More
stay-at-home moms in the U.S.?
Depends on how you look at it.
A new Census report
on America’s Families
and Living Arrangements found that in
2003, 6 million married mothers in households with children
under 15 remained out of the paid work force to “care
for home and family.” Fathers in similar households
were much less like to identify caring for home and family
as their primary reason for being out of the labor force;
only 15.6 percent (160,000) claimed to be full-time dads,
while 45 percent reported they were ill or disabled. The
current figures indicate that 26 percent of married mothers
in households with young children— and 18 percent of
all U.S. mothers with children under 15— are officially
stay-at-home moms.
The new figures
appear to be inconsistent with Census data released last
year showing that there were 5.2 million at-home mothers
in 2002. But before we jump to any conclusions about a sudden
astronomical increase in the number of women leaving the
workforce to care for their children at home, it’s
important to take into account that these studies were measuring
different things and using slightly different methods. But
the proportion of married mothers who stay at home works
out to be about the same in both reports— around 26
percent.
Getting an accurate
measurement of the number of “at-home” mothers
in the U.S. is problematic, since many married women who
have some earnings from paid work consider themselves first
and foremost at-home or “full-time” mothers.
For example, it’s possible that a high percentage of
the 2.7 million married mothers with children under 6 and
annual earnings of $5,000 or less describe themselves as
at-home moms, but because these mothers are technically in
the labor force at least part of the year they aren’t
included in the official tally. But no matter how you count
them, married at-home moms still make up only a modest percentage
of all American mothers. The more controversial issue— and
the reason new statistics on mothers’ workforce participation
invariably draw national media attention— is whether
that’s a good or bad thing.
America’s
Families and Living Arrangements: 2003
U.S. Census Bureau, November 2004. In .pdf.
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New
book compares working hours in the U.S., EU
A new study from
the International Labor Organization (www.ilo.org)
on working hours in industrialized countries finds there
is a gap between the time workers spend on the job and the
number hours they would prefer to work. “There are
groups of workers with ‘excessively’ long hours
who would prefer to work less, and at the same time, there
is a sizable group of workers whose hours of work are significantly
shorter than they would prefer,” said ILO expert John
Messenger, editor of the new publication. The book includes
studies from five specialists on the issue of working time
in Australia, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand and
the United States.
According to an ILO
press release, Working
Time and Workers’ Preferences in Industrialized
Countries: Finding the Balance finds
that people working in excess of 50 hours per week in
the US and Australia increased from 15 per cent to 20
percent of the workforce during the 1990s. Among those
countries included in the study, only Japan (28.1 percent)
and New Zealand (21.3 percent) had a higher proportion
working more than 50 hours per week. By contrast, in
most EU countries the number of people working 50 hours
or more per work remains well under 10 percent, with
figures ranging from 1.4 percent in the Netherlands to
6.2 in Greece and Ireland. The only exception is the
United Kingdom, where some 15.5 percent of the workforce
spends 50 hours or more at work.
The overall pattern
underlying these variations is that countries with relatively
limited regulation of working time, such as the US, the UK
and Australia, tend to have a much higher incidence of excessive
hours than other countries, according to the book.
In an interview
for Take Back Your Time (www.timeday.org),
John Messenger comments: “I do think that Europeans
generally pay a great deal of attention to their quality
of life and are very concerned with protecting it. Of course,
a growing number of Americans are becoming concerned about
quality of life issues as well, but a key difference between
Europe and the US is the extent to which the political will
to push a quality of life-oriented agenda has been successfully
mobilized.” The complete interview appears in the December
2004 edition of the Time Day newsletter.
From
the Take Back Your Time webs site:
An
interview with John Messenger of the ILO on
working time in the U.S. and EU.
