Men Not at Work: Jobs Women Are Taking Over

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — The previous decade was a tough one for men in the U.S. labor market. The number of women in the workforce grew by more than two million between 2000 and 2010, according to historical data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile the number of men employed during this period remained largely stagnant, growing by just 54,000 in 10 years.

In some ways, one can trace the trend back to the early 1970s, when women started to flock to universities around the country and pursue full-time careers afterward. But according to several economists and labor experts, several other factors have contributed as well, perhaps most notably the loss of manufacturing jobs that typically employ men. As a result, men have seen their footing slip in dozens of professions, ranging from medicine to education.

We combed through the BLS data to find how the gender makeup has changed for more than a hundred jobs by comparing the percentage of men in each occupation in 2000 to the percentage as of last year. The following are the careers where men have experienced the biggest loss compared with women.

11th-biggest change: Postal service mail carriers
In the future, you might want to think twice before referring to workers in this profession as mailmen. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of men employed as mail carriers dropped by 50,000, while the number of women increased by 13,000. As a result, women, who used to account for just 30% of the profession, now make up nearly 40%, and if this trend continues, women could account for nearly half of all mail carriers by the end of this decade.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 69.8%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 62.3%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 7.5 percentage points

10th-biggest change: Medical scientists
Many professions in the science and health care industries have seen a major change in gender distribution, driven in part by the growing number of women who pursue college education and graduate with advanced degrees. Medical scientists, who usually are required to have a Ph.D., typically work in labs or at pharmaceutical companies, according to the BLS.

During the previous decade, the number of women working in this profession increased by 25,000, far outpacing the 5,000 men added to the industry. This means men are now officially in the minority among medical scientists.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 54%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 46.2%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 7.8 percentage points

Ninth-biggest change: Public relations managers
Women have made up the majority of PR managers for years, but recently their lead has grown even stronger. The number of men employed in the industry remained essentially unchanged between 2000 and 2010 (growing by just 2,000 men), while the number of women shot up by 17,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 48.5%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 40%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 8.5 percentage points

Eighth-biggest change: Misc. health technologists and technicians
This profession includes health care practitioners who use cutting-edge technology to design treatments for medical conditions. From 2000 through last year the number of men in this profession grew by a modest 16,000, but the number of women grew by 66,000, far outpacing men and further increasing the dominance of women in this industry.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 38.1%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 29.3%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 8.8 percentage points

Seventh-biggest change (tie): Dispatchers
Dispatchers are responsible for scheduling and keeping logs of deliveries to and from the workplace, and unlike many of the professions on our list, this is one that generally does not require a college degree. Still, the number of women employed in this field increased by a healthy 30,000 last decade, whereas the number of men decreased by 25,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 48.6%
Percentage Who Were Men in 2010: 39.2%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 9.4 percentage points

Seventh-biggest change (tie): Pressers, textiles, garment and related materials
Those who work in these apparel occupations are responsible for crafting clothes, fabric and other items by hand or machine, but the profession has been on the decline in recent years, shedding some 45,000 positions between 2000 and last year. Women were not immune to this downsizing, but they lost fewer jobs than men, which is why they make up a greater percentage of the industry than they did in 2000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 43.3%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 33.9%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 9.4 percentage points

Sixth-biggest change: Supervisors of transportation and material moving workers
The BLS data show that women remain hesitant about entering professions that require a high amount of manual labor (including construction and manufacturing), but it is becoming slightly more common for women to manage those who work in these industries, as their growth in this profession proves. Men once made up nearly 90% of these supervisors, but as of last year they held just more than three-quarters of these positions.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 86.7%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 76.8%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 9.9 percentage points

Fifth-biggest change: Writers and authors
No matter what some snooty male authors (cough, V.S. Naipaul) may say, women can certainly write as well as or better than men, and increasingly, many women have chosen to do just that in recent years. Back in 2000, the gender breakdown of writers was close to 50-50, but as of last year, nearly two-thirds of all employed writers were women. In fact, there were 9,000 fewer men employed in this industry by the end of the decade, whereas the number of women skyrocketed by 34,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 46.8%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 36.7%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 10.1 percentage points

Fourth-biggest change: Ushers, lobby attendants and ticket takers
If you’ve noticed more women working in movie theaters and concert halls around the country, you’re probably not alone. These venues have gradually shed their male workers while increasing the number of women they employ. In total, the number of men working in this profession dropped by 7,000 during this period, while the number of women increased by about 5,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 67.9%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 56.9%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 11.1 percentage points

Third-biggest change: Other education, training and library workers
The idea that women would be drawn to work in education is nothing new, but their growth in this profession, which includes teacher assistants as well as audio-visual specialists who can help teachers with classroom presentations, is particularly striking. The profession added 9,000 men to its ranks last decade, and a whopping 54,000 women.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 35.3%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 23.7%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 11.6 percentage points

Second-biggest change: Tax preparers
If you ever thought women were worse at managing money than men, the data certainly prove otherwise. Women have come to dominate the tax preparation industry, with more than 70% of all employees in this profession being women last year, compared to just half that a decade earlier. Indeed, the industry lost 15,000 men during this period, but gained some 27,000 women.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 48.9%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 29.2%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 19.7 percentage points

Biggest change: Veterinarians
Men have lost more ground in the veterinarian profession than in any other in the U.S. labor market, according to the BLS data. In 2000, men accounted for nearly 70% of the industry, but that percentage dropped significantly throughout the decade and now men are officially in the minority. In total, the number of men employed in the industry plummeted by 10,000 during this time, while the number of women veterinarians increased by 23,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 69.5%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 43.8%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 25.7 percentage points

 http://www.thestreet.com/story/11160146/3/men-not-at-work-jobs-women-are-taking-over.html

Government to push ahead with women’s pension changes

LONDON (AFP) – Plans to raise the state pension age for women have passed their stage on the way to becoming law, despite cross-party calls for a rethink.

Women can currently claim a state pension from the age of 60, while men must wait until they are 65.

But under the government’s Pensions Bill, the entitlement age for women would rise to 65 by 2018, and then to 66 for both sexes by 2020.

Critics from all parties say the changes would be unfair on up to 500,000 women in their late fifties, who have been given as little as five years’ notice that they will have to work longer than planned.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne branded the timetable for the changes as “a proposal to single out a group of 500,000 of our fellow citizens — all of them women — and say to them, ‘You know your plans for the future? Well you can put those in the bin’.”

But MPs voted to give the Pensions Bill a second reading in the House of Commons, by 302 votes to 232.

Opening the debate, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith warned MPs that delaying the move to 66 until 2022 would cost £10 billion.

“Responsible government is not always easy government,” he said, insisting that the plans would go ahead.

“It involves commitment, tough decisions and a willingness to stay the course.

“We will not change from that, we will stay the course. We will secure our children’s future.

“I recognise we need to implement this fairly and manage the transition smoothly.”

He said a “relatively small number of women” would be particularly affected and said he was “willing to work to get this transition right”.

More than 170 MPs, including both Conservative and Liberal Democrat backbenchers, have signed a Commons motion calling for a rethink.

Ros Altmann, the director general of over-50s organisation Saga, has warned that ministers could face a costly legal challenge if they do not moderate the proposals.

“Ministers must listen to reason on this issue,” she said.

“The current plans are unfair and may, indeed, be illegal in public law terms, since they clearly do not give women adequate notice.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110621/wl_uk_afp/britaineconomylabourpensions_20110621072517

Wal-Mart Women Vow to Press Bias Fight in Lower Court, U.S. Rights Agency

The women who sought to sue Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) for gender bias on behalf of 1.5 million co-workers said they will press their fight against the nation’s largest private employer in smaller lawsuits in lower courts and claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday said the women failed to prove the world’s largest retailer had a nationwide policy that led to gender discrimination. The court deprived them of the leverage a nationwide suit brings, both in pooled legal resources and a potential multibillion-dollar verdict, forcing them to pursue claims on their own.

“When I go back to work tomorrow, I’m going to let them know we are still fighting,” said Christine Kwapnoski, an assistant manager at a Sam’s Club in Concord, California. She had accused a male manager of yelling at female employees and telling her to “doll up” by wearing more makeup and dressing better while working on a loading dock.

Wal-Mart may now face thousands of lawsuits nationwide and claims of discrimination before federal agencies as plaintiffs’ lawyers fan out to courts across the country to file new complaints on behalf of members of the failed group suit.

Kwapnoski and others pressing their suit claimed they were victimized by Wal-Mart’s practice of letting local managers make subjective decisions about pay and promotions. More than 100 employees filed sworn statements saying they were paid less and given fewer opportunities for promotion than male colleagues.

