Mother's Day with its messages of love, respect and gratitude -- has passed. And we revert to the social, economic, and political realities of women who are mothers, realities airbrushed away for a day.
Here are some salient facts of mothers in the U.S. today:
Single Mothers
Twenty percent of all families are headed by working single mothers. Families of single mothers have an extremely high poverty rate, near 30% percent, and are worse off financially than single mothers were in 1970. Women who leave welfare and take jobs have average earnings of $8000-10,800 not nearly enough to lift a single mother and children out of poverty. In late 2009, 1 of every 8 women who were single mothers and sole breadwinners in their families was unemployed, a rate twice as high as married men. Women who flee violent husbands or partners usually end in poverty for a period of time, and, moreso, if they flee with their children. http://www.iwpr.org/index.cfm
Gender Wage and Benefit Gap
More than two-thirds of married mothers are employed; and, given the extended recession, their earnings are more important than ever to their families' well-being. Yet the gender wage gap persists at 77 cents for every dollar on average, resulting in a lifetime average loss for working women of $434,000 in income. Lesser income over a lifetime results in a diminished social security, retirement and pension increasing the lifetime gender wage gap to as much as $1 million for some women. The gender wage gap exists in all occupations, in comparable jobs with men, at all educational levels; and it is higher for African American and Hispanic women. Further, women workers are less likely than men to have fringe benefits, such as paid sick days even though they are more likely to have to lose work because of children's illness. http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/pdf/equal_pay.pdf
Pregnancy and New Motherhood
What about mothers-to-be? The first of its kind national study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that homicide is a leading cause of traumatic death among new and expectant mothers. The CDC admits that the data is not reliably tracked and thus their findings understate the magnitude of the crime. Some state studies have found much higher rates that the CDC, concluding that intentional murder is the leading cause of traumatic death among new and expecting mothers. http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/full/95/3/471
Pregnancy and the Workplace
Women at every socioeconomic level and in entry to executive positions have had to pay "the pregnancy penalty": job offer withdrawn, demotion, docked pay and benefits, sexual harassment, forcibly reduced hours, and job loss, according to wage discrimination expert Dr. Evelyn Murphy. Illustrative statistics from 1997-2004 gathered in her book, Getting Even (2005), reveal that employers in all work sectors, including rental agencies, hotel and big box chains, telephone companies, media, state police, and higher education have been charged with pregnancy-related discrimination and have settled. Verizon, for example, settled a class action suit with 12,500 women who were denied benefits related to pregnancy and maternity. Pregnancy discrimination is one of the fastest growing kinds of employment discrimination being filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