Also
of interest in the December Time Day newsletter:
Reports
on 2004 Take Back Your Time Day events
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World
Health Organization’s
“Great Expectations” series on maternal health
In the lead up to World
Health Day on April 7, 2005, WHO (www.who.int)
is publishing a series of photo essays on six mothers-to-be
living in different countries of the world. In the first
installment, Damiana (Bolivia), Samah (Egypt), Hiwot
(Ethiopia), Renu (India), Bounlid (Lao People’s
Democratic Republic) and Claire (UK) are five months
pregnant; in the second installment they are seven months
pregnant and have only a few weeks left before their
big day. The next installments will resume the mothers’ stories
at the birth of their babies, at one week after birth,
and finally when their babies are six weeks old. According
to the WHO web site, “In a world where more than
half a million women die in childbirth every year and
where four million newborns each year do not survive
beyond one month, these documentaries aim to raise awareness
of the challenges we face as a global community in improving
maternal and newborn health. They will also draw attention
to the pressing need to meet the Millennium Development
Goals of reducing maternal deaths by three quarters,
and reducing child mortality by two thirds by 2015.”
The slogan for World
Health Day 2005 is “Make
every mother and child count,” which reflects “the reality
that today, the health of women and children is not a high
enough priority for many governments and the international
community.” The United States has one of the highest
maternal mortality rates in the developed world; maternal
and infant mortality rates in the U.S. are significantly
higher for mothers of color. A
downloadable tool kit for organizers and activities are
available from the WHO web site.
The
Great Expectations series
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New
Report on Women in the United States
The
Institute for Women’s Policy Research
(www.iwpr.org)
issued its fifth biennial report comparing women’s progress
toward equality in the 50 states, and things aren’t
looking too good. According to IWPR director Heidi Hartmann,
“At the rate things are changing, it’ll be 50
years before women’s paychecks equal men’s”
and nearly a hundred years before women hold half the seats
in Congress.
The state-by-state
analysis examines differences in women’s employment
and earnings, political participation, social and economic
autonomy, reproductive rights, and health and well-being
and grades the states on a composite index. The report ranked
four states as “Best for Women” (Vermont,
Connecticut, Minnesota, and Washington, with Oregon receiving
an honorable mention) while seven states were designated “Worst
for Women” (Mississippi, South Carolina, Arkansas,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas; Florida earned a dishonorable
mention).
The 2004 Status
of Women in the States study found
that poverty is a major problem for women in general,
but is a far more serious issue for women of color.
Nationwide, nearly one out of four African American
women live in poverty and one-quarter of all Native
American women live in poverty. The report also found
that access to health insurance and pre-natal care
is clearly related to maternal and infant mortality
rates in the U.S., and that even white infants have
higher mortality rates compared to those born in countries
with universal health care such as Canada, Denmark,
France and Sweden.
The report makes
a number of policy recommendations, including tougher enforcement
of equal opportunity laws, federal and state laws requiring
employers to show that they are in compliance with the Equal
Pay Act, raising the federal minimum wage and improving state
and local living wage laws, paid parental and dependent care
leave, public health programs targeting uninsured and underserved
women in at-risk populations, and enhanced reproductive rights,
especially for low income women.
The full report,
related issue briefs and information from past reports can
be downloaded from the Status
of Women in the States web page.
The
Status of Women in the States
Misha Werschkul and Erica Williams.
Series Editors: Amy B. Caiazza, Ph.D., and April Shaw
Institute for Women’s Policy Research, November 2004
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Coming
soon to a nation near you:
Social insecurity
According
to numerous economists, political commentators and women’s
advocates, the Bush administration’s plan
to privatize Social Security is mad, bad and dangerous
to everyone. As economist Paul
Krugman— who interrupted a hiatus
from his regular column for The New York Times to
weigh in on the debate— remarks, “If Mr. Bush
were to say in plain English that his plan to solve our
fiscal problems is to borrow trillions, put the money into
stocks and hope for the best, everyone would denounce that
plan as the height of irresponsibility.” Of course,
that’s not how Mr. Bush is saying it. According to
the GOP’s latest fact sheet on “Securing
Our Economic Future,” Mr. Bush claims “the
current Social Security system needs to be fixed” and “has
called for reforms that would keep Social Security’s
promises for today’s retirees and near-retirees,
while giving younger workers a chance to save in personal
accounts for their own retirement. President Bush believes
that personal accounts provide ownership, choice, and the
opportunity for workers to build a nest egg for their retirement
and to pass on to their spouse or their children.” Well,
when you put it that way, it doesn’t actually
sound like “selling the retirement security of millions
of working Americans down the river.” But according
to well-respected sources, that’s precisely what
it is.