Women seeking advancement were required to commit in writing to overnight shifts for two years, while men were only required to rotate through such positions on a six-month basis, one former worker claimed.

Retail for Housewives

(For a related story on the Supreme Court ruling’s impact on class action litigation, click here. To read a story on how it may affect defenses against employee claims, click here. For a story on how the decision may affect company bias policies, click here.)

When one woman inquired about the higher wages paid to men who had the same or less seniority, she was told that “retail is for housewives who just need to earn extra money,” and “he has a family to support,” according to one declaration by a former Wal-Mart employee in Florida.

Wal-Mart said yesterday that the high court ruling “effectively ends this class-action lawsuit.”

“As the majority made clear, the plaintiffs’ claims were worlds away from showing a companywide pay and promotion policy,” Wal-Mart, led by Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke, said in a statement.

Wal-Mart rose 25 cents to $53.29 in New York Stock Exchange trading.

The workers “provide no convincing proof of a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion policy,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. All nine justices voted to overturn a lower-court ruling that approved the class action, with four of them saying they would have ordered further proceedings.

Unbalanced Promotions

Betty Dukes, another lead plaintiff who began working at a Pittsburg, California-based Wal-Mart store in 1994, said she noticed early in her career that “it was not balanced” when it came to promotions.

“The men at my store were being promoted more often than the woman for the same positions, and many of those positions were never openly posted,” she said in a telephone interview. Promotion opportunities were disclosed by management, which was predominantly male, she said.

Filed in 2001, the suit aimed to cover every woman who worked at the retailer’s Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club’s stores at any point since December 1998, including those not hired until years after the suit was filed. A federal appeals court had let the suit go forward on behalf of women who were working at Wal-Mart at the time the suit was filed.

Twenty Companies

More than 20 companies supported Wal-Mart at the Supreme Court, including Intel Corp. (INTC), Altria Group Inc. (MO), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and General Electric Co. (GE)

The Supreme Court ruling limits the ability of plaintiffs’ lawyers to win multimillion-dollar damages through a single lawsuit, particularly against employers. Units of Cigna Corp. (CI), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Bayer AG (BAYN), Toshiba Corp. (6502), Publicis Group SA, Deere & Co. (DE) and Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) all face gender discrimination complaints that seek class-action status.

Four justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — said they would have returned the case to a lower court and let the workers try to press a class action using a different legal theory.

The lead attorneys for the plaintiffs are Joseph Sellers of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Brad Seligman of the Impact Fund, which describes itself as a foundation that handles public interest litigation.

Aggrieved Workers

They said they would seek a way around the Supreme Court ruling, moving ahead with claims on behalf of aggrieved workers, either as individuals or as part of smaller groups.

“This case is not over,” said Seligman. “Wal-Mart is not off the hook. There are thousands of claims of discrimination that remain to be filed.”

The case was one of the most closely watched Supreme Court business disputes in years, in part because the justices hadn’t looked at the standards for certifying a class-action suit in more than a decade.

Women’s advocates called on Congress to enact new legislation protecting the rights of female workers in light of the high court decision.

“With this decision, the Supreme Court has assisted Wal- Mart in its efforts to systematically dole out promotions and pay raises on the basis of sex,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.

Washington Protest

At a protest against the ruling today in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, about 100 demonstrators called for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation intended to address pay inequity issues tied to gender.

Allison Grady, a protester with the Feminists Majority Foundation, said the demonstrators “wanted to be able to show that we were standing with the women of Wal-Mart.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney yesterday declined to comment on the case, while saying President Barack Obama supports proposed federal legislation to ensure pay equity for women in the workplace.

“We still are determined to go forward to present our case in court,” said Dukes, the lead named plaintiff in the case. “We believe we will prevail there.”

She and her co-plaintiffs alleged the world’s biggest retailer discriminated against them on the basis of their sex by denying them equal pay or promotions, in violation of 1964 civil rights law. The court didn’t rule the company discriminated.

Stephanie Odle, 39, who initiated the lawsuit after being fired from a Sam’s Club in 1999, said yesterday was a “great day” for big business.

“It shows how the legal system works,” Odle said in a telephone interview. “But I know in my heart that I made a difference. I didn’t get the outcome we wanted, but the minute that we filed the lawsuit, we started getting changes in pay and promotions.”

Trumped-Up Charge

Odle was working as an assistant manager in a Sam’s Club in Lubbock, Texas, when she was fired.

“They trumped up a charge and terminated me to give the job to a man,” she claimed.

Odle now owns her own business in Norman, Oklahoma. She was one of the original six plaintiffs who pursued the class action against Wal-Mart. She was dropped as a named plaintiff after a lower court decided all the class representatives needed to be from California.

Odle said she worked for Sam’s Club for eight years, in stores in several states.

“I’ve seen the discrimination, no matter what state you’re in, no matter what region,” she said. “I gave up my right to sue individually” while the class action was pending, Odle said. “Now I go back and sue them individually.”

‘Range of Options’

“We had prepared for a whole range of options,” attorney Sellers said in an interview. “We began weeks ago preparing thousands of charges to be filed with the EEOC,” referring to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which pursues workplace claims on behalf of employees.

Lawyers for the woman will try to pursue “some more narrowly drawn, tailored classes,” the lawyer said. “The case becomes splintered. You end up with multiple cases where Wal- Mart’s practices are being challenged.”

Federal lawsuits and claims before the EEOC won’t be stopped by the statute of limitations, which places a time limit on lawsuits, he said, because it was delayed while the proposed class action was pending.

Sellers and co-counsel Seligman said they would be pursuing individual actions against the company, and possibly smaller class actions.

They may also go back to the federal court in San Francisco where the claim was originally filed, seeking a narrowly drawn case of California plaintiffs, he said, and bringing lawsuits with different arguments in different jurisdictions.

“This will be a multi-front sort of battle,” he said. “There are a number of options still available — none of them are as efficient” as a nationwide class action.

Contingency Fee

Since class action litigation is prosecuted on a contingency fee basis — lawyers get paid when the client wins – - lawyers for the plaintiffs said they will continue to finance the litigation.

“We’re in it to see this thing to a successful conclusion,” Sellers said, adding that $3 million in expenses have already been paid. “Millions of dollars in attorneys fees have been expended and we haven’t been paid a penny.”

The cost of defending thousands of lawsuits in hundreds of courthouses may be expensive for Wal-Mart as well.

“Wal-Mart may regret the day” it sought a rejection of class certification, Seligman said. “Wal-Mart is not off the hook.”

The case is Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, 10-00277, U.S. Supreme Court (Washington).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-21/wal-mart-women-vow-to-press-bias-fight-in-lower-court-u-s-rights-agency.html

Malaysia: Women to make up half the workforce

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government hoped to increase the number of women in its workforce by 55% come 2015, said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman.

Musa said better access to higher learning has helped to empower more women and they has been seen to move to higher-paying jobs.

“Currently, women make up 47% of the workforce in Sabah, as compared to 30.8% in 2000.

“Flexible working hours is one of several issues discussed at the government’s Strategic Reforms Initiatives laboratories, aimed at encouraging more women to take part in the Economic Transformation Programme,” he said at the centennial anniversary of the International Women’s Day celebration and Parent’s Day recently.

Musa said he also hoped to see an increased representation of women in the local business scene.

“Women have proven to be good money managers and are generally better at repaying loans hence they can be successful when they venture into business.

“In Sabah, the women are just as able and have demostrated their ability to play a leading role. We have a number of women as elected representatives, in senior government posts and even a minister,” he said.

Musa was happy that there were a number of successful women in the fields of property, hospitality, wellness and pharmaceuticals.

He also acknowledged women had taken leading roles in NGOs, professional and charitable organisations.

“Their innate multi-tasking talents demand respect. I would like to take this opportunity to call on women-led organisations to reach out to those in rural areas who may need guidance in becoming effective players in the state’s development.

“I hope they will also offer help to women and children who fall victim to domestic abuse and other forms of violence, including human trafficking,” he said.

Later, Musa announced that the state would contribute RM100,000 to sponsor the International Women’s Day Celebration here.

“It is fitting that we take the opportunity to celebrate the countless achievements of women in Malaysia.

“In today’s world, women are considered co-developers of a nation and achieving gender equality is necessary in the social, economic and political sphere,” he said.

http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2011/5/30/southneast/8783339&sec=southneast

Australian’s single city women forced to look for love in the country

In the latest example of how difficult it has become for women in their late twenties and early thirties to find an eligible man in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, a dating agency has started sending busloads of single women out to country towns, where the ratio of men to women is far more favourable.

