Julia Cox: Many work issues for women

Regarding the Feb. 3 editorial “Goal of equality”: Since President Obama took executive action requiring companies with more than 100 employees to report pay figures by position and gender, I can see why the editorial board focused on the income gap reported by the Wake County Commission for Women to the Board of Commissioners. But to reduce the complicated issues presented in the report to that single issue is short-sighted at best.

There are so many issues affecting the jobs women choose. Among them: education levels, access to child care, poor training resulting in a lack of negotiating skills, the challenges of returning to work after having children, feeling pressed to take lower paying jobs in exchange for flexibility, as well as mental health care and access to public transportation. Each of these deserves deeper examination as to why women, in particular, face these hurdles and what various agencies and businesses can do to promote equality in employment.

You also took the Commission for Women to task for not asking area universities to provide better data examining the wages of women versus men in comparable jobs. Really? The president had to take an executive action to require the compilation of such data. Maybe he should have contacted Triangle universities first?

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Julia Cox: Many work issues for women."