- Coming up on IGI, the gender gap is real and happening in our home state.

We discuss this and key findings of a new report detailing the status of women in Kansas.

Stay with us.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from The Friends of KTWU.

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Did you know that Kansas maintains higher levels of women in the workforce?

However, Kansas women only earn 77.6% of men's earnings compared to 81.5% in the US as a whole.

Joining us now to discuss this and the economic and societal effects COVID 19 has had on women, are Dr. Donna Ginther, Director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas, and is also a Roy A. Roberts distinguished Professor for Economics at the University of Kansas.

And we also have Wendy Doyle, President and CEO of United WE.

Dr. Ginther and Wendy Doyle, thank you for joining us today on IGI.

I wanna just go ahead and jump in Wendy, and have you tell us a little bit about the work that United WE is doing.

- Thank you for having me.

The work that United WE does, We are really working to advance all women's economic and civic leadership.

And we do that by investing and commissioning evidence-based research, utilizing the research to really identify some solutions and barriers that we can work on to reduce for women in their families, through public policy work.

And then the civic leadership component of our work is really wanting to encourage women to engage civically, so, increase civic participation by women and we do that through an initiative called the Appointments Project, which is working to get a women appointed by an elected official at the city county and state level.

- Okay, and Donna, how about you?

Tell us a little bit about the work that IPSR is doing.

- Well, the institute supports faculty at KU in their social science faculty in their research.

So we help them find projects and funding for their work.

And we also do work with organizations like United WE, and some work on behalf of the State of Kansas to understand policy and provide data and analysis to make informed decisions.

- Okay, so Wendy, we're talking about this study before we talk about it.

I wanna talk about why was the study commissioned?

- Yes, we really sought out Dr. Ginther and the Institute for Policy and Social Research back in 2016, to have the first study, the status of women in Kansas with the goal really to work together, to improve the economic lives of women in their families.

But also it was just to get a baseline of what the economic indicators and what was currently happening in the state.

And then we've come back based on that benchmarking data to provide an update to that study using the same key indicators.

- Okay, and so, as you mentioned, this is an update of your 2016 study.

So Donna, what did you see being the biggest changes from the 2016 study?

- Well, things were going better for women in the state, and then there was COVID.

And once COVID hit, unemployment went up for women, women left the labor force, women have had difficulty finding childcare.

It's been a perfect storm for women's socioeconomic progress.

It's really put us back, unfortunately.

- That is unfortunate to hear.

It really does sound like women are being impacted more than men on the economic and societal effects of COVID 19.

So I wanna take the time to give you an opportunity, Donna, to kind of talk about what this study found in several different areas.

So when you're looking at earnings, let's talk about that, what did you learn from this study?

- Well, we found that women earn about 78 cents to every dollar that men earn in the State of Kansas.

African American or black women earn a bit more than that.

So the wage gap for black women is a little narrower than it is for white women.

And that's because black women are more attached to the labor force typically.

we found that our earning gap in the state is one of the largest in the country and it's not driven by occupations.

So the same occupations women in Kansas hold the same occupations as women nationally, they're just paid less for it.

- Okay, you alluded to this earlier and you said it was the perfect storm, and you talked about childcare.

Tell us what your study found on childcare.

- Childcare costs are very high in the State of Kansas.

It's actually 1.3 times the cost of in-state tuition at KU to put a infant in childcare in the State of Kansas.

And that's if they can find a spot because we've lost several childcare providers due to the pandemic.

That cost of infant care is about 29% of the median women's wage.

- Oh, wow.

Okay, so we've talked about earnings and childcare.

What about healthcare?

what did your study find?

How is healthcare impacted?

- Well, two things with healthcare women tend to work in healthcare and so they lost their jobs early in the pandemic, they came back.

But because of the ongoing COVID crisis, a lot of healthcare providers are leaving the labor force, they're just burned out.

Kansas failure to expand Medicaid means that our state lags in having women covered by health insurance.

- Okay, so, what about women owned businesses?

What did your study find for that?

- Kansas has a lower rate of women owned businesses compared to the nation.

But male female, so where there's a male female partner, we have a little bit of higher rates.

So it seems like couples are more likely to own businesses in Kansas, but women owned businesses are lower in the state.

