At least in terms of the economic recovery.
The latest edition of Newsweek features an
article about the role of women in the economic recovery. The article, 'Women Will Rule the World' talks of the mancession (We k
now! This was a new term for us too....)
Supposedly, men have been more affected by the current economic recession than have women. This is due to the fact that, according to the article, there are more men in the industries that were the hardest hit during the downturn - construction, financial services and manufacturing. Add in that men typically receive higher salaries than their female counterparts and it does not take long to see how we ended up with a mancession. The article indicates that 2/3 of the 11 million jobs lost since the start of the recession in 2007 were held by men. In case you are curious, the unemployment rate for males is 9.9% and 7.8% for females (of course, there's not a date provided for that statistic....) (Bennett, J. & Ellison J., 2010).
A quote included in the
article from one of President Obama's Economic Advisors, Larry Summers, is a little scary - "when the economy recovers, five years from now, one in six men who are 25 to 54 will not be working"(Bennett, J. & Ellison J., 2010).
Wow! What does that mean for us, Girls?
According to the authors, US women are bringing home the bacon AND frying it up in the pan (sorry, couldn't resist) in 2/3 of the households as the primary provider or as a co-provider (Bennett, J. & Ellison J., 2010).
Impressive!
It gets better - despite the pay gap, by 2024, the average woman in the US will outearn the average man, according to economists (note: they are not named in the article).
Good news!
Want more good news? US women will also be making 83% of the purchasing decisions, hold almost 90% of all bank accounts and a little more than half of all personal wealth (51%). There's a new book out
Influence that provides more information on this topic
(no, we haven't read it yet, but it has been added to the list).
We're soaring, Ladies!
There is some really interesting information on the growth of startups and the fact that more of them are women-owned.
[Note: There was an article last week in
Businessweek that derided the idea that startups will create the jobs needed to pull the economy out of its doldrums. The reason? scalability. The Kauffman Foundation also released
findings indicating that startups are driving job growth.]
The Newsweek article goes on to look at global markets and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the implications for talent, jobs and businesses (Bennett, J. & Ellison J., 2010).
There's a lot to take in and digest in each of these articles and studies. There are also implications for us in Boise and the state as a whole.
In spite of the differing views on the role of startups in the economy, we at Girls in Tech Boise like them so keep 'em coming! There's a lot of resources available in the Boise Valley to help (SCORE, the Small Business Development Center, TechHelp, Idaho TechConnect). If you have an idea, look them up and go in and talk. Who knows? One day, you too could run a business, a household AND the world.
Us? We are kind of partial to ruling the world...