Women, Work, and Poverty: Women Centered Research for Policy Change
Women, Work, and Poverty: Women Centered Research for Policy Change has been co-published simultaneously as Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, Volume 27, Numbers 3/4 2005.
Women, Work, and Poverty: Women Centered Research for Policy Change
Heidi Hartmann
Editor
Women, Work, and Poverty: Women Centered Research for Policy Change has been co-published simultaneously as Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, Volume 27, Numbers 3/4 2005.
Women, Work, and Poverty: Women Centered Research for Policy Change has been co-published simultaneously as Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, Volume 27, Numbers 3/4 2005.
2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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This edition published 2012 by Routledge:
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Women, work, and poverty : women centered research for policy change / Heidi Hartmann. editor.
p. cm.
Co-published simultaneously as Journal of women, politics & policy, volume 27, numbers 3/4 2005.
Conference papers.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7890-3245-4 (hard cover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7890-3245-7 (hard cover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7890-3246-1 (soft cover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7890-3246-5 (soft cover : alk. paper)
1. Poor womenUnited StatesCongresses. 2. Women heads of householdsUnited StatesCongresses. 3. WagesWomenUnited StatesCongresses. 4. WomenUnited StatesSocial conditionsCongresses. I. Hartmann, Heidi I. II. Journal of women, politics, & policy.
HV1445.W664 2005
331.40973dc22
2005031479
Acknowledgments
The contributions of the following people to this volume are greatly appreciated:
Managing Editor
Lara Hinz
Institute for Womens Policy Research
Editorial Assistants
Elizabeth Mandeville
United Nations
Whitney Potter
Institute for Womens Policy Research
Sonila Turshilla
Tirana University
About the Editor
Heidi Hartmann, PhD, is the President of the Washington-based Institute for Womens Policy Research, a scientific research organization that she founded in 1987 to meet the need for women-centered, policy-oriented research. She holds a PhD degree from Yale University in economics. Dr. Hartmann is also Research Professor at The George Washington University.
Dr. Hartmann is a co-author of Unnecessary Losses: Costs to Americans of the Lack of Family and Medical Leave; Equal Pay for Working Families; and Survival at the Bottom: The Income Packages of Low-Income Families with Children. She has published numerous articles in journals and books and her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lectures widely on women, economics, and public policy, frequently testifies before the U.S. Congress, and is often cited as an authority in various media outlets.
Prior to founding IWPR, Dr. Hartmann was on the faculties of Rutgers University and the New School for Social Research and worked at the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 1994, Dr. Hartmann was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship Award for her work in the field of women and economics, and, in 1995, she received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Swarthmore College, her alma mater. She is Vice-Chair of the National Council of Womens Organizations.
CONTENTS
Heidi Hartmann
Hilarie Lieb
Susan Thistle
Pamela Stone
Arielle Kuperberg
Jo Anne Schneider
Julie Press Janice Johnson-Dias Jay Fagan
Mary Kay Schleiter Anne Statham Teresa Reinders
Peggy Kahn
Avis A. Jones-DeWeever
Angela Johnson
Mlanie Knight
Jonathan Fisher Angela Lyons
Vicky Lovell Gi-Taik Oh
Tamara Ohler Nancy Folbre
Introduction
Heidi Heartmann, Institute for Womens Policy Research and The George Washington University
The articles in this volume are motivated by the desire to understand the sources of womens poverty and low earnings and to recommend changes in public policy that can improve the incomes and well-being of women and their families. Not surprisingly, the articles point to labor market problems, such as the lack of comparable worth and living wage policies, and family care problems, such as the lack of affordable child care, as reasons for womens plight. They also address less commonly explored issues such as the lack of social capital in poor communities, the prevalence of disabilities among the poor, and the inflexible work schedules common to many low-wage jobs. The role income supports such as welfare and unemployment insurance play in alleviating hardship is examined. Several specific ways to transform opportunities for women of color are also explored: increasing access to higher education, to scientific careers, and to business ownership. Women, Work, and Poverty: Women Centered Research for Policy Change gathers to-getherthe insightful work of 21 economists, political scientists, sociologists, social workers, educators, and other policy experts to provide sound solutions based on evidence generated by both quantitative and qualitative research methods.
Nearly all the authors represented in this volume presented their work at the Seventh International Womens Policy Research Conference, Women Working to Make a Difference, held in Washington, DC, in 2003. The conference is convened every two years in June by the Institute for Womens Policy Research (IWPR) and co-sponsored by the Womens Studies and Public Policy programs at The George Washington University and the Washington Office of the Friederich Ebert Stiftung. Ten of the twelve papers published here were selected from the more than 100 papers presented after an exhaustive review process, in which many authors revised their papers in response to reviewers comments. Two additional papers were included in this volume based on the relevance of their content and following the usual review process for submitted manuscripts.