The weekend tours, named Thank Goodness He’s A Country Boy, involve eight hours of intensive speed dating at a country pub, where lonely farmers are introduced to single city girls.

Brie Petersen came up with the idea after visiting friends in the rural town of Mungindi in Queensland. During a night at the pub, the owner told her that he regularly received letters from single women in Brisbane and Sydney asking him to set them up with farmers. Similar pleas were being sent to the post office, he said.

“These women obviously needed help, it was simply a matter of putting the two groups in the same place,” Miss Petersen said.

The first tour, which took 50 Sydney women to the rural town of Tamworth was a success, with an “85 per cent pick up rate”, she said. More trips for the single women of Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth are on the cards.

The tours are the latest symptoms of the chronic gender unbalance in metropolitan and rural areas, which has already spawned a highly popular reality television programme, The Farmer Wants A Wife. The programme matches single women with farmers from far-flung parts of the country and after six series it has generated four marriages and three babies.

Bernard Salt, demographer and author of Man Drought, said the programme and the tours were so successful because over the past four decades young women had fled Australia’s rural towns and communities.

“The farmer does want a wife because there’s no single sheilas in the nearby towns,” he said. While women in the 1960s would marry a local man after finishing school, they now head off to the city in search of work, leaving the men behind, he said.

“As soon as that 18 year old girl leaves she upsets the gender balance in the town, because there are not enough marriageable women, and she also upsets the gender balance in Sydney because there is an oversupply of women in the inner city suburbs.

“The problem is writ large in Australia which is sparsely populated and vast so you get a shift like this and it makes a huge impact.” But for 29-year-old Sydney woman Bianca Wignall, one of Ms Petersen’s clients, it is a matter of quality, as well as quantity.

“Country men are more gentlemanly, they hold the door open for you and if they see you with an empty glass they will be the first to offer to get you a drink, they are more attentive.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8540727/Australians-single-city-women-forced-to-look-for-love-in-the-country.html

Women in low-paid jobs ‘six times more likely to die from alcohol abuse’

Women who do routine jobs such as cleaners are almost six times more likely to die from alcohol abuse than women in better paid roles, according to new government research.

The report by the Office for National Statistics found cleaners, sewing machinists and bar staff face 5.7 times greater risk of fatal liver disease, mental disorders and poisoning than doctors and lawyers.

This was despite richer women downing almost twice as much alcohol, the study finds.

Meanwhile men who worked as van drivers and labourers have a three and a half times bigger threat of meeting a similar fate than than those in higher managerial and professional work.

The new report is the first analysis of the social inequalities in adult alcohol-related mortality in England and Wales in the last decade as measured by the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC).

A year ago an ONS report found professional and managerial women are downing almost twice as much alcohol as the lower paid.

They are drinking an average of 10.2 units a week – more than a bottle of wine – compared with 6.5 units for manual workers.

Statistician Myer Glickman, whose team compiled the latest findings, said: ‘They are an apparent contradiction but it could be down to a number of factors.

‘One could be there are other things affecting people’s health such as whether they are smokers or have a poorer diet which may make them more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol.

‘Also patterns of drinking may be different, such as binge drinking on particular types or brands of alcohol rather than drinking similar or even greater amounts but over a longer period of time.

‘The greater difference between male and female social groups could also be down to the fact that professional women in general are particularly advantaged when it comes to good health.’

The most alcohol related deaths occurred in males aged between 50 and 54 with routine jobs (52.2 per 100,000). For women it was for those in routine work and age 45 to 49 (42 per 100,000).

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For the less advantaged groups, alcohol-related mortality peaked in middle age and then declined, whereas for managers and professionals, the risk of mortality increased steadily the older they got.

The report said this means alcohol-related deaths in the less advantaged groups tend to be younger as well as being more common.

The study also found the number of alcohol-related deaths in England and Wales doubled between 1991 and 2008, rising from 3,415 (6.4 per 100,000 population) in 1991 to 7,344 (12.4 per 100,000) in 2008. But the most recent data in 2009 indicated a drop in alcohol related deaths of 3.3 per cent, to 7,099.

Regionally, the highest mortality rate for men in all occupied classes combined was found in the North West of England (26.9 per 100,000) followed by the North East (23.7), the West Midlands (23.6) and London (21.3).

These areas all had significantly higher mortality rates for all occupied classes combined than England and Wales as a whole, where the figure was 19 per 100,000.

The lowest mortality rate was in the East of England (12.4 per 100,000), half of that seen in the North West. The second lowest was the South West (15.2) followed by the East Midlands and the South East, both 15.5 per 100,000. Similar regional patterns were observed for women, but with lower overall death rates.

Previous survey results have suggested that less advantaged social groups drink less in total than the more advantaged groups.

Therefore the explanation for these inequalities is not a simple one, and may be associated with differences in the detailed patterns of drinking among different groups or with the influence of underlying factors other than alcohol consumption, said the report.

Alcohol-related deaths include only these causes defined as being most directly due to alcohol consumption, such as alcoholic liver disease (accounting for approximately two-thirds of all alcohol-related deaths), fibrosis and cirrhosis of the liver, (18 per cent), mental disorders (9 per cent) and accidental alcohol poisoning (3 per cent).

It does not include other diseases where alcohol has been shown to contribute to the risk of death, such as cancers of the mouth, oesophagus and liver. It also excludes deaths from accidents and violence where alcohol may have played a part.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1390829/Women-low-paid-jobs-times-likely-die-alcohol-abuse.html#ixzz1NVlNd5j5

More women suing Bayer unit

A class action suit alleging that Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals discriminated against women employees has been expanded to include female pharmaceutical sales representatives and all women in Bayer HealthCare’s Consumer Care unit — groups who weren’t originally included in a gender bias complaint filed earlier this year against the drug giant.

In an amended complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in New Jersey, lawyers for the women said the sales representatives were paid less and not promoted as often as male peers while the women in the consumer care division were sexually harassed by Bayer executives and the company ignored their requests for help.

The original complaint, filed in March in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., by six current and former female Bayer HealthCare employees on behalf of other women at the company, seeks $100 million in lost salary and benefits. It alleges Bayer executives were openly hostile to women — especially pregnant women, working mothers and women who took maternity leaves.

Bayer HealthCare, based in New Jersey, is a division of Bayer Corp., a German company with its U.S. headquarters in Robinson.

In a statement, Bayer denied the allegations, pledged to defend itself and said it is “committed strongly to a policy of nondiscrimination and equal treatment for all employees.”

In the amended complaint, Natalie Celske, a senior sales consultant, said that in 2009 she was replaced in a district trainer position based in Boise, Idaho, by a male colleague who had lower sales results and lower overall performance. When she asked a manager why, he replied that the male candidate was “more into [the man's] career path, not yours.”

Since then, the male supervisor has declined to consider her for any promotions and exhibits hostile behavior to her compared with how he treats male employees, the complaint said.

In a portion of the complaint that broadens the gender bias allegations to the consumer care division, Vera Santangelo, a financial specialist in that unit, said that despite several exceptional performance awards, she received less pay than male colleagues and was subjected to sexual harassment and retaliation for reporting the harassment.

Ms. Santangelo alleged a senior attorney for Bayer HealthCare repeatedly made comments about her body and her attire and once made an inappropriate comment to her during an elevator ride.

She sought help from an on-site counselor and reported the incident to a company hotline, Bayer’s corporate ombudsman and an official in human resources, the complaint said.

When the harassment did not stop, according to the complaint, she confided in her manager who “dismissed or diminished her concerns and … made it seem like the sexual harassment she was experiencing was her fault or her problem.”

In a subsequent performance review, the complaint said, her manager said she was “too emotional” and threatened to lower her rating, which could prevent her from receiving a pay raise and make her ineligible for future promotions. She is currently on a short-term medical leave related to stress caused by the harassment, the complaint said.

Read more:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11146/1149204-28.stm?cmpid=business.xml#ixzz1NVkz9FYk

Abortion Rate Down Overall, Up Among Poor Women

The abortion rate in the United States dropped 8 percent between 2000 and 2008, while rising nearly 18 percent among the country’s poorest women — a trend that researchers believe might reflect tough economic times. Of the more than 1.2 million legal abortions reported in 2008, women whose family income fell below the national poverty level accounted for 42 percent of them.

“In the middle of a recession, it’s possible women have reduced access to contraception and have more unintended pregnancies,” said Rachel Jones, senior research associate at New York City’s Guttmacher Institute and lead author of the report published Monday in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. “It’s also possible that women confronted with unplanned pregnancies when they are out of work decide to have abortions, even though they might have carried it to term in more stable times.”

