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Daily Archives: April 15, 2014

The Economic Importance of Women’s Rising Hours of Work

Eileen Appelbaum, Heather Boushey, and John Schmitt |April 15, 2014: “Over the past three decades, there has been a steady rise in the share of women, especially mothers, in the workforce. As indicated by the data, the majority of women and mothers work, and many work full time and full year. This dramatic increase in women’s working hours has had a substantial impact both on household earnings and the economy more generally. Our analysis finds that:

  • Middle-class households would have substantially lower earnings today if women’s employment patterns had remained unchanged. Had that been the case, gross domestic product, or GDP, would have been roughly 11 percent lower in 2012 if women had not increased their working hours as they did. In today’s dollars, this translates to more than $1.7 trillion less in output—roughly equivalent to combined U.S. spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in 2012.
  • Most dramatic is the increase in the share of mothers who work full time and full year—at least 35 hours per week and 50 weeks per year—which rose from 27.3 percent of mothers in 1979 to 46 percent of mothers in 2007 before declining somewhat to 44.1 percent in the wake of the Great Recession. Full-time, full-year employment for all women increased from 28.6 percent of all women in 1979 to 43.6 percent in 2007 before declining to 40.7 percent in 2012.
  • The median annual hours worked by women increased 739 hours from 1979 to 2012. All of this increase in median hours took place between 1979 and 2000. Median annual hours of work by mothers increased even more dramatically, rising 960 hours from 1979 to 2012, with all of the increase occurring by 2000.”

Vital Signs: Births to Teens Aged 15–17 Years — United States, 1991–2012

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly – April 11, 2014 / 63(14);312-318: “The U.S. teen birth rate has continued to decline, from 84.1 births per 1,000 teens aged 15–19 years in 1991 to an all-time low of 29.4 in 2012 (1). Despite this trend, approximately 305,000 infants were born to teens aged 15–19 years in 2012 , and… Continue Reading

EU Report – Text and Data Mining

Standardisation in the area of innovation and  technological development, notably in the field of Text and Data Mining – Report from the Expert Group, 2014. “Text and data mining (TDM) is an important technique for analysing and extracting new insights and knowledge from the exponentially increasing store of digital data (‘Big Data’). It is important to understand the… Continue Reading

Twelve states produced 80% of U.S. wind power in 2013

“In 2013, 12 states accounted for 80% of U.S. wind-generated electricity, according to preliminary generation data released in EIA’s March Electric Power Monthly report. Texas was again the top wind power state with nearly 36 million megawatthours (MWh) of electricity. Iowa was second, with more than 15 million MWh, followed by California, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon,… Continue Reading

Pew – A new organization for cybersecurity across the electric grid

Meghan McGuinness: “Cyber attacks are an increasing risk for the US electric sector and have eclipsed terrorism as the primary threat, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team responded to 256 incidents that targeted critical infrastructure sectors in fiscal year 2013, and 59 percent of those incidents involved the… Continue Reading

Beta Release of Workforce Statistics Analysis Tool

“The U.S. Census Bureau is unveiling a new Web-based analysis tool that provides access to the full Quarterly Workforce Indicators dataset. The tool — named QWI Explorer — includes measures on employment, job creation and destruction, hires and wages from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program. QWI Explorer allows users to compare, rank and aggregate indicators… Continue Reading

Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault (2014)

“The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) measures the rates at which Americans are victims of crimes, including rape and sexual assault, but there is concern that rape and sexual assault are undercounted on this survey. BJS asked the National Research Council to investigate this issue and recommend best practices for… Continue Reading

Pew – The Next America

“Demographic transformations are dramas in slow motion. America is in the midst of two right now. Our population is becoming majority non-white at the same time a record share is going gray. Each of these shifts would by itself be the defining demographic story of its era. The fact that both are unfolding simultaneously has… Continue Reading

Supervisory framework for measuring and controlling large exposures – final standard

“This Basel Committee on Banking Supervision standard sets out a supervisory framework for measuring and controlling large exposures. The framework is scheduled to take effect from 1 January 2019 and will supersede the Committee’s 1991 standard on this topic. Since publication of the original standard, the financial system has changed dramatically. While many jurisdictions modelled their national rules… Continue Reading