As Krugman notes
his December 17 column for the NY Times, international
attempts to privatize national retirement security programs
have had uniformly dismal results. He believes the US can
learn from the mistakes of others: “Privatization dissipates
a large fraction of workers’ contributions on fees
to investment companies. …It leaves many retirees in
poverty.” Need I say that many of the potentially impoverished
will be mothers? But then, what else is new…
Below
are links to selected commentaries that have appeared over
the last few weeks and other resources on the plan to privatize
Social Security:
Not
Just Your Mom’s Retirement
Nancy Duff Campbell and Joan Entmacher
TomPaine.com
(www.tompaine.com)
December 16, 2004
“Did you know that children, disabled workers and families of prematurely
deceased workers all collect Social Security benefits? The program truly serves
the role of government safety net as it was intended—lending a hand to
Americans in their time of need. The personal investment accounts idea being
floated by the White House and its surrogates would effectively shred that safety
net.”
Social
Security Suicide
By Molly Ivins for AlterNet (www.alternet.org)
December 14, 2004
“Next week, the White House will launch a giant public relations campaign,
just as it did with the campaign to sell us on the Iraq war, with a lot of phony
information to convince us all this lunacy is good for us. Social Security is
of particular concern to women, since we live longer and have fewer earnings
to rely on in retirement.”
Anti-Social
Security
By Dean Baker for The Nation (www.thenation.com)
December 9, 2004
“The Bush plan would require a large reduction in the benefits provided
by the existing system. A worker who is 20 today would see a cut of approximately
one-third in his or her retirement benefit, although workers would theoretically
more than recoup this loss by investing a portion of their Social Security taxes
in a private account.”
---------------- From
the Century Foundation Social
Security Network
(www.socsec.org)
Twelve
Reasons Why Privatizing Social Security is a Bad Idea
Greg Anrig Jr., Bernard Wasow,
The Century Foundation
December 2004
“Addressing Social Security’s potential long-term financing challenges
by taking the dramatic step of diverting its payroll taxes to create new personal
accounts will have drastic consequences for federal finances, future retirees,
and those who rely on the system the most. Learn more about twelve major reasons
why less costly and less painful reforms should be considered instead.”
Reality
Check:
Scare
Tactics: Why Social Security Is Not in Crisis
Bernard Wasow, The Century Foundation
November 2004 (in .pdf)
---------------- From
the Economic Policy Institute (www.epinet.org)
Social
Security: Facts at a Glance, 2002
The
Perils of Privatization: Bush’s lethal plan for
Social Security
by Edith Rasell and Christian E. Weller,
May 2000
Policy
Brief: Social Security for Women (2000)
---------------- From
Women’s
eNews (www.womensenews.org)
Critics:
Privatizing Social Security Hurts Women
By Ann Moline, March 13, 2001
President Bush’s proposals to privatize the Social Security safety net
for the nation's elderly would adversely affect older Americans, especially
women, according to a coalition of women's organizations sponsoring the Women
and Social Security Project.
----------------
From
the National Women’s Law
Center (www.nwlc.org):
Fact
Sheet:
Why Social Security Is a Better Deal Than Privatization
for Women and Their Families
NWLC
Social Security web page
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Just
Don’t Do “It”:
New report reveals inaccuracies
in abstinence-only education programs
A
December report prepared for the office of Rep.
