Jobless Rates Are Rising, But Are Women Coming Out Ahead?
The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.8% in November and fewer jobs were added than predicted, according to a grim report released by the U.S. Department of Labor this morning. But alongside continually disheartening news about our economy are articles that trumpet women’s growing economic power, like The Rise of the Sheconomy, published in TIME last month. The gist of that article, and many others like it, is that women hold the reins to our economy through their overwhelming consumer power. Even in categories that are normally considered male territory, like tech gadgets and cars, female shoppers hold overwhelming influence over how to spend. And now, they’re also the primary earners:
A recent Booz & Co. report called women “the Third Billion,” meaning that, globally, they are the next emerging economy. Much of this is a result of women’s growing economic power in developing countries, but even in the U.S., women hold sway over 51.3% of the nation’s private wealth, as Maddy Dychtwald observes in Influence, one of many books on the subject of female economic empowerment to come out in the past 12 months. “We’re on the brink of a massive power shift, a grinding of the gears of history into a new human condition,” she writes. “It’s a world where women can, if they choose, seize the reins of economic control.”
But there’s a catch: On the whole, women still earn less than men, have a much lower chance of landing the highest-paid executive-level jobs, and suffer the brunt of the costs of parenthood (at least career-wise). So are we really coming out ahead?
Post from: BlissTree
Jobless Rates Are Rising, But Are Women Coming Out Ahead?