Report: Women still face pay gap, other hurdles in the workforce

Lower pay for working single women and mothers, lack of representation in top corporate jobs and inflexible work arrangements and expensive childcare are hampering women's contribution to the economy, according to a report released Friday. 

The Joint Economic Committee's examination of women in the workforce found that women face a pay gap, earning 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, about the same as it was nearly 10 years ago, and that women are provided little work-based support for family responsibilities.

The cost of full-time, center-based childcare for an infant is nearly half (49 percent) of the annual income of a two-parent family living at the federal poverty threshold ($18,310/year in 2009).

As a whole, the early care and education system in the United States remains "under-developed and under-funded, and access to quality, affordable care for young children represents a major source of financial and emotional stress for working parents," the report said.

More women with children are working. In 2008, 64.3 percent of mothers with a child under age 6 worked outside the home, an increase from 39.6 percent in 1975.

Only half of American workers agree they have the flexibility they need in order to successfully manage their work and family life, the report said. 

Although women make up nearly half (46.4 percent) of employees in Fortune 500 companies, they make up just 15.7 percent of board seats, 14.4 percent of executive officers, 7.6 percent of top earning executive officers and 2.4 percent of chief executives.

Through the years, a women's paycheck has grown as the share of all household income. In the typical married household, where both spouses work, the wife’s paycheck accounts for over one third (36 percent) of the family’s income, an increase from 26.6 percent in 1970.

In 2009, women were the sole breadwinners in one in three (34 percent) families with children. And among all working wives in 2008, 38.1 percent earned as much or more as their husbands, compared to 18.7 percent in 1967.

Women also receive almost 60 percent of the bachelor’s degrees granted in the United States, compared to 40 percent in 1970.

"Women have made extraordinary progress in the last several decades – in pay, education and overall economic health," said JEC Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) in a statement. "But we still have a ways to go to eliminate the pay gap and to achieve true economic equality. To really rev up the U.S. engine of economic growth, we need to finally and fully unlock the economic potential of women."

The report suggests several policy options for consideration in the next Congress, including a fair pay bill and a measure that would provide employees with the right to ask for a more flexible work schedule. The report also calls for "continued vigilance in the implementation of the health care reform and financial regulatory reform laws" that "contain provisions which will help boost the economic well-being of women."

"This report can serve as a roadmap for policymakers who want to chart a new pro-growth course for the economy, one that recognizes the changing demographics of our workforce," Maloney said. "I also hope that it will be a resource for elected leaders across the country who are working to assess different economic proposals and trying to understand how women’s role as generators of economic growth is affected by different policies."

New data in the report show that older women experience the largest pay gap, with full-time working women age 50 and older earning 75 percent of that earned weekly by full-time working men the same age, while all women age 16 and older earn 80 percent of their male counterparts’ weekly wages. 

Other findings of the report include: 

• Spending on children as a share of domestic spending has been declining for decades: in 1960, it comprised 20.2 percent of all domestic spending, by 2000 it had dropped to 16.2 percent, and by 2018, spending on children as a share of domestic spending is projected to drop to 13.8 percent.

• For the first time in the nation’s history, women comprise half of the U.S. workforce (49.8 percent), up from 35.6 percent in 1970.

• Between 1983 and 2008, married couples with a working wife experienced average annual income growth of 1.1 percent, while married couples where the wife did not work saw their average annual incomes decline by 0.2 percent per year.

• Mothers face an additional wage penalty. Mothers incur a 2.5 percent earnings penalty per child, while fathers see a 2.1 percent earnings boost for each child.

• Over the course of a career, the pay gap has an enormous cumulative impact. The average woman loses $430,000 to the pay gap by the time she retires.

• Companies with the most women on their boards of directors outperform those with the fewest women on their boards on several key performance measures – return on invested capital is 65 percent higher in firms with strong female representation; return on equity is 53 percent higher; and return on sales is 42 percent higher.

• The 25 Fortune 500 firms with the best records of promoting women to senior positions record returns on assets 18 percent higher and returns on investments 69 percent higher than the Fortune 500 median for their industry.

• Beginning in January 2011, the United States will be the only OECD nation with no paid parental leave.

• The absence of a national paid sick leave policy leaves millions of women with no recourse when they’re ill and have to stay home or when their child is sick and requires care with 37 percent of women working in firms with 15 or more workers do not have access to paid sick leave.