Women's Foundation is known for our work in identifying key issues that put women at a disadvantage and then finding solutions to improve those areas. We're focused on using empirical research to identify and propose solutions to problems facing women in order to get significant results.
Last year, we released our findings on the Status of Women in Missouri in order to identify the barriers women face in the hopes of inspiring policy solutions that would make meaningful changes in Missouri. In March 2016, we released the findings of our newest study, The Status of Women in Kansas. Our data depicts significant disparities in 5 key areas:
Employment and Income
- Women in Kansas who work full-time, year-round earn an average of only 79 cents for every dollar of male earnings.
Education and Child Care
- In Kansas, child care costs are 31 percent of female median earnings. Some counties have very few child care options.
- Elk and Wallace counties in Kansas each have only one licensed child care facility; each county is home to over 85 children under the age of 5.
Health
- 30.19% of working age women in Kansas- living in households with income below 200% of the poverty level- have no health insurance.
Poverty and Social Insurance
- 39% of single-mother households are in poverty in Kansas and child poverty has doubled in Kansas since 2000.
- Among people age 65 and over, women in Kansas are almost twice as likely to be in poverty as men.
Leadership
- Although women make up 50.7% of Kansas's population they comprise only 24.8% of the legislature.
And that's the tip of the iceberg.
These key findings on the Status of Women in Kansas, while alarming, provide the public with valuable information regarding the standards and practices in the state. We hope that this report brings the importance of empowering women in the growth and development of the state economies into light. Women's Foundation has already started to work for change and identify solutions to improve the lives of Kansas women and their families. We hope you will join us.
The full study and results can be viewed online here: www.womens-foundation.org/research