Using information collected through patient surveys, Jones and colleagues estimated the rate of abortion among women of various ages, races, religions, income and education levels, calculating changes in the rate since 2000. The rise in abortions among poor and low-income women was the most worrying finding, Jones said.

A woman studies the results of a pregnancy test. While the U.S. abortion has declined overall, it has risen among poor women, perhaps reflecting tough economic times and limited access to contraception.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing restrictions placed on abortion services, and this shows that it’s going to have a disproportionate impact on poor women,” Jones said.

Planned Parenthood puts the the cost of an abortion during the first trimester at between $300 to $950 — a fee many women front out-of-pocket because of a lack of insurance coverage, confusion about whether the procedure is covered or a desire for privacy.

The abortion rate has been steadily declining since 1990 — a possible product of more and better contraceptive use as well as fewer teens having sex, Jones said. But the decline seems to have stabilized. If the 2008 rates persist, it’s estimated that almost one in three women in the U.S. will have had an abortion before the age of 45.

“A lot of people find this surprising,” Jones said. “But a lot of women have abortions and just don’t talk about it.”

About one-half of U.S. pregnancies each year are unintended, and about half of those end in abortion, according to a 2006 study published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

“Women who are deciding to have an abortion are women who have unintended pregnancies, and limited access to contraception is one of the key drivers of unintended pregnancies,” said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute and author of the 2006 report. “Most Americans want to control how many kids they have and when they have them. We should [ease] access to contraception when possible to reduce the substantial proportion of unintended pregnancies.”

Although teens account for 24.8 percent of U.S. abortions, women over 25 represent 49 percent, according to the report. Almost 20 percent of women who have abortions have a college education, and 44 percent are married or living with their partners.

“All types of women have abortions. People don’t realize that their friends, their family members have had this experience,” Jones said. “If people realize that a substantial minority of women will have one, maybe they will have a less harsh evaluation of abortion and the circumstances surrounding it.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/abortion-rate-poor-women/story?id=13665925

5000 Edinburgh women face working longer for pension

AN estimated 5000 women in Edinburgh will have to work another year or more to qualify for their state pension under latest UK Government proposals – but many of them do not realise it.

Edinburgh Labour MPs today called for a rethink on the plans to speed up the raising of the pension age for women, warning the change would force many families to change their plans for the future.

Under the new Pension Bill proposals, women’s pension age will increase to 65, in line with men’s, by 2018 and the increase, along with men’s, to 66 by 2020, six years earlier than originally planned.
The change mainly affects women currently aged 57-58, but the worst hit are at the younger end of that group.

According to charity Age UK, women born between April 6 and May 5, 1953, will have to carry on working until July 2016, two months longer than under the previous timetable for increasing the pension age.

Women born between March 6 and April 5, 1954, will not be able to claim their pension until March 2020, a full two years later than originally proposed.

Mark Lazarowicz, Labour MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, said the changes had been sprung on women without giving them fair notice.

He said: “Many people are unaware of what is going to happen because the Government has not properly publicised the changes.

“Across Edinburgh, about 5000 are likely to be hit. Most of these women are likely to rely on the state pension as a high proportion of women in this age group don’t have a private pension.

“Of course some people are happy to work on but it’s just not that simple for everyone to go on working – over a third of those affected are no longer in paid work because they are in ill-health or caring for others.”

Edinburgh East Labour MP Sheila Gilmore said: “Many of these are women who have juggled working lives with raising a family, and who, through no fault of their own, have very little retirement saving to fall back on. The lack of warning means they do not have enough time to adjust carefully-thought-out retirement plans, and leaves them feeling robbed of their pension.”

Trade unions and organisations such as Age UK and Saga say they accept the need for the pension age to rise but argue people must have time to prepare. Edinburgh South Labour MP Ian Murray said: “Despite the coalition agreement stating that they would not raise the state pension age for women before 2020, the Government has made another U-turn.

“I will be fighting these changes every step of the way to ensure fairness for those approaching retirement, not the feeling that the goalposts keep being moved.”

The Department of Work and Pensions said with forecasts that ten million people across the UK will live to 100, the country could not continue paying the state pension at an age which was set early last century.

Although women would experience the pension age rising more quickly than planned, they would still draw the state pension for an average of 23 years.

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/5000-Capital-women-face-working.6772078.jp?articlepage=2

More women join dole queue as public sector cuts bite

The number of women claiming out-of-work benefits has hit its highest level since 1996, with public sector job cuts starting to bite last month.

Attempts by the government to nudge single mothers into the workforce have also pushed up the number of women claiming jobseeker’s allowance (JSA), as they are stripped of income support once their children turn seven.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that 474,000 women were receiving JSA in April. While the government took some comfort from the fact that total unemployment fell by 36,000 to 2.46 million in the three months to March, according to the broad International Labour Organisation measure, there was a rise of 12,400 in the more timely claimant count last month – with more than three-quarters of the increase among women.

It was the 10th consecutive month in which the number of women claiming out-of-work benefits had increased – although there are still more than twice as many men, 994,000, receiving JSA. The Department for Work and Pensions said part of the rise resulted from rule changes that have seen single mothers shifted on to employment benefits to encourage them to look for a job.

Since October, single mothers have joined the claimant count when their youngest child turns seven, down from the previous limit of 10. Single parents receiving JSA rose by 6,000 in March.

The DWP said the number of people receiving JSA was likely to go on increasing as incapacity benefit claimants were assessed for their readiness to work.

Since George Osborne announced the tightest fiscal squeeze in a generation last autumn, equality campaigners have been warning that the impact will be disproportionately felt by women, who make up much of the public sector workforce. Anna Bird, acting chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said women were acting as “shock absorbers” for the austerity measures.

“We are beginning to see the real impact of the government’s approach to cutting the deficit and, as we feared, women are bearing the brunt,” she said. “Combined with reduced benefits and increasing costs of childcare as state support dwindles, the lack of employment prospects risk rolling back women’s rights a generation.”

The figures also confirm that the pressure on household incomes is intensifying, as salaries fail to keep pace with rocketing inflation. While the inflation rate hit 4.5% last month, average pay rose by just 2.3% in the year to March.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/18/more-women-join-dole-queue-cuts

Plans to recruit 20,000 women in paramilitary forces in 3 yrs

New Delhi, May 12 (PTI) The government is planning to recruit 20,000 more armed women personnel in paramilitary forces in the next three years.

According to the new plan formulated by the Home Ministry, all paramilitary forces — CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP, SSB and NSG — will essentially have 5 per cent of their total force strength as women personnel in three to five years and 10 per cent in the subsequent five years.

These women will be hired and deployed for general guard duties, patrolling, frisking suspects and other normal policing activities undertaken by their male counterparts.

Subsequently, the government plans to enhance the facilities being offered to women security personnel.

“We have to construct more barracks for women, toilets, creche, day-care centres besides being more considerate in granting leave. We hope that in ten years, there will be generational shift in the paramilitary forces,” an official said.

The CRPF is the first central force to have inducted women personnel in its combat ranks. The force presently has two operational battalions (2,000 women) while the third (around 1,000 personnel) is being raised currently. The total strength of CRPF is about 3 lakh personnel, making it the country”s largest paramilitary force.

The government has also begun to induct the first batch of 650 women personnel in the BSF for border guarding duties. The BSF has more than two lakh personnel on its rolls.

Other forces which have women in combat roles are the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), with about 700 women personnel, and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force with about 800 women combatants. The total strength of SSB and ITBP is about 50,000 personnel each.

The CISF has about 1,500 women personnel on its rolls out of the total strength of about 2 lakh personnel.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/plans-recruit-20-000-women-paramilitary-forces-3-130800195.html

Women in Saudi Arabia try to ‘buy’ their freedom to work

ABHA: Saudi workingwomen have embarked on new ways to win the consent of their male legal guardians or husbands to  take a job. This is so in jobs where there are still strong taboos about women working in them.

Many Saudi workingwomen set aside a portion of their monthly income, which enables them to win the consent of their male guardians as well as to enjoy full freedom to do job, according to a report in Al-Riyadh Arabic daily.

These women, who often managed to secure a job after a long period of waiting, see their job as a basic requirement of their day-to-day life. Hence, they are wary of safeguarding it by taking all the precautionary measures. Even if the job does not improve their economic status, it contributes substantially in upgrading their social status compared to jobless women.

Critics point out that legal guardians are cashing in on this particular state of affairs facing Saudi women. These women “bribe” their guardians to secure their permission to take up a job, mainly in the media, health, and educational sectors. They see this “monetary element” as the major factor that influences guardians to allow their women to work, in addition to the opening up of Saudi society with the advancement of the information technology. Some describe this tendency among guardians as “unsuitable utilitarian bargaining,” while others say it is a “medium solution” for women to satisfy their men while reaching out to realize their goal.

