A highly skilled trade, unionized ironworkers begin their careers as apprentices, benefiting from a combination of on-the-job training and related classroom instruction. Over the course of a three-year apprenticeship, an ironworker in Chicago will go from an hourly wage of $27.72 to $46.20. A hefty benefit package adds almost another $35 per/hr. to cover health and retirement benefits.

Led by Leah Rambo, a veteran sheet metal worker and the program’s first female apprenticeship director, local 28 has seen dramatic improvements in women’s participation in apprenticeship, increasing the overall percentage from 3 percent at the beginning of 2011 to 11 percent in 2017, and achieving a rate of 16% for new apprentices entering the program in 2017.

Read about how women’s committees are supporting recruitment and retention of women in apprenticeship.

Read about how the Policy Group on Tradeswomen’s Issues and its partners have transformed opportunity for women in construction through a comprehensive supply and demand strategy.

Read about how this simple strategy increased participation of women and men of color in IBEW/NECA local 48’s apprenticeship program.

In October at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) released a new report, Tackling Child Care: The Business Case for Employer-Supported Child Care, researched and co-authored by IWPR. Panelists, including Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, and Ram Kumar Gupta, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Employment in India, noted that the inclusion of child care on the agenda of the Annual Meetings, attended by finance ministers, business leaders, and other senior government officials, reflects considerable progress toward equality for women.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) analysis of the December employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) establishment survey finds that, over the last year (November 2016 - November 2017), women gained fewer jobs than men: women gained 985,000, while men gained 1,086,000 jobs.