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Women’s Economic Equity News: December 22, 2015

Economic equity news is a weekly round-up of articles by Donna Seymour of AAUW-NYS that features our core values of poverty solutions, opportunity and access, workplace fairness, healthy lives, equal pay and representation at all tables. Sign up for our mailing list to receive this directly to your inbox.

The massive gender gap among CEOs of major US companies hasn’t gotten any better in the past decade, according to two new reports. There are still very few women CEOs, and they don’t make nearly as much as men do.

Advocates for paid family leave in New York say they hope 2016 is the year that the state finally provides a program to allow workers to take time off to care for a child, or a sick elderly relative. The effort includes nurses, advocates for the mentally ill, the League of Women Voters and the New York Civil Liberties Union, who say everyone has an interest in seeing paid family leave become law.  The AARP’s Derrick Holmes says it’s a “multi generational issue” encompassing the elderly,  baby boomers and generation x-ers.

 

In light of the new book, Steinem spoke with Fusion Money about closing the gender wage gap and the upcoming presidential election.

Your salary matters. “For many people, your biggest asset is your earning power, so you have to manage that as well as any other asset,” says Dawn Rapoport, a certified financial planner and chief operating officer at Waddell & Associates.

The gender pay gap for women over 40 is almost double the average when they enter management – and it gets worse as they get older, a study has found. The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) found that women over 40 in management roles are paid 35% less than men, a much greater disparity than the 19% average gap across the whole economy. Once women in senior jobs enter their 60s, the gender pay gap widens further to 38%.

 


Donna Seymour, who hails from the (far upstate) North Country of NYS, has spent 40 plus years advocating for children, women and family issues, equity, sustainability, and social justice issues. Currently serving as the Public Policy VP for AAUW-NYS (the American Association University Women), she is also a member the League of Women Voters, the Equal Pay Coalition, PTA, NOW, and Planned Parenthood, just to name a few.