On June 14, 2016, Vail Valley Partnership, the Vail Symposium, and The Women’s Foundation of Colorado came together to present a forum title, “The Economic Status of Women in Colorado”.
Louise Myrland, Vice President of Community Initiatives and Investments for The Women’s Foundation of Colorado (WFCO), was on hand to delve into the data that WFCO and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research were able to collect regarding Employment & Earnings and Poverty & Opportunity for women in our state.
To give a brief overview of the report, Colorado actually fares comparatively well, earning a “B” in the Employment and Earnings Composite Index, and a “B-“ in the Poverty and Opportunity Composite Index.
Some highlights include:
- Colorado ranked 19th in the ratio of women’s to men’s earnings with women earning $0.80 to every $1 that men earn. While this disparity is slowly growing smaller, the pay gap isn’t expected to close until 2057.
The pay gap is a larger issue when we realize that many families depend on women’s earnings to ensure their economic security and stability. Between 2011 and 2013, women were the co- or sole-breadwinners in 45.2% of Colorado households with children under 18. Consider this, if the wage gap closed, women would see an annual increase of $7,224 or 17.9%. This would lead to the poverty rate for women to be cut in half.
- Colorado ranks 4th in the nation for percent of women 25 and old who have a Bachelor’s Degree or higher and 13th in the nation for businesses owned by women.
While access to education, health care, and business opportunities can be vital resources, often they are not enough for women to achieve financial security. Even though more women than men complete a college education and have health insurance coverage, women’s poverty rates remain higher than men’s.
While on many indicators Colorado fares relatively well compared with states across the nation, women in Colorado continue to experience inequities that often prevent them from reaching their full potential. Policies and programs designed to diminish gender and race base inequalities should be at the forefront of local and state policy making efforts. So, what were the WFCO’s policy recommendations?
- Hold employers accountable for gender and race disparities
- Enforce current legislation related to workplace and educational discrimination, and develop new statues that address barriers to equality
- Facilitate access to further education by providing support for those who face financial and other barriers to completing a degree
After the presentation of the “Economic Status of Women in Colorado” report findings, a panel of four Vail Valley women were brought to the front:
- Diane Mitsch Bush, State Representative for Colorado House District 26
- Carrie Besnette Hauser, President and CEO of Colorado Mountain College
- Jen Brown, Managing Director of Beaver Creek Resort Company
- Susie Davis, XXX of Our Community Foundation
These women were able to discuss their perspectives of the economic status of women in our area.
Diane Mitsch Bush started off by saying that WFCO data suggests Colorado has issues to address, but has made some progress as well. However, none of these general patterns are new. The Vail Valley is fortunate that most of our major employers are committed to equality for women and women’s success. While we’ve seen some positive and promising bills pass, there have recently been a few important bills that passed the house and not the senate. Some of these bills would have enabled employees to get un-paid time off to attend children’s school and academic activities or helped lower income women to find childcare options and learn how to pay for them. As many of us know, childcare in the Vail Valley is very expensive and waitlists are often extremely long. One of the more basic bills that was also shut down at the senate was pay transparency. When women don’t know what men are being paid, they don’t know if they should approach their supervisors in order to make a change. Diane shared an anecdote of when she first entered the workplace. At one point she discovered that a male counterpart who didn’t have his PHD, which she did, didn’t have her high teaching evaluations, and didn’t get published in as many national journals as she did was making $5,000 more annually.
Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser was able to share some of the incredible strides Colorado Mountain College is making towards advancing women in education. She shared that CMC’s vision is to aspire to be the most inclusive and innovative student center in the nation. As we mentioned earlier, the majority of college students are women. That fact is brought to life in CMC’s demographics, showing 60% of their students are female. With more and more jobs requiring higher education, women are having to make up both sides of the breadwinner for the household. How much harder is that when you are making less than your male counterparts? Interestingly, 50% of students are not ready for college work upon entering, so CMC is working with the K-12 educators to not only rectify that, but actually push further and have high school students begin working toward a degree before they even graduate. 704 Eagle County high schoolers are also currently enrolled in CMC, earning a collective 5,000 credits.. for free! In fact, 13 girls have earned Associate Degrees before event graduating high school. This is an incredible advantage when you consider that these students are not racking up college debt.
Jen Brown was able to expound on how mentors were critical to her success in the Vail Valley. She understands that it’s certainly not easy to live and thrive in the Vail Valley when you have to ask questions like, “how can I afford the cost of living?”, “What are my transportation options to get to work?”, etc. Many visitors to our valley seem to think we live in a magical fantasy, but they don’t understand that we face our own unique set of challenges as well. She invited the attendees to remember to be open and willing to try new things, and not be afraid of making mistakes. This community has so many incredible, well-educated people; find a mentor, and remember you have a responsibility to mentor others as well.
Susie Davis used her time to point out that the Vail Valley hasn’t always done well at giving a voice to the voiceless. She encouraged the audience to take a moment and think about “who” our community really is, who makes the Vail Valley work, and are those people represented fairly. How can we engage and listen to those voices that aren’t usually recognized on a legislative level? She mentioned that 42% of children in our school systems qualify for a reduced lunch and InteGreat, a program of the Eagle River Youth Coalition, is working to serve 1600 children throughout the summer. As a community, we need to come together over these issues and volunteer as much as we can. So much of making a difference starts with an awareness of the issues, and you can’t know the issues if you’re not involved. She concluded that when you start to learn who a person is, instead of what they are, you start to realize we all have more in common that originally thought.
The end of the panel discussion was followed by a recap of some of the calls to action discussed during the forum:
- Talk to your legislative representatives
- Enable engagement between the work-world and the academic-world (invest in our students)
- Volunteer! You won’t know what people need unless you engage
- Support the Women’s Foundation of Colorado as they work for the betterment of women as a whole.