The Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College and the Women’s Foundation of Boston recently announced that they will be working together to publish a yearlong study on “The State of Women and Girls in Massachusetts.”
The two groups will join forces to conduct research throughout the Commonwealth, focusing on women and girls while answering a question that has gone unstudied since 2015: What is happening with women and girls in Massachusetts?
The study will focus on how girls as young as primary-school age and attempt to pinpoint trends and possible issues for people in Massachusetts who identify as female.
The data will speak to education, employment, gender pay gaps, caregiving, poverty, wealth, leadership, entrepreneurship and more, with a focus on economic empowerment.
While the Wellesley Centers for Women will lead the research in terms of data collection and analysis, the Women’s Foundation of Boston will assist in ensuring that the research is a diverse and accurate representation of the entire state.
Patti Satterthwaite, chief operating officer for the Women’s Foundation of Boston, emphasized the significance and necessity of studies like this one, not only for data and statistics collection but also for creating solutions to the problems that studies like this could highlight.
“There is no status of women and girls in Massachusetts. The last one was in 2015, and it really had to do with Greater Boston, so we really want to put the information out there,” said Satterthwaite, “How educated are women everywhere in Massachusetts? We’ve started looking and the gateway cities, which are cities outside of Greater Boston, they have much different statistics than the [statistics] in the Greater Boston area.”
The Women’s Foundation of Boston is a nonprofit organization focused on the empowerment and acceleration of women and girls throughout Massachusetts. The organization, founded in 2017, was created to fund and initiate programs that encourage leadership and economic independence amongst girls and women in the Commonwealth.
Satterthwaite said the research that will be done is intended to inform the state, both as a whole and in specific cities, about what is going on in their demographic of women and girls. The goal is for people to take the data and devise solutions that best fit the needs of women and girls.
“[The Women’s Foundation of Boston] is looking at it from the nonprofit perspective. Our grantee partner’s perspective. And we want to know, and they want to know, and our community wants to know, where are we falling short? How can we have more informed programming that will really impact the women and girls in the areas that this study brings up as an issue.”
The Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College is one of the most renowned research centers in the country. With the research conducted by the students at Wellesley College and focusing primarily on women’s and gender studies, the work of the Wellesley Centers for Women informs social justice, equity and humanity through data collection as well as programs and initiatives that are inspired by their findings.
In a press release, Dr. Sari Pekkala Kerr, Ph.D. and senior research scientist at WCW said, “We’re interested in gaining a more nuanced understanding of issues specifically in the Commonwealth, our results will inform targeted interventions aimed at closing the gaps in economic outcomes for Massachusetts women and girls.”
Kerr and Dr. Georgia Hall, Ph.D., the WCW’s associate director and senior research scientist, will lead the project along with Wellesley students.
The press release cited a myriad of challenges that continue to face women throughout Massachusetts and will act as questions that the data is meant to answer. Questions such as why is it so difficult for women to sustain financial independence in Massachusetts and how the high poverty rates among single mothers and the gender pay gap are or are not inextricably linked.
Christina Gordon, CEO of the Women’s Foundation of Boston, said in the press release: “Accurate data on the challenges faced by women and girls in our state is essential to addressing the needs of this chronically underserved population, yet it remains unavailable, despite the pressing issues they face, only 1.4% of all philanthropic giving in Massachusetts supports nonprofits focused on women and girls. This significant underfunding is alarming and reflects a broader lack of research in this area. We are excited to partner with the Wellesley Centers for Women to gain insights into these challenges. This research will serve as a foundation for developing evidence-based, actionable community solutions.”
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