Nevada lags on women’s issues

Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.

Women in Nevada have come a long way -- but not far enough and not as far as women in other states, a study released Tuesday indicates.

Nevada ranks poorly on several key indicators that look at how women in the state are faring economically, socially and physically compared with women in the other 49 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research Status of Women in Nevada 2004 report.

The report also gauges how Nevada women are doing compared with men in the state and to the nation as a whole. The aim is to evaluate how women are progressing in securing rights and opportunities as well as identifying what barriers may be slowing their progress.

Despite D grades in several areas -- including employment and earning levels, social and economic autonomy and health and well-being -- the report includes some positive news about the status of women in Nevada, said Joanne Goodwin, director of the UNLV Women's Research Institute of Nevada that helped produce the study.

For instance, the report shows that Nevada is one of the states in which women are least likely to live below the poverty level. On the other hand, women in Nevada still earn an annual median income less than women in 30 other states.

Also, Nevada women also make about 77 cents to every dollar earned by men compared with about 76 cents for women nationwide to every dollar earned by men.

That gender disparity, however, widens when broken down by ethnic group, according to the report. Black and Asian women earn little more than 60 cents to every dollar earned by Caucasian men, and Hispanic women earn only half that of Caucasian men.

The report ranks Nevada 21st in the nation for the number of women-owned businesses, but 50th in the nation for the number of women in managerial or professional occupations and 47th for the number of women earning college degrees.

In politics, Nevada ranks ninth in the nation for the percentage of women holding elected office, but 48th for the number of women registered to vote and 49th in voter turnout of women.

Healthwise, the report ranks Nevada as 13th in the nation for reproductive care but Nevada women have the highest mortality rate for lung cancer of any state and they have the highest suicide rate.

The seeming contradictions of the report, compiled from the most recent federal data available, show the need to further research the reasons some of the trends exist and explore more deeply the data unique to Nevada, Goodwin said.

"We really cannot answer very basic questions of how women are doing in this state, and the reason we can't answer those questions is that those data sets aren't put together," Goodwin said.

The goal of the data is to give state policymakers the information they need in order to address the disparities brought up in the report, Goodwin said. The national comparisons serve as bench marks for where Nevada should be.

Goodwin is working with Jill Winter at UNR's Center for Applied Research and the Northern Nevada Women's Fund to develop a report that will delve deeper into Nevada's rankings and break down results by county and city, she said. The Nevada report, scheduled to be finished by the time the Nevada Legislature convenes in February, will also include more data comparing men with women in the state, Winter said.

Because the national report focuses mainly on how Nevada women compare with women in other states, there's a gap in data showing how Nevada women compare with Nevada men, Winter said. In several of the national rankings, such as educational attainment, political participation and even average earnings, Nevada men also rank low.

The Nevada report also will specifically compare men with women working in the same field at the same level and see if there are gender inequities there, Goodwin said.

The national report, however, does highlight some of the bigger trends and barriers in gender equality by comparing Census 2000 data and 2002-2003 current population survey data, the two researchers said.

The study shows that the low educational attainment of women in Nevada directly correlates to the low economic health and security of women in the state, Goodwin said, and likely can be linked to many of the health problems, such as the high suicide rate.

The greater disparities among minorities also shows a growing trend that needs to be addressed, Goodwin said. Hispanic women in particular earn less than any other racial or ethnic group, have a lower participation rate in the labor force, and are more prone to poverty than any group except blacks, according to the report. Hispanic women also have the lowest level of education attainment with less than 10 percent earning college degrees in Nevada.

The statistics are all too familiar to Merlinda Gallegos, who knows them from her work for the United Way and now at the Chung Ying Tang Foundation where she is working on public health, education and civic engagement issues.

"One of the main findings (of the Southern Nevada Community Assessment) was that people of color, minority populations and women with children are disproportionately affected by all of these different issues," said Gallegos, who helped found a network to help Hispanic women.

Gallegos said her biggest concern is that women overall and Hispanic women in particular are not earning a wage in Nevada that is enough to be able to support a family without needing some sort of governmental or community assistance.

Gallegos said that all of the research she has seen shows a need for a "systematic change" at all levels of outreach, including removing barriers to education and other job opportunities as well as more government and community aid in providing affordable housing, health care and child care.

"They are all interconnected," Gallegos said.

Even when women do not have economic or educational barriers to tackle, they may still find it difficult to climb the corporate ladder in what is still a male-dominated world, said June Beland, founder and president of the Women's Chamber of Commerce in Nevada.

That's clear to her from Nevada's high ranking in women-owned businesses and low ranking in women in managerial or professional occupations. Many successful, talented women may find it easier to open their own business than to gain management authority in already established companies, Beland said.

"In Las Vegas, as far as women in the workplace, it is moving very slow," Beland said. "They (women) are moving into the workplace, they are moving into upper management, but it is not moving as fast as it should be.

"It's the same old story."