Introducing the Miami-Dade Gender Equity Dashboard

By: Viviana Alvarado Pacheco

March marked an important month in the lives of many activists, advocates, and organizations fighting for gender equality and equity. As we reflect on Women’s History Month, we recognize the progress and achievement women have made throughout history. However, Equal Pay Day, which landed on March 15 this year and marks how far into the year a woman must work to earn an equal wage as their male counterparts from the previous year, reminds us how far we still have to go. March is a month of celebration for women, but also a time to reflect on the work and progress still needed to help women and girls. And, in our community, The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade continues to live and breathe that work. For three decades, The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade has worked diligently to improve the lives of women and girls with a focus on leveraging resources to facilitate solutions addressing gaps, needs and barriers to success. The Women's Fund Miami-Dade (WFMD) is dedicated to creating positive change for women and girls through advocacy, investment, research, and collective impact. The WFMD is a hybrid organization - providing seed grants to innovative organizations within Miami-Dade County, as well as convening thought leaders, the public and advocates to address emerging needs and creating public awareness campaigns to support a Miami-Dade where women and girls can truly thrive.

In 2021, The Women's Fund Miami-Dade created the Gender Equity Dashboard, a clearinghouse/knowledge center of data and analyses on the status and well-being of women and girls in Miami-Dade County. The dashboard focuses on the impact and effect of system design, public policies, economic trends, and macro-issues, presenting metrics that fall within our four pillars of Economic Mobility, Leadership, Health & Well-being, and Freedom From Violence. This central resource is integral to identifying current, emerging, and long-term needs, as well as the advancement of women and girls in Miami-Dade County. Additionally, the Gender Equity Dashboard serves to mobilize resources in the community and among community leaders. By highlighting the condition of women and girls, this cutting-edge informational tool facilitates the coordination of efforts among philanthropists, community-based advocates and activists, and organizational leadership.

On March 17, 2022, right after Equal Pay Day and with the support of The Children’s Trust, the WFMD launched the newest iteration of the Gender Equity Dashboard which now includes not only additional gendered metrics but also a critical racial and ethnic lens. The updated version presents the established metrics through a racial and ethnic lens. This lens was also applied to additional implemented metrics including a new section on Maternal and Infant Health, which for example, shows how Black mothers have the highest maternal mortality and infant mortality rates. In the Economic Mobility section, viewers can also find information on how women are fairing in the labor market. For example, in 2019, women’s median earnings were 19% below those of men with Black or African American women earning the least. Overall, women’s earnings and labor force participation continues to lag behind men’s. The Gender Equity Dashboard highlights the intersection between gender, race and ethnicity to illustrate the disparities that exist in our community.

The United Nations has flagged gender data inequality as a major hurdle to achieving gender equality throughout the world. When gendered data is not readily accessible and/or available it makes women and girls invisible. In response to this lack of readily available data, the WFMD created the Gender Equity Dashboard, gathering and utilizing data relevant to the well-being of women and girls. The goal is to ask the relevant questions and to find appropriate solutions towards creating positive change for women and girls in Miami-Dade County. Melinda Gates described it best when she said “We can’t close the gender gap we all aspire to close unless we first close the data gap.”