The Women’s Giving Circle of Bartholomew County has released data compiled from several national, state and local sources, showing how Bartholomew County women are doing in several indicators of well-being. And the indicators show local women often fared worse than women in Indiana or nationwide.
The data, released earlier this month in the 2021 Bartholomew County Report for Women, compared, among other things, local poverty, infant mortality, political participation and teen pregnancy rates to state and national levels.
The group, which focuses on improving the lives of women, children and families, hopes that report card will serve as a starting point to spur broader conversations in the community to better understand some of the longstanding challenges that women face, identify opportunities to address them and fund an initiative that could make a positive impact, said Kristen Munn, director of operations at The Heritage Fund — The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County.
The giving circle is a program of The Heritage Fund.
‘Disappointing’ progress
The results for local women were not surprising, but rather “a little more disappointing that we haven’t made more progress,” Munn said.
In Bartholomew County, women are more likely to be living in poverty than women in much of the country, according to the report card, which cites data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Community Education Coalition, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Early Learning Indiana, among other sources.
Additionally, the gap between median earnings of local men and women is greater than U.S. and state levels. Child care costs in Bartholomew County are among the highest in the state.
Bartholomew County’s infant mortality rate is higher than the national average, and the local teen birth rate is higher than in much of the developed world.
“If you’re a woman, as opposed to a man, especially if you’re a woman of color, things are a little worse for you, not only at the local level, but at the state level and the national level,” Munn said. “You’re going to make less money, you’re going to face greater challenges and be more likely to have left the workforce as a result of COVID.”
Poverty and child care
About 15.2% of women in Bartholomew County live in poverty, compared to 12.6% of men, according to the report card.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defined poverty in 2019 as making less than $12,490 per year for a one-person household or $16,910 for a two-person household.
By comparison, 12.9% of women in the United States live in poverty as do 15.7% of women in Indiana.
But experts say those figures don’t tell the whole story because they exclude people whose annual earnings exceed federal poverty thresholds but still struggle to meet basic costs of living.
One metric devised by the United Way, called Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed,” or ALICE, accounts for the costs of housing, transportation, food, health care, child care, taxes, among other things, which the report card described as a “new way of defining and understanding the struggles of households” that cannot “afford a bare-bones household budget.”
In Bartholomew County, 81% households headed by a single female — roughly four out of five — were below the ALICE threshold in 2018, tied for 19th highest among all counties in the state and higher than much of the surrounding area, according to the most recent figures from UnitedForAlice.org, which compiles the data.
By comparison, half of households in Bartholomew County headed by a single male were below the ALICE threshold.
In Indiana, 73% of households headed by a single female were below the ALICE threshold. National level figures are not available because the United Way does not currently measure ALICE in every state.
A total of 66% of households headed by a single female in Jennings and Decatur counties were below the ALICE threshold, as were 73% in Jackson County and 71% in Marion County, where Indianapolis is located.
Brown County was the only neighboring county with a higher rate below ALICE, with 83%.
Other challenges women and families are facing include the cost of quality child care, the report card states.
In Bartholomew County, the average annual cost of high-quality child care was $9,689, 10th highest among all counties in the state, according to the report card.
Additionally, women tend to earn less money than men.
In Bartholomew County, median annual earnings for men are $17,175 higher than for women, the report card shows. By comparison, the gap on the national level is $10,253 and $12,860 in Indiana.
Infant mortality and teen birth rate
The report card also suggests that local women fared worse than women in other areas of the country in two other indicators — the teen birth rate and infant mortality. While both metrics have improved in recent years, they remain higher than national levels.
The teen birth rate, which is defined as the number of adolescents or woman ages 15 to 19 who become mothers per 1,000 females in that age group, is “associated with social, health and financial costs to teen parents, families and states,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“A teen birth can disrupt young people’s educational and career goals, affecting earning potential and future family finances,” the National Conference of State Legislatures said. “…Teenage mothers are also more likely to live in poverty and depend on public assistance. Children born to teen parents are more likely to have lower school achievement, enter the child welfare and correctional systems, drop out of high school and become teen parents themselves, compared to children born to older parents.”
In Bartholomew County, 61 babies were born to teenage mothers in 2019 — a rate of 23.2 per 1,000 females in that age group, the report card states. The state level was 20.7 and the national level was 16.7.
“Although the teen birth rate has declined significantly since 2011, our local teen birth rate is higher than both the state and national average,” the report card states, adding that “the current U.S. teen birth rate remains substantially higher than in other western industrialized nations.”
Data from the United Nations that was not included in the report card suggests that Bartholomew County’s teen birth rate is considerably higher than most developed countries.
Canada had a teen birth rate in 2019 of eight births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19, Australia’s rate was 11 and the United Kingdom’s was 12, according to the United Nations Population Division.
Additionally, the European Union collectively had a rate of nine births per 1,000 females in that age group — including France and Italy with five births per 1,000 women, Ireland and Spain with seven per 1,000 and Germany and Portugal with eight births per 1,000.
If Bartholomew County were a country, it would have been tied with the island nation of Samoa for the 73rd lowest teen birth rate in the world in 2019, ranking between Ukraine and Turkmenistan, according to the United Nations figures.
Bartholomew County’s infant mortality rate also was higher than the state and national rates from 2014 to 2018, the report card states.
Infant mortality rate is defined as the number of infants who die before their first birthday per 1,000 live births. Researchers and policymakers often consider the infant mortality rate to be a barometer of the overall health of a community.
The local rate was 7.5 deaths per 1,000 live births over that time frame, compared to 7.2 on the state level and 5.8 nationwide, according to the report card.
Data from Columbus Regional Health shows that the local infant mortality rate has declined in recent years, after reaching 13.7 in 2015 — the highest in the state.
Funding an initiative
Currently, members of the Women’s Giving Circle of Bartholomew County are voting on three areas of initiative the group has identified after compiling the report card — teen pregnancy; infant mortality; and affordable, quality child care.
Members who made a donation before Aug. 15 have until the end of the month to cast their ballots. The group averages 120 to 150 members, Munn said.
After voting ends, members will start “digging into that area a little bit deeper” to decide how to award $10,000 to a project, program or organization that seeks to make a positive impact in the area that received the most votes, Munn said.
“We’re really hoping by sharing the data that we’ve collected more broadly, it might spur some larger conversations and opportunities for partnership at the community level to address some of the concerns that we have a limited ability to address philanthropically from our giving circle,” Munn said.
