The third Shriver Report was just released on January 7, 2014 (the first and second were released in 2009 and 2010). According to Ellen Bravo, our partner at Family Values @ Work, “What the Shriver Report makes clear is that both women and men are breadwinners and caregivers – and they need policies that allow them to succeed at both. Otherwise millions of families are just one illness or birth away from economic peril.”
Ellen goes on, in an excellent blog post, to summarize: “The problem, says Maria Shriver, is that “government and businesses have not kept up and we need to modernize our relationship to women” so that they will have a “foundation to stand on.” She urges women to come together and work along with men for change.
Policies like paid sick days and family and medical leave insurance are a key part of that foundation. And women and men around the country are becoming involved in the fight to win those policies – to make sure that employment is a way out of poverty, not another form of poverty, and that a job strengthens family rather than putting loved ones at risk.
In addition to becoming engaged in campaigns to win concrete policy change, women, who represent 54% of the electorate, should and will use their vote. Candidates who champion policies that value women’s work in the labor market and at home will reap the benefit. And those who don’t may learn what it’s like to lose a job.