Resources

ICRW publishes reports, policy briefs, toolkits and position papers on a range of topics for researchers, policymakers, program implementers and others.

http://www.icrw.org/icrw-library

Source: International Center for Research on Women
Type: Research Organization

2010
Sevi Simavi, Clare Manuel, and Mark Blackden.

Promoting women's economic empowerment is increasingly seen as one of the most important driving forces behind economic growth and the fight against poverty. Women's economic participation as entrepreneurs, employees, and leader is recognized as a measure of a country's dynamism and viability. This book provides fresh solutions to common issues that women entrepreneurs face and presents actionable tools for promoting gender sensitive reforms.

http://www.ifc.org/genderIC

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Gender-Dimensions-Investment-Climate-Refor
Type: Book

2010 January

This whitepaper from McKinsey focuses on the role that the private sector can play in women's economic empowerment by enabling women to develop marketable skills, helping women find and retain employment, and supporting women in obtaining equal social and economic rights and achieving leadership positions.

http://www.mckinsey.com/App_Media/Reports/SSO/EmpWomen_USA4_Letter.pdf

Source: McKinsey & Company
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2010 January

Few companies make social investments specifically aimed at empowering women in developing economies, but we believe that supporting this goal is good business and good practice for all companies. The benefits to businesses come from enlarging their markets, improving the quality or size of their current and potential workforce, and maintaining or improving their reputations. Companies whose social investments focus on women in developing economies, the survey and our other research show, benefit not only women and their societies but also themselves.

https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Economic_Studies/Productivity_Performance/How_helping_women_helps_business_2513

Source: McKinsey & Company
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2008 September

Through interviews with 85 women across the globe in a variety of fields and leadership positions, McKinsey distilled a leadership model comprising five broad and interrelated dimensions: meaning, or finding your strengths and putting them to work in the service of an inspiring purpose; managing energy, or knowing where your energy comes from, where it goes, and what you can do to manage it; positive framing, or adopting a more constructive way to view your world, expand your horizons, and gain the resilience to move ahead even when bad things happen; connecting, or identifying who can help you grow, building stronger relationships, and increasing your sense of belonging; and engaging, or finding your voice, becoming self-reliant and confident by accepting opportunities and the inherent risks they bring, and collaborating with others.

https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Centered_leadership_How_talented_women_thrive_2193

Source: McKinsey & Company
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2010 October

As the number of women participating in the workforce grows, their potential influence on business is becoming ever more important. Seventy-two percent of respondents to a recent McKinsey survey believe there is a direct connection between a company’s gender diversity and its financial success. Indeed, the share saying so has risen in the past year, even in the face of continued economic turmoil. Yet companies have not so far successfully bridged the gap between men and women in the top levels of management. This is not surprising, since the survey shows that diversity isn’t a high priority at most companies and that there’s great variability in the number of gender-diversity policies that companies have pursued.

https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Moving_women_to_the_top_McKinsey_Global_Survey_results_2686?pagenum=2

Source: McKinsey & Company
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2008 September

Women in developed economies have made substantial gains in the workplace during recent decades. Nevertheless, it’s still true that the higher up in a company you look, the lower the percentage of women. But some companies have moved successfully to increase the hiring, retention, and promotion of female executives. Their initiatives have included efforts to ensure that HR policies aren’t inadvertently biased against women or part-time workers, to encourage mentoring and networking, to establish (and consistently monitor at a senior level) targets for diversity, and to find ways of creating a better work–life balance. Changes like these have a price, but there are business advantages to making them—above and beyond the branding benefit that might accrue to companies viewed as socially progressive.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/A_business_case_for_women_2192

Source: McKinsey & Company
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

NCRW is a network of 120 leading research, policy and advocacy centers dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls. Their website provides a wide range of reports and publications on all subjects pertaining women and girls.

http://www.ncrw.org/reports-publications

Source: National Council for Research on Women
Type: Research Organization

2009 June

In the report, Women in Fund Management: A Road Map for Achieving Critical Mass – and Why it Matters, the National Council for Research on Women argues for greater diversity in fund management and calls on the financial services industry to implement a Critical Mass Principle with measurable action steps to bring more women into the field. Achieving critical mass will confer the vital benefits experienced in other sectors when significant numbers of women are included in decision-making as well as the distinct advantages that women bring to financial management.

http://www.ncrw.org/programs/271/women-in-fund-management

Source: National Council for Research on Women
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2010 March 21

Playing the stock market is a constant ricochet between panic and euphoria. There’s a reason the burnout rate is high. But the formula for succeeding in a high-stress financial environment is simpler than you might think. If you ask a trader, or someone who studies them, what the single most important factor is in determining whether a person will be good at trading, they will say that it’s the ability to control one’s emotions. Recent studies suggest purely rational behavior may not come as naturally to men as gender stereotypes would suggest.

http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/64950/

Source: New York Magazine
Type: Article

Articles in this series examine the most recent shifts in women's power, prominence and impact on societies around the world, and try to measure the influence of women on early 21st century development.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/world/series/the_female_factor/index.html

