Digital Extra

By JODY McPHILLIPS
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer

More Rhode Island women are working outside the home than ever before - especially younger women - but they still earn only about two-thirds as much as men, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Yet Rhode Island's continuing shift from a manufacturing economy to one based on information and services holds great promise for women, Hilary Silver believes.

Silver, a professor of sociology at Brown University with a longstanding interest in women's economic issues, says a review of the 1980 and 1990 data shows a marked rise in the number of Rhode Island women working.

"In 1980, 52 percent of women 16 and older were in the labor force," she says. "That's up to 58.3 percent in 1990." The figure is even higher - 59.2 percent - for women with children under 6 years old, she says, "which shows labor force participation among younger women is rising."

The trend is continuing as the decade progresses, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 1994, 59.3 percent of Rhode Island women were working. By comparison, in 1950 only a third of the nation's women worked.

But although more women are working - and more are working full time - their income compared to men "is still relatively low. There's still a gap of considerable size," she says.

That's despite a substantial improvement over the decade. In 1980, Rhode Island women earned 59.4 percent of what men earned; by 1990, that had risen to 66.3 percent.

Despite the improvement, Rhode Island may still lag behind the national average. In 1994, women across the country were earning 76.4 percent as much as men earned; Rhode Island figures for 1994 were unavailable.

But women are gaining on men not because they're earning more but because men's wages are losing ground to inflation, the BLS says. And women "are much more likely than men to be living in poverty" despite working. A BLS report says:

"Nearly a quarter of women who maintain families with children have family incomes below the poverty level, despite labor force participation of at least one family member for half of the year or more."

The BLS also notes that women are far more likely to be heads of household than men. "More than 8 million families with children under 18 were maintained by women in 1994," the agency says. "The number of families maintained by (single) men was much smaller - 1.4 million."

That means a substantial number of women are finding it very tough going indeed, says Silver, the Brown professor. In 1990, the median income for Rhode Island women was $19,631. "If the median worker is earning less than $20,000, then 50 percent of the females are earning less than that, working full time, all year."

Making ends meet on such an income "is very difficult," she says. "Of course, some of them live with husbands and have other household income. So these women making $19,000 are not all single heads of households. But a lot of them are.

"So to the extent we want to encourage women to stay off welfare and enter the work force and pay for child care, we need to understand it can be a very tough proposition."

The Census also showed marked shifts in the type of work Rhode Island women are doing. For example, in 1980, 32 percent of women were working in manufacturing jobs (such as jewelry factories); by 1990, that had fallen to 18.2 percent.

Yet those women were not shifting into the "pink-collar ghetto" of low- paid clerical jobs, Silver says. In 1980, 29 percent of working women held such jobs; in 1990, that had dropped to 27 percent. By 1994, that number was 22.6 percent.

Nor were they going into state or local government jobs, she says. "Women have not been advancing in the public sector."

So where did they go?

"One place they went was into the finance, insurance and real estate industries," says Silver. "They also went into hospitals and related health fields."

The health industry may account for the substantial increase in the number of women who work in "managerial and professional" jobs. In 1980, 18.6 percent of Rhode Island women held such jobs; in 1990, that had risen to 26.9 percent.

"While we see women moving into managerial and professional occupations, their incomes aren't rising because they're still clustered in 'detailed' occupations that do not pay as much as traditional male jobs," she says.

"So if a woman becomes a 'professional' worker, she might be a nurse, where she doesn't earn that much." Predominantly female occupations such as teacher and social worker aren't particularly well-paid, she says.

Although the number of female doctors and dentists doubled from 11 percent in 1980 to 22 percent in 1990, "let's face it, 22 percent is not parity," says Silver. "So for every well-paid doctor, there are far more poorly paid nurses."

The Rhode Island numbers reflect a national trend. Between 1974 and 1994, the number of women in professional jobs more than doubled to 7 million nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Silver says women are also moving into service and retail jobs, "which on the whole are not highly paid."

That reflects the general shift in the Rhode Island economy from manufacturing to information-related services. And while women may not be making much at present, Silver thinks they may do better in coming years.

"Women are in high demand in the new economy because they have good people skills," she says. "A woman who has worked on an assembly line can make the transition to, say, a public relations job more easily than a man who has been metal-bashing and is used to a male environment in the work place."

She says the skills stereotypically associated with women - such as nurturing, getting along with people, accepting authority and dealing with the public - are highly valued in an information-based economy.

"The new economy in Rhode Island reflects national and global trends, and it's good to see our economy is adjusting into new activities and areas for which there is demand," says Silver.

"If we were stuck in manufacturing at a time when global demand for those goods was declining, our prospects would not be bright. So this diversification of the Rhode Island economy is good. This opening up and dynamism is an encouraging sign."

She says there are two ways women can achieve economic parity with men: by moving into high-paying, traditionally male-dominated jobs; or by a shift in the value society assigns to traditional female jobs like child care.

"Human services needs don't go away," she says. "We all need" services like child care, home health aides or the other helping professions at some time in our lives.

"We should pay our child care workers to reflect the quality of care we want our children to have. . . . (Such jobs) will become better-paying when we, as a society, insist on it."

More Women in R.I. history