Henry Waxman finds that over two-thirds of
abstinence-only curricula contain information that is false,
misleading or distorted about the effectiveness of contraception,
transmission of HIV and STDs, fetal development, abortion
and sex differences. These programs— which are federally
funded to the tune of $170 million— are taught to millions
of adolescents in the US, but are not reviewed by the federal
government for accuracy.
As Camille
Hahn points out in her recent article for Ms.
Magazine on the burgeoning abstinence-only
education industry (“Virgin
Territory,” Fall 2004), the abstinence-only
business is overwhelmingly dominated by religious and pro-life
groups. “By the time the Supreme Court ruled …that
these programs must delete direct references to religion,
religious groups already had a near-monopoly on abstinence-only
education, which as a result is still mostly carried out
by religious groups and individuals. In public schools,
these educators give reasons such as the prevention of
pregnancy and STDs for remaining chaste, but for a large
majority, their personal belief in abstinence stems from
their religious convictions.” This is consistent
with the findings of the Waxman report, which found a blurring
of religion and science in abstinence-only teaching materials.
You’ll be
just thrilled to hear that somewhere in a city or town near
you, public school students are learning that a fertilized
ovum is a “tiny baby,” that a six-week old embryo
is a “thinking person” and that
Men tend to be
more tuned in to what is happening today and what needs
to be done for a secure future. When women began to enter
the work force at an equal pace with men, companies noticed
that women were not as concerned about preparing for retirement.
This stems from the priority men and women place on the
past, present and future.
This is your tax
dollars hard at work. If you’d like to do something
about it, pay a visit to the Planned
Parenthood Action Network or the Advocates
for Youth Sex Education web site.
Report:
The
Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs
December 2004 (in .pdf)
Science
or Politics?
George W. Bush and the Future of Sexuality Education in the United States
Fact sheet from Advocates for
Youth— in .pdf
From
Salon (www.salon.com)
Bush’s
sex fantasy
By Michelle Goldberg, February 2004
“George Bush’s proposed 2005 budget cuts funding for veterans’ healthcare
and public housing. It freezes funding for after-school programs and Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families grants. It provides less than one-sixth of the
increase needed to close the budget shortfall in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program,
which helps low-income HIV patients access medical care and lifesaving drugs.
It cuts state Medicaid funding by $1.5 billion. …Yet when it comes to abstinence
education, money seems to be no object. Bush's budget recommends $270 million
for programs that try to dissuade teenagers from having sex, double the amount
spent last year.
Just
say no to sex; just say yes to big bucks
By Sharon Lerner, September 1999
“Three years after the passage of the Welfare Reform Act, Figueroa’s
workshop, held after class in public high schools, is one of a crop of just-say-no-to-sex
programs springing up across the country. Through a little-noticed provision
in the 1996 welfare law, almost $500 million of government money (a mix of federal
and state) is now being used to bring such classes into public and private schools
across the country.”
The
virginity hoax
A federal study reveals the terrible failures inherent in teen vows to chastity.
By Jennifer Foote Sweeney, January 2001
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More
reproductive health news
Study
Finds First-time Caesarean Births Rising
According to a news story by HealthDay reporter Amanda Gardner (“Sharp
Rise Seen in Needless C-Sections,” November 18, 2004), Boston University
School of Public Health professor Eugene Declercq says that the number of caesarean
births among women with no identified medical risks or complications rose by
67 percent between 1991 and 2001. Declercq and his colleagues reviewed U.S.
national birth certificate data and found that after controlling for age, race,
ethnicity, education, birth weight and parity, mothers were 50 percent more
likely to deliver by caesarean section. First-time mothers over the age of
40 are more likely to have a caesarean. A particular concern for Declercq and
his colleagues is that women who have a caesarean with their first baby are
more likely to have caesareans with subsequent children, which increases the
risks to newborns and mothers.