Take for example the case of Fatima. She was appointed by the Ministry of Education as a teacher in Al-Baqaa in Asir province in the beginning of the current academic year. Her workplace was located in a remote area where women teachers prefer not to work. Fatima said that she found it very difficult to reach her workplace, which is far away from her place of residence in Khamis Mushayt city. “It took me at least three hours to reach the school. So I asked my jobless brother to take me to school and back for a monthly fee of SR1,500. He grabbed it as a golden opportunity to earn an income, as well as to accompany me as mahram (legal guardian). My colleagues — 10 women teachers — decided to travel together with me. This resulted in my brother earning a huge monthly income of SR15,000 in addition to my share of SR1,500. This also helped me to overcome the objection of my parents to go to work at a remote place in the company of a foreign driver,” she said.

Similar was the case with Nadia, who lives with her husband and children in Jeddah. She got appointed at a school in Mikhwa in Baha province. Nadia was not in a position to abandon her job, due to her family’s financial position and her desire to earn some income for herself. “In the beginning, my husband rejected my request to allow me to take up the job. Later he agreed on condition that I arranged any blood relative to accompany me to and from the workplace. My brother Abdullah, who did not continue his schooling after completion of intermediate level, agreed to transport me to and from Mikhwa for a monthly payment of SR1,000,” she said.

Noura, a nurse, says that she joined a nursing course after promising her father that she attended the course for the sake of obtaining a certificate, and not to start working as a nurse. But after completion of the course, she started searching for a job without informing her father. Subsequently, she managed to secure a job at a primary health center.

“I tried to convince my father about the advantages of having a job, assuring him that there was no gender mixing at the workplace. But my father’s response was disappointing. He started abusing me as if I had committed a grave offense. This situation continued until I received my first salary. When I got two months’ salary, I set aside SR2,000 for my father and SR500 for my mother,” she said, adding that this had an electrifying effect. Her father changed his attitude toward her job. “Henceforth, he has been very keen on seeing me going to my workplace regularly. He does not like me staying away from work,” Noura said, adding that it does not bother her to allocate a portion of her revenue to her parents in return for them allowing her to enjoy freedom to work. “Moreover, my father now allows me more freedom, especially for travel to attend conferences anywhere inside the Kingdom,” she said.

At a time when legal guardians try to prevent women under their custodianship from taking up jobs on the pretext of mixing with men, a number of men block their wives from going out for work on the ground that they must be always available at home to take care of them as well as to bring up their children, says Muna. “Some husbands do not like to see their wives enjoying economic liberty by earning money for themselves. I managed to allay apprehensions of my husband in this respect by lending him a helping hand through meeting a portion of household expenses and settling a part of his debts,” she said, adding that she has been keen to keep a portion of her revenue to fulfill her personal needs. “I lied to him about the exact amount of my monthly salary. I told him that my monthly salary is SR9,000, even though I was drawing a much higher amount,” she said.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Zayed Al-Almai, a prominent writer and human rights activist, is of the view that this type of behavior toward women shows the degradation of values with regard to social integration and family bonds in addition to transforming these relations into a level of “utilitarian bargaining.”

Al-Almai also sees in this something that transforms social and human rights into a commodity, selling one’s dignity to buy one’s interests without any feeling of remorse. He also underlined the need for enacting stringent regulations aimed at protecting the weaker sections, such as women and children, in addition to enlightening male members of society on their duties and responsibilities toward women.

On his part, Abdullah Al-Towairqi, a prominent citizen, said that this attitude is common not only among legal guardians of women, like parents and brothers, but also on the part of their husbands, who see their women as a tool for exploitation and even for blackmailing in certain cases. He denounced the deprivation of women’s right to earn wealth as well as her right to work, in addition to choose her family life and future course of action.

Al-Towairqi ruled out the wrong notion that it is a disgrace for a man who faces financial difficulties to be supported by his wife.

Echoing the same view, Hala Al-Dosary, a human rights activist, said a job is something that enables a woman to have financial capabilities and enjoy more freedom. “It is significant if a woman can play her role in improving the financial level of her family by supporting her husband to meet household expenses,” she said.

http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20110512032752/Women_in_Saudi_Arabia_try_to_buy_their_freedom_to_work

Census shows big jump in women-led families in Wisconsin

When Ally Moll had her daughter three years ago, she felt isolated. Her family lives in Florida and New York, and the girl’s father was out of the picture.

So the Madison woman took her plight to an online classifieds board: “I’m a new mom and I’m alone. Does anyone want to hang out?”

It led to connections with many other moms in her situation and monthly social gatherings that continue today, perhaps not surprising given that the last decade brought a dramatic increase in women-led families here and across Wisconsin.

In the state, the number of families headed by women with children and no husband increased 13 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Census figures released Thursday. In Dane County, they’re up 23 percent. In Madison, it’s 22 percent.

The data show a further decline in the traditional nuclear family approach, with married couples with kids comprising 19 percent of total Wisconsin households in 2010, down from 24 percent in 2000.

The changes come even as population in the state, Dane County and Madison increased. Nuclear families dropped by 10 percent in the state since 2000, but increased slightly in Dane County and Madison — but at a lower rate than the general population increase for the county and city.

Moreover, the percentage change in the number of unmarried partners living together rocketed up — by more than 40 percent in the state and even more than that in the city and county.

Changing reality

The American family structure began a significant shift in the 1980s, and it continues today for a number of reasons, including that women generally are getting married much later or not at all, said Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the national Council on Contemporary Families.

But she called on society to catch up to the changed reality.

“We still organize our school schedules and work policies on the assumption that every child has someone at home and every worker doesn’t have competing obligations,” she said.

The impact on children can be profound. Single-parent homes tend to be poorer, especially in the vital first five years of a child’s life, because there’s only one income and women tend to earn less than men.

“At the point when child development is at its most important is when families are at their poorest,” said Ken Taylor, executive director of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families.

But Coontz pointed out that despite the challenges posed by the changing family structure, children’s lives have actually improved nationally over the past three decades. She cited declining rates of youth violence, binge drinking and teen pregnancy as well as lower rates of domestic and child abuse.

“Clearly the gold standard is two cooperating parents in a lasting relationship,” she said. “Since that’s not always what you draw, we’re actually kind of surprised by the trends in youth.”

Aging population

The new Census numbers also show the state continues to get grayer, with median age going from 36 in 2000 to 38.5 in 2010. Dane County and Madison didn’t age as much. The city’s median age barely increased, from 30.6 to 30.9 In the county, it increased from 33.2 to 34.4.

“You’re always going to have a younger population in communities with a university or a prison,” said David Egan-Robertson, demographer with the state Department of Administration.

The shift toward an older population shows in many of the family categories, as well. The average size of households and families declined statewide and locally, with a sizable jump in the number of households with at least one retirement-aged member.

An aging of Wisconsin presents opportunities and challenges, said Katherine Curtis, demographic specialist at UW-Madison. On the upside, older members of society tend to volunteer more and be more active in the community. On the other hand, their interests don’t always align with younger people, such as in funding education, which can create a rift and lead to younger people moving out with no one moving in to replace them.

“It basically becomes an issue of attracting new residents,” she said.

http://host.madison.com/news/local/88c1a5b0-7c38-11e0-9b2e-001cc4c03286.html

Born in the USA: Illinois women act as surrogates for foreign couples

With a flag hanging outside her house, a crate of Girl Scout cookies in her living room and a dog named for Disney sensation Miley Cyrus at her feet, Laurie Thompson is about as American as it gets.

The same cannot be said for the 14-week-old twins in her gently protruding belly.

Conceived with a donor’s eggs, they are the children of a same-sex couple from Spain who turned to Thompson because paid surrogacy is illegal in their country.

“There’s such pride in knowing that I did this for somebody,” Thompson says of her experience as a surrogate, which has also included a pregnancy for a married couple from Serbia.

“This is something that is probably hard for most people to do — with the emotional connection and everything — and I was able to do it.”

She laughs: “And do it again, obviously.”

Thompson, who lives in McHenry, five miles from another woman who recently carried a child for a European couple, represents a new twist in global fertility tourism.

In the last five years, would-be parents from as far as Istanbul and Uruguay have turned to healthy young mothers from Illinois to carry their children.

The babies are born U.S. citizens, surrogacy agency officials say, but that’s not a primary motivation for the parents, who typically come from European and Latin American countries where surrogacy is illegal or unavailable. The parents have exhausted other options and are willing to pay about $50,000 to $100,000 — part of which goes to the surrogate — to have biological children.

