Remember Mama?

2009-05-04-200pxAbigail_Adams.jpg
This piece appeared first on Huffington Post
Motherhood changed utterly on the day after Mother’s Day 1960. That’s when the FDA approved the birth control pill for general use, and women at long last could become mothers by choice rather than by default. Immediately the birth rate fell, down by 44% within 15 years, where it’s basically stayed ever since.* Voting with their wombs, women had fewer kids, started their families later than their mothers did, or went “childfree.”

Released from the old biological constraints, women flooded universities and the workforce, developing their skills, expanding their incomes, and doubling our national talent pool. Most women still want to be moms — on the new terms that allow them to participate in civic life as well. But while they now hold a majority of middle management jobs, 49 years later women still haven’t done more than trickle up into policy-making roles. Currently women (51% of the population) hold 17% of Congressional seats (a new high). In the business world, where women now hold 50.6% of professional and management positions, they comprise only 15.2% of boards of directors and 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs.

What’s the holdup?

Well, basically, men — particularly of the legislative and business-heading types. While our male leaders and representatives might have facilitated change on behalf of their female constituents and workers, with few exceptions they’ve failed to do so, leaving the old and actively family-unfriendly business model in place. Like John Adams, whose wife Abigail (see above) famously enjoined him to “remember the ladies” as he developed the constitution, most somehow forgot.

Even though women can now time their births, our nation’s lack of a family-support infrastructure holds them back — and mothers especially — with a dirty laundry list of inequities: unfair pay, job ghettos, inadequate childcare, no sick leave, limited career tracks, and more. Increasingly access to birth control and abortion have been limited as well, especially for the poor. We’ve heard this list so often, it’s come to seem insurmountable.

But the stress and struggles women workers and their families undergo while trying to do their jobs are not only a national disgrace — they’re completely unnecessary. Two examples: Our military runs a strong childcare system, with trained, well-paid workers; a similar system could work for the rest of us and create hundreds of thousands of good jobs. Pay equity may frighten employers who’ve depended on cheap female labor, much of it in unexportable care work, but if women were paid more, they’d spend more — revenue neutral for the economy but an important corrective to the current gender power-imbalance. Women with money could contribute to the campaigns of women candidates, and women with good childcare could stay in their jobs and climb the ladders to leadership roles in business. Things would change — for the better.

Circularly, because the support infrastructure hasn’t changed, women haven’t been able to move in sufficient numbers into positions where they could change it.

The rationale we’re given for this mistreatment holds choice against moms: It was their choice to have kids, so any consequences are their problem. But mothers’ work produces not just the happiness of their families; the kids they bear and raise are essential to the operation of commerce and of the nation, which demand citizens, workers and consumers for their continuation — and good ones at that. It’s in our national interest to ensure that all families can do well and women workers do not suffer because they choose to raise the next generation while also contributing to the wider economy and civic life.

Our business model is outdated in not providing circumstances in which women can contribute to the fullest, and earn a fair wage. When women’s insights into how to make our systems better meet our nation’s needs, including but not limited to the needs of women and families, are not taken seriously at the levels where they might be implemented, every one loses.

Part of the problem is systemic. As legal scholar Lani Guinier explains: “Whoever designs the game or defines the rules predicts the outcome…[Then] the winners tell…the losers that it is futile to resist.” This is true for all biases, not just gender. As we’ve seen, the narrative we’re handed justifies the status quo. In this case, as in others, the game was established in a very different landscape, and the rules no longer makes sense for any of us. Men as well as women will be better off when we even up the playing field here.

In fact, things have been improving incrementally, and we may now be approaching the critical mass needed for a game-changing jump. Women have trickled up to the point where even our incredibly low version of a Congressional high has had visible effect. The Speaker of the House is now a woman, and she and her ilk have put pay equity and paid sick leave on the agenda. Not the same as passing, but progress. Big sister is helping mom.

