Women at greater risk of economic insecurity: A gender analysis of the Rockefeller Foundation's American Worker Survey (original) (raw)

In February 2007, at the request of the Rockefeller Foundation, the consulting firm Yankelovich fielded a survey to explore Americans' sense of economic insecurity. The Institute for Women's Policy Research analyzed the survey data to explore impacts based on gender, racial and ethnic identity, education, employment status, and other important demographic characteristics. This report highlights IWPR's findings. iwpr.org i When the U.S. economy is doing extremely well, most Americans feel some positive effects: higher earnings, better job prospects, a rising standard of living. When the economic trend is negative, the specific circumstances of an individual's life help determine their ability to stay afloat. Perhaps surprisingly, gender remains a very strong mediating factor, even today when women are so thoroughly integrated into the economy and even though their financial circumstances may be intimately intertwined with those of their husbands and other men. A recent survey uncovered a high degree of economic anxiety among women-higher than men's on every issue, and higher than men's within groups such as workers and the college-educated. Women are more worried about their current economic circumstances and about the financial situation they will face in retirement. And they have more direct experience with material hardship: not having enough money to buy food, being unable to provide for their children, not being able to afford needed health-care. KEY FINDINGS ◗ Women feel a much more palpable sense of economic anxiety than men do, both for their current circumstances and looking into the future, and across all issues. Three of every ten women are worried about their economic security (29 percent), as compared with two of every ten men (19 percent). Two-thirds of women fear they are not saving enough for retirement (63 percent), but only half of men share this concern (51 percent). ◗ Neither work nor marriage nor education protects women from feeling economic insecurity. Among college graduates, two in ten women are worried (20 percent), but only about one in ten men (14 percent). Nearly three of every ten married mothers worry about economic security (27 percent), while only two in every ten married fathers do (21 percent). ◗ Women of color are at greatest risk of economic hardship. Five out of ten African American women have had trouble paying bills on time (48 percent). Four in ten Hispanics have shared this experience (42 percent). Fewer than three in ten white women have (26 percent). ◗ Single mothers face double jeopardy: lower earnings because they are female and more financial stress from parenting. Mothers are 50 percent more likely than fathers to have to pass up buying something their child needs because they cannot afford it (32 percent of mothers, and 21 percent of fathers, have this experience). And mothers are at greater risk of losing their jobs (24 percent) than fathers (16 percent) or women and men without children (13 percent and 15 percent, respectively). ◗ Women are very worried about possible cutbacks to Social Security. Even among the most well-off, women are nearly twice as concerned about threats to their Social Security benefits as men (53 percent of women are worried, as are 30 percent of men). Executive Summary 1. As a society, we should try to reduce financial vulnerability for everyone and ensure economic security. No one should go without adequate income, health care, food, and shelter. Policies directed at this goal should be targeted to low-income people, especially parents, people of color, and single mothers. 2. Protection of Social Security retirement benefits-one of our nation's most effective, and most widely supported, social programs-is absolutely critical for maintaining the well-being of America's elderly-especially women. 3. We need to do more to equalize earnings between women and men and between people of color and whites, providing better access to education, job training, and equal labor market opportunities. 4. To help get parents on a more equal footing with non-parents and to help single mothers who are especially vulnerable, more public support for the financial and time burdens of raising children is essential.