WOMEN’S ECONOMIC SECURITY

We seek to make sustained change by supporting systemic and policy efforts to improve women’s incomes, job security, and their ability to provide adequately for their families. We fund research, advocacy, policy change, and organizational development.

We envision all women as fully contributing members of society. Women lacking economic security struggle every day to meet their own and their family’s most basic needs — food, housing, transportation, and child care. To be fully contributing members of society, women need access to education and training to prepare for participation in the workforce. They also need opportunities to choose and perform work without systemic barriers.

Women today still run into glass ceilings and wage disparities. Many women are faced with the high cost of quality early care and education for their children and barriers to accessing health insurance. These realities demonstrate the critical need for advocacy programs and strategies that increase opportunities for women and families to move from poverty to living wage jobs and economic security. Ensuring that all women have access to quality child care and adequate-paying jobs is critical to a strong, healthy, and self-sufficient workforce and economy.

As they mature, girls need affordable and confidential access to both sex education and health services to ensure that, as women, they can have economic security, a better quality of life and career choices.

Women with independent income have fewer unintended pregnancies and are less likely to be in violent or unhealthy relationships. As family income rises, families increase spending on their children’s education, health care, and nutrition. The effects cumulatively accrue to society as educated daughters become adult providers for their families and invest in the next generation.