Source: New York Times
Type: Article

2010 April 1

One of the more intriguing — yet unanswerable — questions that has arisen in the wake of the financial crisis is whether all that alpha-male testosterone at the top of Wall Street firms helped to ratchet up the excessive risk-taking, inflating the housing and securitization bubbles, the bursting of which led to a credit freeze and the worst recession in generations. Would the presence of more women in the C-suites have led to a different outcome? It’s the Wall Street version of the age-old question, “If women ruled the world … ?”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/does-wall-street-need-an-estrogen-injection/?dbk

Source: New York Times
Type: Article

2010 January 29

Women have always been drawn to finance in smaller numbers than men. But after nearly two decades of increased hiring and promotion of women on Wall Street, their ranks appear to be shrinking again. The reasons are varied and unclear. But some finance executives say that as the work force has shrunk over all in finance, there was bound to be a noticeable impact on women because their numbers were smaller to begin with. They also cite the big banks’ increasing reliance on trading, a part of the business that has been especially difficult for women to penetrate.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/looking-for-women-in-wall-streets-top-ranks/

Source: New York Times
Type: Article

2009 February 7

Banks around the world desperately want bailouts of billions of dollars, but they also have another need they’re unaware of: women, women and women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/opinion/08kristof.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Mistresses of the Universe&st=cse

Source: New York Times
Type: Article

2009 December 11

It seems that in the hedge fund industry, female fund managers come out on top — at least according to a new study from Bloomberg L.P. and the National Council for Research on Women. BusinessWeek notes that according to the research, from January 2000 through May 31, 2009, hedge funds run by women delivered nearly double the investment performance of those managed by men.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/women-outperform-men-in-hf-returns-study-says/

Source: New York Times
Type: Article

2010 July

Existing compensation systems for lawyers open the door to gender bias because they contain tremendous subjectivity, lack transparency, and because so much of the negotiation surrounding salaries takes place out of sight. This report raises doubts about the conventional wisdom that women’s family responsibilities and lack of time for rainmaking are the key reasons why women partners make 22% less than men.

http://www.pardc.org/PressReleases/July_7_2010.shtml

Source: Project For Attorney Retention, UC Hastings College of Law
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2010 October 1

People who are good at solving one type of brainteaser tend to excel at a variety of mental calisthenics—support, many psychologists say, for the concept of general intelligence. A study published online this week in Science extends this concept to groups of people, arguing that groups have a "collective intelligence" that predicts their performance on a range of collaborative tasks.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6000/22.summary

Source: Science Magazine
Type: Article

2008 August 1

Are women effective as senior managers, and, if so, under what circumstances? We address this issue by studying the relationship between female participation in senior management and firm performance as measured by Tobin's Q. We find a positive association between firm performance and female participation below the CEO level, even when controlling for unobservable firm heterogeneity, but no positive effects from having a female CEO. We then show that the positive results for female participation are entirely driven by firms pursuing an "innovation intensive" strategy, where creativity and collaboration may be especially important.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1088182

Source: Social Science Research Network
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2008 October

Meet some of money management's leading lights: Battling markets, taking profits and shattering stereotypes, they're the 10 top female fund managers on earth.

http://www.txwsw.com/wonder_women.php

Source: Texas Wall Street Women
Type: Top Women Lists

An interactive timeline detailing significant feminist events in the United States.

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_timeline/1960.php

Source: The Brooklyn Museum
Type: Website

2009 March

Since their launch in 2004, the Calvert Women’s Principles have heightened awareness of workplace issues affecting women, as well as the role of business in ensuring women’s rights. Reflecting changes in the corporate diversity landscape in the intervening years, Calvert updated the CWP in 2009 to address salient emerging issues, particularly those concerning work-life balance. Attendees at the UN event considered how the CWP might be adapted to promote adoption and implementation by corporations in every industry and region around the world and contribute to further progress in the advancement of women.

http://www.calvert.com/newsarticle.html?keepleftnav=news&article=14330

Source: The Calvert Group
Type: Article

2008 September

In 2008, this report analyzed the diversity practices of all companies whose securities were held in the Calvert Social Index®. This year, Calvert narrowed the universe to the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 100 Index (S&P 100). We have retained the report's in-depth methodology, which addresses diversity policies, programs, and performance metrics; identifies leaders and laggards; and provides companies with a road map to identify gaps in their own internal practices.

http://www.calvert.com/sri-cracks-in-ceiling-diversity-report.html

Source: The Calvert Group
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2009

In 2004 the Calvert Group, Ltd., one of the largest families of socially responsible funds in the United States and UNIFEM launched The Calvert Women's Principles (CWP), the first global code of conduct focused exclusively on empowering, advancing, and investing in women worldwide. Since their launch, the CWP have been a major catalyst for dialogue and heightened awareness of workplace issues affecting women. They reflect Calvert's view that there is a strong business case for gender equality.

http://www.calvert.com/nrc/literature/documents/8753.pdf?litID=8753

Source: The Calvert Group
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org