Just in time to kickoff Women’s History Month, the White House announced a new, comprehensive “statistical portrait” of American women, “Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being.” According to the White House press release, the report “focuses on five critical areas: people, families and income; education; employment; health; and crime and violence. The Administration will be honoring Women’s History Month throughout March, and will highlight a different section of the report every week.”
From the looks of it, though, the major report finding is that there is no major finding. The outlook for women is a mixed bag, not surprisingly. As we’ve been hearing for a while now, women outnumber men in college — and yet the gender pay gap persists. Women outlive men, but we’re more likely to face a range of healthcare issues, including lack of insurance coverage as well as higher rates of depression and obesity. And though violent crimes against women have dropped, problems with intimate partner violence and stalking persist.
There don’t appear to be any shockers in the 100-page doc, but there are a a couple patterns that popped out at me. For instance, women and men are both delaying marriage by an average of five years — no news there. But the typical age gap between heterosexual partners is still the same with men about two years older than the women. And in 2009, divorced women outnumbered divorced men, while never married men outnumbered never married women.
If you don’t feel like scrolling through the thick PDF, the White House will do the heavy lifting for you. As I mentioned above, it plans to release highlights on each of the “five critical areas” throughout March in honor of Women’s History Month.
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