No one tracks how many of the estimated 1,400 babies via surrogacy in the U.S. each year are carried for international parents, but one of the larger U.S. agencies, the Center for Surrogate Parenting in Encino, Calif., estimates that about half of its 104 births in 2010 were for international parents.

In Illinois, which has had one of the most surrogacy-friendly laws in the nation, at least two dozen international babies were born to surrogates in 2010, according to a Tribune survey of major agencies. The only other states that explicitly allow contracts for paid surrogacy are Arkansas, California and Massachusetts.

“We’re getting inquires from international parents constantly. Because of the referral process, it’s skyrocketed,” said Zara Griswold, director of Family Source Consultants in Hinsdale. “We recently got an inquiry from somebody in China.”

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-04-13/health/ct-news-surrogate-mom-20110413_1_surrogacy-center-for-surrogate-parenting-international-parents

Some Women May No Longer Be Eligible for Credit Cards

The federal government is cracking down on who can and cannot own credit cards –and for some women, these changes could have dire consequences.

Under new rules in development by the Federal Reserve Board, banks will have to consider a consumer’s individual income as part of the credit card application process. Your household income or assets will no longer factor into the equation if you need credit.

This appears to be yet another law with unintended consequences. Although regulators undoubtedly saw these changes as a way to make it more difficult for consumers without income –particularly, underage students and the unemployed –to get in over their heads with credit card debt, they obviously missed an important point.

The result of this oversight is a gigantic step backward for women with little or no income of their own. That means the rules have changed significantly for stay-at-home moms, retirees and asset-rich, but income-poor women.

Think about it. If banks can only look at each applicant’s individual income –and not at their household income or assets, as they were able to do in the past –then these women will be shut out from obtaining credit, unless their husbands co-sign for them.

The implications could be quite serious. For example, establishing independent credit is often an essential first step towards ending an abusive marriage. Will these changes by the Fed make it harder for women to leave a dangerous domestic partnership? Likewise, once these rules go into effect, any woman considering divorce will find it more difficult to separate credit card accounts and establish credit on her own. If she can’t access marital funds because her husband controls those assets and she cannot establish any credit or a sufficient amount of credit in her own name, how will she get the funds required to hire competent divorce professionals?

A handful of advocacy groups and legislators are beginning to take notice. Earlier this year, US Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) asked the Fed to maintain the household income or assets measure for non-working spouses. This excerpt from their letter outlines some of the problems with the new regulations:

We are concerned that the Board’s proposal will hamper a stay-at-home mom’s ability to establish her own independent credit history by applying independently for a card. Many stay-at-home moms have a strong work history, yet the proposed regulations ignore their demonstrated credit-worthiness because of their lack of current market income. While stay-at-home moms may not be contributing to the market economy as workers, they make the majority of the day-to-day financial decisions on behalf of their household. Women’s consumer power represents 73 percent of household spending, or over $4 trillion in annual discretionary spending. Finally, requiring married women to have their own earnings in order to qualify for credit represents a serious risk for women in abusive domestic partnerships. Women trapped in abusive marriages may be unable to work due to a controlling spouse, a hallmark of relationships characterized by domestic violence. The availability of an independent credit card may represent her best chance at establishing independence and a path out of a dangerous relationship. By not allowing these women to apply independently for a credit card, the proposed regulations represent a significant -and potentially dangerous set-back. We would accordingly urge the Board to amend its proposed rules so that issuers have the flexibility to consider household income in the cases of non-working spouses applying for credit.

Despite the negative impacts on some women, policy specialists aren’t expecting the Fed to budge on its decision. As Businessweek puts it, “fixing the mom flap won’t be easy, especially in the post-financial-crisis environment where regulatory zeal is the norm.”

If you’re a woman without your own income, you’re probably wondering, “Is there anything I CAN do to help establish credit in my name?”

Of course, there is – but, don’t expect it to be easy.

If you don’t have your own income, you can start to establish credit in your name by:

• Creating a solid credit history as an authorized user on a shared card.
• Putting utilities and other accounts in your name. Of course, you must also  pay these bills on time! Every honored commitment helps build your credit history.
• Using a secured credit card.

More importantly, you should immediately start stashing away as much money as possible. (See more details in my article about the 9 Critical Steps Women Should Take To Prepare For Divorce).

If you have sufficient liquid assets available, not only will you be able to access those funds with a debit card, but hopefully you should be able to get a secured credit card with a higher limit.

Fortunately, you still have a few months to plan accordingly and possibly still get credit under the old rules. The Fed’s rule changes aren’t set to go into effect until October 1. Keep in mind, though, that credit card issuers can start enforcing these rules at any time.

http://blogs.forbes.com/jefflanders/2011/05/10/even-affluent-women-may-no-longer-be-eligible-for-credit-cards/

Rights body cautions Dhaka over sending women workers to Saudi Arabia

Dhaka, May 8 (IANS) A global human rights body has cautioned Bangladesh against sending women workers, particularly as domestic help, to Saudi Arabia where it says they are abused by employers and are not covered by labour laws.

‘It’s not the question if they will face abuse, but the question is when they will face it. Because I am sure that it’ll happen,’ said Nisha Varia, an ethnic Indian senior researcher of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Following talks with a Saudi delegation in early April, Bangladesh’s expatriates’ welfare minister said Saudi Arabia might hire 10,000 female domestic helps and the process would start in two months.

During the talks Sanarcom and Baira – associations of recruiting agencies of Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh – signed a memorandum of understanding for workers’ protection.

Varia, who has been working at the Women’s Rights Division of the HRW for eight years, says domestic helps are not covered in Saudi labour law.

They have neither weekly holidays nor any limit to working hours. Many have to work 18 hours a day for months or even years without a break.

‘Sometimes, they’re locked inside the house, and they cannot to go out and contact their families,’ she told The Daily Star newspaper.

‘While such abuses may happen in any country, what we have seen in Saudi Arabia is that it’s very rare for the employers to get punished, even when they confess to abusing.’

For years, she says, workers from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Philippines faced many problems including non-payments for even years. Also very common are physical and sexual abuse.

An international relations graduate from Columbia University who has worked on migrant domestic workers in Asia, Varia said it was the right of women to get job and even go abroad. But the government should provide proper training before they go.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/rights-body-cautions-dhaka-over-sending-women-workers-085825368.html

Women allege being duped by Albanian firm

Twenty Indian women working in Albania have sought help from the government, alleging that they were duped by their employer and dumped in a dark room without food and water after they asked for their promised salaries.
Santhosh Jose, husband of P R Raji, one of the women in distress, has approached Kerala’s opposition leader Oommen Chandy seeking the intervention of federal Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi and Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahmed.
Speaking by phone from Berat in Albania, a weeping Raji, 28, pleaded for the intervention of the Indian authorities for their safe return.
“At the interview we were promised a minimum salary of $200 plus overtime for making bags. After reaching here we found out that we have been cheated,” she alleged.
Raji, a native of Alappuzha district, added: “We have nine-hour shifts and except for a short lunch break, the rest of the time we stand and work. We will get our promised salary only if we achieve the target of 7,100 bags a day.
“All we can make is only 2,500 bags for which they pay just $2 a day. This works out to just around Rs2,400 a month. We have been cheated by the agent.”
She said they were selected by an agent from Goa on a contract with Centre Shqiptare Company, a bag manufacturing firm in Berat, Albania.
They reached Albania on April 19.
The group of 20 workers includes eight from Goa, five from Kerala and the rest from Mumbai and Chennai.
Florin Fernandez, 30, from Goa, another woman in the group, said they hope the Indian authorities would come to their help.
“We have been told by our employer that by tomorrow 1pm we will be evicted from our room. We fear we could even land in police custody because we were made to sign some papers,” she said.
“Our work permit cards have been taken away by the company. We have been suffering physically and mentally,” Fernandez added.

Women Feel That They’re Working a “Second Shift”

Survey Results Show Women Need Help with Household Duties, Work/Life Balance

05.05.2011– Seventy-two percent of women feel they work a “second shift” when it comes to the number of hours they spend cleaning their homes, according to an April 2011 survey conducted by Maid Brigade and Mom Corps.

Thirty-three percent of survey respondents say they use outside house cleaning services, an increase from 25 percent in 2009, to provide a better sense of balance and to improve their quality of life. Most of the women surveyed who have cleaning help feel that the service is a necessity rather than an indulgence, using the free time to complete other tasks rather than relaxing.

More than twice as many respondents who have outside professional house cleaning help (35.7 percent) say they are better able to manage the details of their lives well and have a good work/life balance, as compared to the DIY group (17.2 percent). Still, three out of four women feel they do not have a proper work/life balance and 85 percent of respondents who clean their own homes say cleaning help would give them better work/life balance.

