Education, Nontraditional Jobs Key to Future of Women in Kentucky, Center Report Finds

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Michal Smith-Mello
Michael T. Childress
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FRANKFORT, KY (April 6, 1999) — At a Capitol press conference here today, the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center released a report on future prospects for women in the Commonwealth. The Future Well-Being of Women in Kentucky features a collection of articles prepared by social scientists, economists, and health professionals from the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, and by state policy experts and Center staff. Genie Potter, Executive Director of the Commission on Women, wrote the Foreword to the report. Topics for the volume, which range from economic and educational trends to political and health prospects, were based on responses to surveys of the general public and recognized women’s leaders, who were asked to identify the top priorities for women.

“As the little girl’s face on the cover of this volume reminds us, the future of women in Kentucky belongs to the children we cherish, as well as the women who now play critical roles throughout our society. The speed at which women advance will depend on our fundamental understanding of how the persistent inequities women face limit possibilities, not only for individuals but for our entire state,” observed Center Executive Director Michael T. Childress. “With this volume, we hope to enrich public understanding of the web of social and economic issues that affect women’s lives and, at the same time, inform policymakers at every level about possible avenues for progress and reform.”

The report offers reason for significant optimism about the future well-being of women in the Commonwealth, but frequently notes that disproportionate poverty and undereducation continue to inhibit and occasionally mask the advances women have made. In general, however, the report finds most measures of the progress of women to be on an upward trajectory, propelled by rising levels of education, a narrowing wage gap, improving health outcomes, and growing employer responsiveness to their needs.

Dr. Cynthia Negrey, a University of Louisville sociologist, reports that the challenges which are byproducts of women’s dramatic movement into the labor force over the last half of this century remain unmet. From divisions of household labor to the care of dependent children and elders, women continue to shoulder most of the burden of balancing work and family. And it is a far heavier burden for single parents and low-wage earners. Even the long-overdue protections of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, Dr. Negrey notes, extend only to those who can afford to take time away from their job without pay. Clearly, the private and public sectors have become more responsive to the need for greater balance in the work-family dynamic, but the challenge of legitimizing alternative work arrangements and investing family and community with value equivalent to work remains unmet.

From an economic standpoint, women have made remarkable gains over the past 20 years in spite of structural shifts in the economy. Though simple averages suggest that the wages of women relative to men in Kentucky have improved little over the past 30 years and that the gender wage gap is wider here than nationally, a closer analysis by University of Kentucky economists Dr. Mark C. Berger and Amitabh Chandra reveals that the gap has actually been closing faster here than nationally and has been essentially the same as the national gender wage gap for the past 10 years. Berger and Chandra conclude that wage discrimination within occupations is likely a no bigger challenge here than in the rest of the country, but the challenge of improving women’s productive capacity remains. In order to achieve wage parity, women in the Commonwealth will need more education and more experience, and they will need to move beyond the traditional occupations and industries in which they now typically work. Indeed, Center staff researcher Billie M. Sebastian reports that Kentucky women can take small comfort in knowing that the traditional female jobs in which they are concentrated far more heavily than at the national level are expected to grow rapidly in number. Few of these jobs will offer real economic opportunity. Only when women in Kentucky gain education and move into more “nontraditional” jobs will their earnings outlook brighten.

Importantly, a new gender gap favorable to women is emerging in college attendance and graduation rates, reports Dr. Roger Sugarman, Associate Director for Research and Accountability for the Council on Postsecondary Education. If a college education continues to offer entree to wealth and status, men may find themselves searching for ways of closing the gender gap of the future. Conversely, if women continue to eschew high-paying professional and technical fields, their superior educations may prove an insufficient force for wage equity. Ultimately, however, the earnings differential between high school and college graduates that has persisted for decades, while small for college-educated women and high school-educated men, likely portends higher earnings and higher status for women in the years to come.

Women who live at the margins of our economy and who depend on the presence of a social safety net to help support their families during times of economic stress face tremendous challenges. They are unlikely to be met by the simple mandates of welfare reform, conclude Dr. Lorraine Garkovich and Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman, rural sociologists at the University of Kentucky. The underlying assumptions of reform about the work readiness of recipients, the availability of jobs and wages adequate to support a family, and the capacity of charities, families and friends to fill inevitable gaps, they conclude, simply do not hold up. And the economic challenges poor women face will be far more daunting in rural areas of Kentucky where poverty is more extensive, child care more scarce, and low-wage jobs predominate. Moreover, transportation and the distance to work, educational opportunities, and child care exact a higher cost and place a far greater burden on rural women.

The future well-being of women in the Commonwealth will also depend upon the extent to which their voices are heard and represented in the halls of leadership, University of Kentucky political scientist Dr. Penny Miller reports. In spite of their clout at the polls, women are woefully underrepresented in elected offices here; only one other state in the nation has fewer female officeholders. Outside the state’s urban areas, from which Kentucky’s most successful female candidates have emerged, the powerful inertia of incumbency and entrenched male leadership keep many women from seeking or winning elective offices at all levels, Dr. Miller concludes. Despite their dominant roles as voters and party workers, the state’s political parties have not functioned as escalators for women who aspire to candidacy. Thus, research suggests, many of the issues important to women have gained neither the recognition nor the priority female leaders would assign to them. Consequently, the historically diminished role of women in the political life of the Commonwealth has likely slowed their advancement and undermined their well-being.

The outlook for women’s health in Kentucky is mixed, reports Michal Smith-Mello, a senior analyst with the Center. On the one hand, rapid advances in medical and health research herald a future of improved therapies, longer life expectancies, and a higher quality of life. On the other hand, the health status of women in Kentucky will almost certainly continue to be adversely affected by high rates of poverty and undereducation which are associated with behavioral risk and poor health. In addition to the central and as yet unanswered questions about access to health care, the future health of women in Kentucky will remain inextricably linked to how rapidly we improve the educational and economic status of our citizens and how quickly health care assumes a stronger preventive focus.

In the volume’s final essay, Carol Jordan, Executive Director of the Office of Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Services in the Office of the Governor, concludes that the future well-being of women in the Commonwealth hinges upon how successful we are in our efforts to end the psychological, social, economic, sexual, and physical damage wrought by violence against women, particularly within families.

Interested citizens who wish to obtain a free copy of The Future Well-Being of Women in Kentucky, are encouraged to write, phone, fax, or e-mail the Center.