Lawton: Childcare is key economic development issue

By Robert Chappell
Madison Business Editor

Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton today identified childcare as the single largest obstacle to women’s prosperity.

In remarks to attendees of the Wisconsin Women Forward conference, she also challenged the participants to “blow the tops off’ of all the issues impeding the progress of women.

“We all know the status quo is more dangerous than launching into new territory,” she said, garnering a round of applause.

Addressing the estimated 780 participants, Lawton identified a number of issues that led to a 2002 Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) study that gave Wisconsin a grade of C- for the status of women.

The study examined statistical measures of economic sufficiency, leadership and political participation, educational achievement and health and well being.

It found that while Wisconsin women are more likely to work than women in neighboring states, their wages as compared to wages of men lagged significantly behind the national average.

In response, Lawton launched Wisconsin Women Equal Prosperity, which she calls “an economic development initiative.” The effort has garnered national attention.

“The IWPR has asked me to come speak to them in June and their big national conference,” Lawton said, “because we in Wisconsin have done more with that report than any other state in the nation.”

Today’s conference is the first statewide gathering to come of the effort.

“All of the issues are inextricable,” Lawton said in opening remarks this morning.

“Whether we are talking about access to education and training or about women’s access to necessary health care or about being able to keep our jobs and have a work-life balance, all of these issues are involved in our prosperity.”

The Wisconsin Women Equal Prosperity (WW=P) initiative has spent two years gathering anecdotal and empirical data on the challenges facing women in Wisconsin, and is now ready to put what it has learned to good use, Lawton said.

“We’re moving into the action phase, plugging in the power grid around the state,” she said.

Lawton challenged attendees to be “policy wonks” for the day as they separated into groups to address each of the four issues identified in the IWPR study. But she cautioned that childcare is the issue that informs all others.

“The biggest obstacle to women’s success is childcare, and by extension elder care,” Lawton said.

“It has always been women’s work, unpaid and unheralded. We bear the children and have traditionally had to leave the work force to do that. We care for them without compensation and that, unfortunately, sets the market value for our work.

“Other countries don’t shy away from this issue,” she added, citing a law in Chile which requires any company with more than 20 female employees to provide free care for children under 5 years of age.

In addition to addressing the need for quality childcare and a better wage for childcare workers, Lawton decried the lack of women in leadership positions.

She noted that women make up more than half of the state’s population, but no women sit on the Milwaukee city council and only 20 percent of the state legislature is women.

“Democracy without the majority in positions of leadership is no democracy,” she said.

Lawton also said the WW=P research indicated a lack of role models for young women. “If each one of us agreed to mentor a woman 10 years younger than us, think of the changes we can make,” she said.

The conference was to include workshops led by major sponsors Harley-Davidson, Johnson Controls and Manpower, Inc. as well as regional sessions. A rally at the state capitol with the bipartisan women’s caucus was set for 5 p.m.