The survey also asked women about their motivations for home cleanliness and found that more women clean for appearance rather than to reduce germs or asthma and allergy triggers. Interestingly, this does not correspond to the significant amount of concern the respondents have regarding infectious diseases, even though improperly cleaned home environments are linked to causing allergies, asthma, and infectious diseases.

The apparent disconnect between home cleaning and illness may be a result of women not seeing their personal living space as a source for exposure to health risks. There is little awareness among women about the effects of transporting germs from one area of the home to another. There is also a lack of understanding regarding the effect many chemical-based cleaning supplies and ordinary cleaning equipment can have on allergies and asthma and little awareness for cleaning as a strategy to reduce risks of exposure.

Green cleaning services offer the dual advantage of alleviating the logistical burden of cleaning and reducing many of the hidden health risks found in an indoor environment. The survey findings suggest that outside cleaning help improves overall work/life balance by addressing the notion that women have to work a “second shift” when they come home from the office.

Maid Brigade and Mom Corps formed an alliance in 2009 to help women improve their quality of life. To view the companies’ 2011 study findings, as well as survey methodology, visit maidbrigade.com/momcorps.

About Maid Brigade
With more than 25 years of experience, Maid Brigade is the national leader in green cleaning practices and has a longstanding legacy of offering the latest in maid services and technologies. The company is the first and only Green Clean Certified® cleaning services franchise that implements a certification program for green house cleaning so customers know that they’re getting a green cleaning that is safe and truly green. For more information visit maidbrigade.com.

About Mom Corps
Mom Corps is a leading, rapidly growing national staffing and search firm with 15 franchise offices located throughout major cities in the United States. Mom Corps matches companies that value the use of flexible talent in their overall staffing mix with top-tier, experienced professionals — many of whom are working mothers — not found through traditional employment channels. Mom Corps works with many of the nation’s leading Fortune 500 companies, small to mid-size businesses, academic institutions, and non-profits to find qualified candidates for flexible positions that include part-time, full-time flex, contract and temporary work arrangements. For more information visit momcorps.com.

http://www.pitchengine.com/pitch/144636/

Recession Seen Taking Toll on Gender Equality

LONDON — It was dubbed the “He-cession.” As male unemployment surged and female jobs proved more resilient, pundits proclaimed not just The Death of Macho (Foreign Policy, September 2009) but The End of Men (The Atlantic, July/August 2010). The worst economic slump in half a century was hailed as the beginning of the end of male dominance in the labor market.

But as attention has turned from bank balance sheets to government debt and from stimulus spending to austerity, the legacy of the recession may be less, not more, gender equality.

From Athens to London to Washington, the new age of austerity is likely to rewrite basic assumptions about solidarity and the role of the state in rich countries. Few dispute the need for governments to be more frugal. Years of fiscal profligacy, expensive military campaigns and, more recently, Keynesian deficit spending, have intensified the strains that aging populations are putting on the welfare states of Europe and the entitlement programs of the United States.

But with the first cuts beginning to bite, economists and women’s groups warn that women are likely to bear the brunt of austerity: as public sector employees, as retirees who live longer than men and thus rely more on health care and social security, and as mothers whose decision to work depends on affordable child care.

“This is not just individual categories of women losing out, this is structural: This is rolling back gender equality,” said Anna Bird, acting chief executive officer of the Fawcett Society, a women’s advocacy group based in London.

Britain, the country that has gone fastest and furthest with its belt-tightening, provides a glimpse into what may loom in other countries.

Women account for about 65 percent of public sector workers and are likely to be hit hard when the coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron is done eliminating half a million jobs. Indeed, they hold about 80 percent of the low-pay, low-grade positions most at risk from the cuts, economists say.

About 45,000 public sector jobs were already lost in the last three months of 2010. In one indication of how women were affected, the number of female job seekers rose 12 percent in February, compared with a year earlier.

In those parts of the public sector so far more sheltered from the cuts, nearly three in four of those subject to a pay freeze are women, according to the Women’s Budget Group, an independent organization that has been analyzing the gender implications of British budgets since the 1990s. This will probably increase the pay gap, which last year stood at 15.5 percent for women in full-time employment.

Women also stand to suffer most from the deep cuts in benefits and services like shelters for battered women and child care facilities.

Child benefit payments, the “Surestart” maternity grant and the health in pregnancy grant are among the benefits that face freezes, cuts or outright elimination, Ms. Bird said.

One controversial issue, particularly in London, where the cost of living is among the highest in Europe, is the cut to child benefit payments for families where one parent earns about £44,000, or $72,500, or more a year from 2013. Currently, parents receive £20.30 a week for the oldest child and £13.40 for subsequent ones, with payments continuing until age 19 for children in full-time education. Oddly, a couple where each parent earns £43,000 would keep the child benefit, while a single parent earning £44,000 would not, Ms. Bird said.

All told, about 72 percent of the savings being made through increases in direct taxes and cuts in benefits approved in the government’s first budget last June have come out of women’s pockets, according to an estimate by the House of Commons Library, the independent research arm of Britain’s lower house of Parliament.

Add to that the new budget last month, and the average British household will lose public services worth 6.8 percent of its income to austerity. Single female retirees will lose 11.7 percent, and single mothers 18.5 percent, the Women’s Budget Group estimates.

Take Kerrie Hales, single mother of 5-year-old Miller, whose local public day care center in north London will shut down next year. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. She works full time at a design company, relying on the Camden Square Play Center to pick her son up from school and look after him until 6 p.m. for £4.80 a day because she cannot afford a private nanny.

Like many other mothers campaigning against the closure, she does not want to reduce hours at work but acknowledges she might have to.

The lesson for policy makers, said Monika Queisser, head of social policy at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, is that budget cuts taking aim at child care could end up costing the economy more than saving it.

“You have to think about the long-term costs of austerity,” Ms. Queisser said. “Policies that help women combine work and family life will contribute to families’ economic resilience, boost economic growth and ultimately tax revenues. Policies that don’t risk doing the opposite.”

Kevin Daly of Goldman Sachs estimates that if Britain raised female employment rates to male levels, it would increase gross domestic product by about 8 percent and tax revenues along with that. (For the United States, the figure is 9 percent, and for the euro zone, a full 16 percent.)

This is a calculation for politicians as they ponder ways to ward off rating agencies and bond market vigilantes — particularly as signs are that the early pattern in the recession of men suffering more from unemployment appears to be reversing in several countries.

In the three months through February, the number of jobless men in Britain fell by 31,000, while the number of unemployed women rose by 14,000. In the United States, female unemployment also increased slightly in January and February, to 8 percent from 7.9 percent, even as it declined among men, to 8.7 percent from 8.8 percent. In both countries, economists say, female unemployment could soon overtake male unemployment, a trend likely to intensify with public sector job cuts.

As Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, put it in a recent blog post, “It seems clear that as the ‘womancession’ unfolds, women will get cut in more ways than one.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/world/europe/27iht-letter27.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Indian micro-credit crisis puts poor women in a bind

Budhavaripeta, India — Husaina Abdul Nabi turned to micro-credit companies in the past six years to buy a noodle-making machine, pay her disabled husband’s health bills and send her children to school.

But a crisis in India’s private micro-credit industry — fueled by a spate of suicides blamed on abusive lending practices here in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and a subsequent legal clampdown — is driving women like her back to traditional village moneylenders.

(Rama Lakshmi/ WASHINGTON POST ) – NAGALUTI , INDIA:   Lakshmidevi Narayana, 50, runs her own grocery shop which she bought with microcredit a few years ago, in Nagaluti, India.

“There have been no new loans for the last six months. Women are getting desperate now and have no other option,” said Nabi, 40, who runs a business in this hamlet making Indian-style noodles to support her family of six. The moneylender made Nabi pledge her family jewelry and charges her 120 percent interest on the loan.

“The moneylenders are back in demand now,” she said. “They are drinking our blood.”

Analysts say they worry that the prevailing climate of distrust, default and desperation in Andhra Pradesh, which has the highest number of micro-lending businesses in India, may have reversed a decade of work toward the goal of financial inclusion for poor women.

Inspired by Grameen Bank, the Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize-winning institution that launched the micro-credit revolution, millions of poor Indian women have organized themselves into groups since the mid-1990s to qualify for small, uncollateralized business loans. India’s formal banking system, with just 30 percent of its branches in rural areas, has long been inadequate to meet the credit needs of most rural households.

