Mired in a deepening recession, it’s unclear whether or not Congress wants to help women in the job market. Conflicting policies emerged this week; both ostensibly crafted to help women in the workplace, but both falling short.
On Friday the Labor Department announced that it would “crack down” on unpaid internships. This policy ignores strong evidence that jobseekers and employers alike benefit from an enormous market of young people eager to get their foot in the door with or without salary:
“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” said Nancy J. Leppink, the acting director of the department’s wage and hour division.
But what about Jane Smith attending a state school, who needs an edge over an Ivy League graduate with connections? Unpaid internships are a great way to enter the work force. Even when an employer cannot afford to pay eager employees, young adults have long sought unpaid positions for the experience, contacts, and prestige that makes the job worthwhile.
Indeed legislature-imposed wage floors inevitably destroy natural markets and make it that much harder for fringe folks to find jobs. Absent wage minimums, young people know that working in an unpaid position will soon pay off. When employers cannot hire at the lowest margin, young jobseekers find themselves out of luck, priced out of the market.
Pricing interns out of the market proves especially salient for women, who make up 76 percent of the internship pool nationwide, according to the American Psychological Association. When opportunities evaporate for would-be unpaid interns, women will be the hardest hit.
Woman-targeted price floors are not only a problem for the college crowd this week. In fact, Congress has decided that the jobs women statistically prefer are not good enough for us either.
HR 4830, the Women and Workforce Investment for Nontraditional Jobs (Women WIN Jobs) Act, targets women in positions they “traditionally” choose:
Once again this is a lovely sentiment, but lawmakers have not yet made clear how this bill will work. Unsurprisingly, funneling women from the jobs they choose to the jobs Congress wants them to have will include recruitment and a subsidy:
So “despite the recession” Congress intends to help women climb the corporate ladder. But the recession has taught us that whatever women are doing — taking those traditional jobs — was the right move.
In fact, throughout the recession women’s wages have risen nearly twice as much as men’s. Similarly, only 8.4 percent of women found themselves unemployed during the recession, while unemployment among men settled at 11 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Young and established women alike have come to the workplace in the way we’ve wanted to come. We’ve chosen unpaid internships when they offer a strategic advantage, and we’ve taken “traditional” jobs. This has served us well across both the wage and unemployment spectrum.
For Congress to interfere with what’s worked for women — indeed, for Congress to impose mores that women have rejected in favor of methods that work better for us — undermines a formula that has served women well as the economy falters.
Congress means well, but women have proven we do not need paternalism to pave the way. We’ve paved it. Liberation and choice require constant tinkering. Yet the liberated choices women make have proven effective.
Trust in Congress but lock your sights, ladies. Decide what you want and go for it. It’s a career choice that works.
