A recent GAO study reveals that in many industries, the wage gap between women and men was wider in 2000 than in 1995

Most major newspapers across the country carried the January 2002 release of a report titled "A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling: Where Are The Women." Compiled by the U.S. Accounting Office, it was an analysis of the status of women in management positions compared to their male counterparts. It looked at 10 selected fields.

It came as a surprise to everyone to learn that women have not made much progress. Women are still not equal to men in salary when looking at the same jobs and opportunities. In seven of the 10 indus- tries the report looked at, the wage gap between men and women was wider in 2000 than it was in 1995.

Given the economic boom of the late 1990s, researchers expected to find better news for women managers. In its executive summary the report states: "Despite a sense of continued progress toward gender equality in the workplace, in 10 industries employing 71 percent of U.S. women workers and 73 percent of U.S. women managers, the data show that women managers continued to lag behind their male counterparts in both advancement and pay. The majority of women man- agers were worse off, relative to men, in 2000 than in 1995."

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) and John D. Dingell (D-MI) had their staffs analyze the information from the study. Rep. Maloney, a Presbyterian, is quoted in The Washington Post (1/24/02) as saying; "I don't find one line of good news in the report. Yet I think people believe women are doing better."

This phenomenon has been referred to as the Glass Ceiling. This term describes what is thought to be an invisible, but virtually impenetrable barrier between women and the executive suite, which prevents women from reaching the highest levels of the corporate world regardless of their accomplishments and merits.

(The Civil Rights Act of 1991 called for the establishment of the Glass Ceiling Commission, which uncovered similar findings.)

There is some good news. Overall, women did do better in five of the 10 industries analyzed. These five include: Communications, Business, Public Administration, Entertainment, and a category simply called 'Other Professions.' Some reasons offered for the discrepancy in four of the studied fields- Education, Retail Trade, Finance, and Hospitals- are: (1) Women often select occupations and industries where there is more scheduling flexibility in order to meet the needs of work and family, causing an apparent male/female "segregation" in employment, and (2) Women tend to be on different management tracks in areas that lead to nowhere, and (3) Female managers, in finance in particular, are 50 percent less likely to have a college degree than their male counterparts. Women also outnumbered men in the professional medical field.

Congressional Action

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has reintroduced the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) largely in reaction to the hostile, anti-women environment fostered by the 104th Congress.

H.J.RES.40: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to equal rights for men and women.

"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by approp- riate legislation, the provisions of this article. This Amendment shall take effect two years after the day of ratification."

"We are constantly under attack! Gains that we've made over the past several years are gradually being chiseled away. Women are engaged in a constant struggle to maintain laws which protect equality in education and in the workplace," says Maloney.

Rep. Maloney went on to say, "Laws can change. Judicial attitudes can shift. The only way for women to achieve true equality in this country is to engrave the principle of gender equality in the U.S. Constitution."

First introduced in 1972, the ERA included a seven-year deadline for ratification by the states. That deadline was increased to 10 years. However, it fell three states short of approval. This current ERA includes no deadline. There are 164 House cosponsors.

A Statistical Snapshot

• There are 6 million more women in the United States than men; women are 51 percent of the population.
• 61 percent of women age 16 and over are in the civilian labor force (March 2000).
• The projected life expectancy for women in 2000 is 80 years.
• 14 percent of the U.S. military personnel are women. There are 38 women generals and flag officers serving on active duty.
• There are 61 women Members of Congress, 13 women Senators and 2 Supreme Court Justices who are women.
• 56 percent of bachelor's degrees, 57 percent of masters' degrees, 44 percent of law degrees, 41 percent of medical degrees and 41 percent of doctorates were awarded to women in 1997.
• In 1999, there were 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the United States, employing over 27.5 million people and generating $3.6 trillion in sales.

Wage Inequality Persists in the 21st Century, and it Affects Men and Women

• The gender wage gap has not changed much in recent years, and women currently earn only 72.8 percent as much as men.
• Thirty-three million men have working wives, and married women and their families lose an average of $4,205 a year because of women's lower wages.
• In more than one-fourth of these marriages, the wife earns more than her husband. These families are especially dependent on the wife's earnings, even though she is very likely to suffer from discrimination.
• Men's earnings are lower when they work in female-dominated occupations - by an average of $6,259 per year.

Women Have Moved into the Workforce, but They Haven't Been Allowed onto the Board

• Only nine percent of board members of media, telecom, and high-tech firms are women.
• Only three percent of executives from media, telecom and e-companies were women with 'Clout Titles,' including Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Vice President.
• Women-owned firms get only two percent of all venture capital investments.
• Only four percent of the highest-ranking corporate officers are women.
• Less than three percent of federal contacts go to women-owned firms.

Discrimination Throughout the Life Cycle Makes Older Women More Vulnerable

• The poverty rate of older women is nearly twice as high as that of older men. Nearly one in every seven women aged 75 and older is poor.
• The pension gap is even larger than the earnings gap: retired women are only half as likely as men to receive any kind of pension.

Sources: Institute for Women's Policy Research, U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Defense, National Foundation of Women Business Owners, Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

(Excerpts from the 1984 background summary produced by The Advisory Council on Church and Society, which submitted a summary and resolution on the Feminization of Poverty to the 196th General Assembly.)

Background

Sixty percent of all women in the United States are now in the work force, comprising more than 40 percent of the labor force. However, on average, women still earn only 62 cents for every dollar earned by men (for racial-ethnic women, the figure is lower), even though women are the primary of only income source for one-third of the families in the United States.

Recent federal and state budget cuts, the current economic situation of high unemployment and underemployment, the deterioration of the infrastructure of our economic system, plant closings, and the movement of industry out of the United States to other nations, all contribute to the economic factors that have affected women and children disproportionately with the result that 66 percent of people in poverty are women and their dependents -b children and parents. That percentage is growing and the stark prediction that the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity made in 1980 is still appallingly realistic: If the current trend continues, by the year 2000, 100 percent of the poverty population will be women and households headed by women. These statistics have helped coin the phrase now familiar to many, "the feminization of poverty." Others are calling this phenomenon "the pauperization of women and their families." (Minutes, 1984, Part I, p. 326)

Children are the poorest age group in America; one out of six children lives in poverty at any given time. One in nine children in American depends upon welfare for survival each year...

The education, health, and livelihood of children are affected directly by the economic injustices of our society toward women and the increasing pauperization of women, many of whom are the sole support for their children. (Minutes, 1984, Part I, p. 327)

The 196th General Assembly

• Reaffirms the urgency of issues related to women and economic justice and calls congregations, governing bodies, and individual Presbyterians to become familiar with the policies of the General Assembly on economic justice for women and their families and to advocate and support measures that would make those policies effective (p. 328)
• Resolves that the principle of equality inherent in the Constitution and explicit in the Equal Rights Amendment should not be diluted by any amendments on any issue (Minutes, 1984, p. 330)