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

Relief offer for unwed mothers hits a raw nerve

PALAKKAD: Various tribes and social organisations in Attappady have come out against the decision of the State government on Wednesday to provide one acre (0.4 hectare) of land and a monthly pension of Rs.1,000 to unwed tribal mothers.

Eswari Reshan, district panchayat member, said on Thursday that the decision was “an insult not only to tribal women but also to womanhood.”

She said some tribal women had come to her protesting against the reopening of old issues, saying that to get financial assistance, they were being forced to file cases against the men who had deserted them. Doing so would aggravate the stigma they faced for giving birth out of wedlock.

Rather than give relief, she said, the government should bring to book the men who had deserted the women after having a child or two. Some women had been abandoned by men who had legally married them. The relief announced would only encourage those who wanted to exploit women.

Ms. Reshan said the government should enforce the law against such cheating and exploitation. Provision of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should be invoked.

On the government’s promise of land, Ms. Reshan said most unwed mothers owned two acres to five acres of land, but had no resources to cultivate it. The government should fund cultivation and offer employment and educational opportunities.

‘Atrocities will go up’

P.R.G. Mathur, expert in tribal affairs and former Director of the Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (KIRTADS), said the government’s decision would promote atrocities on tribal women, besides being an insult to them and womanhood.

Would the government apply the same yardstick to unwed mothers of other communities in various parts of the State, he asked.

Dr. Mathur said the government’s duty was to implement the law and bring the culprits to book. The men, not the government, should be made to pay for the crime.

He cited examples from Madhya Pradesh of men who had ditched tribal women being brought before the law and made to marry the victims and look after their family.

He said that Kerala government should immediately conduct a survey on unwed mothers in tribal areas.

M. Sukumaran, president, Attappady Samrakshana Samithi (protection committee), said no civilised society could accept the government’s decision, as it went against the law of the land.

http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/27/stories/2011052758170600.htm

Traditional marriages decline in South Carolina

Traditional households with a husband and wife raising their children are no longer the majority in South Carolina.

Of the state’s 1.8 million households, 47.2 percent are made of a husband and wife living under the same roof, according to the 2010 Census statistics. Ten years ago, there were 1.5 million households in the state, and 51.1 percent of them were headed by a married man and woman.

South Carolina is following a trend that has spread across the nation. The traditional concept of a family is changing, whether it’s single parents raising children, gay couples sharing a home or men and women who move in together but are not married.

“It just doesn’t exist like it used to,” said Bobby Bowers, director of the S.C. Office of Research and Statistics. “You just can’t believe how much it has changed.”

In Richland County, traditional married couple households fell below the 50 percent mark years ago, while the majority of Lexington County’s households remain a traditional husband-wife set up.

The census statistics do not offer an explanation of why households are changing, and theories abound as to why it is happening. But the change is important to note because family structure affects important decisions such as health insurance coverage, end-of-life decisions, estate planning and child custody, according to the authors of a book about the definition of family, “Counted Out: Same Sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family.”

Lala Carr Steelman, chairman of USC’s sociology department, is one of the book’s co-authors. There are many definitions of family whether they come from scholars, the judicial system or census questionnaires, Steelman said. She and her co-authors wanted to know how Americans defined family and set out to poll them about that question.

“What we’re finding is people are growing increasingly more flexible in how they define what a family is,” she said. “The main thing is alternative family forms are expanding at a very high rate and acceptance of them is expanding.”

Pop culture is contributing to the acceptance with television shows like Modern Family, which features an extended family that includes a multicultural marriage, a traditional husband-wife family of five and a gay couple raising a daughter.

In tracking acceptance of gay families, the authors addressed 11 other types of living arrangements.

“There’s more of a menu to choose from,” she said.

All sorts of factors are contributing to the trend of nontraditional households, Steelman said. Widows and widowers are living longer. Young women prefer to stay single as they establish careers. The divorce rate is up. Same-sex marriages are more acceptable as are out-of-wedlock births. And more male and female couples are choosing to live together without getting married, Steelman said.

“It used to be called shacking up, and it was unacceptable so you got married,” she said.

But even traditionally conservative South Carolina is growing more tolerant.

Debi Schadel, 37, and her boyfriend, Derek Riley, 41, have lived together for nine years in their Columbia home. The two moved into together for the same reason married couples do, Schadel said.

Although people constantly ask when will they marry, no one seems to have a problem with the couple’s relationship, Schadel said.