The Obama administration has already signaled its woman-friendliness through a number of bills already passed and through its creation of a White House Council on Women and Girls to scrutinize the gender-effects of legislation. Michelle Obama, self-styled Mom-in-Chief with an impressive employment history and a new full-time job as first lady, exemplifies in her daily life the importance of support for both dimensions of women’s work. She and Vice President Biden’s Middle Class Task Force have committed to advancing America’s work/life balance.

But mama needs more, including the Commission on Women proposed by Congresswoman Jackie Speier, to take a big-picture look at the circumstances that hold women back economically and socially, and to recommend specific actions to rectify those. (Perhaps the threat of a diversity quota on boards of directors could get industry moving.) Here in Houston we recall a conference with a similar charge, held in 1977, which came up with 25 policy recommendations. Those were then overwhelmingly ignored by the same Carter administration that had called the conference. Back then, there were no women in the Senate and few Congresswomen. This time, there’ll be follow-through.

To guarantee it and to promote further positive change, we need ongoing active citizen support for the pro-equality legislation proposed by current office holders, male and female. Successes or even near successes in these battles can invigorate women and increase the stream of female candidates. (Women’s candidacies in the last election have already led 30,000 girls to apply for a training workshop on political leadership for which fewer than 300 applied last year.) Female candidates won’t all agree on everything, but their presence in the race will change the discussion in ways that will make what used to seem impossible suddenly look do-able.

The recent collapse of the finance markets makes this a particularly auspicious time to consider alternative models for doing the nation’s business. The culture of greed has failed. Who better than mothers to turn to for wisdom on how to build a culture of care — one that assumes, for starters, that everyone in the national family deserves respect, fair wages, and a solid education. One that recognizes that we are our common wealth. Time for legislators to remember the ladies, and the mamas, at last. It becomes harder to forget them when they’re there in the same room, voting for themselves. Since nobody else is going to do it for them.

*The annual US birthrate fell from 118 births per 1000 fertile women in 1960 to 65 in 1976 (the low in
that period). It’s bounced around in that vicinity ever since, reaching an all-time low in 2002 at 64.8, and a recent high in 2007 at 69.5.

While the Pill was developed to assist women (at the behest of and with funds supplied by women), it also arrived at a point when the world needed fewer babies. Infant survival rates were up, health gains meant people lived longer, technology innovations meant farms needed fewer workers, and the globe was getting crowded.

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Baby Gusher: Birth Rates Up in All Age Ranges

On the fiftieth anniversary of the biggest birth year in US history, the record burst. More babies were born in 2007 than in any year prior: 4,317,119, according to the CDC. Before that the record was an approximate 4,300,000 – set in 1957, the zenith of the baby boom. Birth rates were up in all age ranges except the very youngest and the very oldest, which held steady: fifteen year olds and fifty year olds and everyone in between were reproducing busily (the overall rise was 1%, with 30-34 year olds leading the pack at 2%).

So does a new boom loom? Not quite. While the numbers look alike, the birth rate differs dramatically: In 1957, it flew at 118 births per thousand women ages 15 to 44, while in 2007 it jogged along at 69.5 (and that included an expanding number of women over 45, using donor eggs).

Our population has grown, so relatively speaking fewer women had babies in 2007 than 50 years before (the hypothetical average woman had 3.8 kids in the late 50s, whereas now it’s 2.1). While that still adds up to more babies on the ground, they won’t make the huge proportional change in the population that the boomers did.

But it’s not the increase in population alone that spurs the current rise. From 2003 to 2007 the birth rate increased steadily if incrementally, from the all-time low of 64.8 per thousand in 2002 up to the new 69.5 – the highest since 1990.

So what’s up with this? The rise in teen births (this 1% adds on to a 3% rise among teens in 2006, interrupting the 34% decline that ran from the peak in 1991 until 2005) links in some measure to the failures of abstinence-only education and decreased access to birth control. But what about the rest?

