current jobs, to switch directions or acquire new skills and interests to sustain the 30 or 40 years that lie ahead of women at midlife and to give men such new life possibilities. Both women and men might need new kinds of tax credits, as well as low interest loans, educational subsidies and the kinds of counseling for the midlife crisis, as well as the flex-time shared jobs up to and beyond voluntary retirement, even new low interest loans for new kinds of housing at midlife, the kinds of options the government policies make available only to the young.

With the increasing burden on all our tax dollars, and with this general sense to some degree that I share, that we don't need more government bureaucracies, that we somehow have got to rely more on using existing facilities and use of people's own strength and that there is this burden on all our tax dollars. I simply don't think it is the political time to come up with some esoteric program of special protection for midlife women. Furthermore, it's not in the spirit of the equal rights amendment. It simply is not. It could well be that in the emergencies today-this is temporary-where so many women did give up their own educations and jobs to put husbands through and are coming out of 20 years of houselife, maybe women in greater degree in the beginning would take more advantage of such a program than men. On the other hand, if you gear it just to housewives, you are doing a wrong thing because an awful lot of women are in lowest level, low paying jobs. They, with just the help, with some ability, have some subsidy while they go back for more training, could move into the kinds of jobs that would be more rewarding both economically and psychologically and it would give them some kind of pension credit that they don't now have. Furthermore, you have a lot of men that are facing a dead end in jobs and you can say, and it's true, that there are provisions today for a man who wants to upgrade his career or switch careers and get certain kind of tax breaks today. But how many men can afford to do that even with the burdens on men? Mostly only men whose wives are working and making a good income. There are a lot of men today that might also be able-that this would make the key difference in being able to make a lifesaving switch before it's too late and free themselves from the burdens that lead to the heart attacks and strokes. And, politically, and even in terms of everything we've done in the women's movement, I don't think you want special protection for women. I think we want real, serious attention to the problems of midlife women and men.

The evidence I know that you all are worrying about what would be the reaction to propose anything that costs money. But consider the cost to this society and to the government and to our tax dollars, of supporting these 18 million or more women that you've been hearing about today who are not going to get pensions and some of them are not even entitled to social security for housewife years, if we have to support them for 30 years on some kind of-because they are unable to support themselves. And consider the cost to society of even supporting the survivors of men who are going to die prematurely. All of this might be said. Further, is it going to cost so much money when you've got an educational plan more and more underused because of the declining baby population. The reality of the 80- or 70-year lifespan is not going to go away. It's going to be more and more in our

consciousness that people, men and women, are going to need education beyond the level of just the youth ghetto, that the educational institutions have been. The community colleges fill a real, real need. Now we see women and men who want to get more serious advances of professional education find the age barriers as they try to go into professional schools. If it is true, and I believe I've seen figures that it is, that there are almost 40 percent or more of the actual population of the colleges today of advanced educational institutions who are adults and not kids. So if we take this into account and merely make available to older people, to midlife people, the kinds of supports, not complete subsidies, but the kinds of supports where they need it that we make available to young, we're doing a lot to-it is investment, as the chairman said. It might be an investment in another as well. Anything you spend on education and research and development is an investment. You might come out by educating so many people instead of just supporting them in a custodial way. You might come up with some human substitutes for nuclear energy. The evidence at these hearings, I am about done, the evidence at these hearings show that work, job skills and education are the only insurance, the only real insurance, against physical, mental, psychological, and economic deterioration, decline and disaster for women at midlife, and as we always understood, for men.

Again, in terms of the cost and the dollar consideration, I think that a midlife GI education bill you could look at like we did when Congress passed the business step. American families could take once-in-a-lifetime a $100,000 profit on a house, on the house in which they bought earlier. They could take once-in-a-lifetime tax-free, $100,000 profit. I think that the midlife education that we would be suggesting would be a similar once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. If we have this hearing 20 years from now, or even 10 years from now, people might think twice-in-a-lifetime because the lifespan and change would have indicated that.

