U. Center for Women and Work publishes study on challenges Latinas face in workforce

In March, the Rutgers Center for Women and Work (CWW) published a study detailing the challenges Latina women encounter in the workforce, including wage disparity, lack of benefits and inadequate support.

Glenda Gracia-Rivera, the CWW's director of Professional Development and Training and a co-author of the study, said the center’s research on Latina women in the workforce began in 2021 in collaboration with the Latino Action Network Foundation.

She said this specific study focused on a sample of 69 Latina women, between 18 and 60 years old, who have worked in the U.S. and benefited from the CWW’s services. The participants completed a 90-minute interview about their experience in the workforce.

Gracia-Rivera said the study found that 60 percent of interviewees who were actively working were employed in low-paying positions.

"(They) were doing cleaning and maintenance jobs, they were doing stuff like restaurant work, factory work, care work — so (there were) a lot of home health aides, a couple of childcare providers," she said.

She said in states like New Jersey and California, Latina women working at high-earning companies usually work in administrative or custodial positions rather than executive offices due to job clustering.

Additionally, Gracia-Rivera said the study found that one of the most significant barriers to securing a well-paying job was being unable to fluently speak the English language. Many of the study's participants had to take English classes to overcome this roadblock.

Gracia-Rivera said the CWW aims to inform the public about the wide reach of the study’s findings and promote its services, such as driving lessons and compensated certification classes for prospective health care workers.

She said the CWW cooperates with organizations such as the New Jersey Citizen Action and the New Jersey Time to Care Coalition to offer on-hand support to educate people in different community settings about their rights.

Gracia-Rivera said the study’s effect on shaping public policy could lead to future legislation, which should aim to help the most vulnerable workers. She also said that in order to move toward pay equity for Latina workers, legislators need to both enforce existing policies and pass new laws.

She said the study's key findings include the fact that despite many stereotypes surrounding immigrants, this population seeks employment in a similar manner to their American-born counterparts. Still, many immigrants encounter perilous conditions when working.

"They talked about living in basements," she said. "They talked about $7 wages like all this stuff, like having to go to work after like two weeks after a C section."

Gracia-Rivera said that despite these issues, there is still hope for future workers and their families.

"We have hope. Things are really bad, but we have hope. And places like the Hispanic Women's Resource Centers offers that kind of hope to them," she said. "(It) gives them some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. It gives them a community to connect with."