What is Women's Work Worth?

The Bismark Tribune.com

What Is Women's Work Worth?

Six local organizations will host a town hall discussion Monday to talk about women's issues, including pay equity, single-mother challenges, child-care struggles and the glass ceiling.

The Business and Professional Women Foundation defines the glass celing as the "organizational and societal barriers that keep women from advancing up the career ladder."

Titled "Women's Work: What's It Worth?" the discussion will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Bismarck Public Library.

Billed as "the first of its kind" in the area, sponsoring organizations also will address higher education for women and the value of child-care professions.

The town hall-style meeting is free to the public and will feature a panel discussion, short vignettes, town hall questions and time for networking. Panelists include Barb Tengesdal, with Voices for North Dakota's Children; Linda Wurtz, from AARP; Kathy Osteen, with Business and Professional Women; Marilyn Hudson, Indian Women in the Work Force; and Renee Stromme, with the North Dakota Council on Abused Women Services.

During the panel presentation, local women will share their personal stories.

Free tutoring and story time will be provided at the library for children ages 3 to 12, courtesy of University of Mary education students.

Sponsors for the discussion are: American Association of University Women, Business & Professional Women, League of Women Voters, N.D. Council on Abused Women Services, Voices for North Dakota Children and AARP.

The following facts were provided by the organizations described above.

A full-time working woman currently earns 77 cents to every dollar earned by a man. This percentage is significantly lower for minority women.

If women received the same wages as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education, union status and are the same age (and live in the same region of the country), women's annual family income would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. Working families would gain $200 billion in family income annually.

According to the 2000 census, while 75.6 percent of women in North Dakota with children under 18 are in the work force, only 33.9 percent of those women are in professional and managerial positions.

Women are paid less in every occupational classification for which sufficient information is available, according to the data analysis of more than 300 job classifications.

Median annual earnings for women in North Dakota rank 42nd in the nation.3 Only 16.3 percent of North Dakota state legislators are women. Nationally, 22.4 percent of state legislators are women.