Women in America – The Report

At the conclusion of Women’s History Month, I thought it might be appropriate to spend a little time reflecting on a report published in March by the Obama administration – Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-being. This document, a collaborative effort of the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Commerce, is one of the most comprehensive recent assessments of how women are doing in the United States. In addition, Obama’s Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett has said that the report is meant to provide a statistical framework on which new policies can be based. As a person who generally likes evidence-based reasoning, I think that’s a great idea.

The report is divided into 5 key areas: people, families, and income; education, employment, health, and crime and violence. As you might expect, the findings represent a mixture of improvements, concerns, and observations, not only about the lives of women, but about how our society and government are working (or not).

In no particular order, here is some positive news:
– In the past decade, homicides of females declined, as well as violent crimes against women.
– Unemployment rates for women have risen less than for men during the recession.
– Women now earn the majority of conferred degrees.
– Women and men have roughly equal access to flexible work schedules (although women are more likely to work part-time).

However, some concerning trends continue:
– Women are more likely than men to have incomes below the poverty line.
– Women and men still work in different occupations.
– Female students score higher than males on reading assessments, but lower on math assessments.
– One in seven women between 18-64 is without health insurance.
– Women earn fewer degrees than men in science and technology.
– Families headed by women have the lowest family earnings among all family types.
– More women than men report having a chronic medical condition or experiencing depression.
– Less than half of women meet the federal guidelines for aerobic activity.

Also, the report makes other observations which reflect on changes in our social structure. For instance, both men and women are waiting longer to get married. More women have never had a child.

The report includes, as well, a concession that its data could use improvement on several fronts. For one thing, there is less data specific to the needs of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities than there is for other ethnic groups. Also, no information is included regarding LGBT Americans, because “while there is interest in [their] economic and demographic characteristics, …no data are currently available from Federal data sources.”

If you’re interested in taking a look at the entire report, you can find it at here. Clearly there is room for improvement in future versions of this effort, especially in considering the ways that issues affecting women are intersecting with race, sexual orientation, disability, and other issues. However, the official document includes a great deal of interesting data, including more detail on all of these findings and their sources (plus some others that aren’t listed here).