“I tell people that things are going fine the way they are,” she said. “We’re just chugging along.”

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/05/23/1829707/traditional-marriages-decline.html#ixzz1NQhAh7rj

USC study finds big drop in number of children living in L.A. County

Los Angeles County is “ground zero” for the state’s diminishing child population, a statistic that could point to serious problems as the region tries to meet future demand for workers, according to a report released Tuesday.

The number of children between the ages of 5 and 9 in the county decreased by 21% from 2000 to 2010, dropping from 802,047 to 633,690. The average decrease for California was 8.1%, according to the report “Aging in California and Los Angeles County” by USC.

“In the long run … this is really a bad problem because these kids are going to grow up and the ones who are missing [from L.A. County] are likely not going to work here,” said Dowell Myers, one of the report’s authors. “That workforce is going to be in very short supply.

Myers said California’s shrinking child population, reflected in new census figures, is on the “extreme end” of an overall aging U.S. population because of the maturing of the baby boomer generation. One result has been declining student enrollment and the closure of schools.

“There’s just fewer potential parents and that’s part of what’s driving it,” Myers said. “The implications are that we really need to think about building a more supportive environment for families and kids. Our children are a precious and diminishing resource, and they deserve more support.”

Researchers attributed much of the disproportionate local loss to difficult living conditions for families facing high housing costs and high unemployment. The report’s authors also noted findings released by the Brookings Institution in April that showed the greater Los Angeles area was bucking a national trend with a declining Latino child population.

Another finding was that more than half of the state’s population is over age 35, about two years older than the median age of 33.3 in 2000. Additionally, researchers said the number of minors in L.A. County dropped 10% from 2000 to 2010, more than any other area in the state.

A second USC report, “The Changing Household and Family,” released Tuesday said new demographic trends are “changing the meaning of what is a conventional household.”

There were 32% more households with unmarried couples throughout the state in 2010 than a decade earlier. There also was a 17% increase in the number of California homes that have children with single fathers, a surprising statistic because it was a larger increase than the number of homes headed by single mothers.

In L.A. County, there also was a 14% decrease in the number of households with married couples and children from 2000 to 2010, the data showed.

“We’re heading into uncharted territory,” Myers said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0525-usc-report-20110525,0,367814.story

As Wealth and Literacy Rise in India, Report Says, So Do Sex-Selective Abortions

NEW DELHI — India’s increasing wealth and improving literacy are apparently contributing to a national crisis of “missing girls,” with the number of sex-selective abortions up sharply among more affluent, educated families during the past two decades, according to a new study.

The study found the problem of sex-selective abortions of girls has spread steadily across India after once being confined largely to a handful of conservative northern states. Researchers also found that women from higher-income, better-educated families were far more likely than poorer women to abort a girl, especially during a second pregnancy if the firstborn was a girl.

“This has deep implications,” Shailaja Chandra, one of the study’s authors and the former director of the National Population Stabilization Fund, said Tuesday during a panel discussion after the release of the findings. “The scale is very large and requires intervention beyond what has been done so far.”

The study, being published in the British medical journal The Lancet, is the latest evidence of India’s worsening imbalance in the ratio of boys to girls. The 2011 Indian census found 914 girls for every 1,000 boys among children 6 six or younger, the lowest ratio of girls since the country gained independence in 1947. The new study estimated that 4 million to 12 million selective abortions of girls have occurred in India in the past three decades.

The government has enacted legislation intended to prevent parents from using ultrasound screenings or other technologies to decide whether to abort a girl. Yet despite such laws, the situation has not improved. Few medical practitioners who violated the law have been prosecuted, while regulation of private health care providers is very limited.

India is similar to many Asian countries in that many families prefer boys. In Hindu funeral rituals, only males, preferably a son of the deceased, may perform last rites; sons also usually inherit property (while daughters are married into other families) and carry on the family name. A cultural preference for sons is also common among many Indian Muslims.

Dr. Prabhat Jha, a lead author of the study, noted that the use of sex-selective abortions expanded throughout the country as the use of ultrasound equipment became more widespread. Typically, women from wealthier, better-educated families are more likely to undergo an ultrasound, Mr. Jha said, and researchers found that these families are far more likely to abort a girl if the firstborn is a daughter.

“This is really a phenomenon of the educated and the wealthy that we are seeing in India,” said Mr. Jha, director of the Center for Global Health Research at the University of Toronto.

