For more than 10 years, executive director Meghan Cummings has led the Women’s Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation through a research-driven approach to economic self-sufficiency for women in the region. The Women’s Fund reports that women are disproportionately affected by poverty and bear greater responsibility for caregiving in their family. In the Cincinnati region, nearly 18 percent of women are living in poverty and 69 percent of the children in poverty reside in a single female-headed household. “Our goal is to create a community of women that prosper and lead their potential,” says Cummings. When we think of jobs women typically pursue, many are taking care of children and the elderly: childcare workers, teachers, and retirement homes. “There’s a lot of occupational segregation. The fields that are dominated by men require less education and [pay] more money, [jobs women gravitate toward] require a lot of education and wages are really suppressed. And when we think about job quality—what are we paying, what benefits—those same jobs aren’t supporting the basic needs of your family with PTO or insurance to have a stabling effect on your family.”
Spearheaded by the Women’s Fund, Cummings’s team worked on researching pay inequalities in partnership with the University of Cincinnati Economic Center, evaluating average pay by gender and race. Among the recommendations, the Women’s Fund concluded that self-reporting encourages employers to downgrade their original budget for a position to meet closer to the applicant’s previous salary. For example, if an applicant reports their current salary is $50,000 and the employer has $65,000–$75,000 budgeted for the position, often the employer will offer around $55,000. While the salary offer is higher than the applicant’s current salary, it’s not offering the economic mobility that the applicant could have. “The research tells us women and women of color never get a chance to shed that historic pay equity—their new wage is tied back [to their original salary],” says Cummings. “We can talk to companies all day to change their pay equity audit, [but] you have to go to a higher level and make change at a macro level. In 2019, we passed the salary history ban—a great example of how the research and our recommendations make a policy change.”
Like the salary history ban, the Women’s Fund continues research to address disparities at their root cause. As part of their recurring research program, PULSE studies take a look at the status of women’s economic self-sufficiency. The most recent edition evaluated economic mobility for Black women. Through a multi-phase research project with economic data and interviews with 32 Black women in our community, the team studied why Black women are concentrated in certain parts of our economy. “When we get to that level,” says Cummings. “We know how we can address those issues and how we can communicate to our business leaders in the community.”
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