from two to one: The Gender Inequality Index: Labor

The last two days I discussed the first and second components of the Gender Inequality Index: reproductive health and empowerment. Today is my follow-up post on the third and final component of the GII: labor.

As a refresher, the GII measures these three dimensions based on scientific, statistical measurements:

Reproductive health: (1) Maternal mortality ratio, and (2) Adolescent fertility rate.
Empowerment: (1) Breakdown by gender of parliamentary seats, and (2) Secondary and higher educational attainment of women.
Labor: (1) Percentage of women participating in the workforce.

Last year, women for the first time became more than 50 percent of the U.S. workforce in part due to the "man-cession" (according to some). More than half of all working women are mothers. Now that women are securing more than half of bachelor degrees and are steadily gaining on men in advanced degrees, the workforce is rapidly changing. Traditionally male sector jobs like construction and manufacturing may never return to the States due to cheap labor costs abroad. Traditionally female sector jobs like education and health care are booming.

So what is the workforce going to look like in 10, 20, 50 years?
How do we want to begin shaping it into what we want it to be?

We have a lot of work to do in the workplace.

Restructure the work system. Many companies are catching on to the fact that women are now the (slight) majority in the workforce by instituting flexible schedules and better benefits and addressing a fundamental asymmetry in our current work system: child care.
Encourage mentoring. Women seek out mentors. Women ask for pay raises and promotions. But oftentimes, there is a "no" in response. We need to encourage women to stay in the leadership pipeline to excel in their careers.
Challenge gender norms. My blog friend S over at The Feminist Mystique wrote a great post on how dads who stay home with their kids or who are the primary caregiver if both parents work full-time are seen as "babysitting" their own children. No. They are parenting their own children. We need to debunk the myth that it is unmanly to take care of one's own children. And we need to count it. (See the New York Times article, the Change.org petition, and The Good Men Project for more information.)
Close the wage gap. In 2012, women still make less than men at ever level in their careers. While it is now up to 80 cents on the dollar in some cases, women are systematically not being paid equally for equal work.

The report also rebuts the tired argument that the wage gap is all because women work less, since they’ve got those frivolous distractions of having babies and raising kids: Women earn less at all degree levels, even when they work as much as men. On average, women who work full-time, full-year earn 25 percent less than men, even at similar education levels. (via Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce report and Feministing)