Sharon L. Harlan
The Center for Women in Government, nationally known for research on pay equity and barriers to women's career mobility in the New York State civil service system, is currently expanding its concerns to include new issues relating to women and public policy. As the Center, a unit of the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, begins its fifteenth year of operation, Director Judith Saidel and Research Director Sharon Harlan (both IROW Associates) are excited about these new initiatives. They include work on women and minorities with disabilities, women in public employment nationwide, teenage mothers and nonprofit organizations.
Women and Minorities with Disabilities
Directing a three-year project, Sharon Harlan and Pamela Robert are analyzing the effects of gender, race and work environments on job opportunities in the public sector for people with disabilities. They will examine how institutional and attitudinal barriers restrict the chances of people with disabilities to gain access to competitive employment, to retain jobs after the onset of a disabling condition and to advance their careers in New York State government. Intensive interviews with disabled employees, their co-workers, supervisors and top agency officials will explore the hypothesis that women with disabilities carry a double burden (and minority women a triple burden) of prejudice and discrimination in the labor market. The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research of the U.S. Department of Education is funding the study.
Women in Public Service Bulletin
To document trends of women's employment in state and local government nationwide, the Center began publishing a periodic bulletin in 1991. In the Fall 1992 issue, visiting researcher Catherine White Berheide used date from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to demonstrate that 55 percent of all women employed by state and local governments work on the "sticky floor" of the three lowest-paying job categories-administrative support, para-professional work, and service /maintenance. Two previous issues of the Bulletin, focusing on the numeric gains women have made in public employment and the "glass ceiling" for women in government, generated national media coverage and prompted many inquiries from scholars, professional organizations and advocacy organizations across the country.
Teenage Mothers, Nonprofit Organizations
In a study of the dynamics of poverty over a ten-year period, Katherine Trent and Sharon Harlan are examining the effects of household structure on the economic well-being of women who become mothers as teenagers. Supported by the National Science Foundation, their research has documented extensive differences by race in the living arrangements of young mothers. They also have found evidence that those who live with extended families during adolescence score better on several measures of well-being than those who marry or live alone with their children.
Expanding Judith Saidel's prior research on the interdependence between nonprofit organizations and government, Saidel and harlan are studying the involvement of nonprofit boards of directors in the politics of this relationship. In this research, funded by the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, they are particularly concerned about whether nonprofits continue to be responsive to community interests and standards in the face of pressures to conform to the values of government entities. Such pressures may be particularly detrimental to organizations that serve women, minorities and the poor.