- So, what did the study find when it came to civic engagement?

- Well, only 28% of the Kansas legislature is female, but you know, half of the population is women and our voting rates actually went down compared to the last presidential election slightly.

Women vote more than men in the state, but our voting rates actually fell a little bit.

- And then you mentioned with COVID 19, this was kind of the perfect storm.

So, what was the impact of COVID on women in Kansas?

- Well, so first of all, it was unemployment.

Nationwide, female unemployment was 16%, which was higher than male unemployment and that's unusual mostly in recessions, it's men who are unemployed because they work in more cyclical industries like construction and manufacturing, and this recession hit services where women work.

So the Kansas unemployment rate peaked at 7.5% in 2020 and has come down steadily, but more women lost their job in this recession than in previous recessions.

- I can see why Wendy took the time to recruit you to get some of this information.

Wendy, did you have anything to add?

You sought after Dr. Ginther and she's obviously got a wealth of information that came in from the 2016 to this current study.

Did you have anything to add that you found in this new study?

- Well, this is an important data to have, and we invest in this study, not only to inform our organization to really identify what policy priorities that we should be working on, but also for this information to be shared far and wide.

So, I think what's the most interesting thing to put the lens through this particular study compared to 2016 is definitely the pandemic.

And as Dr. Ginther said, we know that childcare is really surfaced as one of the most critical issues that the State of Kansas needs to be working on to address, to really get women back into the workforce.

And for our organization, a metric that we really are striving toward as well is the McKinsey Global Institute identified that if women are fully participating in the workforce, that we have the potential to grow our Kansas economy, by as much as 15% by year 2025.

Now, keep in mind that was a statistic pre pandemic.

And what Dr. Ginther has highlighted through this study just highlights how much more that we need to do to even strive to get to that 15%.

So, I think the key takeaway is, women were making progress, but the pandemic has really taken us back a few steps.

- Okay, so and speaking about taking us back a few steps, I kind of wanna turn the page for a moment and talk about the differences that exist in pay.

So, we all know that today there still exists a pay gap between men and women.

What is something that we can do to minimize this pay gap, Wendy?

- So, one of the things we took a look at this too, and invested in a separate study that focused on pay equity best practice guidelines, and really a key step is for employers to conduct an evaluation, to just assess, is there in fact the pay gap?

Does it exist in that work place?

So, self-evaluating by the employer is kind of a critical step.

A second thing that employers can do is to ban salary history on employment applications.

We've seen that as an easy tool to really level the playing field between women and men, but also by ethnicity as well.

So, it really helps shore up, the pay discrepancies.

So that's another key point that could really an easy tool that employers can do to help in closing the pay gap.

- And Donna, I wanna turn it back to you what we've kind of learned from your study and what we've always known is that women contribute to the workforce just as much as men and same with the family.

And so, what can we do based on this study to continue to address and look at the pay gap?

- Well, first of all, being attached to the labor force, so work experience pays off and women having to leave the labor force because of childcare is really detrimental to their economic health.

So, affordable childcare is really important to promoting women's economic equality without it, we won't have it.

So, we need to address the childcare shortage and childcare affordability.

Secondly, women and young girls should be encouraged to pursue math intensive field.

Because what we've learned is that math and statistics and data, having those analytical skills pay a premium in this labor market.

So we need to encourage our daughters to study math, to be able to qualify for higher paying occupations.

- And just to build on one additional soft skill, in addition to what Dr. Ginther just identified is that we know that men are really skilled at negotiating when it comes to pay, pay negotiating, especially in that first job and women I know we're getting better at negotiating, but honing a woman's negotiating skills when it comes to salary and benefits is something that as women in general, that we can work on and improve on, but men are really good and women are getting better, but we have opportunity to improve there.

- That's an interesting topic, Wendy.

So, what ways would you suggest to women to improve on their negotiating skills when it comes to salary?

- So, what we know is that women want confidence to be able to go into that negotiating.

So I think the first and foremost is to do your homework.

There's lots of research and data out there just about what positions are paid.

And when you are applying for that specific position, you should be able to get as much data as you can.

And that data should inform and build the confidence in your negotiating skills.

So I think the first thing for the viewers to take away is just to do your research and pull that information together to inform your negotiating process.