The one major limitation
of the study is that the information listed on the birth
certificates may have been inaccurate or incomplete. “There
is always the potential that there was another medical indication
that didn't happen to be noted,” Declercq acknowledged. “The
other potential is that these do represent more elective-type
Caesarean births, but nothing allows us to say that this
is the mother's choice.”
Gardner reports
that, “The study did not address why this increase
is taking place, although in the past many have presumed
that individual choice on the part of the mother has played
a role.”
The full article
is available from HealthFinder.gov,
a service of the National Health Information Center of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Sharp
Rise Seen in Needless C-Sections
By Amanda Gardner, November 18, 2004
---------------- U.S.
voters favor nomination of Supreme Court Justices
who support Roe v. Wade
Given that Bush will likely be in the position to appoint between one and three
Supreme Court justices in his second term, the subject of abortion is on the
minds of many Americans.
The Quinnipiac University
Polling Institute and an Associated Press poll both found
that a majority of voters surveyed believe that Bush should
nominate Supreme Court Justices who would uphold Roe v. Wade.
What’s more, 62 percent of those surveyed in the poll
said that Supreme Court nominees should make their views
on abortion a matter of public record.
According to a December
16 article by Joseph Straw for The New
Haven Register, voters say Bush should nominate justices
who would uphold the Roe v. Wade— the decision making
abortion legal in the first three months of pregnancy— by
a 50 percent to 34 percent margin,. Sixteen percent of those
polled did not know or did not answer.
A plurality of respondents— 41
percent —said abortion should be legal in “most” cases,
while 34 percent said it should be illegal in most. Sixteen
percent said it should be legal in all cases, and 13 percent
said it should be illegal in all cases.
The poll of legal
and moral issues showed that a majority of Americans oppose
laws allowing gay couples to marry or form civil unions,
but also oppose a Constitutional amendment defining marriage
as between a man and a woman.
The poll surveyed
1,529 registered voters nationwide in December 2004.
Abortion
position key in Supreme Court justice choice
By Joseph Straw, The New Haven Register, December, 16 2004
---------------- FDA
to review to application for OTC emergency contraception
The Feminist Majority Foundation (www.feminist.org)
has issued an action advisory encouraging women to write
a letter to the FDA in support of providing emergency contraception
over-the-counter. The FDA is scheduled to make its decision
regarding this application by late January 2005.
The Feminist Majority
Foundation web site reports that Barr Laboratories applied
for over-the-counter status for its emergency contraceptive,
Plan B, in May 2004, but they were given a “not approvable” letter
by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This decision
was made despite the fact that the FDA’s own expert
advisory panel deemed the drug to be safe and effective and
voted 23-4 in favor of making Plan B available over-the-counter.
This summer a new
application for the OTC status of Plan B was submitted with
a novel packaging requirement— the “dual label”.
If approved under this requirement, Plan B would be available
OTC only for women 16 and older. Younger women would still
need a prescription to purchase emergency contraception.
According to the Feminist Majority Foundation, this is a
policy many public health and women’s rights advocates
find completely unacceptable because it prevents responsible
yet vulnerable young women from accessing a product that
has the potential to powerfully shape their future.
For more information
on emergency contraception and to take action, visit the Feminist
Majority Foundation’s Prescribe Choice web site.
---------------- For
other articles on reproductive rights, see:
Choice
Language
Abortion is a right that ends in sorrow.
Democratic rhetoric in the future must acknowledge this fact.
By Sarah Blustain for The
American Prospect (www.prospect.org)
December 2004
“For those of us who came after Roe v. Wade, there is a significantly different
reality. The context has changed. Back alleys and coat hangers are not part of
our visceral memory. To this generation, the “choice” of a legal
abortion is no longer something to celebrate. It is a decision made in crisis,
and it is never one made happily.”