Census data has already confirmed that the problem has accelerated since 2001. The 2011 census found about 7.1 million fewer girls than boys under the age of 6, compared with a gap of roughly 6 million girls a decade earlier.

The Lancet study was conducted by researchers from several partner institutions, with the United States National Institutes of Health providing some of the financing. About 250,000 births from 1990 to 2005 were examined, using data from surveys conducted by India’s National Family Health Survey, as well as census data from 1991 to 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/asia/25india.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

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

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

UK: Women and the coalition: mothers’ and child benefits

The coalition may present itself, like all the main political parties, as pro-family, but it is mothers who have become the “shock absorbers” for the coalition’s cuts in welfare benefits and childcare provision, say critics.

From cuts to maternity grants and child benefits, to closures of Sure Start centres, childcare schemes and after-school clubs, it is women – particularly single mothers on low incomes – who bear the brunt of attempts to reduce the deficit.

The changes will affect women’s incomes and ability to enter the job market, critics say, and put many at risk of poverty. “The disproportionate impact of the cuts on women raises issues of fairness and calls into question the idea of society sharing the weight of national debt reduction,” said Abigail Davies, assistant director of policy and practice at the Chartered Institute of Housing. “Overall the public spending cuts are known to impact disproportionately on single parent families, most of which are headed by women. Cuts to benefits and public spending, coupled with stricter job-seeking expectations for lone parents claiming benefits, will trap some women in an impossible situation.”

Benefit cuts that affect women include reductions in the childcare tax credit, the Sure Start maternity grant, and the health in pregnancy grant, and the freezing of child benefit rates for three years.

Katherine Rake, chief executive of the Family and Parenting Institute, said: “The targeting of family benefits for cutbacks in the last 12 months means women’s incomes have been disproportionately hit. For many women, child benefit was the only source of income they received directly, giving them independence and control over family spending. The coalition’s decision to end universal child benefit was therefore a particularly painful blow.”

There are concerns that single parents – most of whom are women – will also be unfairly affected by housing benefit reform. “This will require some families to move, which is expensive, unsettling, affects [children's] educational performance, and puts families into less economically successful areas with reduced employment opportunities,” said Davies. “Cuts to tax credits, Sure Start, after-school clubs and so on, create further barriers to employment for single parents.

“The government wants to encourage social mobility and tackle poverty, but these cuts do not create an environment which supports women or enables them to help themselves.”

Despite the government’s commitment to guarantee 15 hours a week free childcare provision, childcare support has been badly hit by local authority spending cuts. These have led to widespread cuts in Sure Start children’s centres and after-school and holiday play schemes. Although many councils have committed themselves to keeping centres open, most have reduced services drastically.

A survey of mothers using Sure Start centres, carried out in February by the Daycare Trust charity, found that 35% felt that the removal or reduction of services would leave them more socially isolated, and 32% felt it would be harder to see their midwife or health visitor.

Rake said there had been some positive policy developments for mothers over the past 12 months, such as proposals for shared postnatal parental leave, and to extend rights to flexible working. She added: “The government must deliver on these proposals if it is to make strides towards a truly family-friendly society.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/may/20/women-coalition-mothers-child-benefits

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

Chinese babies reportedly trafficked into adoption

Authorities in China are investigating reports that about 20 babies born in violation of population-control policies were abducted and then trafficked into adoption by officials.

The investigation comes after Caixin magazine reported this week that family planning officials in central China’s Hunan province had abducted children and sold them internationally – some to people in the United States and the Netherlands.

Chinese officials do not always enforce the “one child” policy with much vigour and the worst that violators normally expect is a fine.

The case, which is not the first to accuse Chinese family planning officials of abusing population control policies for profit, sheds further light on the uneven implementation of child-population-control policy.

One family claimed they had not broken the law as the child was their first, but family planning “enforcers” nonetheless took the baby away.

“They mistook my daughter for being illegal when my wife and I were working in Shenzhen,” migrant worker Yang Libing told the magazine.

Mr Yang said he had tracked down his daughter, now seven years old and living in the United States.

Family planning officials in Longhui county allegedly received $142 for each child handed over to welfare agencies, which in turn received up to $2,760 for each child put up for adoption overseas, it said.

The abductions peaked in the middle of the last decade but had been occurring for 10 years, the magazine said.

Trafficking of women and children remains a serious problem in China, with many sociologists blaming the one child policy for fuelling the crime.

