Fed Chair Janet Yellen: Barriers are still holding women back today in workplace
Janet Yellen Federal Reserve Chair says that, although in the past 125 years, women have made major strides in workplace, they still face barriers which are holding them back, even today.
In a speech at Brown University, during a conference celebrating 125 years of women at the Ivy League school, Fed Chair cited a recent study that revealed that boosting the participation rate of women in the workforce to the same level of men could raise overall U.S. economic output by 5 percent.
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According to her, women’s participation rate in the workforce climbed to around 74 percent by the early 1990s, while the rate for women in their prime working years currently stands at about 75 percent, compared to a participation rate for men of around 88 percent.
“While some married women choose not to work, the size of this disparity should lead us to examine the extent to which structural problems such as a lack of equal opportunity and challenges to combining work and family are holding back women’s advancement,” she said, according to ABC News.
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Yellen also pointed out that, although the gap in earnings between men and women has narrowed substantially over the years, progress has slowed lately. Women who work full time earn about 17 percent less than men on average. The gender pay gap is obvious even for those who have similar occupations and similar experience, given that in these cases, men earn 10 percent more than women.
“We cannot rule out that gender-related impediments hold back women, including outright discrimination, attitudes that reduce women’s success in the workplace and an absence of mentors,” Yellen told a crowd of several hundred Brown alumni.
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She also cited factors that appear to be constraining women, including the difficulties they face in trying to combine their careers with responsibilities at home.
“The experience in Europe suggests picking policies that do not narrowly target childbirth, but instead can be used to meet a variety of the health and caregiving responsibilities,” Yellen said.
Janet Yellen, who graduated from Brown in 1967 with a degree in economics after switching her major from philosophy, is the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve.
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