ITEMS IN THIS ALERT:

In the News
Plans Emerge to Push for Privatization Post-Election

New Research
Job Displacement for Older Workers
Will Older Americans Be Able to Find Employment?
Gender and Social Security Reform

New Research from IWPR
A Look at the Gulf Coast's Labor Market Segregation by Gender, Race, and Class

Still pending in the Senate Finance Committee is the Social Security Guarantee Act, sponsored and introduced in September of last year by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). The bill guarantees benefits and cost of living adjustments for all retirees born before 1950, but Santorum’s critics note Social Security already does this.

Another group hoping to revive privatization proposals, For Our Grandchildren, is calling upon members of Congress to pledge their commitment to a new Social Security debate that puts private accounts back on the table. For more information, see “Bush signs measure aimed at shoring up US pensions” (August 17, 2006, Reuters) , “Treasury secretary seeks to curb benefits costs” (August 2, 2006, The Boston Globe) , “Santorum’s Social Security bill pending” (The Times-Tribune, October 2, 2006) , “Democrats Reviving Social Security Issue,” (October 2, 2006, The Washington Post) , and “Bush Allies Reload in Social Security Fight” (September 27, 2006, Congress Daily).

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Job Displacement for Older Workers
In their Working Paper, “Has the Displacement of Older Workers Increased?” Alicia Munnell, Steven Sass, Mauricio Soto, and Natalia Zhivan of the Center for Retirement Research explore the impact of age and other factors on the displacement of older workers and their likelihood of re-employment. The authors analyze data from the Displaced Worker Survey (1984-2004), which looks at the numbers of workers who experienced dismissal from their jobs due to plant/company closures, insufficient work at their company, the elimination of their position/shift, the end of a seasonal job, or a failed self-operated business. The authors also look at similar data from the Health and Retirement Study for comparison.

The study finds that older workers are typically less likely to be displaced from their jobs, as past research has shown, but due to their tenure, not their age. In fact, when controlling for tenure, older workers are more vulnerable to job loss than younger workers and the authors argue that late career changes may increase their risk of displacement. Older workers are also less likely to find re-employment, though by 2004 the disadvantage for workers ages 50 to 59 vis-a-vis younger workers disappeared. Women, as well as married people and full-time workers, are less likely to be displaced from their jobs. Race has no effect on displacement, but nonwhites are less likely to be reemployed than whites, just as women are less likely to be reemployed than men once displaced from work.

The authors also find that in the earlier years of the Displaced Worker Survey, having a college education provided workers with protection from displacement, but by 2002 and 2004, this ceased to be true.

Will Older Americans Be Able to Find Employment?
In their Issue Brief, “Employer Attitudes Towards Older Workers: Survey Results,” the Center for Retirement Research summarizes the results of its survey of 400 private sector employers, conducted to determine how easily older workers might be able to delay retirement or find new employment in their retirement years. Employers were asked to compare the attractiveness of both white-collar and rank-and-file workers, age 55 and over, to younger job applicants and employees. Analysis of the survey results finds that more than half of employers believe older managers and professionals are more productive than younger workers and around 40 percent believe older rank-and-file workers are more productive than younger workers. Approximately 40 percent of employers report that older workers, rank-and-file and white-collar, cost more to employ than younger workers; another 40 percent say they are equally as costly to employ; and 20 percent believe they are less costly. Employers with older workforces tend to have more positive views of the productivity of older workers and see them as less expensive than employers with a predominantly younger workforce. Around 66 percent of all employers reported older workers to be neither more nor less attractive overall than younger workers. The survey results imply that older workers, especially in white-collar professions, have a fairly good chance of extending their working careers.

Gender and Social Security Reform
A recent Policy Brief by the University of Michigan Retirement Research Center, “The Gender Impact of Alternative Social Security Policies,” by Estelle James, Alejandra Cox Edwards, and Rebecca Wong, surveys various public pension reforms and their effects on women’s well-being in retirement. The authors draw upon the experiences of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and Sweden to highlight the features of a public pension system crucial to women’s economic security in retirement, given women’s lower labor force attachment, lower and flatter lifetime earnings, longer lifespan, and greater risk of poverty in old age than men.

