After ten minutes of reminiscing, I felt like the cliché about the parents who walked barefoot to school through waist-deep snow. The fellow student (a female) was fascinated, to my relief. However, she knew nothing about Gloria Steinam. She didn't understand what it must have been like to grow up believing her only choices were to marry or to become a secretary. And, she walked away still wondering why she felt so alone in her field of study.

When I returned home, I researched current information about women in the workforce. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I found the choices for women haven't changed much since the mid-seventies. Not only did I feel old…I felt sad.

One positive note: Seven out of ten women age 25 to 54 are in the labor force today, and women make up 45.4% of all paid workers. This is an improvement over 1970, when women comprised 38% of the workforce. In fact, a majority of women hold the following jobs:

99% of secretaries
93% of bookkeepers
93% of nurses
82% of administrative/clerical support workers
91% of textile workers
82% of housekeepers.

This is definitely a majority, but it's a majority in lower-paying jobs. Full-time employed women still earn considerably less than men. The average man with a high school education working full-time still earns more than the college-educated women working full-time. The situation is even worse for African-American, Asian-American, and Latina women.

But what about corporate positions? Haven't our ranks improved there? Yes, they have. Women comprise 46.5% of all executive, management, and administrative positions (up from 24% in 1976), but they remain confined mostly to the middle and lower ranks, and the senior levels of management are still almost exclusively male domains. This percentage is only 12% of all women workers.

At the current rate of increase of women in the boardroom, it will be 465 years - or not until the year 2466 - before women reach equality with men in the executive suite. Let this sink in: Approximately 465 years ago, Henry VIII was in power, Magellan had just circumnavigated the globe, the Spanish were conquering South America, and Hernando de Soto was discovering the Mississippi River.

To add fuel to the fire, it appears women's progress in the workplace is regressing. A recent report released in January showed top women executives' pay fell between 1995 and 2000, increasing the gender gap in workforce equality. For example, female managers in the communications industry made 86 cents for every dollar earned by male managers in 1995. In 2000, a woman in the same field made 73 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Add domestic burdens, which most women still carry (especially single women), and sexual harassment, and we've still got a real mess on our hands.

The worst part is we seem to be passing our inferior and hopeless attitudes - and frustration - on to our children. In a poll dated January 2002 from Junior Achievement, Inc., the following statement was released:

"Not only do women make less than men for similar work performed, but, according to survey results, today's teens believe the same will apply to them two or three decades from now. This "earnings expectations gap" is startling for its stark contrasts. Consider: Nearly two out of three boys think they will make at least $1 million by age 40, while slightly more than one out of three girls believe the same. At the same time, nearly a quarter of girls (24 percent) believe they will make less than $50,000 per year by age 40, while only 11.3 percent of boys think so."*

At this rate, when and where are we really going to find equality in the workplace? It occurred to me there's only one place we can find equal status, and that's in the stock market. Money itself has no gender and no prejudice. Our money can work as well as any man's money, and in many cases we could make our money work a little smarter.

Once again, I beg you to involve your children in your investment process. One to two hours per week, along with $25 per month is all you need to begin your portfolio. This process will take practice and discipline, but when kids and hard-earned money are involved, it's harder to brush this bit of work under the carpet.

You can give your children - especially your daughters - a fighting chance when you teach them how to make their money work for them. No one else is going to do it for you.

Until next week,
Linda Goin

* The 2002 JA Interprise Poll on Kids and Careers was conducted on October 2001 by Junior Achievement in the classrooms of Atlanta, Baltimore, Columbia, S.C., Detroit, Kingsport, Tenn., Ft. Wayne, Ind., Lancaster, Pa., Midland, Mich., Reading, Pa., San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis, Stamford, CT., and various cities throughout Wisconsin. A total of 1559 students participated. You can find information on the above quote about disparity in pay on Pg. 18, http://www.ja.org/aboutJA/whatsnew/interprise/Jan02.pdf. Other information about women in the workforce can be found at HireDiversity.