Impact Report: Labor Force Participation

In December of 2016, the Utah Women and Leadership Project along with the YWCA of Utah brought a group of experts together to identify current resources/strengths, challenges, and potential interventions that would help Utah increase women's participation in the labor force.  What follows are their recommendations organized by category. See the comprehensive list here. Clearly, there is much we can do.

Financial Incentives and Support

• Incentivize paid leave and other interventions that support work and family.
• Explore incentives, if any, from GOED; for example, if companies provide support/benefits, are there incentives through GOED/state?

Technology Infrastructure

• Transportation.
• Explore incentives with affordable housing; for example, is there transit-oriented development close to childcare or elder care?

Creation of Economic Opportunity

• Explore intergenerational communal living.
• Support the expansion of existing programs and resources.
• Partner most closely with nonprofits who engage in this space.

Capability Building

• Provide support for job retention; understand reasons for instability more deeply and provide workshops for employers/employees on these issues.
• Provide more workshops for women looking for jobs and re-entering the workforce. 
• Provide a broader focus of women’s career options.
• Create more resources to help women re-enter the workforce at various levels.
• More trade field apprenticeships needed.
• Need more career training and opportunities for women not getting to college. For example, letting them know there are high paying jobs in male-dominated careers that take only certificates. 

Advocacy and Shaping Attitudes

• Provide outreach to girls and young women to see possibilities, expand thinking, and help them understand conflicting messages.
• Challenge LDS myths regarding women and careers (difference between doctrine and culture).
• Offer training on unconscious bias.
• Continue to provide messaging specifically for women about the importance of attending and completing college.

Laws, Policies, and Regulations

• Explore renters’ rights as they impact staying in the same job for many women.
• Explore issues around wages/salary for having and keeping benefits. 
• Consider legislation around leave and other support policies.
• Strengthen child care policies like simplifying DWS vouchers and seeing if UESP funds be used for childcare while going to college. Audit state jobs; how can they be restructured for optimal work-family or work-life results.
• Consider elder care as part of work-family support.
• Explore comparable pay in state agencies (pilot study). 
• WIEC can explore options related to continuing to decrease barriers in female dominated professions (e.g., interior design).
• Consider transportation access for all who are challenged to get them to work, physicians, childcare, etc.
• Consider state support for some of the solutions.

Research and Data

• Study reasons for job stability more deeply.
• Study the effect of access to transportation, healthcare, and housing on workforce: what are the barriers, who is struggling, and why?
• Study Utah data on the effect of no family planning.
• Study the multiple dimensions of opportunity to employment and education.
• Study the recession recovery and how it is not equal across populations and communities within Utah.
• Study more broadly the complexity of women’s labor force participation, including qualitative studies.
• Because of the complexity, for all future research context is critical; we need to understand the full picture. Utah women have such different experiences, and understanding perceptions and complexity is critical.

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To learn more about Women and Finance in Utah read the entire impact report.