most likely users of drugs without prescriptions for nonmedical purposes are younger males, 18 to 25, but the highest proportion of users of prescribed drugs are middle-aged, 35 to 49, women. And the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that 32 million women, as opposed to 19 million men, have used tranquilizers and they've also used sedatives and stimulants, with alcohol being one of the abused drugs. Sixty percent of all drug-related emergency room visits were made by women, but the interesting thing, I think, the most shocking part of these statistics is that the median age for drug-related deaths of white men and black men and women is 28. The median age for drug-related deaths for white women is 43. And so, the woman is allowed to get to a point where she is helplessly enmeshed in alcohol and other drugs, not identified, left alone. People will not face the fact that she needs help until it gets to a point where there isn't any alternative. And one of the alternatives that a woman who is depressed and under the influence of alcohol sees as a potential alternative is to take her life. She doesn't see any answer to that problem.

When we drink a great deal, our options are closed to us. We get a kind of tunnel vision where all we see is just two or three possibilities, and rather than deal with the terror of her life, it seems easier for her to simply take her own life or withdraw from life.

Mr. GREEN. If I could just turn to the field of education, you mentioned the difficulty of access to graduate education on the part of midlife women. I gather that is probably a problem for men as well as women; that most of the professional schools are reluctant to take people in midlife, I guess particularly the medical schools. That was certainly part of the background in the Bakke case, for example.

Dr. BROTHERS. What happens really in your community colleges where there is lots of room and not enough students, then women are courted. They are asked to come back. There are outreach programs or programs to get them back into the schools. But where you get into the graduate schools, particularly medical, dental, veterinarian schools, and so on, where there are very, very few positions, then all of a sudden that desire for this very desirable person changes and the woman reaches a blank wall again. She is then at the bottom of the list of desirables, and there is very real discrimination at that point. Mr. GREEN. So you think that discrimination is not against middleaged people generally?

Dr. BROTHERS. It is against middle-aged people generally, but if you rank them it is far more against the middle-aged woman than against the middle-aged male.

Mr. GREEN. I see. Thank you.

Mr. PEPPER. Thank you. Mr. Evans.

Mr. EVANS. I have no questions at this time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. Hopkins?

Mr. HOPKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Brothers, do you know of any significance, any difference, that women are treated other than men by the Small Business Administration of this country?

Dr. BROTHERS. You mean that they treat them in a different way as far as giving them help in starting in business?

Mr. HOPKINS. Right.

Dr. BROTHERS. I am not familiar with it, but I would not be surprised to find it is harder for a woman to start a business in the same

way that it is harder for a woman to obtain money in politics, as well. People judge past successes. Since we have so many men who were successful in politics, the money seems to go to the successful politician. And therefore his campaign has the money so that he increases his success. For a woman in politics today the money is not as easily available because there are not as many women who have proven to be able to get into office. And so, my guess would be that that same factor is also true in business because we have so few women entering the business world. The money seems to be more of a gamble to back her than to back him, and until we have more women who have been given an opportunity to prove themselves to be good business people, it would be as I say, I don't know the figures, I have not studied this area, but I would not be surprised to find that there was this attitude that we find in many, many industries.

I think, also, that industries generally need to be encouraged, not just governmental action, but I think that there should be in industry programs to cope with this age-sex bias, campaigns conducted in the community to encourage participation by midlife women, let the community know that education is rewarding and not to be considered the exclusive province of the young, to initiate and offer services for adult. counseling centers for women, to grant credit in education for life experiences which have been appropriately evaluated, and to give financial aid to part-time, as well as full-time students, and to provide counseling for midlife women. I would like to see industry giving increased benefits for part-time work to provide on-the-job day care experimenting with the 4-day week and flextime, provide job training for midlife women, provide some marital and family counseling for employees and also, to provide time and incentive for consciousnessraising programs to break down this age-sex bias of employees and others. Did you have a specific incident that you know of?

Mr. HOPKINS. No, I haven't. I have other questions along that line for other witnesses though. Dr. Brothers, let me ask you, are you a proponent for the equal rights amendment?

