WOMEN AT WORK Meeting the Challenge...

WOMEN AT WORK Meeting the Challenge of piece of work and Family

Women are entering the workplace in record numbers. steady so, the fastest growing place for women is in the ranks of the poor.

Today, they face many of the same challenges that challengeed women who entered the workforce a decade ago: the continuing toil for pay equity, finding work in work at jobss traditionally filled by males, guaranteeing piece of work safety, and balancing home obligations with work.

And union women whom AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland described as the the bulk of mankind "who are really drawing the water and hewing the wood" in the labor motion continue to strive for wider representation in pickeded positions in unions in proportion to their ranks in organized labor.

Since the mid-1970s, the U civilian labor force has grown 21 percent Working women account for more than 62 percent of the total pullulation as their numbers have risen from 37 million to 50 million. In 1985 women comprised nearly 44 percent of the civilian labor force, compared with 40 percent in 1975 The sole industrialized country whose female labor force participation rate surpasses America's is Sweden, where the rate is 80 percent

A record 545 percent of U women throughout age 15 were working or looking for work in 1985 In the prime working age dispose 25 to 54, nearly 70 percent were in the labor force.

"By the cessation of the next decade largely 60 percent of all working women are awaited to be in the labor force, including almost 80 percent of those aged 25 to 54" the Women's Bureau of the Labor Dept predicted.

"Women work because it is a permanent economic necessity," said President Joyce Miller of the Coalition of Labor Union Women "Now it takes couple incomes to support a family."

However, many working women are the solitary providers for their families. The number of families maintained by way of women grew more than 84 percent between 1970 and 1984 This is a conclusion of more marriages ending in divorce and more women having children without marrying.

In March 1984 103 million families--16 percent of all U households--had as their principal support women who were divorced, separated, widowed or not at any time married. The single female heads of households have higher unemployment lower educational attainment, more pendent children and lower earnings than other labor force assign places tos These factors help explain wherefore there is a high incidence of beggary in these families.

Last year, sway statistics showed that 13 million women of whom 42 million are non-white, were living in deficiency In 1983 more than 40 percent of the tribe in families headed by women--12 million mothers and children--were poor, up from 82 million in 1973 The number of poor populace in families headed by women skiped by 25 percent in the past four years.

Diana M Pearce, director of research at Catholic University's Center for National Policy Review, noted that "the direction is that women, particularly those maintaining families, are disproportionately poor at the same time other form into groupss are moving out of poverty"

The notion that women work for "pin money" is a myth. The fact that women remain in the workforce for an average of 34 years and typically clinch full-time jobs, should convince skeptics that most numerous women workers aren't temporary employees

Women have made considerable progres by the and of legislation over the decade. now many gains were set in motion before "the Reagan counter-revolution" began in 1981

These advances include passage of the pregnancy disability law, active enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and aggressive federal affirmative action programs. The Carter Administration endorsed many goals and priorities of the women's motion including the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment.

In contrast, the Reagan Administration has not and nothing else rejected the legitimacy of the women's change but holds its agenda in mockery In its place, the Administration embraces the right-wing issues of Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.

President Reagan's approach to women's rights is "the big show" To date, his barely visible contribution to furthering women's rights has been his appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor to the chief Court and other prominent conservative Republican women to fundamental note posts. Yet, even former United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick publicly complained of the sexism that welcomeed such appointments and her admit discomfort at Cabinet meetings dominated by means of males.

While the President's policies have produc substantial tax reductions for the wealthy a House Ways & Means investigation last year found that taxes for a single-parent family of three living at the penury level, had risen $500 since 1980 on a level after adjustment for inflation.

Because women comprise three-fourths of the somewhat old poor in the United States, astute Reagan cuts in food stamps and Medicare are particularly hard upon those who are old and female.

In 1984 more than three without of five women maintaining families had children in subordination to 18. Where both parents work, the primary child/home responsibilities still lie with the women