UMass Boston

Policy-Relevant and Action-Oriented

The center conducts policy-relevant and action-oriented research to inform policymaking and initiatives to ensure equity, well-being, and justice for all of those who identify as female and gender expansive individuals. The center also examines public leadership with an emphasis on women of color to help strengthen diverse forms of women’s leadership. Building on its long-term commitment to explore the combined impacts of gender, race/ethnicity, class and other aspects of identity on policymaking and politics, the center prioritizes the experiences of underrepresented, low-income, and marginalized women.

The center’s research team is actively engaged in the following projects, all of which are collaborative and multidisciplinary:

From Lived Experience to Indicators: The Status of Women, Girls, and Gender Expansive Individuals

The center is embarking on an initiative to equip the nonprofit, philanthropic, government, business, and other sectors with essential information on the status of women, girls, and gender expansive individuals living in Massachusetts. Center researchers are currently analyzing available data sources for use as metrics in the context of a shifting data landscape. Following a regional pilot, the center plans to deploy a mixed methods approach emphasizing local contexts for understanding how women, girls, and gender expansive persons are faring across a range of indicators using an intersectional, anti-racist lens. The center is collaborating with the Women’s Fund SouthCoast on this initiative.

Understanding and Supporting the Well-Being of Greater Boston’s Grassroots Organizations Led By and For Women, Girls, and Gender Expansive Leaders of Color

As a research partner to the Boston Women’s Fund (BWF), the center has completed data collection to understand the organizational, financial, leadership well-being of grassroots organizations led by and for women and gender expansive leaders of color in Greater Boston. Research products, prepared in collaboration with the Boston Women’s Fund, will be forthcoming.

UMass Boston Early Ed Cost & Usage Simulator Project (CUSP)

Led by Early Education Leaders, an Institute at UMass Boston, and Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, the UMass Boston CUSP Project has developed a statistical model to produce estimates of key impacts of proposed legislation in Massachusetts to expand access to affordable, quality childcare and early education.

Addressing the Cliff-Effect Problem in Massachusetts Legislation to Expand Affordable Quality Child Care and Early Education is the latest in a series of publications by the CUSP Project aimed at informing early education and childcare policy in Massachusetts.

Building a Foundation for Racial and Ethnic Equity: Estimated Impacts of Massachusetts Legislation to Expand Affordable Quality Child Care and Early Education released in June 2024, showed that with an adequate supply of quality child care to meet the expected increase in demand, increasing financial assistance for child care could virtually eliminate existing racial/ethnic gaps in access to quality child care.

Estimating the Impacts of Legislation to Expand Affordable Quality Child Care and Early Education in Massachusetts: Initial Findings on Utilization, Employment, and Financial Assistance, released in October 2023, provided foundational insights into the potential effects of expanded child care assistance on family employment and child care utilization.

A video produced by the CUSP Project features families from across the Commonwealth sharing how their lives would change if they had affordable access to quality childcare. Watch it here in English and watch it here in Spanish.

Contact

For more information about the center’s research agenda, activities, and/or publications, please contact Christa Kelleher, Research and Policy Director, at 617.287.5530 or christa.kelleher@umb.edu.