Dr. BROTHERS. I am in favor of the equal rights amendment, yes. Mr. HOPKINS. Dr. Brothers, do you actually believe that the equal rights amendment would help the midlife women of this country? Dr. BROTHERS. I believe it very strongly. I think it is extremely important.

Mr. HOPKINS. You believe, then, that it would be very helpful to the people, particularly the women of this country?

Dr. BROTHERS. Yes.

Mr. HOPKINS. I don't mean to put you on the spot, I just wanted to find out whether you are convinced on the question of E.R.A., because, certainly, I believe in it also.

On the question of alcohol, you stated that a quarter of the Nation's suicides are committed by chronic alcoholics and female alcoholics have a particularly high suicide rate. Are you familiar with the differentials in the suicide rates between men and women?

Dr. BROTHERS. Yes; overall men have a higher suicide rate. We are talking about the woman alcoholic. Certainly, when women alcoholics often kill themselves when they have a divorce or when their adolescent children create a problem, the woman feels she is not being a successful parent. She thinks she has nothing left to live.

for. She has lost her sense of purpose. Women alcoholics seem to be particularly sensitive. There are crises that happen to every woman at some point in her life. Not every woman gets a divorce, but every woman has some point in her marriage where she runs into some problems in that marriage. No marriage is totally smooth, unless people don't care enough about each other to fight, and then you've got an anemic marriage. But, most women manage very well because they have their own resources. It's the woman who doesn't have the resources that we're talking about today, or who can be helped over the crisis. But for the woman alcoholic, her resources have been dissipated totally in her drinking and she sees this as the only answer for her. And that's why the higher figures for her.

Mr. HOPKINS. The figures indicate that the differential between men and women as far as suicides are concerned, becomes even larger with an increase in age. Perhaps that says something once and for all as to just who is driving who crazy. It seems to me that with this in mind, the attention as far as suicide is concerned ought to focus to some degree at least, on men as much as on women.

Dr. BROTHERS. Oh yes, without any question.

Mr. HOPKINS. If you were a Member of Congress, what would you do, or what would you recommend to those of us who are Members of Congress to overcome the age and the sex bias in this country?

Dr. BROTHERS. I think we need more education on the fact that as we get older we do not get less intelligent. That myth has been perpetrated on and on and on. It does seem that if you started dull normal, there is a dropoff in increasing years, but for people who are normal and bright, they can expect to be better able to deal with the world, to have knowledge of the world that increases rather than decreases. We need to pay more attention to the wisdom that comes with age and not consider that people are disposable when they get into a certain point. We need more information. I think that is one of the most important biases that we have and it is a bias that started in psychology many years ago. They had some studies in which they took large groups of 20-year-old people and large groups of 50-year-old people and gave them a battery of tests and found that on the average the 20 year olds did better than the 50 year olds. But now they've had the time to do the longitudinal studies taking that same person at age 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and beyond. And they find that, yes, there is a dropoff in the dull normal, there is a large dropoff, which brings the average down. But for most people who continue to be interested in the world around them, they can become brighter and brighter as time goes on. The only deficit is a reaction time deficit. But the reaction time of the 70-year-old man or woman is equivalent to the reaction time of a 12-year-old boy or girl, so that's not much of a handicap. Mr. HOPKINS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON [now presiding]. I have just one question for you, Doctor, that I hope was not asked while I was unavoidably absent. What suggestions would you give to the midlife woman to aid her to help herself?

Dr. BROTHERS. First of all, I think there ought to be some kind of counseling which would help a woman identify her strengths and weaknesses. A man who has a history of various jobs has tried many different things before he can identify what it is that is going to be

right for him. If a woman has stepped out, either to take care of children or to take care of an aging parent, or whatever reason, she has not had as much job experience, and I would like to see more in that kind of test taking or background ability to identify strengths. I think also, there should be more encouragement of women to share jobs, job sharing, so that they can go back on a part-time basis, building a feeling of success as they go.

Mr. BURTON. Do you believe that individuals really would be willing to reach out for some type of counseling service? How would they be aware of it?

