NATIONAL POLICY PROPOSALS TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1979 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON RETIREMENT INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT, The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment at 10:08 a.m., in room 2212 Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. John L. Burton (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Members present: Representatives John L. Burton of California; Oakar of Ohio; and Ferraro of New York. Also present: Representative Chisholm of New York. Staff present: Merrill S. Randol, staff director and counsel; Valinda Jones, professional staff member; Ann Foote Cahn, consultant; Jean Lee, secretary; Nancy E. Hobbs, minority staff director; Bob Branand, minority counsel; and Mary E. Garver, minority staff assistant. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN L. BURTON Mr. BURTON. The subcommittee will reconvene on its second day of hearings to consider problems of midlife women. Today we are honored to have with us Dr. Nancy Schlossberg, Susan B. DeConcini, Janet Steiger, Margaret Reuss, Charlotte Conable, Jo Oberstar. Five of the members are married to Congressmen. One is the wife of our former colleague, Bill Steiger. Dr. Schlossberg is a professor of education. As congressional spouses, you understand that committees are always split up all over the place, and there will be other members coming to the meeting. But as of now, I am the quorum and we will proceed with the testimony. We meet today to review further phases of the problems of the Nation's midlife women. It is clear from yesterday's testimony that the Nation has too long neglected the problems encountered by many of the 30 million women between the ages of 40 to 65 in such areas as job reentry, continuing education, pensions, social security, age/sex discrimination, and other areas. It is more apparent than ever the unless the Nation enables these women to become more independent-financially, psychologically, vocationally-many of them will in their later years unfortunately experience the same type of deprivation as so many women in the current over-65 generation encounter. (51) We have what I believe to be an outstanding cross-section of opinion: from a group of women who know from first-hand experience the problem of finding their own identity; from a woman who has played one of the most significant of all roles in the history of the American feminist movement; from the leaders of six national women's organizations; and from a woman who has been a displaced homemaker and whose life symbolizes the problems faced by millions of her sisters. I should like to acknowledge receipt of a great many statements. from organizations and individuals throughout the United States whose comments and suggestions will be printed as part of the appendix to this hearing. I should like to quote from a particularly outstanding statement submitted by the Maryland State Commission for Women: "Used as a framework, (The subcommittee's compendium) should be taken to all parts of the country-through the media, through the legislatures, through women's groups, civic groups-to address the needs and crises (of) midlife women caught in transition." * * The Maryland Commission goes on to state that-"* * A research project assessing the incidence of battering showed '2.6 percent of the estimated 700,000 married women in Maryland or 18,200 women suffered severe interspousal violence within the past 2 years'.' The Maryland Commission recommends that "* * Congress and Federal agencies give attention to pension reform, subsistence grants while midlife women develop marketable skills, education grant programs geared directly to these women, rehabilitative support periods in divorce settlements, and social security reform." They further recommend that "*** Vocational Education, Vocational-Technical Education, Apprenticeship Programs, and Career Counseling be encouraged specifically for midlife women in the private sector." We are grateful to the Maryland Commission for Women for their excellent suggestions. The subcommittee will hear today from what I believe to be an outstanding group of women who, as individuals or as organizational leaders, are well qualified to share their insights and recommendations. I have asked that each witness confine herself to no more than 5 minutes or oral comment. Naturally, the full text of each statement plus appended material will appear in the subcommittee's record. Members of the Congress represent an occupation which is usually heavily committed to duties outside the home, to repeated travels, to evening and weekend constituent meetings so that inevitably a heavy burden falls upon their spouses. Many articles have pointed out that the wives of legislators often experience an identity problem in trying to find their own individual paths. This identity problem is experienced by many other midlife women, but I believe that the able women whom we have asked to testify today can be particularly helpful in shedding light on the situation. On behalf of my colleagues, I want to bid our warm welcome to Jo Oberstar, Charlotte Conable, Margaret Reuss, Janet Steiger, and Susan DeConcini, Mrs. Oberstar, may we start with you. STATEMENT OF MS. JO OBERSTAR Ms. OBERSTAR. Good morning. I would like to mention before beginning that the committee, I think inadvertently, has underscored one of the problems that midlife women like myself are facing today. I noticed in reading over your printed program that I am listed as Mrs. Jim Oberstar. I want to reinforce what Dr. Brothers said yesterday. One of the problems we midlife women face is an identity crises. We are thought to be extensions of our husbands and our children, and not to have an identity of our own. I want you to know I am Jo, a person in my own right, with my own education and background and