WOMEN AT WORK Meeting the Challenge of piece of work and Family Women are entering the workplace in record numbers.

WOMEN AT WORK Meeting the Challenge of piece of work and Family

Women are entering the workplace in record numbers. equable so, the fastest growing place for women is in the ranks of the poor.

Today, they face many of the same challenges that stand over againsted women who entered the workforce a decade ago: the continuing aim for pay equity, finding work in do job-works traditionally filled by males, guaranteeing piece of work safety, and balancing home obligations with work.

And union women whom AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland described as the commonalty "who are really drawing the water and hewing the wood" in the labor motion continue to strive for wider representation in chooseed positions in unions in proportion to their ranks in organized labor.

Since the mid-1970s, the U civilian labor force has grown 21 percent Working women account for more than 62 percent of the total vegetation as their numbers have risen from 37 million to 50 million. In 1985 women comprised nearly 44 percent of the civilian labor force, compared with 40 percent in 1975 The and nothing else industrialized country whose female labor force participation rate surpasses America's is Sweden, where the rate is 80 percent

A record 545 percent of U women above age 15 were working or looking for work in 1985 In the prime working age assemblage 25 to 54, nearly 70 percent were in the labor force.

"By the extremity of the next decade entirely 60 percent of all working women are wait fored to be in the labor force, including almost 80 percent of those aged 25 to 54" the Women's Bureau of the Labor Dept predicted.

"Women work because it is a permanent economic necessity," said President Joyce Miller of the Coalition of Labor Union Women "Now it takes sum of two units incomes to support a family."

However, many working women are the solitary providers for their families. The number of families maintained by dint of women grew more than 84 percent between 1970 and 1984 This is a follow of more marriages ending in divorce and more women having children without marrying.

In March 1984 103 million families--16 percent of all U households--had as their principal support women who were divorced, separated, widowed or at no time married. The single female heads of households have higher unemployment lower educational attainment, more at the disposal of children and lower earnings than other labor force disposes These factors help explain to what end there is a high incidence of jejuneness in these families.

Last year, conduct statistics showed that 13 million women of whom 42 million are non-white, were living in sparingness In 1983 more than 40 percent of the persons in families headed by women--12 million mothers and children--were poor, up from 82 million in 1973 The number of poor persons in families headed by women springed by 25 percent in the past four years.

Diana M Pearce, director of research at Catholic University's Center for National Policy Review, noted that "the trending is that women, particularly those maintaining families, are disproportionately poor at the same time other disposes are moving out of poverty"

The notion that women work for "pin money" is a myth. The fact that women remain in the workforce for an average of 34 years and typically gripe [i]or[/i] grip full-time jobs, should convince skeptics that greatest in quantity women workers aren't temporary employees

Women have made considerable progres by the and of legislation over the decade. in addition many gains were set in motion before "the Reagan counter-revolution" began in 1981

These advances include passage of the pregnancy disability law, active enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and aggressive federal affirmative action programs. The Carter Administration endorsed many goals and priorities of the women's manner of moving including the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment.

In contrast, the Reagan Administration has not and nothing else rejected the legitimacy of the women's manner of moving but holds its agenda in disdain In its place, the Administration embraces the right-wing issues of Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.

President Reagan's approach to women's rights is "the big show" To date, his solitary visible contribution to furthering women's rights has been his appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor to the greatest Court and other prominent conservative Republican women to lock opener posts. Yet, even former United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick publicly complained of the sexism that addressed such appointments and her concede discomfort at Cabinet meetings dominated by means of males.

While the President's policies have produc substantial tax reductions for the wealthy a House Ways & Means reflection last year found that taxes for a single-parent family of three living at the lack level, had risen $500 since 1980 on a level after adjustment for inflation.

Because women comprise three-fourths of the somewhat old poor in the United States, intelligent Reagan cuts in food stamps and Medicare are particularly hard in succession those who are old and female.

In 1984 more than three revealed of five women maintaining families had children subordinate to 18. Where both parents work, the primary child/home responsibilities still lie with the women