Dr. BROTHERS. There are also groups that she can join today who help a woman identify her strengths. Most women-if you were to give a large group of men and women a piece of paper with a line down the center and say, "Write your good points and your bad points,' the men would tend to have a lot of good things about themselves and a few bad things, and the woman vice versa. There are groups that will help a woman identify her strengths, to look at the things that she has accomplished rather than the things that she has not accomplished and help her build that self-confidence. But I think the most important thing that a woman herself can do is to get out in the world and try with the attitude that if you tried 10 things and 9 don't work, but 1 thing works, that she's ahead of the game.

Mr. BURTON. In other words, she just has to go out and keep plugging, in effect, and not sit at home withdrawn and resigned to her fate.

Dr. BROTHERS. I think all of the help we can give women, a woman has to meet us half way. She has to learn herself to stand on her feet and be willing to try, be willing to take failure and to learn from failure. Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Doctor, for your very valuabletestimony.

Dr. BROTHERS. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. Excuse me, the Senator had something to ask.

Mr. PEPPER. I have two questions for you, Dr. Brothers. The Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination against women in employment. How effective has that act been in preventing discrimination against. women in employment?

Dr. BROTHERS. Well, I think we have to look at the statistics that Miss Oakar gave us of the differential between what a man is paid and what a woman is paid. I believe what you said was that a high school dropout males makes on the average $4,000 more than a woman with a college degree.

MS. OAKAR. Right.

Dr. BROTHERS. So that although the law is there very clearly, we are a long time in seeing true equality in pay for men and women.

Mr. PEPPER. The last question is: I have often observed in respect to the elderly that basically what they want is to be treated as people, not as old people with the implication that they are no longer useful or valuable or able to make any significant contribution to their time in society. Basically, that's your comment about the midlife woman. They don't want to be judged because maybe they're not the beauty that they might have been when they won the local beauty contest as girls. That doesn't have anything to do with doing a good job. If they're clean and neat, and wholesome, and intelligent, and devoted to their work and gracious in their relationship with other people, that

is what should be expected. So they simply do not want to be treated as a faded beauty and they do not want to be regarded as a competitor of the male, or something like that, where each is pushing the other for a position. They simply want to be treated like people deserving of recognition and an opportunity to establish their identities and achieve their goals. Isn't that basically what they yearn for?

Dr. BROTHERS. Sir, in addition to being a fine Congressman, you're also a fine psychologist.

Mr. PEPPER. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. BURTON. Jobs are central to many midlife women's rising expectations. It is private industry which must create the overwhelming proportion of new jobs. One of the most innovative job creators is the Nation's leading corporation for temporary employment, Manpower, Inc. I welcome as our next witness the president of Manpower, Inc., Mr. Mitchell Fromstein.

In the interest of your time, we would like you to summarize your prepared remarks. To the members, because this witness has time constraints, we shall limit our questions.

[See appendix 1, p. 105 for Mr. Fromstein's prepared statement.] STATEMENT OF MITCHELL FROMSTEIN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, MANPOWER, INC., MILWAUKEE, WIS.

Mr. FROMSTEIN. My name is Mitchell Fromstein. I am president and chief executive officer of Manpower, Inc. a worldwide service firm supplying temporary help to business firms in 32 countries. Our company employed approximately 600,000 individuals last year; onehalf of that number in the area of office work.

My company and I personally appreciate your invitation to offer some thoughts and ideas on the problems of women in the United States, particularly in the area of employment opportunities and income potential. From my brief introduction, my interest in this subject should be quite apparent. Through the process of acting as the employer of more than 150,000 office workers in the United States, a large number of whom fall into the so-called midlife category, we are acutely aware of the needs, desires, capabilities and work-force characteristics of this very important segment of our American population. In our continuing search for the fast-disappearing officeworker, we in the temporary help industry have relied upon this subgroup for many years. Within our own organization, we have conducted many studies aimed at finding more and more of these valuable individuals as the demand for their skills increases geometrically in the business world. We know they are there but our ability to reach them in sufficiently large numbers has been limited. We are, therefore, extremely encouraged by the attention being centered by this committee upon the midlife woman. We are hopeful that the deep discussions started by your committee via its very excellent published compendium will be the beginning of a better understanding of existing problems and alternative solutions. I am particularly impressed with the preventative aspect of your discussions, and by that I mean, you're not simply contemplating corrective measures but, instead, you're looking ahead at the future impact of decisions or lack of decisions being made today. I very much agree with the concept