Under the policy, aimed at controlling China’s world-leading population of more than 1.3 billion, people who live in urban areas are generally allowed one child, while rural families can have two if the first is a girl.

This has put a premium on baby boys, while baby girls are often sold off, abandoned or put up for adoption.

Official penalties for violating the policy vary based on location, but usually include a fine. Rights groups however allege that much more draconian measures are often taken.

In a report released in December, the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) cited widespread abuse including forced abortions, sterilisations, insertions of intrauterine devices and coerced testing for pregnancy.

Both men and women found to have violated the policy have been beaten, detained, or fined. Others have lost their jobs, or been denied household registration permits for their children, CHRD alleged.

China is battling a severe gender imbalance. A census recently completed in the country found 118.06 males were born in China to every 100 baby girls over the past 10 years.

Up to 80,000 Chinese children have reportedly been adopted by overseas families in recent decades, with most finding homes in the United States.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/11/3213686.htm

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/

Women pay the price to be mum, study shows

WOMEN not only bear the babies and the brunt of juggling children and child care, they also bear a huge financial burden from raising them, new research shows.

Analysis from Hewison Private Wealth has found the average woman is about $200,000 worse off at retirement if she opts to have a baby.

This is despite starting out by having the same salary and career path as a man or a woman who does not have a break because of children.

The massive financial shortfall is the result of a woman who goes on maternity leave, returns to part-time work for several years and then eventually full time again, Hewison director Chris Morcom says.

During that time, she has missed out on wage increases and career development which permanently sets her earning capacity and career prospects below her colleagues.

In turn, this means her superannuation fund savings are much lower, Morcom says.

Self-managed super fund specialist DBA Lawyers spokesman Bryce Figot says women are also behind in the DIY fund sector.

About 54 per cent of self-managed fund members are men and, of these, they typically earn a much higher income than the 46 per cent of female members.

“Underfunded superannuation is a really big issue for women and it’s a function of several factors, including not getting a fair play,” Figot says.

“It’s basically a function of how much they earn and, on a pure statistical basis, women are still paid less then men.

“It’s also about the number of years they have in the workforce, with many women having to take significant amounts of time off to raise families, instead of dedicating that time to their career.

“But the real kicker for women is that they live longer and actually need more money in retirement than men because it has to last longer.”

Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees chief executive Fiona Reynolds says most women run out of super after little more than a year after finishing work.

“About 57 per cent have nothing left after a year,” Reynolds says.

“It’s time to get creative with policies that recognise most women will take career breaks to have children and care for other family members.

“Without change, women will continue to come up second-best in retirement.”

Research by AIST has found that only two-thirds of retired women have any superannuation and, of those that did, their median balance is just $31,000. The median balance of women currently in the workforce is just $27,200, Reynolds says.

Hewison’s Morcom says women need to contribute 15 per cent of their wages (not just the basic 9 per cent super guarantee) during their working life to make up the typical shortfall.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/money/women-pay-the-price-to-be-mum/story-e6frezc0-1226052290160?from=public_rss

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/

Women Still an Untapped Labor Force in Turkey

ISTANBUL — Until she gave birth to her first child three months ago, 29-year-old Gulsen Cigdem worked at TransOrient International Forwarding, handling sales and logistics for moving goods by air, truck and sea.

Now, her days are spent caring for her son, Doruk, while she and her husband, Tarik, who works in the technology sector, try to find an affordable baby sitter so she can return to work when her maternity leave expires. She wants to avoid becoming one of the hundreds of thousands of Turkish women who, armed with a university degree, find a well-paying and interesting job but do not return to the work force once they marry or start a family.

“I got an education,” Mrs. Cigdem said during a recent interview. “I worked hard for that, and to just drop it because I became a mother is not my style.”

Creating more economic opportunities for women like Mrs. Cigdem is among the goals of the 2011 Global Summit of Women meeting through Saturday in Istanbul as a sort of Davos for women, mirroring the annual gathering of world economic leaders at the Swiss resort. Held for the first time in Turkey, the conference is taking place in a country where women, once they find jobs, often struggle to stay in them.

Researchers say that nearly half of all Turkish women enter the labor market at some point in their lives, but most end up quitting because of family obligations or poor working conditions. Raising rates of employment by women is “instrumental in building capacity for economic growth and poverty reduction,” a report by the Turkish State Planning Organization and the World Bank said.

