She`s glamorous, well-traveled, a darling of the monied set. But at 62, Audrey Hepburn and other stars such as Joan Collins, 57, and Jessica Tandy, 82, are the exceptions among older women. According to a new report, older women are paying for the prejudice the Hepburns of the world escaped. Despite their burgeoning ranks in the workforce, they grow poorer-and glamorless-as they grow older. The study urges Congress to remedy wage and discrimination against older women.
Despite the growing ranks of working women and well-publicized female
”firsts,” midlife and older women continue to dominate low-paying jobs and will face a grim economic future without congressional intervention, according to a report released by a national advocacy group.
The Older Women`s League (OWL) report, ”Paying for Prejudice,” urges Congress to eliminate job and wage discrimination by supporting the Family Medical Leave Act, pay equity reform, stronger protections against age and sex discrimination and more federal job training programs targeted to older women. ”Without a drastic decrease in job segregation and discrimination, token gains made by a small group of younger women today will not translate into economic security for the majority of older women tomorrow,” said Lou Glasse, president of the 20,000-member group, in the fifth annual report issued in honor of Mother`s Day.
OWL officially presented its findings and recommendations Wednesday in Washington, D.C., to Sen. James Jeffords (R-Vt.) of the Senate Aging Committee, U.S. Rep. Pat Williams (D-Montana) of the House Education and Labor Committee and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
The report presents statistics culled from the Department of Labor, the Census Bureau and research organizations. Among the figures cited as incentives for legislative change:
– Women over 45 earn an average of less than 60 percent of salaries paid to men the same age.
– Women`s median earnings peak at age 44, while men`s salaries peak at 55. Men ages 45 to 54 earn 8 percent more than younger men; however, women ages 45 to 54 earn 2 percent less than women 10 years their junior.
– Older women are clustered in low-paying, traditional ”women`s” jobs, such as sales and clerical positions. Sixty-two percent of women over 55 worked in service sector jobs, according to the report. Within female-dominated jobs, such as administrative support workers, men were paid 33 percent more than their female co-workers.
– As more women cut back on full-time work to become caregivers for elderly parents, they will lose pension and health benefits needed for economic security.
– Higher education does not translate to higher income for older women. College-educated women ages 45 to 64 earned 8 percent less than male high school graduates of the same age.
Williams called the report ”stark and somewhat frightening because it is deadly factual.”
The findings ”demonstrate once again that America continues to look the other way rather than look at the true face of poverty,” he said. ”It belongs to an older woman.”
Williams, a key sponsor of the Family Medical Leave Act that was derailed by presidential veto last year but has been reintroduced in both houses this session, said the prognosis for improving economic conditions for older women is not good.
”It will take reports like this, and angry constituents pointing at Congress saying, `Get with it or get out,` ” to lead to legislative change, he said.
The growing federal deficit should not deter Congress from appropriating more funds to older women`s programs, said Williams, who co-sponsored the Displaced Homemakers Act, which passed in 1990. The act established a network of job training programs that assist some 250,000 women returning to work after divorce or the death of a spouse. Williams is seeking to boost the network`s budget by $300,000, to $25 million this year.
The administration and Congress ”hide behind the deficit and the necessity to spend money on defense as a way of excusing ourselves for not doing what we should do for our mothers,” he said.
Some two dozen OWL members hand-delivered copies of the report to each member of Congress, along with Mother`s Day Cards asking for reform instead of gifts on the national holiday. Press conferences also were held by local chapters around the nation.
The Older Women`s League blamed the print and broadcast media for portraying an unjustified, stereotypical view of women over 45.
”The older woman is the invisible woman,” said Glasse in a telephone interview. ”You rarely see an older woman on television, and then the image is that of a helpless woman.”
The OWL report decried a full-page advertisement for a major department store that appeared in a national news magazine last year. It showed a young woman sitting in front of a computer with the caption, ”The difference between me and my mother? She thinks software is a nightgown.”
Glasse called the ad perhaps ”the most offensive example” of negative media images, adding it was ”far from the only example.”
Magazine articles frequently focus on younger women`s issues, and older women`s photographs are often retouched, according to the report.
On TV, male characters over age 60 outnumbered female characters by a 2 to 1 ratio, according to a 1982 survey cited in the report.
Even older women characters who are portrayed as strong and smart aren`t safe from stereotypes, said Glasse, 64. She pointed to ”L.A. Law`s” Rosalind Shays, an attorney who met a violent and unexpected death when she plunged down an elevator shaft.
”There you`ve got it,” Glasse said. ”Images haven`t changed much since the fairy tales I read as a child. The wicked witch gets demolished.”
Stereotypes of older women are ”dangerous and destructive,” said Glasse. The images create ”a climate which permits midlife and older women to be discriminated against in the workplace, robbed of jobs, and, as a consequence, locked into poverty,” she wrote in the report.
The stereotype of older women workers as inflexible, slow or in poor health is unfounded, said Glasse.
Workers over age 45 called in sick 2.6 days per year, compared with 3.3 days for workers 18 to 44, according to a National Center for Health Statistics study cited in the report.
An 1989 survey cited by OWL said most companies reported providing health insurance coverage to a 55-year-old woman costs no more than insurance for a 30-year-old with children.
Glasse believes younger women in the Baby Boom generation mistakenly think their economic future will be brighter than their mothers`.
”If you look ahead 30 years from now, the poverty of older people will largely be confined to older women,” Glasse said.
The report noted younger women have not made substantial job gains compared to midlife women. Last year 55 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds held sales, clerical and service jobs: the same percentage as midlife women.
The entry of women ages 35 to 44 into professional and administrative jobs has been slow in coming, according to the report. Last year only 12 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds and 13 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds worked as administrators, executives or managers.
Glasse said she regretted she couldn`t report any good news for working women, based on the report`s findings:
”It`s tough to give advice to a woman who is stuck in a job, segregated by sex and working for pitifully low wages. But my advice is this: Try to get an education and to join an organization that can work on your behalf.”
Where to get help
For more information about job training programs, pensions and other work-related issues concerning older women:
– Older Women`s League, Suite 300, 730 11th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001; 1-202-783-6686.
– OWL/Illinois, P.O. Box 25416, Chicago, Ill., 60625-0416.
– Illinois Department on Aging, 100 W. Randolph St., Suite 11-900, Chicago, Ill., 60601, 1-312-814-2630 or 1-800-252-8966 (8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.). – Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons, 2720 Des Plaines Ave., Suite 113, Des Plaines, Ill. 60018, 1-708-298-2852.
– Operation Able, 180 N. Wabash, Suite 802, Chicago, Ill., 60601. 1-312-580-0360.
– Women Employed, 22 W. Monroe St., Suite 1400, Chicago, Ill., 60603, 1-312-782-3902.