Have all the star babies in the media spawned a copy cat trend? Or does the influence go the other way? While the tabloids belabor us with endless updates on pregnant celebrities, most people don’t reproduce just because Angelina does (except maybe the octo-mom). Jen, under big tabloid pressure, has held out for her own timetable.

But the baby fever in the tabloids does operate in a feedback loop with lots of other cultural factors that affect decisions around babies, like

•optimism over what looked until recently like a good economy
•a heightened anxiety about possible infertility (overplayed in the media, especially for women in their mid-30s)
•diminished access to and information about contraception and abortion
•nostalgia for the more relaxed pace of the family-filled fifties (in contrast to our busy lives)
•expectation that the work world will either live up on its own to recent promises to provide family-friendly options or that it could be made to do so

These factors and more skew differently for women (and their partners) in different age ranges, since their work, economic and fertility situations differ.

But 2007 is quickly fading into the deep past, and these trends may shift quickly. Though the tabloids continue to provide regular fertility scoops, recessions have historically been potent contraceptives–and then they pass. On the other hand, later would-be parents are likely to be less willing to wait for better times than their younger counterparts. Since they’re generally in more stable financial positions than younger folks, the downturn may be less of an issue. But not necessarily.

Stay tuned for the 2008 installment in our national fertility retrospect from the CDC toward the end of this year. But for the breaking story, keep an eye on the tabloids, on your neighbors, and on your own thoughts in this direction, for updates from the home front.

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Cut Hours, Not Jobs – Part 2 of “Family Friendly Recession?”

The last post examined how in recessions women’s movement up career ladders has historically suffered setbacks, with long-term negative effects. Can we break the recessionary pattern today? Absolutely.

Firstly, as Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute notes, flexibility has suddenly become a mainstream business strategy for companies seeking to retain current workers rather than having to start from scratch with new employees come the upturn. Reduced hours are among the cut-backs on the table, until things improve. President Obama endorsed that option in his Inaugural speech, and the savings to the nation when people stay in jobs speak for themselves.

Reduced hours may look like automatic family friendliness, but if the reduction is entirely on the employers’ terms it doesn’t help parents in need of flexibility much more than the standard workweek did. If employers work with employees, male and female, in devising reduced schedules, all parties gain.

And the government can assist. In 17 states, a Shared Work program helps employees and employers who must reduce hours by paying pro-rated unemployment benefits. In 2008 in New York 83% more employers participated in this program than in 2007, and a 2009 surge is already underway. In Texas the program is little known, but word is spreading. This option makes much more sense than layoffs in many environments and should be available nationwide.

Where potential savings on worker health care pushes employers to consider cutting workers they might prefer to cut hours for, government should cover the difference.

A second break with old patterns lies in society’s enormous capital investment in women’s education and in the extensive work experience women now have. Like any other form of capital, business leaders should find ways to utilize this human capital in a downturn. Smart employers will make every effort to hold onto their best talent, whatever the worker’s gender.

Thirdly, the enormity of the failure of the business culture of greed means the time is ripe to rewrite the model and move toward a culture of care. Rather than view the downturn as reason to turn away from initiatives that support women’s participation in better-paid jobs, the nation will be best served if we redouble our efforts in that direction, to take advantage of our full national talent pool.

It’s time for new ideas and big pictures. In today’s troubled economy, one way business and government can collaborate to keep workers, male and female, employed is by cutting hours instead of jobs, at all levels. One by-product could be that the old recessionary patterns that slow women’s progress up career ladders finally fall away. But we’re going to have to work actively and intentionally to make that happen.

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Tracking Women’s Careers in Recession – Part 1 of “Family Friendly Recession?”

We’ve heard a lot recently about how this recession is affecting men’s jobs more than women’s. But while women’s relative labor-force participation rises in recessions, most of the jobs women hold on to earn small wages and low status. In the long-term, recessions can have very negative effects on women’s careers — both at the individual and national levels. Gains for women earned through years of effort may be swept away in the undertow of layoffs, when flexibility and diversity efforts suddenly disappear.