While 64 percent of adult women in the European Union were employed in 2007, the figure was 23.5 percent in Turkey as of 2009, according to the Turkish and World Bank report. Of the women employed in Turkey in 2008, 35 percent worked in the service sector, 13 percent in industry and 49 percent in agriculture, according to the International Labor Organization.

Part of the problem is that most of the Turkish women who migrate to larger cities like Istanbul from rural areas in the south and east lack sufficient education to find anything but marginal, low-paying jobs. They are also likely to have several children and to find work that is outside the bounds of legal employment and therefore also outside the national social security system, making them more dependent on their spouses.

But it is marriage itself, some studies say, that appears to be the main factor in whether a Turkish woman stays on the job, regardless of her level of education.

“A common explanation suggested for Turkey’s low level of female participation in the labor force is that cultural attitudes that do not approve of women’s presence in the public sphere,” Ipek Ilkkaracan, a professor of economics at Istanbul Technical University, said during an interview by e-mail this week. “But a close look at data does not confirm that. Prior to marriage, women’s participation in the labor market in Turkey is at very high levels.”

Among never-married women age 25 to 45, the rate of participation in the labor force for university graduates is about 90 percent, the same as their male counterparts, Ms. Ilkkaracan said. For never-married women who graduated from high school, the figures are about 55 percent and for primary school graduates, 40 percent.

“By contrast, the figures for married women in Turkey are substantially lower,” she said. “Seventy percent for university graduates, about 25 percent for high school graduates and only 15 percent for married women of prime working age with primary school education.”

“In other words,” she added, “Turkish women participate in large numbers — no matter what their level of education — prior to marriage, but end up leaving their jobs upon marriage and having children.”

Ms. Ilkkaracan, a founding member of the nonprofit Women for Women’s Human Rights and the author of “Toward Gender Equality in the Labor Market: Work and Family Life Reconciliation Policies,” said one reason for the flight was the lack of childcare solutions for working women.

“There are hardly any subsidized childcare centers, crèches or preschools,” she said. “The few that existed have been closed down under the current administration. Given the low wages for women with high school or primary school education, it is hard for them to afford paid childcare.”

The problem is not lost on many of the high-ranking women executives in Turkey, where 12 percent of chief executive positions are held by women, about the same as in Germany according to the World Economic Forum.

Umit Boyner, president of the Turkish Industry and Business Association, or Tusiad, told a conference on working women earlier this year, “We must focus on altering the status of women in education and labor force statistics.”

“I regard the lack of educated women able to take their place in working life of their own free will as a serious loss,” she said. “Let us not squander our resources.”

Guler Sabanci, chairwoman of Sabanci Holding, who ranked third last year in a Financial Times list of the 50 most prominent businesswomen in the world, spoke at the same conference. (She became the first female member of Tusiad in 1984 and for many years was its only female member.)

After hailing the advances made by Turkish women in the era of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ms. Sabanci said “the present situation is unfortunately not very bright” in terms of women in the work place. “There is still a lot to be done for women in employment, social and political issues.”

“There is an election process ahead of us,” she said, referring to elections set for June. “Our political parties need to show sensitivity in this matter.”

Of the 550 members in the Turkish Parliament, 48 are women.

But for those like Mrs. Cigdem, the new mother, such lofty goals are a distant concern. She is more focused on finding a way to return to work by the end of this year.

“I am entitled to four months of paid leave,” she said by telephone. “Then I can take another six months unpaid. After that I have to go back to my job, or lose it.”

“Some of my friends are even saying that it’s the husband who has to work and that I should just stay home with the baby,” Mrs. Cigdem said. “But I used to live in England where I worked as an au pair. I saw that all the women went back to work after having children, but in Turkey we don’t have an au pair system.”

“I want to work because one income is not enough: Istanbul is very expensive,” she said, “but it’s also important for me socially, because these days I’m just home, home, home, looking after the child. I want to work, first for myself and second to earn enough money to provide a good education for Doruk.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/world/middleeast/05iht-M05-WORK-WOMEN.html

Census shows China population growth slowing

China’s population has increased to 1.34 billion but more people are ageing, a development experts say will likely spur calls for the “one-child” policy to be relaxed.

Census data gathered in 2010 and released on Thursday showed the population in the world’s second biggest economy grew by 5.84 percent from the 1.27 billion in the last census in 2000.

This level was smaller than the 1.4 billion some demographers had projected.

As China is fast urbanising and becoming older, these trends augur big changes in the labour market in coming years, the results showed.

