I have been meaning to post about the new(ish) report from the White House Council on Women and Girls for a couple of weeks now, but the time has just gotten away from me. The report titled Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being provides readers with lots of helpful quantitative data on the current status of women in America, as well as a look back data from previous years. The information contained in the report is based on Federal data from a range of agencies including the Census Bureau, Department of Education, National Science Foundation, Department of Labor, Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Justice.
It is well documented on this blog that I am a numbers kind of girl, so I found all the data really interesting. The rest of this post will contain just a few of the interesting data points from the report.
- Women are more likely than men to be in poverty.
- In 2009, 28% of working women who were unmarried with children had incomes below the poverty level, compared to a poverty rate of 8% among all female workers and 6% among male workers.
- Women’s gains in educational attainment have significantly outpaced those of men over the last 40 years.
- For the population as a whole, women have caught up with men in the percentage who have at least a college degree, about 28% for each group in 2009. Up from 8% of women and 14% of men in 1970.
- In 2008, for all race/ethnic subgroups, a higher percentage of bachelor’s and master’s degrees were earned by women than men.
- After decades of significant increases, the labor force participation rate for women has held steady in recent years.
- The participation rate doubled between 1948 (32%) and 1997 (61%). Since 1997, it has held steady at 61%.
- At all levels of educational attainment, the labor force participation rate for men was higher than that of their female counterparts
- Among mothers age 16 and over, those with older children (6-17 only) were more likely to be in the labor force (77%) in 2009 than those with children age 5 or younger (64%).
- Education pays for both women and men, but the pay gap persists
- Earnings for both women and men typically increase with higher levels of education.
- At all levels of education, women earned about 75% as much as their male counterparts in 2009
- Compared to their direct male counterparts, White women earned 79% as much as White men in 2009, while Asian women earned 82% as much as Asian men. For Blacks and Hispanics, the figures were 94% and 90%, respectively.
- Female-headed families have the lowest family earning among all family types.
- Despite increasing by 27% between 1988 and 2008, family earnings levels among female-headed families were the lowest among all family types.
- In female-headed families with children, nonearned income as a share of total family income has declined sharply, from 24% in 1988 to 16% in 2008.
- About 63% of nonearned income for female-headed families with children in poverty is government cash transfer income.
- Over the past two decades, women’s earnings have constituted a growing share of family income in all family types
- Females age 12 and older are more likely than males to report experiencing depression.
- Women and girls living below the poverty line are almost 3 times as likely to report experiencing depression as females living above the poverty line.
- Only 29% of women and girls who reported experiencing depression also reported contact with a mental health professional during the previous 12 months.
- The share of women age 18-64 without health insurance has increased.
- In 2009, 18% of nonelderly women (age 18-64) lacked health insurance compared to 13% in 1984.
- The imprisonment rate for females has increased significantly
- The imprisonment rate for females quadrupled between 1985 and 2008, from .17 per 1000 females to .68 per 1000 females
- About 3 out of 5 women imprisoned in 2004 had one or more minor children.
To read the entire report, click here.
To learn more about the White House Council on Women and Girls, click here.
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