Resources

2011 August 27

Women are storming emerging-world boardrooms

http://www.economist.com/node/21526872

Source: The Economist
Type: Article

2011 March 7

This major international study into boardroom culture investigates the relationship between board composition, share price performance and company success before, during and after the financial crisis. Smaller boards, more female directors and a higher proportion of independent directors are the key boardroom components for company success.

http://press.eversheds.com/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=2243&NewsAreaID=2

Source: Eversheds LLP
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2009 September

As a market, women represent an opportunity bigger than China and India combined. They control $20 trillion in consumer spending, and that figure could reach $28 trillion in the next five years. BCG surveyed more than 12,000 women from a variety of geographies, income levels, and walks of life about their education, finances, homes, jobs, activities, interests, relationships, hopes, and fears, as well as their shopping behaviors and spending patterns. In this article, Silverstein and Sayre, two of the firm’s partners, review highlights of the findings and explain the biggest opportunities. While any business would be wise to target female consumers, they say, the greatest potential lies in six industries: food, fitness, beauty, apparel, health care, and financial services.

http://hbr.org/2009/09/the-female-economy/es

Source: Harvard Business Review
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2010 February

Since the beginning of the recession at the end of 2007, unemployment has increased rapidly, in Pennsylvania as it has elsewhere. While many families suffer as a result of reduced earnings and unemployment, women who head households face significantly higher risks of unemployment than male heads of households, and are much more likely than men to live in poverty. Single mothers nationally have higher rates of unemployment than other women and men; in December 2009 the unemployment rate for women who maintain families reached its highest point, 13 percent, in more than 25 years (IWPR 2010). Policy action is required to ensure that women and their families are receiving adequate help during the current crisis, and that measures are put in place to help them reach and maintain economic self-sufficiency in the longer run.

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/the-female-face-of-poverty-and-economic-insecurity-the-impact-of-the-recession-on-women-in-pennsylvania-and-pittsburgh-msa

Source: The Institute for Women's Policy Research
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

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

2011 January

Fully integrating women into both the workplace and the marketplace can yield a significant return—what can be called the Gender Dividend. Much like the dividends that public corporations pay to shareholders, the Gender Dividend is a steady benefit that is earned by making wise, balanced investments in developing women as workers and potential leaders as well as understanding women as consumers and their impact on the economy and the bottom line. Done right, the Gender Dividend should be reflected in increased sales, expanded markets, and improved recruitment and retention of a key talent segment.

http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Global/Local Assets/Documents/Public Sector/dttl_ps_genderdividend_130111.pdf

Source: Deloitte
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2010 April

The gender wage gap and occupational segregation – men primarily working in occupations done by other men, and women primarily working with other women – are persistent features of the US labor market. During 2009, median weekly earnings for female full-time workers were $657, compared with $819 per week for men, a gender wage ratio of 80.2 percent (or a gender wage gap of 19.8 percent).Therefore, tackling occupational segregation is an important part of tackling the gender wage gap.

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/the-gender-wage-gap-by-occupation

Source: The Institute for Women's Policy Research
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2010 September

The ratio of women’s and men’s median annual earnings, was 77.0 for full-time, year-round workers in 2009, essentially unchanged from 77.1 in 2008. (This means the gender wage gap for full-time year-round workers is now 22.9 percent.) This is below the peak of 77.8 percent in 2007.

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/the-gender-wage-gap-2009

Source: The Institute for Women's Policy Research
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2009
Kathy LeMay

LeMay’s new book, “The Generosity Plan,” argues that strategic beneficence is the key. Focus allows you to say no to solicitations more often than yes. Scattershot onetime gifts aren’t emotionally satisfying, and they confuse organizations, because they expect and solicit additional donations that don’t materialize.

http://raisingchange.com/generosity-plan

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Generosity-Plan-Sharing-Treasure-Talent/dp
Type: Book

2008

Through the Global Gender Gap Reports for the past three years, the World Economic Forum has been providing a framework for quantifying the magnitude of gender-based disparities, tracking their progress over time and designing effective measures reducing them. In addition, in 2008, the Global Gender Parity Group and Regional Gender Parity Groups were launched in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2008.pdf

Source: World Economic Forum
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2009

Over the last year, the world has seen the biggest recession in almost a century. It is clear that recovery will require, among other things, the best of talent, ideas and innovation. It is therefore more important now than ever before for countries and companies to pay heed to one of the fundamental cornerstones of economic growth available to them-the skills and talent of their female human resource pool.

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2009.pdf

Source: World Economic Forum
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2010

Never before has there been such momentum around the issue of gender parity on the global stage. As women begin to make up more than half of all university graduates in much of the developed world, there is an increased consciousness that this talent must be given the opportunity to lead. Several countries have introduced legislation that mandates minimum requirements for women’s participation, in both business and politics.

http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-gender-gap

Source: World Economic Forum
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2011

Through the Global Gender Gap Report series, the World Economic Forum has been quantifying the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress over time. By providing a comprehensive framework for benchmarking global gender gaps, the Report reveals those countries that are role models in dividing their resources equitably between women and men, regardless of the overall level of those resources.