The number of potential workers, especially from the countryside, is shrinking and the elderly dependent population is increasing.

By 2010, half of China’s population, 49.7 per cent, lived in urban areas. In 2000, 36.1 per cent lived in cities and towns, although that census used a different counting method.

By 2010, 261.4 million Chinese were counted as “migrants”, meaning they were residing outside of their home villages, towns or cities. Most of them are farmers from the poor inland who have moved to cities and coastal industrial zones to find work.

‘Historial landmark’

“What’s significant is that China is for the first time crossing a historical landmark from a country that’s dominated by people engaging in agriculture, living in the countryside, to an urbanised society,” said Wang Feng, a demographer who is director of the Brookings Institute Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing.

“Such low fertility and population growth means that China will face a future smaller cohort of young labour for labour supply, and also a much more serious ageing process than people anticipated even 10 years ago or two decades ago.”

Those rapid changes have not always been smooth, Ma Jiantang, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics, told a news conference.

“The data from this census show that our country faces some tensions and challenges regarding population, the economy and social development. First, the ageing trend is accelerating, and second the size of the mobile population is constantly expanding.”

The results could encourage the government to relax family planning restrictions that limit nearly all urban couples to one child, while rural families are usually allowed two, said Du Peng, a professor at the Population and Development Studies Center at Renmin University in Beijing.

“The total population shows the general trend towards slowed population growth and as well an older population, and in the next five years or longer that will be an important basis for population policy,” said Du.

“The ageing of the population appears faster than was expected.”

Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, told a meeting of top Communist Party leaders convened to discuss population issues that China will maintain its strict family planning policy.

Demographers advocating changes to the one-child policy took a counterintuitive look at Hu’s speech, suggesting his decision to publicly address family planning now meant there was fresh debate among the leadership about how best to manage it.

The proportion of mainland Chinese people aged 14 or younger was 16.60 per cent, down by 6.29 percentage points from the number in the 2000 census. The number aged 60 or older grew to 13.26 per cent, up 2.93 percentage points.

Slower growth

The figures also showed that China’s population is growing more slowly than in the past. Between 1990 and 2000, the total population increased by 11.7 per cent.

China’s chief statistician, Ma, acclaimed the numbers as a vindication of the government’s firm, sometimes harsh, family planning policies.

“These figures have shown the trend of excessively rapid growth of China’s population has been under effective control,” Ma said.

But one economist said China’s slowed rate of population growth and shrinking pool of migrant labour from the countryside could add to long-term pressures driving up wages and prices.

“What really matters is the one-child policy that has created a cliff-fall (in the population) in the last three decades,” said Dong Tao, an economist at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong.

“That is starting to show in rural labour markets and the entire economy feels the pain as this becomes a major source of inflation,” he said in a telephone interview.

The shift of the population to urban areas has put great pressure on cities like Beijing and Chongqing and will likely to spur continued high levels of infrastructure spending in coming years.

The Chinese government’s strict controls on family size have brought down annual population growth to below 1 percent and the rate is projected to start falling in coming decades.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2011/04/201142852019929352.html

Cash-Hungry States Could Eat Up Food Stamps

There’s a lot wrong with Republican Paul Ryan’s 2012 federal budget proposal, but one of its most heinous ideas is turning the federal food stamp program over to cash-strapped states.

That just won’t do.

Today, when states receive federal dollars for nutritional assistance those dollars can only go to that service. Ditto for low-income housing, home heating assistance, job training and school lunch programs.

Under proposed block-grant programs, however, federal funds would flow to states with few, if any, strings attached. A state could take all the fed’s money and use it to offset tax cuts to the rich, or build a golf course. Or whatever.

If nutritional programs are left to the states it’s easy to predict who’ll win and that women, in particular, will lose out.

The children who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are roughly 50-50 boys and girls–not that there’s anything to celebrate in gender-equitable child hunger. Among adults, however, women dominate: 65 percent of SNAP participants are women.

There are 9.3 million non-elderly female adults helped by SNAP, compared to 5.3 million non-elderly male adults. Fully twice as many elderly women are in the program: 1.8 million compared to 0.9 million elderly men.

Households with children receive 76 percent of all benefits, and of these 33 percent are headed by a single parent. You can guess the sex of the vast majority of them. That’s right, women.

Food Assistance Up

The number of households receiving food assistance is up 45 percent over 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program.

In March, nearly 15 percent of Americans participated in SNAP. A staggering 44 million people rely on this federally-funded program to feed themselves and their families.

