Politics & Government

CT Third-Best State for Women, Still Needs Improvement

Report shows women make less than 60 percent of what men make in 54 of Connecticut's towns.

With low teen pregnancy rates, good maternity leave provisions and a history of voting for women’s rights, Connecticut is a pretty good place to be a woman.

In fact, Connecticut is the third-best state in the country for women, according to a report by The Connecticut Economy, a University of Connecticut publication.

Connecticut scored above average in the nine factors used to rank women’s economic opportunities in each state, ranked below only Vermont and New York.

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A perfect score for maternity leave provisions and a historical commitment to women’s rights boosted the state to a top spot on the list. Teen birth rates are relatively low, and nearly 36 percent of women 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, making Connecticut a state leader in women’s education.

However, the high cost of living in Connecticut held it back in affordable childcare, which clings to a score just above average for the country. Women are also less represented in the state’s general assembly than other state governments.

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Women do hold several powerful positions in Connecticut government, including:

Nancy Wyman, the lieutenant governorDenise Nappier, state treasurerCatherine Smith, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community DevelopmentDenise Merrill, secretary of state

Several state initiatives have contributed to the advancement of women in Connecticut, said Fran Pastore, president, CEO and founder of the Women’s Business Development Council, located in Stamford, CT.

Pastore said the decision to pass the $10.10 minimum wage in Connecticut benefits the many women who hold hourly wage positions. She also pointed to progress in affordable housing, healthcare and education.

“This is an economic issue, not a woman’s issue, but the people most affected by it are women,” Pastore said.

She praised state leadership for recognizing that women represent more than 51 percent of people in Connecticut, citing Gov. Dannel Malloy’s task force to address the state’s gender wage gap.

In the report, Connecticut, No. 3 overall, scored lower than places like California (No. 6) and Nevada (No. 20) for the gender wage gap and the number of women with jobs they don’t typically hold. However, the report notes the wage gap measure isn’t influenced by occupational choices, education, hours worked and other factors.

For Suzanne Peters with the Fairfield County Community Foundation, closing the wage gap is the most important step in the advancement of women.

Peters is the vice president of the Foundation’s Fund for Women and Girls. She said though women’s earnings are growing in Fairfield, many wages there are insufficient for even a single woman to be able to sustain herself.

The Connecticut Economy’s Female-to-Male Median Earnings Ratio, from 2012 data, shows women in Fairfield make 46 percent of what men in Fairfield make.

Women in 54 of Connecticut’s towns make more than 70 percent of what their male counterparts makeIn 61 towns, women make 60 to 70 percent of menIn 54 towns, women make less than 60 percent of men

This illustrates what Sallie Mitchell, communications director for the Fairfield County Community Foundation, called “zipcode destiny,” which is a wide disparity between the advantages of women in different areas, both within towns like Fairfield and across the state.

Though Peters said she has seen Connecticut progress in government support of childcare and organizations trying to advance women within politics, she said she was surprised to hear Connecticut ranked so highly for woman.

“We still find there are some significant factors within Connecticut that impact the ability of women to be economically secure,” Peters said. “The high cost of housing, high cost of childcare and high cost of utilities prevent many women from being able to build assets to advance.”

Methodology of the report:

The Female-to-Male Median Earnings Ratio data comes from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates of median earnings.

The state ranking report follows the example of an index by The Economist that measures women’s economic opportunity by country. But this study uses variables relevant specifically in the U.S.

The report weighed key variables for each state:

gender pay gapmaternity leave provisionschild care costswomen’s educationwomen’s occupationssexual assault ratesteen birth ratesthe current proportion of state legislative seats held by womenhow states voted to accept an equal rights amendment

The report used first principal component analysis to rank the key variables, solving the apples-to-oranges problem of comparing such factors as child care costs and the number of women in government.

The research also “showed a strong positive association between women’s opportunity and national economic performance.”

Connecticut Women in History

via Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women

1852: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Hartford resident Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published.1859: Emeline Roberts Jones of New Haven is acknowledged as the first female dentist in America.1882: Mary Hall of Marlborough becomes the first female lawyer in the state.1939: Sara B. Crawford, a resident of Westport, is elected the first female Secretary of State in Connecticut.1942: Clare Boothe Luce becomes Connecticut’s first female Congresswoman.1961: To challenge Connecticut’s ban on birth control, Estelle Griswold of Hartford and Dr. C. Lee Buxton open a birth control center to dispense contraceptives. Their arrest and conviction leads to the 1965 Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut, which led to the definition of a constitutional right to privacy.1967: Antonina Uccello is elected mayor of Hartford, becoming the first female mayor of a capital city in the United States.1975: Ella Grasso of Connecticut becomes the first woman in U.S. history to be elected governor in her own right.1985: Betty C. Tianti of Connecticut is the first female president of a state AFL-CIO federation. She later becomes Connecticut’s first female Commissioner of Labor.1992: Eileen Kraus becomes the first woman to head a major regional financial institution.2007: Rev. Laura J Ahrens of Bloomfield is consecrated as Connecticut’s first female Episcopal bishop.2010: The University of Connecticut selects its first female president, Susan Herbst.2012: The CT Bar Association selected its first ever female executive director, Alice Bruno.


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