Opportunity: Identify and Close Gaps in Gender Data
It would be helpful to gather additional data on women and girls in Howard County to address needs in a more targeted manner. For example, capturing the two realities of Howard County by performing qualitative analysis since data is limited for women and girls in poverty is essential. Studying issues facing women and girls in poverty qualitatively will help to identify data gaps. By gaining these valuable insights, our community will be better positioned to monitor and close gender-based gaps. It is also critical to examine data on gender by race. Pinpointing inequities based on race and ethnicity data will help us to create a more inclusive community.
Specific examples across the six categories include:
By encouraging data collection and analysis by gender, our community as a whole will be able to facilitate more evidence-based action to improve the lives of women and girls in Howard County.
Specific examples across the six categories include:
- Demographics - Data combining gender and race information would be helpful at the county level. This data is available at the State level but not easily available at the County level.
- Work and Economy - Minimum wage data by gender would be helpful at the county level. This data is available at the State level via National Women’s Law Center. It would be particularly useful to examine this gender data by race.
- Education and Educators - Data to help analyze the gender gap in STEM fields starting in elementary school through college would be helpful at the county level. Some of this data is available but a more comprehensive analysis would help to close the gender and race gap in STEM fields.
- Health and Well-Being - Data on the number of persons served in community mental health centers and county psychiatric hospitals would be helpful at the county level. This data is available at the State level via Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
- Safety and Justice - Comprehensive data on domestic violence would be helpful at the county level. It would be useful to know how many domestic violence cases are heard in the local courts and how well or poorly women and minority women fare in these cases.
- Leadership and Political Participation - It would be helpful to gather and report on data on the number of women who own businesses, serve as chief executive officers, or broadly serve in legal professions or on corporate boards.
By encouraging data collection and analysis by gender, our community as a whole will be able to facilitate more evidence-based action to improve the lives of women and girls in Howard County.