Women's Figures

by Furchtgott-Roth, Diana; Stolba, Christine

• ISBN13: 9780844741147
• ISBN10: 0844741140
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Aei Pr

Summary

Are women victims? Or can they hold their own in the workplace? Women's inequality in society is a standard refrain in the popular media and thus in the conventional wisdom. The purveyors of that point of view assume that women are systematically discriminated against on all levels of society, especially in the workplace, and that this discrimination has kept them from reaching equality with men. But the facts show otherwise. To counter the triple myths of the glass ceiling, the wage gap, and the pink ghetto -- the pillars that support arguments in favor of sex-based affirmative action -- the authors provide detailed data in graphs and tables to show that in key areas of education and employment women have substantially achieved equality. Women earn over 50 percent of bachelor's and master's degrees; they are moving into previously male-dominated professions; and when education and experience are accounted for, their positions and compensation are similar to men's. This book, now in its second edition, presents new and updated data to illustrate women's economic progress in America.

Author Biography

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of the National Advisory Board of the Independent Women's Forum. Christine Stolba is an instructor of history at Emory University and a historian in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Summary and Highlights	p. xvii
Wage Gap	p. xvii
Glass Ceiling	p. xviii
Pink Ghetto	p. xix
Female Entrepreneurs	p. xx
Introduction	p. 3
Women Are Closing the Gap	p. 11
Wages	p. 11
The Wage Gap	p. 12
The Existence of the "Glass Ceiling"	p. 18
Educational Attainment and Educational Choices	p. 22
Labor Force Participation	p. 27
Occupational Choice and the Pink Ghetto	p. 33
Women in Business	p. 37
Elected Officials	p. 39
Voting Patterns	p. 43
Women, Poverty, and the Government	p. 51
Measures of Poverty	p. 51
Women and Welfare Reform	p. 59
African American Women	p. 65
A Continuing Success Story	p. 65
Evaluating Claims of Discrimination	p. 73
Standards of Evidence	p. 74
Conclusion	p. 79
Appendix: Statistical Tables	p. 83
Bibliography	p. 107
Index	p. 119
About the Authors	p. 123
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