ideas. I have four children. I will be 43 years old in 2 days, and I think I am an excellent candidate for this problem that has come to be called "midlife crisis." In my case, I married late deliberately, and I felt that I was making choices as I went through my life. After graduation from college, I went off to New York City to be independent, got myself a job, decided I would like to teach. I taught for a year then applied for graduate school, and got a master's degree in teaching, so that some day, when I married, would be able to support my family if I should have such-if something happened to my husband. Besides an advanced degree, I had a number of years of work experience in several fields when I took a sabbatical to have my family. Unfortunately, my plans didn't work out. I find that even though I prepared, made choices and decisions, I am still in the same position as my peers in midlife, all of whom have married, had their children, have graduate degrees, but have stayed home for 12 to 20 years fulfilling a family vocation. We are finding that, having stayed at home, we would now like to return to the marketplace and make some economic and social contributions based on the education, training and experience we possess. Some of us do this to fulfill a personal need to use our professional skills. Others go out to share the family's financial burdens. Some of us are forced to enter the work force unexpectedly, through separation, divorce or widowhood. Regardless of reasons for or return to the job market, we all discover closed opportunities and financial inequities. During the time we have been at home, there has been a major social revolution producing changes in society and critically affecting our chances of returning to the labor force. We have problems such as no paid work experience. If we have prior experience, we have lost some of our self-confidence. We have a gap in work history. Employers generally believe that we are rusty and outdated and there is overcrowding of the job market especially in the traditional fields in which we were trained-teaching, for example. Even if we go back to school, update our skills, and bring our résumés into a current context, we are thwarted just simply by the fact of our age. While these problems are discouraging and psychologically destructive for those of us who choose to go back to work, for the displaced homemaker who must work to survive financially, they really can prove disastrous. We have other problems. We need updated training and skills. While we have years of volunteer experience to our credit, this experience is not considered relevant. So, we face obstacles in returning to work. Many of today's young women, realizing this, seeing the situations their mothers are in, are electing to remain in their careers, to bear children much later, if at all, and from the very earliest days, to put their children in the care of others. And I view this as a truly tragic situation. If we believe mothers and children are valuable, then I feel we must give women options. For example, women need to be able to remain at home or work part time during the critical infancy and teenage years of their children and then not suffer undue penalties in the areas of job placement, job advancement, or salary opportunities when they return to full-time employment. The solutions proposed in my testimony are many. I do not believe that counseling as the be-all and the end-all, I really feel we have placed too much stress on this. I feel counseling is absolutely necessary, but counseling does not provide jobs and for those of us needing or wanting to go back to work, jobs are the answer. I believe also that we need an educational campaign for all segments of society, to explain the midlife women's crisis and to advocate solutions. I would like to propose something that is not in my written testimony. We prepare our young people in this country for job skills. We give them very fine intellectural training but I think we have failed to prepare them for life experience. We need to give our young people some kind of life skills, to teach them that there are choices in life and that the choices require decision-making. I think we need to help them develop some decisionmaking skills and I would hope that somehow our educational programs will provide what I would like to call "life-training" or "life-experience" for the young. If we can do that, perhaps when our young men and women reach midlife in the future, they won't be baffled and unprepared. To return to the present reentry problems of midlife women, since most are mothers, like myself, at least initially they need more parttime opportunities for employment. If the women who applied for counseling at the Montgomery County Women's Bureau last year, over 50 percent wanted part-time professional-level employment and I think that's where the action is for women in my situation. In addition, we have got to have better child care opportunities. I understand that Sweden has a very fine program of child care, which I think this committee might elect to look into. I am not going to elaborate here on what I have said about child care in my written testimony. Beyond child care opportunities, midlife women need loans and scholarships for education and training because, in these inflationary times, family education funds set aside for children do not cover ""rehabilitation" for moms. We would also, like paid on-the-job training, which I have mentioned in the written testimony. I would like to conclude by saying that time and life experience have sharpened and expanded our judgment and sense of responsibility, emotional balance and commitment to the work ethic, our management skills and professional potential. But we need support lines to help us make use of the experience and maturity we possess. Our Nation has long recognized the contributions veterans have made |