Women's                                   

        Research      

                 Network

History

Following the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, which obligated participating countries to improve the status of women at all levels, the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in Washington, D.C. issued a series of reports entitled The Status of Women in the States.  The IWPR report on Ohio, issued in 1998, indicates that out of the fifty states, Ohio ranks twenty-eight in political participation and thirty-fifth in economic autonomy.  Moreover, the report found that Ohio ranked fourth out of five states in the East North Central Region (Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin) on a composite of these indices.  The IWPR Ohio report, which relies heavily on national aggregate data, provides some indication of the status of women statewide.  The WRN's Mission reflects the belief that local data are more appropriate to guide local policies and services that affect women in the Miami Valley

WRN Regional Database Initiative

The WRN has worked to identify a variety of existing national, state, and local databases and research resources on women's issues over the past nine months.  The information and data collected by the network are catalogued in an Access 2000 database under one of the following topic areas: demographics, crime, economics, health, reproductive and parenting issues, housing, education, politics, women-centered services, and women of color.  Each record contains a description of the data (including geography, type and source) and information on how to obtain the research or data (e.g., hyperlinks are included in the database when available).  

WRN Survey:  Status of Women in Montgomery County

In April of 2001, network members developed a comprehensive survey that investigated core questions on each of the eight topic areas: demographics, crime, economics, health, reproductive and parenting issues, housing, education, and politics.  In may 2001, the Center for Urban and Public Affairs (CUPA) piloted the survey to a sample of almost 500 women, age 18 or older, who lived in Montgomery county.  (Montgomery County is the central county in the Dayton-Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area). 

03/26/2002 11:28 AM