Employment and Income

As a result of the decade's programs, politicians, economists, and activists are beginning to recognize that improvements in women's status and opportunities are crucial to attaining developmental and other social goals. There is increasing recognition that poor women's needs should be at the heart of "people centered" approaches to community revitalization and development. In the United States, increasing attention is being paid to the "feminization of poverty," to the unacceptably high levels of teen pregnancy, and to the problems caused by multigenerational welfare dependency and family violence. Enabling women to compete for well-paid jobs, to choose when to have children, and to live free of violence is now recognized as essential to community stability and justice. Unless society succeeds in these areas, there will continue to be high levels of poverty and antisocial behavior. In developing countries, research, effective advocacy, and grass-roots experimentation have contributed to this recognition. Now the challenge is to translate these insights into effective, larger programs.

The Foundation's staff continues to believe that improving women's employment opportunities and their income-generating capacity will stimulate important changes in other parts of their lives as well as improvements in their communities. In the United States, the Foundation anticipates significant funding for welfare-to-work programs, for experimental assistance to low-income entrepreneurs and the self-employed, for teen pregnancy-prevention and parenthood programs, and for improved child-care systems. All of these efforts need to move beyond small-scale experiments and projects to large-scale programs. Because of the continuing gap between men's and women's earnings and status and because of the changing nature of the U.S.job market, the Foundation will seek to ensure that women have equal opportunity to compete effectively in expanding technical fields.