The Economic Insecurity of American Women Is The Economic Insecurity of Americans

45% of American mothers are the financial breadwinners in their households, but in 2024, full-time working mothers earned 35% less than full-time working fathers on average — a gap that’s estimated to cost roughly $600,000 in lost wages over 30 years.

“For most American households, who rely on women’s earnings, that means far fewer resources to secure the essentials, like housing, healthcare and groceries,” as I wrote in this recent column for MarketWatch uncovering what we still get wrong about the gender pay gap and our complacency with it actually costs us:

“This economic insecurity is particularly troubling given that women remain tasked with the vast majority of primary caretaking responsibilities, of children, as well as the elderly, ill, disabled, and other dependents.

Meaning the economic insecurity of American women is the economic insecurity of American families and communities.

This financial strain follows women throughout their lives as decades of underpayment compound into lesser average retirement savings and lower Social Security benefits, which women are far more likely to depend on given their lesser paychecks and longer lifespans, on average.

As a result, American women over the age of 65 remain significantly more likely than their male peers to live in poverty — a gendered precarity that is effectively reproduced as daughters are overwhelmingly shouldered with the price of caring for aging parents and relatives.

These constraints remain so chronically gendered and unequal, that even as younger generations of women have aged into their peak earnings years with more education and experience than ever, today’s gender pay gap mirrors the gender pay gap from twenty years ago.”

Today I’m sharing a conversation that pairs perfectly with this column (which you can finish reading here) as it turns our focus to solutions: “When you create workplaces with the needs of women in mind, you’re creating better workplaces for everyone so that everyone can thrive,” said Clare Bresnahan English, senior director of the Workplace Innovation (WIN) Challenge and Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute

I got a chance to interview Clare after serving as a judge for the WIN Challenge, a new initiative of Aspen Digital, supported by Pivotal, a group of organizations founded by Melinda French Gates.

The WIN Challenge is a $60 million nationwide grant competition for bold, scalable solutions addressing the ongoing structural barriers for women in the workplace. “We had over 800 applications from nonprofits all across the country and what we found is that the most common barriers that folks are looking at are the broken rung — so getting to the promotion rates that impact salary and career trajectory — and caregiving responsibilities and how our systems are just not supported for them,” said Clare.

This isn’t ‘power posing’ tutorials or telling women to adjust their voice or their clothes or the punctuation in their emails to get ahead, it’s an initiative built on the recognition that women’s biggest barriers to getting ahead aren’t themselves, but the environments around them. One that builds upon data-backed methods and proven interventions instead of false assumptions and faulty beliefs that wind up reinforcing the very gender inequalities they claim to challenge.

“The data that we have shows that when you are creating solutions that are centered around women, it’s not zero-sum. You are really, truly building a workplace where everyone’s going to be able to thrive. Everyone’s going to be able to be more productive. They’re going to be able to be more effective in their roles. They’re going to be able to be more creative,” said Claire. “This is a time where, whether you’re working for a small nonprofit or a large Fortune 500 company, we need the best innovations to be able to manage such an ever-shifting uncertain economic landscape. You need the best out of folks and to understand that when you’re creating innovation and workplaces with women in mind, you’re actually creating an environment where everyone can thrive.”

Clare’s perspective here aligns with my conclusion that the economic insecurity of American women in the economic insecurity of Americans, as it essentially suggests the inverse must also be true — that economic prosperity of American women is the economic prosperity of Americans (an argument I make in greater detail on page 257 of my book, The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up — and Then Pushes Them Down):

“By optimizing for men’s relative outcomes — power over women — rather than their absolute outcomes — security, safety, autonomy and well-being — patriarchy undermines these fundamental needs, for everyone. By contrast, a commitment to cultivating our collective wellbeing turns out to be associated with all kinds of better outcomes:

· In an analysis of nearly two decades of data across nearly 140 nations, the International Monetary Fund found that gender equality is associated with lower income inequality and lower wealth inequality more broadly.

· According to data analysis of 156 countries over a decade, greater gender equality was also associated with longer life expectancy for both men and women.

· Gender equality is also positively correlated with GDP per capita - so when gender inequality is low, people tend to enjoy both higher incomes and higher standards of living, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap index. These correlations also appear across metrics of work-life balance and well-being, with greater gender equality associated with more of both.

By contrast, greater gender inequality is associated with greater income and wealth inequality, lower standards of living, lower work-life balance and well-being, and shorter life spans.”

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You can tune into my full conversation with Clare above to hear us chat more about solutions to workplace inequality that actually work and follow along with the WIN challenge as winners are announced this Fall!

My new book “THE AMBITION PENALTY: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up — and Then Pushes Them Down“ was spotted in this recent roundup of ‘40 Great New Books You May Have Missed’ by Maris Kreizman for LitHub, with this blurb from one of my favorite writers lyz Lenz, bestselling author & creator of the must-read Men Yell at Me newsletter:

“O’Connell’s book is an insightful look into why the glass ceiling still exists, and no, it’s not because you aren’t trying hard enough. This book both explains the system and offers a way through.”

A quick reminder that one of the best way to support me (and this work) is to buy the book, share it and review it if you love it (on Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble or wherever you get and discover your books).

And if you would like to join THE AMBITION PENALTY book club (kicking off this July), make sure you submit your order details through the form on this website. I’ll be sending out the link for our first call (discussing Part I of the book — Introduction, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2) to those who’ve signed up soon!