I'm not going to try to compete with inauguration coverage today, so I just thought I'd point out some interesting stories ...
Like the NYT story about the inauguration and how it may help female scientists.
Or about Michelle Obama's dress (I loved that the family was color-coordinated on election day. Now they seem to have done the opposite, each person with their own bold color, to the same great effect).
How Barack Obama is stimulating the national economy with all the sales of t-shirts, piggy banks, basketball jerseys, yo-yos, thongs, cuff links, and other merchandise bearing his name or likeness.
A inauguration attendee with a shrub-covered bike helmet.
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Jobs and Gender
USAToday reports that men are losing jobs at a higher rate than women during the current recession.
Since December 2007, the jobless rate for men rose from 4.4 percent to 7.2 percent while the jobless rate for women rose from 4.3 percent to 5.9 percent during the same time period.
Why?
Because "the types of jobs women hold generally offer more stability, albeit at less pay."
The story says that 75 percent of the workers in health care and education are women, while men dominate the fields of construction and manufacturing.
Women are also more likely to work part-time, making them less vulnerable to cut-backs.
I'm not sure anyone can consider this good news, given the overall increase in joblessness, but the story does point out that the trend is helpful to dual-income households. (And are there many at this point that aren't?)
The story quoted Donna Ginther, director of the Center for Economic and Business Analysis at the University of Kansas:
"It's a kind of built-in insurance. If you lose one of two incomes and you are losing the highest income, it hurts, but it's not as catastrophic as say, losing the only income in a household."
Since December 2007, the jobless rate for men rose from 4.4 percent to 7.2 percent while the jobless rate for women rose from 4.3 percent to 5.9 percent during the same time period.
Why?
Because "the types of jobs women hold generally offer more stability, albeit at less pay."
The story says that 75 percent of the workers in health care and education are women, while men dominate the fields of construction and manufacturing.
Women are also more likely to work part-time, making them less vulnerable to cut-backs.
I'm not sure anyone can consider this good news, given the overall increase in joblessness, but the story does point out that the trend is helpful to dual-income households. (And are there many at this point that aren't?)
The story quoted Donna Ginther, director of the Center for Economic and Business Analysis at the University of Kansas:
"It's a kind of built-in insurance. If you lose one of two incomes and you are losing the highest income, it hurts, but it's not as catastrophic as say, losing the only income in a household."
Monday, June 30, 2008
Busted?
One of the sessions at last Saturday's Summit for Neighborhood Leaders put on by the Coalition for Livable Communities (more on that later) was entitled "From Here to There: Getting to Work Using Public Transportation."
Not to beat a dead horse, but I've heard (I think directly from MATA pres Will Hudson's mouth) that MATA's system was designed to get poorer workers to their jobs. This was several years ago, and I was asking if a grid system could better serve the larger general population.
After hearing his explanation of the system, I thought, well, okay, they're trying to serve their current market. It's a market that relies and depends on public transportation, so if serving those people — and serving them well — is their mission, I can understand that.
But findings presented Saturday by the Memphis Area Women's Council put that in question.
Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women's Council, said that transportation was one of the main barriers to employment among the women they surveyed.
"One thing we heard over and over was that using public transportation to get where they need to go was difficult and often impossible," Clubb said.
For example, Clubb related the example of downtown hotel workers who, if they got caught up at work after their shift, would miss the last bus of the night and have to walk home.
Karla Davis of Urban Strategies Memphis HOPE helps the former residents of Lamar Terrace and Dixie Homes work toward self-sufficiency. But Urban Strategies has to hire private transportation to get those families to whatever program they are enrolled in.
"It would be so helpful if there was a public transportation system they could use," Davis said.
Which leaves me wondering, just who is MATA's system designed for?
Does it work well for anybody?
Maybe a full system redesign is in order?
We have one of the leading logistics companies in the world here; maybe they could help come up with something?
In the short term, the women's council is proposing a pilot project in Frayser that would use a mini-hub and community based routing.
They also have an interesting idea to use day care vans. Mothers and their children would both board the day care van. After the children are dropped off, mothers would be taken to a MATA hub. I don't know how feasible it is, but it makes a lot more sense than those alarms to remind drivers to make sure all the kids are off the bus.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I've heard (I think directly from MATA pres Will Hudson's mouth) that MATA's system was designed to get poorer workers to their jobs. This was several years ago, and I was asking if a grid system could better serve the larger general population.
After hearing his explanation of the system, I thought, well, okay, they're trying to serve their current market. It's a market that relies and depends on public transportation, so if serving those people — and serving them well — is their mission, I can understand that.
But findings presented Saturday by the Memphis Area Women's Council put that in question.
Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women's Council, said that transportation was one of the main barriers to employment among the women they surveyed.
"One thing we heard over and over was that using public transportation to get where they need to go was difficult and often impossible," Clubb said.
For example, Clubb related the example of downtown hotel workers who, if they got caught up at work after their shift, would miss the last bus of the night and have to walk home.
Karla Davis of Urban Strategies Memphis HOPE helps the former residents of Lamar Terrace and Dixie Homes work toward self-sufficiency. But Urban Strategies has to hire private transportation to get those families to whatever program they are enrolled in.
"It would be so helpful if there was a public transportation system they could use," Davis said.
Which leaves me wondering, just who is MATA's system designed for?
Does it work well for anybody?
Maybe a full system redesign is in order?
We have one of the leading logistics companies in the world here; maybe they could help come up with something?
In the short term, the women's council is proposing a pilot project in Frayser that would use a mini-hub and community based routing.
They also have an interesting idea to use day care vans. Mothers and their children would both board the day care van. After the children are dropped off, mothers would be taken to a MATA hub. I don't know how feasible it is, but it makes a lot more sense than those alarms to remind drivers to make sure all the kids are off the bus.
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