But I close by saying that I believe that you are not wrong to demand further and serious consideration for the problems and crises for American women and men in midlife in the same serious consideration that we used to give to the young. Just as the concerns of the young were the main preoccupation of society in the 1960's, and then the demands, first of blacks and then of women, to be treated with full human dignity and the equal opportunity that is their human and American birthright. The demographic changes that are taking place in our society today indicate to me that in the 1980's and the 1990's, the needs of midlife people, women and men, to be treated with full human seriousness and full human dignity, will be the next frontier of our evolving society.

[See appendix 2, p. 166 for Ms. Friedan's prepared statement.] Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much.

I have no questions; I just have one comment. I really agree with what you said. You should really have-what would be fair and equal, in the spirit of the equal rights amendment—a program across the board. Midlife women face the problems that they face today because of the position that they were placed in by a male-dominated society in the past. A program that in effect is directed toward them would be one similiar to compensatory education. Women did not have

a choice, when I was going to high school, whether or not they could take auto shop and become a mechanic. Instead they had to take sewing and cooking and that was it.

I think that there is a special need to focus on the problem of midlife women, because it was a male-dominated society that placed them in the roles that they are just now having to break out of, or, I guess, deal with. I agree with your statement. It is absolutely correct, I think, at this point in time. I think attention does need to be focused on that problem.

Mr. FERRARO. I would also like to make a similar comment. I must say I am a disciple. I was making my decision at Fair Harbor when you were writing a book in Lonelyville. I think what we are looking at is the fact that women seem to have really been bearing the burden, particularly at this point in their lives.

My son is 15 and is studying behavior. He came home, and told me that they were discussing the generation gap and how parents sometimes do not relate to their children. They tell the children that the reason is that men at midlife are facing a crisis with the fact that they may not have achieved in their job and they are having problems with financial security, and the woman's midlife crisis is because her children were leaving the nest. I assured him neither my husband nor I were going through a midlife crisis as far as those two criteria were concerned, so he had better straighten out. But we did discuss it. And that seems to be where it is with the man, that the man is having his problem if he has not achieved professionally. What we are saying though, with reference to women, is that step beyond. And that is the reason for the displaced homemaker's type of proposal, which she should get, not because she is a woman, but because she has been out of the work force. And with the displaced homemaker, she is going to become one of six or seven groups who are already eligible. Others are Vietnam veterans who have been out of the work force. There are convicts who have been out of the work force. We are not just focusing on women because they are women, but because they have been out of the work force. And that is where that bill is directed.

Ms. FRIEDAN. And yet you are the subcommittee of the House Committee on Aging, and you are, as a result of these hearings here, obviously able to go further in dealing with the whole question of midlife. And I want to point out to you that at this hearing are women. As one of you said to me coming in, "How long are we just going to talk to ourselves?" I suggest to you that might be amazed at what you would find if you would open the hearings on midlife to women and men; in terms of increased focus, in terms of understanding, mutual support for each others' problems, and in getting the support, in terms of the demographics, there is the public may be slightly different.

But you are not talking about a situation in which women, it seems to me, are comparable to convicts, or even to the special protection category-it is not sufficient to this problem-that this problem deals with a real new situation affecting both women and men in our society today: the long lifespan and the need for midlife new direction. It may be that women would take most advantage of it at first. It would certainly be that you could write into the legislation the kinds of provisions that would as it is for the young, or people that do not need the loans do not get the loans, you know.

48-594-796

But I think that we should deal with the midlife crisis of men and women. I am not arguing against this displaced homemaker legislation; that is a special category. But that is, even as your own hearings show, that is only one category of women facing midlife.

Ms. FERRARO. I just would like to address another point that you made with reference to cost-effectiveness. When you were discussing the education and training of people, you said it would be costeffective; but when you spoke about how it would be cost-effective, you said it would be putting 18 million women back into the work force who would have to be otherwise supported by the Government. And then you said, also it would be training those women who would be-I do not remember how you exactly put it-we would be supporting surviving dependents of those men who died at 72 years. You still referred to women in terms of showing the cost-effectiveness of that legislation.

