As First Lady of California, Maria Shriver has played a pivotal role in championing the role of women in the workforce. She chairs the state’s yearly conference on women, an event that attracts over 10,000 women each year. Now, she has spearheaded an important research survey on American women and their impact on business and society – at a major tipping point in American business.
In a report titled, A Women’s Nation Changes Everything, Shriver in conjunction with the Center for American Progress, looks at workingwomen now that women are the majority of the work force. The report examines how women are transforming not only family life but influencing work life. The report documents the challenges women face and the impact on society, family life and business with the influx of women in the workforce.
Recognizing that women now make up more than half of the work force is just the first step, the report points out. The next step is figuring out how we need to transform our institutions and adjust our policies and practices due to this transformation.
Here are some of the key findings:
It’s not easy for women
• Women say they feel increasingly isolated, stressed and misunderstood.
• A majority of women have no control over the time they start and stop their workday, no ability to control the location they work from, and no ability to reduce the hours they work.
Families are negotiating everything
• An overwhelming majority of both men and women say they are sitting down at their kitchen table to coordinate the family’s schedules, duties and responsibilities, including childcare and elder are at least 2 or 3 times a week.
Things are in flux
• Men and women say they are still adjusting their assumptions to women’s role in the workforce
• For some, women as primary breadwinners is old news, especially Latinos and African Americans.
Faith-based institutions and spirituality help women cope
• With all the change and insecurity, women told the pollsters that they rely on faith-based institutions and spirituality to help them get though.
Women are now in a position to bring about change
• As we move into this phase the report is calling A Women’s Nation, women can turn their pivotal role as wage earners, as consumers, as bosses, as opinion shapers, as equal partners into a potent force for change.
• Our policy landscape remains stuck in the past where the typical family as a married-for-life couple where the mom stays home and raises the children and the dad is the primary breadwinner. The report suggests that we need to address this and develop more family friendly work benefits and institutions.
Here’s a link to the full report. Let me hear your thoughts.
