Women and Future of World Economics!

Tom Peters has been warning the companies and the marketers about this phenomenon for quite a long time now…. something that this Economist article brings out! Soon the strategies change in favor of women the better it will be for the corporate world!

In 1950 only one-third of American women of working age had a paid job. Today two-thirds do, and women make up almost half of America’s workforce (see chart 1). Since 1950 men’s employment rate has slid by 12 percentage points, to 77%. In fact, almost everywhere more women are employed and the percentage of men with jobs has fallen—although in some countries the feminisation of the workplace still has far to go: in Italy and Japan, women’s share of jobs is still 40% or less.

The increase in female employment in developed countries has been aided by a big shift in the type of jobs on offer. Manufacturing work, traditionally a male preserve, has declined, while jobs in services have expanded. This has reduced the demand for manual labour and put the sexes on a more equal footing.

In the developing world, too, more women now have paid jobs. In the emerging East Asian economies, for every 100 men in the labour force there are now 83 women, higher even than the average in OECD countries. Women have been particularly important to the success of Asia’s export industries, typically accounting for 60-80% of jobs in many export sectors, such as textiles and clothing.

Of course, it is misleading to talk of women’s “entry” into the workforce. Besides formal employment, women have always worked in the home, looking after children, cleaning or cooking, but because this is unpaid, it is not counted in the official statistics. To some extent, the increase in female paid employment has meant fewer hours of unpaid housework. However, the value of housework has fallen by much less than the time spent on it, because of the increased productivity afforded by dishwashers, washing machines and so forth. Paid nannies and cleaners employed by working women now also do some work that used to belong in the non-market economy.

Nevertheless, most working women are still responsible for the bulk of chores in their homes. In developed economies, women produce just under 40% of official GDP. But if the worth of housework is added (valuing the hours worked at the average wage rates of a home help or a nanny) then women probably produce slightly more than half of total output.

Tags: Women, Businesses