Stop
Crying, Start Working
By Katha Pollitt for The Nation (www.thenation.org)
December 2004
“If you've been racking your brains for an activist project to replace
obsessively monitoring the Electoral College Vote Predictor, here is one that
could make a real difference as former Texas Air National Guard pilot George
W. Bush swoops us into the wild blue fundamentalist yonder: Get involved with
your local abortion fund. If none exists in your area--there are 102 around the
country--start one yourself.”
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Elsewhere
on the Web:
From
The American Association of University Professors (www.aaup.org)
Do Babies Matter?
The Effect of Family Formation on the Lifelong Careers of Academic Men and
Women
For women academics, deciding to have a baby is a career decision. Traditional
narratives of the academic career must adapt to new demands and new constituencies.
By Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulde
Do
Babies Matter? Part 1
Do
Babies Matter? Closing the Gap (Part 2)
----------------
From
Women’s
eNews (www.womensenews.org)
Black
Women's Maternal Health Gets New Look
By Juhie Bhatia, December 19, 2004
African American women’s harder time with pregnancy and infant mortality
has been documented for many decades. Now a study--involving business leaders,
social workers as well as doctors--probes the problem from many directions.
Fewer
Employers Offering Flexible Schedules
By Sheryl Nance-Nash, December 16, 2004
The economic downtown has caused some companies to scale back their benefit
programs designed for parents. Yet, they remain extremely popular with all
employees, especially women, and the tide may turn as the economy strengthens.
Moms
Fight to Breastfeed in Public
By Juhie Bhatia, November 22, 2004
As the number of breastfeeding moms increases, their acceptance in public hasn't
kept pace. Breastfeeding in public is a legally protected activity in over
half the states, but moms are still being asked to cover up.
Women's
Shelters Refusing to Surrender Client Info
By Sandy Kobrin, November 26, 2004
New reporting standards on the homeless may place women living at domestic
violence shelters at risk. The rules say that shelters must report critical
information including shelter locations.
Sex
Drugs for Women Flood the Market
By Molly M. Ginty, Novemeber 29, 2004
A growing number of women are taking drugs and supplements meant to jump-start
their sex lives. But do these products really work? Or are they little more
than sexual snake oil?
Suffragists
Knew How to Make a Stir on Holidays
By Laura Schenone, November 25, 2004
Laura Schenone's backward glance at suffrage cookbooks reveals a proud tradition
of female radicals in the kitchen.
----------------
From
AlterNet (www.alternet.org)
Time
for Bread and Roses
By John de Graaf, December 20, 2004.
Lack of free time is an issue that crosses the ideological divide. Once, progressives
fought against time poverty; now that it's worse than ever, shouldn't the banner
be raised again?
Tour
of Beauty
By Christina Larson, November 30, 2004
“In ‘Inventing Beauty: A History of the Innovations That Have Made
Us Beautiful,’ New York Times patent writer Teresa Riordan gives readers
a delightful, quirky account of American cosmetic innovations, from lipstick
to silicon implants, from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th.”
----------------
From
LiteraryMama (www.literarymama.com)
Birthdays— an
essay by Amy Hudock
“I could choose ‘career,’ or I could choose ‘family.’ The
mommy wars had framed the debate in this narrow, either/or way, so that is how
I saw it. Feminism is about individual choice, I thought, and if I choose family,
then it is my choice. Now, however, as I think about what choice really means,
I imagine that a true choice is one in which both possibilities are reasonable.
Under that criteria, this was not a choice.”
Confessions
of a Desperate Housewife
By Lizbeth Finn-Arnold
“After staying home for a while, the walls of my house seemed as if they
were closing in around me. And I began to feel trapped, a slave to two demanding,
needy children. Part of me wanted to run away and hide from it all -- even my
own babies. And another part of me just wanted to know that I had the option
of running away -- if I wanted to.”
— MMO,
December 2004
Shawna
Goodrich contributed to this month’s noteworthy.
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Previously
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