CPA News Releases, Advisories, and Editorials

Hartford – According to a new poll released today by The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), a majority of women in Connecticut do not feel that the current economic boom has reached them or their families. Not surprisingly, women most want economic security throughout their life cycles, and safer communities.

An overwhelming majority of women in Connecticut strongly support the following policies: equal pay and benefits; job-independent, affordable health care; retirement benefits that are portable from job to job; and stronger gun safety laws. The poll also showed that the top concerns for many women in Connecticut are education, retirement and Social Security, health care, and moral decline. When asked about what would improve their family life, the two top choices for both women and men were shorter and more flexible hours, and a job that pays more.

“We are listening to women’s voices in Connecticut, and their message is unmistakable,” said Leslie Brett, Executive Director of the PCSW. “They want to get paid fairly for the work they do, they want the pillars of economic security, like health care and retirement benefits to be safe and reliable, and they want a safer community for their families.”

“Control” and “flexibility” are women’s watchwords for dealing with economic change regardless of their income, marital status, race, party or generation,” said Linda Tarr-Whelan, President of the Center for Policy Alternatives, the national non-profit public policy organization that conducted the poll. “In Connecticut and nationally, we see that equal pay with benefits and flexibility to juggle family and work are remarkably constant as women’s top concerns in this rapidly shifting economy.”

The poll also showed very strong support among women and men for Connecticut state government to do more to help uninsured people get affordable health insurance. As many as 82% of all women and 73% of men expressed this view. Similarly, six out of ten women and more than half of men agree that more should be done to expand the availability of quality childcare, regardless of whether they themselves have children.

“We hope that policy-makers in Connecticut will take a hard look at these results,” said Cindy Slane, Chairperson of the PCSW and Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Field Placement Programs at Quinnipiac University School of Law. “Women are eager for state government to help find solutions to large, urgent issues such as affordable health care and quality child care. Women recognize that they can’t solve these problems as individuals, and that the marketplace alone is not going to solve these problems either.”

The Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, an agency of the state legislature, has a mandate to conduct an ongoing study of all matters concerning women and to inform leaders of the nature and scope of the problem of sex discrimination. This year, the Commission worked in partnership with the Center for Policy Alternatives and Lifetime Television to conduct the Women’s Voices 2000 polling project. It is a comprehensive polling and research project on women’s values and policy priorities for the economy.

The Center for Policy Alternatives is a national non-profit, non-partisan public policy and leadership development center devoted to community-based solutions that strengthen families and communities. Lifetime is the number one television network for women and is committed to offering the highest quality entertainment and information programming and advocating a wide range of issues affecting women and their families.

In 1992, CPA conducted its first Women’s Voices poll aimed at discovering the most critical issues to American women across the country. This poll identified the gender gap in politics and policy and provided the catalyst to reframe the political debate to address the economic concerns of women. Women’s Voices ’96: Solutions for the New Economy identified the top concerns of women and asked for their thoughts on solutions. Women’s Voices 2000 data continues the trend captured in the two previous polls.

The Women’s Voices poll and focus groups were led by a bi-partisan and multi-cultural polling team. Celinda Lake is President of Lake Snell Perry & Associates, Inc. and is one of the Democratic Party’s political strategists. Linda DiVall, founder of American Viewpoint, is a member of the polling team for the GOP House Leadership. Linda Faye Williams is Associate Professor at the University of Maryland at College Park and has consulted with groups such as the National Black Women’s Political Caucus and the Coalition of 100 Black Women. Ana M. Rivera, with Insight Research, Inc., works with community-based Hispanic and African American organizations. Laura Harris is Executive Vice President with Americans for Indian Opportunity.

Lake Snell Perry & Associates, American Viewpoint, Insight Research, and Linda Faye Williams of the University of Maryland at College Park designed and administered this survey which was conducted by phone using professional interviewers. The survey reached 600 adults in the state of Connecticut – 400 women and 200 men. The survey was conducted between September 14-17, 2000. Telephone numbers for the survey were drawn from a random digit dial sample. Data were weighted to reflect the Bureau of Census estimates of race and education. The margin of error for the women’s sample is 4.9% and the margin of error for the men’s sample is 6.9%.

The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women was established by the State Legislature in 1973. The mandate of the Commission is to “study all matters concerning women, to inform leaders about the nature of sex discrimination, to serve as a liaison between government and private interest groups concerned with services for women, to promote consideration of women for governmental positions, and to work with state agencies to assess programs and practices as they affect women.”

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To view the entire Connecticut Women’s Voices report, click on the website of the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women: http://www.cga.state.ct.us/pcsw/.