Unmarried America: The Impact of Changing Demographics on Public Policy and Politics

February 22, 2006, 8:30am – 10:00am

About This Event

The fastest-growing large segment of America’s population is also among the least likely to participate in our democracy. Unmarried women currently make up 46 percent of all voting age women and their numbers are increasing. Yet 20 million unmarried women sat out the 2004 election, despite the high turnout across the board. On Wednesday, February 22 at 8:30 a.m., Women's Voices. Women Vote. Action Fund and the Center for American Progress Action Fund will host a panel discussion on the emerging unmarried American majority. WVWVAF will release its groundbreaking new survey of 1,509 unmarried Americans. This survey explores what motivates unmarried women to vote and what barriers are in the way. It looks at their policy preferences and how they see the upcoming 2006 elections. The panel will feature leading experts on public opinion, demographic trends and women’s policy to discuss women on their own – who they are, how they live and what they want. Most importantly, the panel will discuss how unmarried women can make their priorities the nation’s priorities.

Stanley B. Greenberg, Chairman and CEO, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner
Anna Greenberg, Vice President, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner
Avis Jones-DeWeever, Ph.D., Study Director for Poverty and Income Security, The Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Donna Morrison, Ph.D., Professor/Demographer, Georgetown University

Moderated by:

Page Gardner, President, Women’s Voices. Women Vote.

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, DC 20005

Resources

Note: All video provided in QuickTime (MPEG-4) format.

Full Event Transcript

Biographies

Stanley B. Greenberg is Chairman and CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Greenberg provides strategic advice and research for companies, campaigns, non-profits, and NGOs trying to advance their issues amid shifting social currents. Greenberg has served as pollster to President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, South African Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Greenberg works with corporate clients including BP, Boeing, Monsanto, Comverse, Sun Microsystems, and United HealthCare. He has also advised the Business Roundtable, and the Athens Organizing Committee, helping Greece prepare for the 2004 Olympics. Together with Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, Greenberg conducts bi-partisan surveys for National Public Radio on the main issues of the day. Greenberg founded the company in 1980 after a decade of teaching at Yale University where he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was educated at Miami University and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D.

Anna Greenberg is Vice President of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Greenberg has extensive experience polling for non-profits and charitable foundations focusing on religion, women’s health, rural issues and education. She conducted ground breaking research on religion and values in public life and in-depth research on women’s health for the National Women’s Health Resource Center and the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. She directs the firm's work with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Center for Rural Strategies and has helped shape and advance their research program on perceptions of rural America. Greenberg directs the firm’s evolving work with web-based research and ad testing and its innovations in micro-targeting, leading a joint project with Stratalys Research called SmarTargeting. In 2000, Greenberg led iVillage.com's Women's Electorate polling project, a joint online venture between iVillage and Ladies Home Journal. Greenberg worked extensively with Knowledge Networks, a leader in the evolving world of web based survey research, as they developed their web-based panel.

Avis Jones-DeWeever, Ph.D. is the Study Director for Poverty and Income Security at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Her work examines the causes and consequences of poverty on the well-being of low-income women and families while identifying effective programmatic strategies that result in poverty reduction. Dr. Jones-DeWeever has authored or coauthored numerous publications including When the Spirit Blooms: Acquiring Higher Education in the Context of Welfare Reform; and Saving Ourselves: African American Women and the HIV/AIDS Crisis. A highly sought-after speaker, Dr. Jones-DeWeever’s policy perspectives have been distributed through a variety of media outlets including CNN, ABC News Now, National Public Radio, BBC Radio International and the New York Times. Her areas of expertise include poverty in urban communities, inequality of educational opportunity, and the impact of welfare reform on women and communities of color.

Donna Morrison, PhD., a sociologist by training, joined the Georgetown faculty in 1995 as an Assistant Professor, teaching for both the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and the Department of Demography. She is also a Research Affiliate of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research. Before arriving at Georgetown, Donna was a Senior Research Associate at Child Trends, a nonprofit policy research center based in Washington, DC. Donna is completing a multi-year study, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, of how children fare in remarried and cohabiting unions following parental divorce. This work continues her research interest in the social demography of children and the family, with an emphasis on public policy issues.

Page S. Gardner conceived of and founded Women's Voices. Women Vote. She is an expert in the voting patterns of women voters, with a particular expertise in unmarried voters. She began this project dedicated to increasing the share of unmarried women in the electorate. During her twenty years of experience as a political and communications manager and strategist, Gardner has worked at senior levels for the most competitive presidential, senatorial, gubernatorial, and congressional campaigns in all parts of the country. Gardner also has managed some of the most hotly debated national public policy issue campaigns, including those related to reproductive rights, civil rights, national budget priorities, technology and trade. Gardner has been credited with designing and implementing some of the most creative and successful issue and legislative campaigns, as well as staging come from behind candidate victories in key battleground races. She is regarded as one of the top strategists in the country. Gardner has a magna cum laude degree from Duke University. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Virginia.