Economic equity news is a weekly round-up of articles by Donna Seymour of AAUW-NYS that features our core values of poverty solutions, opportunity and access, workplace fairness, healthy lives, equal pay and representation at all tables. Sign up for our mailing list to receive this directly to your inbox.
Gov. Cuomo is mulling a plan to provide up to 12 weeks of paid family leave to New Yorkers in the coming year after Mayor de Blasio allowed city workers to receive the benefit in 2014. Gubernatorial aides met with advocates Dec. 29 in Manhattan to talk providing paid time off for employees with a new child, an injury or a sick family member. Cuomo is “feeling a lot more pressure” after Mayor de Blasio’s move last month to provide paid parental leave for up to 12 weeks for city workers starting in January, a source said.
- The Good, the Bad, and the Oh-So-Ugly for Women in 2015 via Huffington Post
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that 2015 was a roller coaster of a year for women. It wasn’t unusual to have days where I was cheering in the morning and shaking my fists at the sky in the afternoon. Whether it was putting the spotlight on the campus sexual assault epidemic, equal pay, or reproductive health, women around the country made their voices heard. For all the instances that depressed and infuriated us in 2015, there were successes that provided a silver lining.
- Gender Equity Requires Changes in Law, Not Just in Culture via The Atlantic
Even in developed countries, legal barriers can stunt economic independence for women. Women’s inclusion in the workforce on a mass scale is relatively new. In 1950 only about one-third of women in the U.S. were active workers; by 2000, nearly two-thirds were. And while there’s still plenty of gender inequity in the workplace (the wage gap, parental-leave policies, the paltry number of women at the very top, etc.), women in many countries now enjoy more economic freedom and opportunity than their mothers and grandmothers.
- Gender equality can lift annual global GDP by 26%, says research via The Financial Times
If women participated in the global economy identically to men there would be a 26 per cent uplift in annual global gross domestic product over the next 10 years, effectively adding the combined size of the US and Chinese economies today, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute.
- The Invisible Work That Women Do Around the World via The Atlantic
According to the UN, women take on three of every four hours of unpaid labor. Over the past 25 years, according to the United Nations, about 2 billion people have seen improvements in health care, sanitation, and job opportunities. That’s tremendous progress, but, as UN researchers note in a new report, paying attention to how those jobs are divvied up and compensated is important, especially from the perspective of making sure that poor and marginalized groups are getting their fair share.
Donna Seymour, who hails from the (far upstate) North Country of NYS, has spent 40 plus years advocating for children, women and family issues, equity, sustainability, and social justice issues. Currently serving as the Public Policy VP for AAUW-NYS (the American Association University Women), she is also a member the League of Women Voters, the Equal Pay Coalition, PTA, NOW, and Planned Parenthood, just to name a few.