Civic and Business leaders met in Bedford Tuesday to discuss how women are faring in the workplace.
An updated report finds New Hampshire women hold fewer top positions, get paid less than their male counterparts, and struggle to manage both work and family life.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein has more.
The New Hampshire Women's Policy Institute brought together leaders in health care, financial services and high tech to hear about the economic status of working women in the state.
A sampling of the facts:
Women make about 70 cents to every dollar a man earns.
Less than 25% of New Hampshire businesses are owned by females, compared to 28% nationally.
And the number of women employed as directors and CEO's has slipped in recent years.
It was grim news for Joan Goshgarian.
T.6
:24 my reaction being here today, I am coming from two different sides. One is I feel almost militant about this information...how come we are still here, and why we are at it, why isn't there a female president of the United States? What happened to the movement, and the other side is the information is so overwhelming. Change is so slow, and it's raining and cold, and maybe we should all just go to bed. So I share that, I am feeling very overwhelmed.
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2:55... I don't believe it's a women's issue.
Women's Policy Institute consultant Stefany Shaheen.
...I believe it's an economic development issue...when you talk about this is so disheartening the women's movement, this is economic development, and the strength of NH's economy...I find inspiration and hope, I hope people won't leave wanting to go home and pull up the covers.
Shaheen considers her own life a prime example of the dilemma facing working parents.
She's a mother of three. Her husband works full-time. She's getting her master's.
And she doesn't know whether she can afford to get a job, or if she'd be better off staying home.
The economic status report found that wage disparity grows the higher the level of education.
Shaheen says she and plenty of other working mothers- and fathers- are struggling to strike the right balance between work and family.
She is concerned about the wage gap between men and women.
But what Shaheen says really must change is how employers deal with parents.
T.19
:59 ...like affordable childcare, like family leave, like access to health insurance.
Shaheen and others at the conference argue employers don't make it easy on employees with kids.
The lack of programs and policies says economic report author Ross Gittell, is that women leave the workforce when they have children, and they don't return.
He says there is very little incentive to do so.
Female workers earn less to begin with.
But add to that an even steeper cut in pay if a woman does come back a few years after raising a family.
This might not matter if that work force wasn't well educated and well trained.
But Gittell points out that 60% of all New Hampshire college graduates aren't men- they're women.
Why, asks the economist, would any state want to bench some of its best and brightest?
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2:16 if women are representing a sig. higher percentage of college graduates...and they are not engaged as they could be as business owners, and skilled workers, then the state suffers economically.
Gittell says it would be good to see more fathers cooking, cleaning and taking the kids to soccer practice.
It means moms could be bringing home more bacon than they could anyway.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
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