Status Project reports on progress of women’s economic standing

BOULDER The Women’s Foundation of Colorado kicked off its Boulder Status Project June 25 with about 200 in attendance.

The Women’s Foundation was founded in 1987 as a nonprofit research and advocacy group to support organizations that work to improve the economic and social lives of Colorado’s women and girls.

The foundation launched The Status Project to track the economic self-sufficiency of the state’s women and girls. The project has produced three reports. The Status of Women in Colorado was done in partnership with the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research, while The Status of Girls in Colorado and The Women in Technology Report were produced locally.

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The foundation is sharing these reports with communities across the state to stimulate change and foster more opportunities for women and girls. A follow-up meeting of interested people in Boulder will be held July 14.

Foundation President and Chief Executive Marla Williams presented an executive summary of the three reports, sharing what she called both good news and bad. “The good news is (Colorado women) are better educated, paid more and there’s more of us in the work force than the national average,” she said. “The bad news is that we still have one in three single mothers living below the federal poverty level.”

Other significant statistics Williams discussed included:

* Women in Colorado earn 75.3 cents to every dollar men earn, and in Boulder

County that ratio drops to 67 cents to the dollar.

* Women make up 46 percent of the labor force in Colorado, yet hold only a quarter of all technical professional positions.

* High-tech workers in Colorado earn an average salary of more than $60,000, but the average salary for high-tech women is $57,000.

* About one quarter of high-tech women earn less than $40,000 while less than 11 percent of men do. At the same time, 13 percent of high-tech women, compared to 28 percent of men, earn more than $80,000.

The solution to these inequities, according to Williams, is education and advocacy, especially providing technology savvy female role models to girls.

Contact Caron Schwartz Ellis at (303) 440-4950 or e-mail csellis@bcbr.com.