Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy, and Practice

5: Developing Policy to Address the Lived Experiences of Working Mothers

101 /////////////~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Employment in the U.S. labor market does not always translate into economic self-sufficiency especially for marginalized groups. This chapter explores the importance of an intersectional approach to workforce development by addressing three broad research questions: 1. What are the challenges single mothers confront in attaining education and training via public sector initiatives? Specifically how do race, class, and marital status intersect with gender to limit the access of women to public sector education and training? 2. How has the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) conceptualized single working poor mothers and addressed their employment and training needs? 3. Using a case study from New Jersey, how can job training policy be reconceptualized by attending to the intersectionality of women’s identities in order to provide real access to education and training to low-wage working women? While many policymakers have celebrated the success of welfare reform for “ending welfare as we know it” many single working poor mothers could not join the festivities. Instead the end of welfare served to exacerbate their already difficult time of trying to make ends meet. A significant contributor to this was that the “workfirst” policies that were implemented during welfare reform of  primarily used “job placement” as the performance measure of success. In that the goal was to place clients in paid employment, any job was often considered a “good” job, regardless of wages earned, benefits provided, opportunities for advancement, or control over one’s hours. As a result many welfare recipients, among them single mothers, flooded into low-wage jobs during the late s. Yet employment in the U.S. labor market does not 5 Developing Policy to Address the Lived Experiences of Working Mothers MARY GATTA always translate into economic self-sufficiency especially for marginalized groups. In fact in some cases employment can actually intensify poverty as the increased economic and social costs associated with securing and retaining employment, including childcare, eldercare, transportation, and clothing/uniforms (Boushey, Gundersen, & Bernstein, ), typically cost more than one is earning. Moreover, as women tend to bear the brunt of the responsibility for much of this caring labor (Folbe, ), employment in low-wage work, without economic and social supports, continues to trap them in poverty. Policy then must attend to the life experiences of women as workers and mothers in order to help improve their chances of reaching self-sufficiency. To do so, I suggest that job-training policy address the issues of low-wage women using an intersectional approach in order to assess the impacts of public policy . In regard to workforce development policy such an analysis would allow us to examine (among other things) the characteristics of the occupations that women are located in (including the opportunities for advancement, the gender pay gap along race, ethnicity, and irregular work schedules) to determine how they contribute to women’s poverty and make it difficult for them to attain the education and skills training to advance; and factors such as transportation , family demands (including childcare and eldercare), and geographic location, which inhibit women’s access to education. Critical to this approach is understanding the matrix of domination (Collins, )—how differences among low-wage women workers along variables such as race, marital status, and class, shape and reinforce their ability to access public support for education. Further the intersectional approach is not only important in understanding the experiences of single working poor mothers and the effects of job training policy, but also in formulating strategies to address the inequities of these policies. Incorporating an intersectional approach to public employment and training policy has significant positive effects on improving single working poor mothers access to education and training, and in turn, their economic self-sufficiency. The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDLWD) piloted a successful training program that, from the outset, used an intersectional approach to determine the best way to deliver education and skills training to single working poor mothers. The pilot program was conceptualized and implemented attending to the life experiences of women and incorporated within the department’s employment and training system. To accomplish this, the NJDLWD collaborated with gender equity experts to ensure that the program was crafted to accommodate the needs of this population . In doing so, the key players developed and used an intersectional perspective to conceptualize and implement a public policy program. By learning from the New Jersey case study, we can highlight ways to make public policy more effective in meeting the needs of diverse groups. MARY...