"In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would REMEMBER THE LADIES and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.”--Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776
The economic recovery package currently under development proposes that a large portion of federal spending—perhaps as much as 20 percent—will be focused on infrastructure construction, including transportation and school projects, energy efficiency improvements, and green economy investments such as smart grid expansions. While more details about the stimulus package will be finalized in the coming weeks, the inclusion of a robust infrastructure investment that is critical to jump-starting our economy and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs is almost certain.
Unfortunately, the significant gender imbalance in infrastructure-related jobs means that this job creation will unfairly and disproportionately benefit men, who by far represent the largest share of construction workers. Without efforts to increase workforce diversity, this could lead to a massive shift of hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth from women to men.
Public works spending during the New Deal disproportionately employed men, but women comprised only 22 percent of the workforce in 1930. Doing nothing to redress this inequity was a mistake then and it would be an even greater mistake now.
Today, women make up nearly half—46 percent—of the total U.S. labor force of 153 million. While the overall unemployment rates of women and men have been similar since 2000, women with children experience much higher unemployment rates. Worse still, there is evidence that women who lose their jobs face a harder time finding new jobs than their male counterparts.
As it stands, the proposed infrastructure spending will almost overwhelmingly benefit men. In 2007, only 9.4 percent of the 11.9 million workers in the construction industry were female and in major occupations with an employment base of 100,000 jobs, women held only about 3.9 percent of jobs.
We must not let this gender imbalance lessen the impact of much-needed infrastructure investment. A few simple steps, if incorporated into the economic recovery package, could help ensure that infrastructure investment can and will benefit women.
1. Expand Training for Women in Non-Traditional Jobs:
We should expand the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women in Apprenticeship and Non-traditional Occupations (WANTO) grant program that “awards competitive grants to recruit, hire, train, and retain women in apprenticeships and non-traditional occupations.”
Also, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006 allows states to use funds for “preparing students for employment in fields that are traditionally dominated by one gender.” Not only should funding for the Perkins Act increase, but the program should be more narrowly geared toward gender diversification in infrastructure-related jobs through gender equity set-asides and the reestablishment of equity coordinators.
2. Emphasize goals for hiring and retaining women in non-traditional jobs funded by federal contracts and enforce contracts for full compliance:
We should increase the targets for female employment by federal construction contractors and require them to design and implement plans for hiring and retaining qualified female workers. Selection criteria for contracts could include assessments of these strategies and past performance. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance should rigorously enforce implementation.
3. Provide Incentives for Companies Employing Women:
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) encourages employers to hire members of families receiving benefits under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, among other disadvantaged populations, whose beneficiaries are overwhelmingly women. Increasing the size of the credit would make it an even stronger incentive for employers.
Another option entails assisting contractors that meet a certain threshold of female employees in non-traditional sectors. There is already a program in place to help women obtain federal contracts. While we must do a better job at ensuring that female-owned businesses access more contract dollars, we should also explore a similar assistance program for companies with female workforces above 25 percent in non-traditional occupations, especially in construction. Gender parity goals should be expanded beyond the capitalist class to the vast majority of women who do not own companies.
These steps can be implemented swiftly; during World War II, with the urgent need to ramp up war production, women entered traditionally male jobs that necessitated skilled training—welding, iron molding, skilled machine work—within months. We must ensure that the biggest jobs program since the Great Depression does not redistribute America’s wealth away from women and funnel their federal taxes and debt obligations into paying for jobs for men.
Incorporating these changes would meet both the immediate needs of the recovery package and the long-term goals of improving the skill and preparation of our workforce by offering a future filled with greater economic security for women and their families.
Rep. Jared Polis was elected in 2008 to represent Colorado’s second congressional district and serves on the House Rules, Education and Labor, and Democratic Steering Committees.