In the past few years, scores of for-profit companies have sprung up across rural Andhra Pradesh, handing out small, easily obtained loans. The industry grew at a rate of 70 percent annually, but loan recovery practices were often coercive. The state government attributes at least 93 suicides to abuses and has imposed a strict law that observers say has brought the industry to a halt.

“If there are a few road accidents in the night, you don’t ban all nighttime traffic,” said Vijay Mahajan, the president of the Microfinance Institutions Network and the head of Basix, one of the oldest micro-lending companies. “There is no doubt that there was widespread wrongdoing by three or four companies, but the new law is draconian.”

The political backlash against the companies has also triggered widespread willful default by women across Andhra Pradesh, where about $1.5 billion in unpaid loans has accumulated.

“When the loan recovery officers come to the village, we chase them away,” said Ramanamma Annayya, 35, of Nagaluti village, who runs a granite mine and wears a man’s shirt over her floral-printed sari. She has four unpaid loans. A woman in her village killed herself in September by drinking pesticide after micro-credit companies harassed her when she defaulted.

“Now we want the government to write off all these loans given by the private companies,” Annayya said.

That trend worries many who built the movement.

“It took us so many years to demonstrate that poor women are creditworthy too,” said Vijay Bharati, a woman who developed women’s self-help groups in 27 villages. “But the women who were so regular in repaying for the last 15 years are now waiting for a waiver of their loans. This is damaging our movement.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indian_micro_credit_crisis_puts_poor_women_in_a_bind/2011/04/21/AFpckbsE_story.html?wprss=rss_world

Diktat prohibiting women from taking up jobs withdrawn

Dehra Dun, Apr 25 (PTI) The diktat by a local panchayat in Uttarakhand”s Haridwar district prohibiting women from taking up jobs has been withdrawn.

“Women in Godawali and Sarai villages of Haridwar district have started going to work in factories in the nearby industrial area after the diktat was withdrawn by the panchayat,” District Magistrate, Haridwar, R Meenakshisundaram said today.

The village panchayat had last week issued the decree banning women from pursuing jobs, saying it was a disgrace to their religion and families.

The panchayat had ruled that a woman can go to work only when at least one male member of her family also works at the same place so that she can be escorted by him.

It had threatened that a woman found offending the decree would be whipped publicly and a fine of Rs 5,100 would be imposed on her family, which would also face social boycott from the community.

The diktat was issued after a girl of Gadowali village had eloped with a male colleague from a different community a few weeks ago.

Taking a serious note of the matter, Uttarakhand Women”s Commission had directed the district magistrate and senior superintendent of police to initiate action against the culprits.

Following intervention of the administration and police, the panchayat withdrew the diktat on Friday.

About 18-20 women of both villages working in various factories in Haridwar”s SIDCUL industrial area were being affected by the decree, Haridwar Superintendent of Police (City) K L Shah said.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/diktat-prohibiting-women-taking-jobs-withdrawn-094900643.html

Women workers in Bihar still paid less: Survey

PATNA: A large number of women workers are still being exploited by their employers. They are paid lower wages than male workers.

Ninety per cent of women were involved in the informal sector requiring unskilled labour, and enjoyed no benefits. Most of these women still give all their earnings to their husband or in-laws and had very little say in decision-making. Most working women take full responsibility of family and have no leisure time.

These are the findings of a recent study conducted on the `Economic participation of women in Bihar’ in four districts of Bihar – Kishanganj, Vaishali, Madhubani and East Champaran.

The study was done by Equity Foundation, an NGO, supported by socio-economic research division of the Planning Commission. The study has revealed that positive change in women’s lifestyle is mainly limited to the upper and middle classes, which form only a miniscule portion of the Indian population.

Gender indicators such as poverty, health, education, reproductive and legislative rights and their implications on women’s lives are yet to reach the common men and women.

The respondents, of which 66% were illiterate, were not getting government facilities like BPL cards, Indira Awas and ration card. There is a common need for housing, sanitation and infrastructure.

Over the years, while the status of women in South India has shown signs of significant improvement, the other states, particularly the Hindi heartland states, have lagged behind, says the secretary of the Patna-based Equity foundation, Nina Shrivastava, adding “the overall condition of women in the state has remained a neglected terrain.”

In Bihar, women were found to be victim of double discrimination, one for being a women and secondly for being member of a backward state. The study claims to be the first of its kind.

The field work covered multi-caste panchayats in each of the four districts. The target group was selected randomly using stratified random sampling method from those panchayats where SHGs existed. A sample size of 2,400 women was taken (40 women from each of the five panchayats in three blocks, i.e, 600 from each district).

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-22/patna/29462550_1_women-workers-panchayats-shgs

Indiana and Illinois women make thousands less per year than men

Full-time working women in Indiana and Illinois make on average about $11,500 less than their male counterparts, according to U.S. Census Data.

Women in both states worked until April 11, 2011, to earn what their male equivalents did in 2010, as men’s weekly paychecks tally about $150 more than women.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the pay issue has been improving over the past few decades — from women making 62 percent as much as men in 1979 to making about 80 percent in 2009.

That gap is closing at a rate of less than half a cent each year, and discrimination issues recently have come to a head with what could be the largest class-action lawsuit in history. Female Walmart workers who were employed any time after 1998 are trying to sue the corporate giant on a variety of discrimination claims — including that it does not pay women as much as men or offer equal opportunities for promotions.

Walmart is arguing the class-action suit is too large and covers a variety of situations that cannot be lumped into one case. The U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments at the end of March, will decide whether the federal case can continue encompassing such a large pool of plaintiffs.

An employee at a Lake County Walmart, who would not give her name for fear of retaliation, said there are a lot of discriminatory practices that go on at the store. But she said women feel stuck and are scared to speak out to anyone.

“What can we do?” she said. “Work. Because we need to make our money.”

Walmart did not respond to requests for comment.

Identifying discrimination is not easy because it is difficult to define equality when no two people are exactly alike, said Jaishankar Raman, an associate professor of economics at Valparaiso University.

“That’s part of the problem,” he said. “It is very easy to justify the woman is doing something different and the man is doing something different, and the man gets a higher salary than the woman.”

The wage gap is perpetuated when employers claim the skill needed for one position is slightly different from the other, he said, when in practice they are essentially the same.

Companies actually try to keep gender and race out of the equation when doing salary audits, human resource veteran Desila Rosetti said.

“(Salary) shouldn’t be based as much on the person as it should be based on the position,” said Rosetti, who now owns the Chesterton employee training and development company, Organizational Development Solutions Inc.

And because salary is typically viewed as personal information, many employees might not know if a disparity exists.

“Usually it doesn’t hit you like a board,” Rosetti said. “Usually you don’t even know that it’s happened, at least until someone brings it to your attention. Then it’s your job as a manager, not just as the director of HR, to go back and look at those things.”

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/cb05230f-d33a-5b3c-b5c4-405f5f8ebbc6.html

Working women of Haridwar village face panchayat’s wrath

Dehradun, Apr 22 (PTI) Working women of a village in Uttarakhand”s Haridwar district have come under the wrath of a local panchayat which issued a diktat prohibiting them from pursuing jobs.

The panchayat of village Sarai also imposed a penalty of Rs 5,100 if anybody violated its order, besides four lashes in public as punishment.

Taking a serious note of the matter, Uttarakhand Women’s Commission has directed the district magistrate and senior superintendent of police to initiate action against the culprits.

Sushila Balooni, president of the commission, said she learnt about the panchayat’s diktat through media reports.

“I have asked district authorities to take immediate action on this,” she said.

According to the reports, she said, about 60 women from the village work in various industrial units in Sidcul in Haridwar.

The panchayat’s direction came on Wednesday, Balooni said, adding police forces have been rushed to the village to maintain law and order there.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/working-women-haridwar-village-face-panchayats-wrath-155900453.html

20 women stopped from leaving for Saudi Arabia

Twenty Madagascan women who planned to work as maids in Saudi Arabia, were intercepted by police yesterday before they were able to board the plane, the government said.
“We prevented these young girls from leaving because their paperwork wasn’t in order, notably they didn’t have contracts signed by the public service ministry,” Population Minister Nadine Ramaroson said.
In late January the government put in place a temporary ban on any domestic workers going to work abroad.
Since then only a tiny fraction of the requests submitted have been approved by the ministry, which examines them on a case-by-case basis.
The ban came in the wake of numerous cases of maids being abused, mostly in Lebanon, where at least 6,000 Madagscan women are in domestic employment, and more recently in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The 20 maids who were supposed to leave yesterday had been recruited by a Sri Lankan agency with a branch in Madagascar. They had signed up to work for two years in Riyadh or Jeddah.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=430041&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21