Ms. FRIEDAN. No; I said survivors of the men who are dying prematurely. In other words, I think it would be a good idea if men lived a little longer.

I know it is very hard, and that you are also wondering-how do you put it-I mean, I do not apoligize to anybody for my own credentials in battling for women. I have been battling for women longer than anybody. But I think that we need to shift the focus today, equally to women and men.

Ms. FERRARO. Again

MS. FRIEDAN. Politically.

Mr. BURTON. In other words

Ms. FERRARO. What I am talking about is the cost-effectiveness of the program. Do you see that as being anything other than the fact that instead of putting people on welfare or whatever, we would be training? Do you see any other way that we could sell a program that is going to be very costly to a Congress that is really so very concerned about money?

Ms. FRIEDAN. Well, I think, you see, that in the first place, I do not think that you do need to have further hearings on this, and I am not saying, "Now, you want to deal just with the midlife crises of men." I think that from here on down, you should deal with the midlife crises of woman and man. I honestly do not think that a special protection kind of legislation-it costs money-is going to get anywhere today.

I think that you have to really deal with this, and I have been doing this new research, and I have been interviewing women and men across the country; and this whole sense of coming to the end of something, of groping, that men feel today about what they are facing at midlife, maybe before retirement, and yet no sense of possibility for them, is very similar to what I was hearing from women 20 years ago when I began writing "The Feminine Mystique."

What I am suggesting to you is you have enormously more, both political support and understanding of the problem, if you stop addressing it in terms of just a special compensatory thing for women. Although there are women who need special compensatory things, and you have to write whatever legislation you are going to which meets their needs; but there is a midlife need which is shared by men as well as women, and you should address yourselves to that if you want the largest support for it.

Now, I think that that costs less. I am not an economist, but I have a sense that it would not be-you know, you have got this educational plan that is being underused. With the jobs that would exist, the money that would be generated if you began to think of different ways of using it, might not be so very costly. But this is for other people to look into as you continue your hearings.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much.

The subcommittee is grateful to the next panel of witnesses because they represent expertise which is indispensable to our study. Each of the women who will now testify has been honored by her peers by being selected to serve as a leader and spokesperson. My only regret is that the limitation of time will prevent us from hearing their individual comments in the full length which we would have mutually preferred. But we know they will do their best within the available time. We welcome Cristine Candela, president, Women's Equity Action League; Geraldine Eidson, president, National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs; Dr. Dolores Davis, executive director, National Caucus on the Black Aged; Jane Porcino, cochair, National Action Forum on Older Women; Jane Fleming, executive director, Wider Opportunities for Women; and Olga Madar, president emerita, Coalition of Labor Union Women.

We can proceed left to right.

STATEMENT OF CRISTINE CANDELA, PRESIDENT OF WOMEN'S EQUITY ACTION LEAGUE

Ms. CANDELA. Thank you, Chairman Burton.

WEAL is a nationwide women's rights organization founded in 1968, dedicated to improving the social, economic, and legal status of

women.

The main highlight of my report is that the social security system as it exists today is antiquated. It is geared toward a 1930's type family with generally one wage earner. There are several examples that I have provided in my testimony about the kind of problems that arise today as a result of this type of system.

For example, if a woman worked for 2 years before marrying, left the work force to raise her family and then reentered the work force 20 years later, she may end up working another 25 years at a substantially higher salary, but her resulting benefits are quite low. In fact, her benefits as a dependent may be higher than her primary benefit as a salaried worker. This is unfair and it is inequitable since her primary benefit may be lower than a dependent's benefit for which no taxes were paid by an eligible spouse.

A divorced woman has other problems. She may rely solely on a dependent benefit, but is eligible for only a third of the couple's total benefit. If her marriage did not last for 10 years, she is completely ineligible for any benefit at all; prior to 1979, the marriage had to have lasted for 20 years. Moreover, a divorced woman cannot claim her dependent benefits until her husband claims the primary benefit, leaving the spouse dependent on her husband's decision as to when he will retire.

Another type of problem arises when a woman who has been out of the paid work force for more than 5 years receives a serious disability.