"Recession brings mothers back to school"-Medill News Service
Escrito por Rakesh Sharma | 2 marzo 2010
Catalina Ruiz hated school as a kid and was glad to get out of it. But, the 32-year-old divorced mother of three returned to school after she was laid off last March. “Now, I feel like I have a responsibility towards my kids,” said Ruiz, who is enrolled in a computer class at Erie Neighborhood Housing, a West Side non-profit. “So, I came back to school.”
Ruiz is part of a surge of women workers expected in coming years. According to a 2008 report by the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor Statistics, women are projected to account for 49 percent of the total labor force increase between 2006 and 2016. That projection already seems to be coming true: women account for 49.9 percent of the total nonfarm payroll employment figures, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It’s hard to find numbers that break out how many of those women are mothers, but anecdotal evidence seems to confirm the trend. “We have definitely seen an increase in enrollment numbers for our Project Working Mom program since last year,” said Melanie Wright, regional public relations manager, DeVry University. Launched in January 2008, Project Working Mom is targeted at mothers going back to school. The program offers a combination of online and onsite classes.
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