- So, I think I'm gonna turn to you Donna, what comes next?

How will this study impact services that are geared towards women in Kansas?

- Well, Kansas in all states have a unique opportunity to make strategic infrastructure investments and childcare should be at one of the top of the list in the state in terms of investment, because we have a childcare shortage.

So, I'm hoping that the legislature spends some of the American recovery money on investing in childcare capacity in the state.

Other things that would help would be investments in broadband.

Because a lot of moms out in rural Kansas, they had to stay home with their kids because the connectivity was so bad and connectivity is so important for the future of our economy.

So that's another priority for investments that will help all families, all members of the family be economically successful.

- And Donna, you keep mentioning childcare.

So I can see that that's something very important that came from this study.

What does an investment in childcare look like?

- So, childcare is an unusual market because it's very highly regulated and it's expensive to provide.

So, scholarships for children, for families who have earned a certain income threshold, providing low income loans to providers to get started, to meet the regulations, to build the facilities or expand capacity.

Those are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head to expand access to childcare.

- And you mentioned broadband too.

What are some examples of investments in broadband that would be helpful to women in the workforce?

- Well, broadband is important for a number of reasons.

First of all, we've seen a decrease in community college enrollments during the pandemic, and that's where people go during a recession, they get new skills and get better job, but because of lack of access to broadband, several people, community college enrollments fell.

So, just from an education perspective, broadband is important.

And then from a work perspective, because a lot of jobs are allowing flexibility in work.

And so having access to broadband, high speed internet is important for economic growth.

- And Wendy, I wanna turn to you, what services do you believe that this study will impact towards women in Kansas?

- It's definitely across the board, I would just say a lot of what Dr. Ginther has highlighted, I think for us a next step with this study is definitely going to be to get out and hear from Kansas women to really hear their stories and to collect that information so that we can further share it publicly, but also with our policy makers.

So, a key next step for us will be we're in the process of putting together the Kansas Women's Economic Development Task Force, which is the first to our knowledge in the state's history that such a task force has been put together.

It's our goal that we have representation from across the state, by geography, but also industry as well, to make sure that we have good leadership that will provide oversight to town hall sessions that will be convening across Kansas this summer.

So, we really wanna get out and use this quantitative data that Donna and the team have put together, collect those stories, just validate the priorities.

And then we'll compile that information into a Kansas town halls report that we have plans to release later this year.

So again, we have a little bit more work to do, there's some things that, legislatively that are in discussions this session just on our key indicators.

And we're certainly encouraged by the discussion about how the American Rescue Plan Act funding that's coming to the state will be utilized perhaps for the broadband infrastructure, but also maybe as Dr. Ginther cited the need in childcare too.

- That task force sounds very interesting.

How did you guys come about wanting to have that economic recovery task force and wanting to do those town halls and really get more women's opinions and voices involved?

- We find that it's really important just to hear personal stories to make sure that we, as an organization are on point with what the priorities are of the State of Kansas.

And there's no better way to do that than have a forum and a convening opportunity to hear from women.

We have not done that before in the State of Kansas.

So, this will be new for us as an organization, but we look forward to the opportunity to getting to know women, to hear what's really happening.

We felt this was an important point as we are hopefully looking at pandemic recovery and what that may mean for women and what's on their mind economically for themselves and their families.

And I think it's just really gonna validate the great work that Dr. Ginther and the team have done here on the status of women in Kansas, but we'll have those personal stories that we can further tell with our policy makers and leadership and corporations across Kansas.

- Okay, I'm gonna start with you, Wendy and then I'm gonna have the same question for you Donna.

What can Kansans do to help for those that are sitting and watching and wondering what they can do to get involved, what can Kansans do to help you?

- I think first and foremost is just continue to be in informed of the critical issues that are happening in Kansas.

And then secondly, to be able to share that information within individuals networks, I think the more people that understand what the economic challenges are is when we can put the best decision making together to come up with good solutions to move the state forward economically and especially women.

But it really comes down to community based discussion points.

And we know that that's a value of having the town halls to really hear what the critical issues, but also talk about what are some solutions that can happen on a more of a community based level.

So I think the key thing is, continue to educate and be informed about the critical issues, but be a part of the conversation too, and help come up with what solutions look like to help move the state forward.