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2011.pdf

Source: World Economic Forum
Type: Research Report- Non Profit Org

2007 September
Michaela Bar, Alexandra Niessen, and Stefan Ruenzi

This paper investigates the impact of work group diversity on performance. Analyzing a uniquely large sample of management teams from the U.S. mutual fund industry, we found that the influence of diversity on performance depends on the dimension of diversity that is analyzed. Informational diversity has a positive impact on performance, which is driven by tenure diversity as well as educational diversity. Social category diversity has a negative impact on performance, which is mainly driven by gender diversity while age diversity has no strong impact. Our results have important implications for the optimal composition of work groups and for investment strategies of fund investors.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1017803

Source: University of Cologne
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2009
Laura Liswood

Moving beyond diversity while embracing differences to achieve success at work

http://www.lauraliswood.com/the-loudest-duck.html

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Loudest-Duck-Diversity-Embracing-Differenc
Type: Book

2009 October 23

For the first time, women make up half the work force. The Shriver Report, out just last week, found that mothers are the major breadwinners in 40 percent of families. We have a female speaker of the House and a female secretary of state. Thirty-two women have served as governors. Thirty-eight have served as senators. Four out of eight Ivy League presidents are women. Great news, right? Well, not exactly. In fact, it couldn’t be more spectacularly misleading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/opinion/24lipman.html?scp=1&sq=The Mismeasure of Women&st=cse

Source: New York Times
Type: Article

2011 September 8

Although the gender gaps in education, employment, health and political representation in the BRICs are narrowing, they are still far away from the break-even point between men and women of the Big Four countries. This was signaled by FORBES’ recently published Power Women list, since the great majority of the women ranked are from the United States and Europe, the so-called developed world. As a result, out of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World there’s only two Brazilians, three Chinese and three Indians, with Russian women failing to make the list.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2011/09/08/the-most-powerful-women-in-the-brics/

Source: Forbes
Type: Top Women Lists

2009

The Women and Wealth Research Survey 2009 looks at the unique group of women who have lived through, and pioneered, the changing social roles thatwealthy women fill. It asks how societal changes have affected women working in the family business, how they have been influenced by their parents and their children and how these women have forged a place for themselves within the business. It looks at the role wealth plays in the lives of affluent women, what they want to achieve for themselves and how they see their legacy.

http://www.wilmingtontrust.com/repositories/wtc_sitecontent/PDF/new_wealth_paradigm.pdf

Source: Wilmington Trust
Type: Research Report - For Profit Org

2010 January 1

This highlights paper summarizes six recent reports about the impact, investment practices and values of women’s funds. This significant body of evidence, collected over the period 2006- 2009, shows a remarkable commonality in findings, and makes a compelling case for the distinctive and valuable role of women’s funds in accelerating social justice.

http://www.womensfundingnetwork.org/sites/wfnet.org/files/FINALResearchSummary_1.pdf

Source: Women's Funding Network
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2008
Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen

Why women are the market for changing the world, and how to reach them

http://www.bkconnection.com/ProdDetails.asp?ID=9781576754726

Source: http://www.amazon.com/She-Spot-Market-Changing-Business/dp/15767
Type: Book

2009 October

This report describes how a woman’s nation changes everything about how we live and work today. Now for the first time in our nation’s history, women are half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families. This is a dramatic shift from just a generation ago (in 1967 women made up only one-third of all workers). It changes how women spend their days and has a ripple effect that reverberates throughout our nation. It fundamentally changes how we all work and live, not just women but also their families, their co-workers, their bosses, their faith institutions, and their communities.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/womans_nation.html

Source: The Shriver Report
Type: Research Report - Non Profit Org

2011 May 18

At a global summit in Paris, France, MPs from around the world argued that investing in girls can spur economic growth. But the economic case for gender equality has its critics

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/may/18/difficult-issue-gender-economics

Source: The Guardian
Type: Blog Entry

2011

The Journal's Rebecca Blumenstein sat down with three members of the task force for the conference—actor Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media; Debra Lee, chairman and chief executive of Viacom Inc.'s BET Networks; and Dominic Barton, global managing director of McKinsey & Co., the research partner—to further discuss the issue of women and economic competitiveness. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203699404577042192498214290.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Source: The Wall Street Journal
Type: Article

The White House Project, a national, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization, 501(c)(3), aims to advance women’s leadership in all communities and sectors, up to the U.S. presidency. By filling the leadership pipeline with a richly diverse, critical mass of women, we make American institutions, businesses and government truly representative. Through multi-platform programs, The White House Project creates a culture where America’s most valuable untapped resource—women—can succeed in all realms. To advance this mission, The White House Project strives to support women and the issues that allow women to lead in their own lives and in the world. When women leaders bring their voices, vision and leadership to the table alongside men, the debate is more robust and the policy is more inclusive and sustainable. By supporting women and the values that allow women to succeed—the full range of health options, security platforms that utilize all our resources, economic stability for all—we work to create an equitable culture.

http://www.thewhitehouseproject.org/

Source: The White House Project
Type: Website