The average monthly food stamps benefit is $284.73, down by $5 from last year. And food prices are rising. The Department of Agriculture projects food cost increases of between 3 and 4 percent during 2011. That’s over $9, or three gallons of milk a child won’t drink each month.

Another provision in the Ryan budget proposal eliminates the Workforce Investment Act, which funds 3,000 national job training centers serving over 8 million Americans a year.

This creates a Catch-22 for the millions out of work: You can only get food assistance if you are in a job training program, but whoops, there are no job training programs!

Ryan’s plan would convert monies currently dedicated to food assistance to block grants to the states, which could direct these funds to nutrition programs…or not.

Converting targeted grants to block grants–the fiscal policy backbone of President Ronald Reagan’s savaging of public programs–essentially wipes out the nation’s ability to target dollars to areas of critical need, such as food.

Disconnecting federal funds from specific state programs creates a host of expensive administrative problems as well.

Today, state programs follow rules and procedures established at the federal level. Changing over to block grants will require inventing 50 new wheels as once national programs devolve to the states.

Attacks on federal programs often invoke excess bureaucracy and red tape as a rationale for cutting. In this case, the cure is likely to be worse than the disease.

Proposed reductions in spending aimed specifically at nutrition assistance are part of social conservatives’ overall push to shrink government or “starve the beast.” But this plan actually starves real people and pushes the country backward, to a base and brutal have-and-have-not scenario.

http://www.womensenews.org/story/economyeconomic-policy/110428/cash-hungry-states-could-eat-food-stamps?page=0,1

Most educated U.S. women have most kids

WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) — The fertility rate for mothers in 2009 was 2 children per woman, down 4 percent from 2008, which may be linked to the economy, the U.S. Census Bureau says.

However, the women who had the highest fertility rate are those with a graduate or professional degree and by states — there were 2.6 births per woman in Utah and 1.7 births per woman in Vermont.

In 2008, there were an estimated 85.4 million U.S. mothers and the vast majority lived with their own children, the Census Bureau says.

Ninety-four percent of the 37.8 million mothers living with children younger than age 18 in 2004 lived with their biological children only, 3 percent lived with stepchildren, 2 percent with an adopted child and less than 1 percent with a foster child.

Eighty-two percent of women ages 40-44 had given birth as of 2008, compared to 90 percent of women in this age group had given birth by 1976, the report says.

Hospitals were the most popular place to deliver a baby — of the some 4 million U.S. births, only 42,746 did not give birth in a hospital in 2008 with 28,357 mothers having her baby at home and 12,014 in a freestanding birthing center.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/05/03/Most-educated-US-women-have-most-kids/UPI-73521304448825/#ixzz1LMrfG4fk

Women demonstrate over falling sex ratio in Raj

Jaipur, Apr 27 (PTI) Women activists today took to the streets of Jaipur to highlight concerns over a falling child sex ratio in Rajasthan and demand for a concrete policy to check the alarming situation.

The figures from the 2011 Census have thrown up rattling statistics of child sex ratio in Rajasthan, with 883 girls born per 1000 boys as against 909 in 2001, indicating sex selection was on the rise.

Scores of women activists from different cities of the state and from different organisations held a joint rally here today, and presented a memorandum to the Chief Minister raising certain key issues.

The activists have demanded the drafting of a state policy 2021 to lay out a plan to check the worrying trend with participation from all sections of the administration — from the Chief Minister to district and panchayat level officials.

They also demanded that officials be given the responsibility to check pre natal sex detection and properly implement the PNDT Act.

The activists highlighted that the child sex ratio in the state had fallen by a worrying 71 points over the last 30 years, and the situation was particularly bad in certain districts like Jhunjhunu where it stood at 831 and in Sikar where it was 841.

They also suggested that the Chief Minister call a meeting of all district collectors to discuss the implementation of the PCPNDT Act, and complaints against doctors found guilty of violation be registered at the Rajasthan Medical Council and be sorted out in given time frame.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/women-activists-demonstrate-over-falling-sex-ratio-raj-141900363.html

A woman to enjoy a male ritual in the gender-biased Jatland

CHAPPAR (BHIWANI): A couple of days before her wedding on May 12, Monika Sangwan of Chappar village in Haryana’s Bhiwani district will ride a mare to the village temple. Women of her family will accompany her singing traditional songs. The ritual, called ‘ghurchari’, is an old custom in these parts but only for men. Monika would be the first woman to perform ‘ghurchari’ in the Jatland known for its gender bias against women.

