grating Expectations. A new study, based on interviews with 35 female college leaders, shows how women are discouraged but can encourage other women.
Right to Gender-Neutral Spaces. Graduate student workers in the U. California System say they’ve agreed on contract language establishing gender-neutral bathrooms and lactation stations as rights. Because graduate student workers can be found throughout the university system, the agreement would effectively provide access to such facilities for other students, faculty members and employees, not just graduate students.
Video: Women for minimum wage option. The #RaiseUpWomen event comes just two days after a new report from the National Employment Law Project found that most of the jobs created during the U.S. economic recovery are in low-wage industries, like fast food.
Grads hit with defaults when co-signers die, go bankrupt. Student loan borrowers are suddenly being thrown into default when the co-signer on their loan — often a parent or grandparent — dies or files for bankruptcy. Even if they are current on their payments, some borrowers are immediately being placed in default and told to repay the loan in full because their co-signer can no longer back them financially, according to a report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
These so-called “auto-defaults” came to light during an analysis of nearly 3,600 student loan and student loan-related debt collection complaints submitted to the CFPB’s consumer complaint database between October 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014.
Graduate student loans are ballooning. Students who went to university for a graduate degree borrowed $57,600 in 2012, a 43% increase from $40,209 in 2004, according to new research released Tuesday by the New America Foundation. Overall student loan debt is a little more than $1 trillion, outpacing all other loans except mortgages.
College Loans/Costs Top Money Issue for Young Adults. A new poll by Gallup has found that paying for college or paying student loans is the top financial problem for adults who are 18-29 years old, with 21 percent citing the issue. That issue beats out lack of money/low wages (15 percent) and housing costs (14 percent). Paying for college or students was also the top issue cited by those 30 to 49 years old, but the percentage citing the issue was smaller (14 percent).
Gimme a R-A-I-S-E! Several lawsuits have revealed the humiliating treatment of professional cheerleaders. Room for Debate asks how they can win respect and fair pay for what they do.
Pay scandal: CITB campaigns on construction’s gender inequality.UK: The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) is looking to take on a more active campaigning role and it is targeting the under-payment of female construction workers. Data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that, on average, women in construction are paid 12% less than their male counterparts in the same role. Among construction and building trades supervisors, the differential is as high as 33%.he CITB hopes to roll out its ‘BeFair Framework’ initiative across the industry to address negative cultures and practices and all forms of discrimination to create a fair, inclusive and respectful industry for everyone.