HomeLearning CenterWhat Would the Economy Look Like If It Worked For Women?

What Would the Economy Look Like If It Worked For Women?

Last year, Heather McCulloch set out across the country asking women a question that has long been absent from discussions in her field: What would the economy look like if it worked for you?

The findings, first shared exclusively with The 19th, highlight a list of the top challenges women of all backgrounds say are standing in the way of their economic mobility and what they view as the key policy solutions to those barriers. 

McCulloch and her research partner, Céline Apollon, sought input from Black women, Latinas, Asian-American and Pacific Islander women, Native American women, transgender women, LGBTQ+ women, women with disabilities and women across the socioeconomic spectrum, from entrepreneurs to service workers. They spoke to people who are often invisible in the policy-making process and literally invisible in much of the data on the economy. 

McCulloch, an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program and the founder of Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap, said the vision was to flip the script on the traditional approach in which White men write economic policies and women are an afterthought.

“What’s happened is that our economy has changed and women, people of color and young folks of color are playing a bigger role … and yet we don’t acknowledge that and in fact I think our political discourse understates the role women are playing,” McCulloch said. “That was one of the drivers for doing the research.”

Read more at The 19th

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