Monika is a postgraduate student in a Hissar college. Breaking with tradition, her mother Kamlesh Sangwan (45), an anganwadi worker, decided to have the ‘ghurchari’ for Monika’s wedding. “Why should I discriminate against my daughter when I would arrange ghurchari for my son when he gets married?” said Kamlesh.

She was inspired when Satyawan Sangwan of her village performed ‘kuan pujan’ (worshipping a well) when his daughter was born. In Haryana, the puja is held to celebrate the birth of a male child. But, Satyawan did it to welcome his daughter’s birth, the first girl child born in his family after 30 years.

Kamlesh, a member of the village youth club, also decided to celebrate Monika’s marriage to Satinder in a unique way. “I am excited,” said Monika, adding that her father Dharambir is also happy about this.

Her elder sister Neelam got married five years back when ‘Save the Girl Campaign’ had not picked up in the village. “It would have been nice, if a ghurchari had been organized for me. But I am happy my sister would get that opportunity,” said Neelam.

Village sarpanch Kartar Singh welcomed the initiative. The population of the village is around 10,000. “More than 100 boys are waiting to get married. We plan to involve these boys in the `Save the Girl Campaign. They will also inform the authorities, if they get to know about any female foeticide case,” he said.

Shyam Sunder, secretary of Bhiwani’s Red Cross Society, is credited with the initiative to perform ‘kuan pujan’ for the girl child here about a year ago. “Marriage is an important event in a person’s life and the girl should feel proud of her gender on this occasion,” he said.

And, his efforts has helped improve the sex ratio in the village. From 821:1,000 in 2010, the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group has climbed to 1,281:1,000 in the first three months of this year, said Sunder.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-27/india/29478299_1_girl-child-gender-bias-male-child

Half of Beijing women eligible for 2nd child give up – survey

More than 50 per cent of the childbearing-age women in Beijing who are eligible for a second child under China’s family planning policy do not want to produce, said the “2010-2011 Beijing Social Development Blue Book” recently released by the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.

The “Comparative Study on the Childbearing Will of Urban and Rural Only Child in Beijing” section of the blue book is a survey conducted by the Beijing Population Research Institute in 2006 and 2008 regarding the childbearing will of more than 2,000 only children in Dongcheng District, Haidian District and Changping District of Beijing.

The report pointed out that the childbearing will of females in Beijing is currently going towards the trend of having fewer children, later childbirth, and no clear gender preference. In addition, the only-children themselves dominate the reproductive behaviors, and the impact of policies on childbearing will gradually become minimal.

In addition, the blue book said that the per capita annual income of ordinary working families in Beijing stood at 22,000 yuan, amounting to the per capita monthly income of 1,833 yuan. The annual wage income of nearly 70 percent of ordinary workers is less than 30,000 yuan and the annual wage income of nearly 3 percent of workers is less than 12,000 yuan. Furthermore, only more than 14 percent of workers’ annual wage income exceeds 40,000 yuan.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/98649/7361977.html

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

Bangladesh to introduce family planning policy

Bangladesh is going to introduce “one couple, one child” population planning policy soon without making it mandatory in a bid to contain the growing population of the country.

The Director General of the Directorate of Family Planning Mohammad Abdul Qayyum told Xinhua in an interview Wednesday “The Chinese policy influenced us in framing our policy though we are not making it mandatory,” He said they will create awareness among people about “one couple, one child” policy.

The directorate drafted the policy to popularize the slogan “Nomore than two children, one is best,” the official said.

The couples having one child would be given preferences in different state facilities like financial grants and other areas.

“We are eager to develop relationship with Chinese population planning authorities for training our men, using modern contraceptive and other related matters,” Qayyum said.

Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world with more than 1,000 people living in one square kilometer area, and the population growth rate is now at 1.39 percent, the director general said, adding that according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimate, Bangladesh’s population is now at 162.2 million though the Bangladeshi government counts it to be 140 million.

Qayyum said, “The population situation of the country will be grave after 50 years if the current growth rate is not halted.”

He said they want to contain the population growth, otherwise, it would create pressure on basic rights of people like education, health, housing and food.

Qayyum said the government has reduced child mortality rate to 65 now from 150 per thousand live birth.

The director general said the country at present has nearly 25 million fertile couple and 56 percent of whom are adopting various methods of population planning.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6850595.html

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