Believe it or not, women are doing better

It’s easy to get the impression, as the U.S. celebrated the 45th annual Women’s Equality Day last month, that the march toward equality has slowed to a crawl. Allow me to disagree.

True, the usual statistics tell a story of stalled progress. Women’s labor-force participation stands at less than 57 percent, down from a peak of 60 percent in the late 1990s. The rapid improvements in the gender wage gap that occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s show little sign of returning.

A deeper look, however, suggests more fundamental change in women’s experiences as equals at home and in the workplace.

Despite slow progress in earnings on average, more women are out-earning their husbands. Men, for their part, are increasingly recognizing the importance of making a contribution at home: They are now more likely than women to say that work is interfering with their family life and are increasingly seeking out employers that offer paternity leave and workplace flexibility.

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Although stay-at-home dads and breadwinner wives are still minorities, their growing presence is changing people’s expectations about the appropriate roles for men and women.

In the workplace, women are more likely to be in positions of leadership. They are now the majority of workers in management, professional and related occupations – which shouldn’t come as a surprise, given their dominance in higher education. Glass ceilings are breaking, and not only in the presidential race: In 2015, 28 percent of all CEOs were women, up from 23 percent in 2008. Females own 38 percent of all businesses, compared with 29 percent in 2007.

Changing attitudes are translating into better behavior. For instance, fewer women are reporting sexism or being sexually harassed at work compared with a decade ago.

To be sure, there’s still much more to be done. Legislating paid family leave would help bring U.S. government policy more in line with a changing society.

Businesses, for their part, must adapt to the needs of their workers, which means instituting more family-friendly policies and making a concerted effort to reduce the pay gap. The more businesses do to find and share solutions, the more they and the broader economy will benefit. •

Betsey Stevenson is a Bloomberg View columnist and an associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan.

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  1. While the stats on a higher percentage of CEOs and business owners being women is reassuring I have to differ on your statement ‘changing attitudes are translating into better behavior’. This may be true in big companies where they enforce rules regarding sexual harassment. Small companies do not. I think a lot of women are just not reporting it anymore because it is swept under the rug. Usually their job is the one that changes not the person in power doing the harassing.