Mirror Reflects Two Faces of Women in California

By MELISSA HEALY

Nov. 20, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

Sylvia Saavedra, a 38-year-old medical supervisor who emigrated from Guatemala eight years ago, lives in the same state as Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer, but the two women live in very different social and economic worlds.

Boxer makes $133,600 a year, occupies what by any rights would be called a senior managerial position, gets good medical benefits with her job and votes regularly in elections.

Saavedra, a new citizen, makes $14,400 a year and earned health benefits for the first time when she began working for the Clinica de las Americas in the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles three months ago. While she voted in the last election, she says she is in the minority among women in her community.

Saavedra and Boxer represent two very different faces of women in California, as shown in a national study on the status of American women released Tuesday. The report, prepared by a liberal Washington think tank, portrays California as a study in extremes--a state where many women rank among the most successful in financial, professional and legal standing while many others rank among the least advanced.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, California stood among the best states in the country in such measures as annual median earnings for women ($30,000), the ratio of women’s to men’s earnings (73%) and numbers of women in elected office.

But California was in the lowest third of U.S. states on indicators of women’s participation in the labor market (57%), the percent of women without health insurance (16.3%) and the proportions of women who are registered to vote (57.1% in 1994) and who actually vote (47.3% in 1994).

The report portrays a “roller coaster of highs and lows” in California, said Kate Karpilow, director of the Center for Policy Research on Women and Families at California State University in Sacramento.

Boxer, who was visiting residents of several low-income neighborhoods Tuesday in Los Angeles, said the report underscored the importance of progress on several economic initiatives that she has pressed for or supported in Congress--including a higher minimum wage, reforms to broaden access to health care insurance and protections of women’s pensions.

She called the state’s record of electing women to state and national legislatures “a bright spot” that will lay the groundwork for future progress for women. “I think when women are in these legislatures, the focus really is on kitchen-table issues.”

But Boxer added that women living in poverty face a vicious cycle: While their futures and those of their daughters could be improved if they voted, she said, many are too exhausted by the challenge of supporting families, holding down low-wage jobs and coping with neighborhoods filled with crime and poverty. “It isn’t surprising they aren’t thinking about voting,” Boxer said.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research is associated with a long list of liberal advocacy groups ranging from the Urban Institute to the Children’s Defense Fund. But there is little debate about the validity of most indicators that the group used to rank states, including women’s earnings, business ownership, educational attainment, voting behavior and numbers living in poverty.

One indicator, however, is controversial. The group devised an index of reproductive rights, measuring access to abortion providers, requirements for waiting periods and parental notification for abortions, as well as gay and lesbian couples’ rights to adopt children. On that index, the group ranked California 13th in the nation. The state has a waiting period for abortions, but also a relatively high level of abortion providers.

In all, the institute named California as a state in which women do well, and lauded the Pacific states generally--Washington, Oregon, Alaska and California--as a region where women enjoy relatively high states of social and economic well-being. But the Golden State still ranked behind Washington, D.C., Maryland, Vermont and Connecticut.

While the country’s coastal regions generally fared well in the report, many Midwestern states ranked poorly. “Although many commentators speak of states like Indiana or Ohio as embodying ‘good, solid Midwestern values’ or ‘the values of the nation,’ these states are actually statistical outliers reflecting a far lower status of women than many other states that could be used to embody the nation’s values,” said Heidi Hartmann, president of the institute.

Nowhere in the nation did women earn as much as men, according to 1990 statistics used for that portion of the study. They came closest in Washington, D.C. where women made 88 cents for every dollar earned by men that year. Nationwide, women made 69 cents for every dollar a man made, female workers in California made 73 cents for each dollar earned by their male co-workers. That figure put California in sixth place nationally, alongside New York.

California women also ranked high in median annual salaries. Nationwide, half of all full-time, year-round female workers made more than $22,000. In California, the median was $30,000, ranking the state fifth nationwide.

The state fared well in the proportion of firms owned by women (35.5% compared to 34.1% nationally) and of women who work in managerial or professional jobs (30.3% compared to 28.7% nationally).

But statewide, some 13.2 million women--16.3% of the state’s female population--are without health insurance. And 11.6% of California women live under the poverty line--lower than the national average of 13.2%, but higher than 16 other states.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Where California Stands

National rankings for California women on various issues, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia:

EARNINGS AND ECONOMICS

(Rank)

Women’s median annual earnings (1990): 5

Ratio of women’s to men’s earnings (1950): 6

Women’s labor force participation (1994): 41

Women in management and professional positions (1994): 16

Women business ownership (1992): 12

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POLITICS