Women’s movement up business ladders and through glass ceilings is endangered right now. Early reports suggest that on Wall Street, a disproportionate number of women overall and almost all those hired in through firms’ “opt-in” programs to work flex time have been let go. Little thought is being given to maintaining diversity as layoff decisions are made. This could have huge negative effect long-term. One financial insider (who requests anonymity in sensitive times) observes about the downturn: “In this industry, it definitely set women’s progress back at least 20 years.”

The current issue of Forbes documents a resurgence of sexism in the finance field — “In the worst financial crash since the Depression, financial services and insurance firms have cut 260,000 jobs. Seventy-two percent of the missing workers laid off have been women, even though they constituted 64% of employment before the crash began.”

Women overall earn a lot less than men do because many industries are still strongly sex-segregated, often because women with kids need part-time or otherwise flexible work. Historically the jobs offering such arrangements have paid less.

But the professions are not as gendered as they used to be, and some women do make high wages. Additionally, once sufficient numbers of women reach positions of influence within business and government, they change the gender-dynamics of the workplace at all levels, introducing family-friendly policies and challenging the gendering of the pay structure. The work still gets done, but on a new, more flexible schedule. It takes a while to establish these new dynamics, which allow women to contribute more fully to the national economy.

While women comprise only 15.2% of boards of directors and 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs, they hold 50.6% of professional and management positions. As a result, 79% of businesses reported offering some flex options in 2008, the pay equity bill is now law, and we have several initiatives in Congress to put all workers on an equal playing field.

Progress has been made, but the recession could halt it, and not just in the finance world. In troubled economic times the historical tendency has been to send the ladies with higher-status jobs back home, or down ladder, pushing them out not just through individual actions but through policy changes and negative media messages.

In the Depression, working women were scapegoated for men’s lack of jobs, and the group’s career progress was set back for decades. Similarly, in the recessions of the 70s and 80s and in this decade, women’s progress up ladder was slowed by a hostile environment that paralyzed the EEOC, undermined access to abortion and birth control, and portrayed women’s job losses as the result of a choice to stay home.

When recessions past ended, laid-off men returned to good jobs. Women remained largely in dead-end, low-wage work. With their collective status diminished, post-recessionary women had less ability to influence business policy than before the recession, and the system remained biased in favor of people without care-giving commitments (remember that these are not “merely personal” commitments, they are essential to the running of the nation). Eventually the trickle up began again, but the recessionary cycle ensured that it remained just a trickle. Recessionary setbacks have been a big part of the answer to the question “Why has women’s progress been so slow?” The Wall Street example makes it clear that long-term setbacks could occur again now.

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Family Friendly Recession?: Cut Hours, Not Jobs

Family Friendly Recession?: Cut Hours, Not Jobs

We’ve heard a lot recently about how this recession is affecting men’s jobs more than women’s. But while women’s relative labor-force participation rises in recessions, most of the jobs women hold on to earn small wages and low status. In the long-term, recessions can have very negative effects on women’s careers — both at the individual and national levels. Gains for women earned through years of effort may be swept away in the undertow of layoffs, when flexibility and diversity efforts suddenly disappear.

Women’s movement up business ladders and through glass ceilings is endangered right now. Early reports suggest that on Wall Street, a disproportionate number of women overall and almost all those hired in through firms’ “opt-in” programs to work flex time have been let go. Little thought is being given to maintaining diversity as layoff decisions are made. This could have huge negative effect long-term. One financial insider (who requests anonymity in sensitive times) observes about the downturn: “In this industry, it definitely set women’s progress back at least 20 years.”

The current issue of Forbes documents a resurgence of sexism in the finance field — “In the worst financial crash since the Depression, financial services and insurance firms have cut 260,000 jobs. Seventy-two percent of the missing workers laid off have been women, even though they constituted 64% of employment before the crash began.”