The authors find that public pension reforms in Central and Eastern Europe and Sweden actually worsened the situation for women, as the move to a private accounts in combination with a public benefit, included changes such as removing child care credits, reducing survivor benefits, and restructuring public benefits to no longer target low earners. Public pension reform in Latin American countries, however, brought about improvement for women and a narrowing of the gender gap in pension benefits. Reform in these countries also included creating a multi-pillared system that gives retirees both a public benefit and a private account; but the authors note that the improvement of women’s economic security in retirement in the Latin American countries is due to specific features of their systems, including a redistributive public benefit (i.e., a minimum or flat benefit) targeted to low earners, joint annuities for married women, and a widow’s claim to both her own benefit and that of her spouse’s.

The authors conclude that the public pension system components most important for women are those that encourage women’s labor force participation, such as an equalized retirement age for men and women and the ability of widow’s to claim both their own and their spouse’s annuity; include a strong safety net in addition to individual or private accounts, such as a minimum benefit plan that targets low earners; and allow for joint annuities for married couples. The authors argue that, while the U.S. Social Security program has a progressive benefits structure, it lacks a real minimum benefit and does not do enough to target low earners.

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Women in the Gulf Coast
Over the past year the Institute for Women’s Policy Research has been engaged in researching the experiences of women in the Gulf Coast region before and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Our work in this area seeks to underline the pre-existing and deep inequalities by sex, race, and class that plagued the region, as well as document the particular challenges for women, particularly women of color, in terms of returning and rebuilding their lives. Two new publications have resulted from our work.

Briefing Paper
One publication resulting from our work in the area is The Women of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast: Multiple Disadvantages and Key Assets for Recovery, Part II. Gender, Race, and Class in the Labor Market. This study examines the employment and earnings of women, particularly women of color, in the city of New Orleans and the metropolitan areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas hardest hit by the hurricanes. The study looks at post-hurricane data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and from the 2005 American Community Survey, and pre-hurricane data from the 2004 American Community Survey and Census 2000 public use microdata. Analysis of post-hurricane data finds that the unemployment rate among evacuees who had not returned was 23 percent, compared with only 4.2 percent among returned evacuees, and that the population in the New Orleans metro area has become more white, less Black, and higher income, as poorer people have been unable to return, particularly single-mothers and their families.

The study’s examination of pre-hurricane data finds deep segregation in the labor market by sex and race. In examining the lowest and highest paid jobs for women and men in the region, the study shows few jobs in either category common to both women and men. In addition, men earn $3,500 to $3,750 more than women in their lowest paid occupations, and $8,700 to $67,000 more in their highest paid occupations. Similar disparities exist between white and Black women. White women work as lawyers, postsecondary teachers, and waitresses, while Black women work as maids, health aids, and cooks. Where overlap exists, white women out earn Black women.

The study recommends a number of policies to ensure that women’s experiences are accounted for in the rebuilding of the region, including enabling lower-income women to return home by offering and increasing affordable housing; restoring basic services, like schools, health facilities, and shelters; providing non-traditional job training for women; employing workforce development initiatives that will allow employers to offer decent wages; providing living wages; and providing child care for women and families. The paper also calls for increased inclusion of women and their needs in plans for rebuilding and for greater recruitment of women of the region into positions of leadership for the rebuilding.

Book Chapter
In addition to our new Briefing Paper, IWPR president Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D., and director of poverty, education, and social justice programs Avis Jones-DeWeever, Ph.D., recently co-authored a chapter on women in the Gulf Coast for a new book entitled, There Is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class & Hurricane Katrina. The book, published by Routledge and edited by Chester Hartman and Gregory Squires, with a Foreword by Mary Frances Berry, is a 311-page volume of 14 essays that cover a range of issues important to the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region, including housing, schools, health, women, the elderly, economic development, planning, and many others.

In their continued efforts to bring voice to women affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Hartmann and Jones-DeWeever contributed a chapter entitled, “Abandoned Before the Storm: The Glaring Disaster of Gender, Race & Class Disparities in the Gulf.” Using federal government data, they examine the region's deep rooted inequalities prior to the hurricanes and underline how the intersection of gender, race, and class has left women of color particularly vulnerable. Hartmann and DeWeever also outline why the experience of women matters for rebuilding and beyond and give recommendations for including women in creating a better Gulf Coast.

To order a copy of this book, please call Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group at 800-634-7064.

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