"The Status of Women in North Carolina: Political Participation" is the third in a series of four publications on women's status in North Carolina. This report presents data on several aspects of women's involvement in the political process in the North Carolina, comparing North Carolina to other states and the United States overall. The…

"The Status of Women in North Carolina: Poverty and Opportunity" is the final publication in a four-part series of publications on women's status in North Carolina. The report builds on the Institute for Women's Policy Research's "Status of Women in the States" initiative, which has sought to measure women's economic, social,…

This report examines the status of women in North Carolina in terms of their employment, earnings, and occupations. The report includes an Employment & Earnings Composite Index comprised of four indicators--women's median annual earnings, the gender wage ratio, women's labor force participation rate, and the share of employed women in…

"The Status of Women in North Carolina: Health & Wellness" is the second in a series of four publications on women's status in North Carolina. Good health, access to health services, and the ability to live in a safe environment are critical to the economic security and overall well-being of North Carolina women. While poor health…

On April 20, 2010, United States President Barack Obama issued a proclamation declaring National Equal Pay Day. In the proclamation it was recognized that despite years of progress in the workforce, women are still not paid as much as men. The proclamation states: Throughout our Nation's history, extraordinary women have broken barriers to achieve…

Christine Ladd-Franklin spent the first forty years of her life becoming one of the best-educated women in nineteenth-century America. She spent the rest of her life devising fellowship programs designed to enable educated women to have the same opportunities as men in their academic careers. The difficulty women had in becoming professors had a…

There are sizeable earnings differentials by gender and race in the U.S. labor market, with women earning less than men and most racial/ethnic minority groups earning less than whites. It has been proposed in the previous literature that the effects of gender and race on earnings are additive, so that minority women suffer the full disadvantage of…

Using a hazards framework and panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979-2004), we analyze the fertility patterns of a recent cohort of white and black women in the United States. We examine how completed fertility varies by women's education, differentiating between intended and unintended births. We find that the education…

This report, provides detailed analyses and projections of occupations in healthcare fields, and wages earned. In addition, the important skills and work values associated with workers in those fields of healthcare are discussed. Finally, the authors analyze the implications of research findings for the racial, ethnic, and class diversity of the…

The literature on higher education in the United States has maintained a place for the specific topic of discrimination against women in the American academy. Institutional restrictions, invisible ceilings, hidden hierarchies--all of these have entered into the discussion surrounding both the failure of women to progress through the academic ranks…

The primary objective of this paper is to describe a method of estimating female-male wage ratios. The estimating technique presented is two stage least squares (2SLS), in which equations are estimated for both men and women. After specifying and estimating the wage equations, the male-female wage differential is calculated that would remain if…

This paper demonstrates the extent to which married women's labor supply elasticities have changed over the past quarter century. Estimates from March Current Population Survey data suggest that these elasticities have decreased substantially, by 60 percent for the hours wage elasticity (from 0.36 to 0.14), 70 percent for the hours income…

The demand for child care in the United States continues to grow, but child care workers' wages remain minimal. Using examples within New Jersey, the author demonstrates how low wages impact child care quality and are directly related to the effects of the competitive marketplace. Various historical, regulatory, and cultural contexts also…

Differences between the earnings of men and women suggest that women are being paid less for doing the same job. Factors that attribute to the wage differences are (1) women are concentrated in those occupations which are less skilled and in which wages are relatively low, (2) women working on full-time schedules tend to work less overtime than…

For 50 years, laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended in 1991, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 have protected women from overt discrimination. Although gender inequity persists in today's workplace, its presence and effects continue to be underestimated by the relevant stakeholders. Informal observations have shown that college…