Women overall earn a lot less than men do because many industries are still strongly sex-segregated, often because women with kids need part-time or otherwise flexible work. Historically the jobs offering such arrangements have paid less.

But the professions are not as gendered as they used to be, and some women do make high wages. Additionally, once sufficient numbers of women reach positions of influence within business and government, they change the gender-dynamics of the workplace at all levels, introducing family-friendly policies and challenging the gendering of the pay structure. The work still gets done, but on a new, more flexible schedule. It takes a while to establish these new dynamics, which allow women to contribute more fully to the national economy.

While women comprise only 15.2% of boards of directors and 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs, they hold 50.6% of professional and management positions. As a result, 79% of businesses reported offering some flex options in 2008, the pay equity bill is now law, and we have several initiatives in Congress to put all workers on an equal playing field.

Progress has been made, but the recession could halt it, and not just in the finance world. In troubled economic times the historical tendency has been to send the ladies with higher-status jobs back home, or down ladder, pushing them out not just through individual actions but through policy changes and negative media messages.

In the Depression, working women were scapegoated for men’s lack of jobs, and the group’s career progress was set back for decades. Similarly, in the recessions of the 70s and 80s and in this decade, women’s progress up ladder was slowed by a hostile environment that paralyzed the EEOC, undermined access to abortion and birth control, and portrayed women’s job losses as the result of a choice to stay home.

When recessions past ended, laid-off men returned to good jobs. Women remained largely in dead-end, low-wage work. With their collective status diminished, post-recessionary women had less ability to influence business policy than before the recession, and the system remained biased in favor of people without care-giving commitments (remember that these are not “merely personal” commitments, they are essential to the running of the nation). Eventually the trickle up began again, but the recessionary cycle ensured that it remained just a trickle. Recessionary setbacks have been a big part of the answer to the question “Why has women’s progress been so slow?” The Wall Street example makes it clear that long-term setbacks could occur again now.

Can we break the recessionary pattern? Absolutely.

Firstly, as Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute notes, flexibility has suddenly become a mainstream business strategy for companies seeking to retain current workers rather than having to start from scratch with new employees come the upturn. Reduced hours are among the cut-backs on the table, until things improve. President Obama endorsed that option in his Inaugural speech, and the savings to the nation when people stay in jobs speak for themselves.

Reduced hours may look like automatic family friendliness, but if the reduction is entirely on the employers’ terms it doesn’t help parents in need of flexibility much more than the standard workweek did. If employers work with employees, male and female, in devising reduced schedules, all parties gain.

And the government can assist. In 17 states, a Shared Work program helps employees and employers who must reduce hours by paying pro-rated unemployment benefits. In 2008 in New York 83% more employers participated in this program than in 2007, and a 2009 surge is already underway. In Texas the program is little known, but word is spreading. This option makes much more sense than layoffs in many environments and should be available nationwide.

Where potential savings on worker health care pushes employers to consider cutting workers they might prefer to cut hours for, government should cover the difference.

A second break with old patterns lies in society’s enormous capital investment in women’s education and in the extensive work experience women now have. Like any other form of capital, business leaders should find ways to utilize this human capital in a downturn. Smart employers will make every effort to hold onto their best talent, whatever the worker’s gender.

Thirdly, the enormity of the failure of the business culture of greed means the time is ripe to rewrite the model and move toward a culture of care. Rather than view the downturn as reason to turn away from initiatives that support women’s participation in better-paid jobs, the nation will be best served if we redouble our efforts in that direction, to take advantage of our full national talent pool.

It’s time for new ideas and big pictures. In today’s troubled economy, one way business and government can collaborate to keep workers, male and female, employed is by cutting hours instead of jobs, at all levels. One by-product could be that the old recessionary patterns that slow women’s progress up career ladders finally fall away. But we’re going to have to work actively and intentionally to make that happen.

Share