December 9, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Where Are the New Jobs for Women?
By LINDA HIRSHMAN
Washington
BARACK OBAMA has announced a plan to stimulate the economy by creating
2.5 million jobs over the next two years. He intends to use the
opportunity to make good on two campaign promises — to invest in road
and bridge maintenance and school repair and to create jobs that
reduce energy use and emissions that lead to global warming.
Mr. Obama compared his infrastructure plan to the Eisenhower-era
construction of the Interstate System of highways. It brings back the
Eisenhower era in a less appealing way as well: there are almost no
women on this road to recovery.
Back before the feminist revolution brought women into the workplace
in unprecedented numbers, this would have been more understandable.
But today, women constitute about 46 percent of the labor force. And
as the current downturn has worsened, their traditionally lower
unemployment rate has actually risen just as fast as men's. A just
economic stimulus plan must include jobs in fields like social work
and teaching, where large numbers of women work.
The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because
building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up
only 9 percent of the work force.
It turns out that green jobs are almost entirely male as well,
especially in the alternative energy area. A broad study by the United
States Conference of Mayors found that half the projected new jobs in
any green area are in engineering, a field that is only 12 percent
female, or in the heavily male professions of law and consulting; the
rest are in such traditional male areas as manufacturing, agriculture
and forestry. And like companies that build roads, alternative energy
firms also employ construction workers and engineers.
Fortunately, jobs for women can be created by concentrating on
professions that build the most important infrastructure — human
capital. In 2007, women were 83 percent of social workers, 94 percent
of child care workers, 74 percent of education, training and library
workers (including 98 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers
and 92 percent of teachers' assistants).
Libraries are closing or cutting back everywhere, while demand for
their services, including their Internet connections, has risen.
Philadelphia's proposal last month to close 11 branches brought people
into the street to protest.
Many of the jobs women do are already included in Mr. Obama's campaign
promises. Women are teachers, and the campaign promised to provide
support for families with children up to the age of 5, increase Head
Start financing and quadruple the money spent on Early Head Start to
include a quarter-million infants and toddlers. Special education,
including arts education, is heavily female as well. Mr. Obama
promised to increase financing for arts education and for the National
Endowment for the Arts, which supports many school programs.
During the campaign, Mr. Obama also promised that the first part of
his plan to combat urban poverty would be to replicate a nonprofit
organization in New York called the Harlem Children's Zone in 20
cities across the country. The group, which works to improve the
quality of life for children and families in the Harlem neighborhood,
employs several hundred people in full- and part-time jobs. By making
good on this promise, Mr. Obama could create thousands of jobs for
women in social work, teaching and child care.
Unlike the proposal to rebuild roads and bridges, the Harlem
Children's Zone program is urban, and thus really green. If cities
become more inviting, more people will live in them — and that means
they will drive less, using less fuel. The average New Yorker's
greenhouse gas footprint is only about 29 percent as large as that of
the average American; the city is one of the greenest places in
America.
Maybe it would be a better world if more women became engineers and
construction workers, but programs encouraging women to pursue
engineering have existed for decades without having much success. At
the moment, teachers and child care workers still need to support
themselves. Many are their families' sole support.
A public works program can provide needed economic stimulus and revive
America's concern for public property. The current proposal is simply
too narrow. Women represent almost half the work force — not exactly a
marginal special interest group. By adding a program for jobs in
libraries, schools and children's programs, the new administration can
create jobs for them, too.
Linda R. Hirshman is the author of "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women
of the World."