It takes all of us.

So it's not just one person from one organization or responsibility of the legislature, it's all Kansans to be engaged in this conversation.

- Okay, and Donna, same question to you.

What can Kansans do to help from your perspective?

- Well, I think some of this starts at the home.

Children have two parents and talking about how both parents can take care of the children, I think is really critically important.

Second, I think that making the concerns of women known to the state legislature is critically important.

Our policy makers need to know about the challenges that women and children face in the state and they need to hear it from Kansans.

- Okay, and for those that don't know how to necessarily access the legislature, what advice do you give them so that they can know the issues that women are having right now and how this pandemic is impacting them?

- Well, I think that, following what's happening in the legislature means talking to your local representatives and they have meetings and opportunities, you can call them up, I mean, they're state leaders, so, they're very accessible and wanna hear from their constituents.

- And I wanna give both of you guys an opportunity to answer this question, because I think for the women that are listening and they're in the workforce and they're balancing work, family and health right now, what advice do you have to give them?

And we'll start with you, Donna.

- Well, I think that you can't really take care of your family until you take care of yourself.

So you need to know what you need to be successful, sleep, mental health, balancing work, and family and other activities.

And understanding that the balance doesn't work on a day to day basis, it works over a longer period of time.

Sometimes your family has to take precedence, sometimes work has to take precedence and you need to understand and give yourself a break and know when you're balancing what and how to prioritize.

Know yourself and then use that to set your priorities.

- Donna, that makes me think of one of my favorite quotes.

You can't pour from an empty pot.

Is that what you're telling women right now?

- Exactly, exactly.

- Okay, Wendy, what about you?

What advice do you have for those women that are listening and they're balancing being in the workforce and their family and their health right now?

- You know, I think it's such an opportune time to be having conversations, especially with employers if women are employed just about balancing work and family and health.

I think employers are now more attuned than ever with how the labor market is to be having conversations about the needs of employees.

So, what I would say is, I would encourage your viewers to use your voice and to have that conversation with your employer on what your needs are, whether it be, additional work flex options, or exploring with your employer about a pay family leave policy.

We had great leadership with Governor Kelly who signed in an executive order to expand paid family leave policy for executive branch employees.

And we certainly are hoping that employers will follow suit.

We all benefited of a paid family leave policy during the CARES Act, during the pandemic.

But we hope that becomes a more permanent solution with employers.

But employees need to speak to the leadership in the organization.

So, what I would encourage women to do is, lean in a little bit and use your voice and share what concerns that you have, this is the time.

- Okay, so I'm gonna give you each a minute just to give a last little piece of advice.

We've talked about women, we've talked about this study, we've talked about ways to get to the legislature, but what advice do you have for an employer that's sitting here watching that says, what can I do?

What can I do to help?

- I think I'll jump in here.

I think the first thing an employer can do is we've talked about is just evaluation, but make sure they're in tune with their employees.

Are they communicating?

Do they really know what's on employee's minds on how to make the culture more palatable so that they retain employees?

I think corporations companies, regardless of the organization, retention is top of mind right now in this labor market.

So, really being in tune with the needs of the employees.

So for an employer, I would say, take the time to evaluate, take the time to listen and to connect with your employees and really utilize this opportunity to perhaps make a few changes, whether it be looking at the work flex options, understanding the childcare needs of employees, evaluating a paid family leave policy.

And certainly we've talked about, evaluating pay equity within an organization.

So, I would say evaluation.

- Okay, Donna, do you wanna give us a quick answer?

- Sure and I agree with everything Wendy said about on the employer side.

We have a severe labor shortage in the state and employees have more bargaining power.

So, going back to the negotiation point that Wendy brought up earlier, women have an opportunity to negotiate with their employers about their working conditions, and they should make a case for what they need to be productive employees with their employers by asking for flex time, paid leave, salary increases, those types of things.

It's a two-way street and there are lots of companies looking for workers out there.

So, you can have an opportunity now as an employee to ask your employer, to make your life better.

- Well, Wendy and Donna, thank you so much for being with us today.

That's all the time we have for this episode of IGI.

If you have any comment or suggestions for future topics, please send us an email at issues@ktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again, or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This program is brought to you with support from a Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from The Friends of KTWU.

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