Breaking out of the pink-collar ghetto: policy solutions for non-college women

Abstract

This book addresses the issue of how women, particularly those without four-year college degrees, can be assisted to find employment in better-paying, more highly skilled jobs, and the important role that governments and policy makers can play in facilitating this process. The author examines the institutionalised employment patterns that have caused women to be heavily concentrated in marginal, low-wage jobs, in spite of the fact that they make up two-thirds of the US workforce, and explains how these practices are detrimental not only to women, but to communities and the nation. Questions are raised about what training and education options exist for those women who do not have and are not likely to get a college degree, and what kind of programs might meet the needs of a non-college population while providing employers with a highly trained workforce. Chapters in the book are: (1) Pathways out of the pink-collar ghetto; (2) Training policy and alternative career paths; (3) A pattern of decline and its ramifications; (4) Past and current alternative programs: evidence of promise in nontraditional occupations; (5) A little goes a long way: statistical evidence of small program effectiveness; (6) Nuts and bolts I: how states' programs worked; (7) Nuts and bolts II: how nonprofits' programs worked; (8) A call for action.