Inclusion

Survey: Woman-Owned Businesses Retaining and Hiring Employees in Tough Economy

Teaser:

Results from the surveyed membership of the Women President's Organization (WPO) indicate 82% of multi-million dollar business owners have positive outlooks and experienced company growth in 2011, according to the WPO's annual economic survey. Despite the economic downturn, 42% of these CEOs and presidents were able to give their employees raises while, 49% maintained current employee salaries.

Editorial:

From the press release:

Women Presidents have shown they can adjust to the changing economic climate. Results from the surveyed membership indicate 82% of multi-million dollar business owners have positive outlooks and experienced company growth in 2011, according to the annual economic survey by the Women Presidents' Organization (WPO), the premier peer advisory organization for women entrepreneurs. Despite the economic downturn, 42% of these CEOs and presidents were able to give their employees raises while, 49% maintained current employee salaries.

"These statistics are evidence of the versatility and strength of companies owned by women entrepreneurs even in the face of adversity," said Marsha Firestone, Ph.D., president and founder of the WPO. "Our survey indicates that WPO members have found ways to retain their employees in a changing economy, and to hire, provide benefits and competitive compensation. I sincerely believe that the members of the WPO represent models of perseverance for small businesses globally."

The WPO currently has 1,500 members from four continents (North America, South America, Africa, Europe) and the survey confirmed that the WPO has helped 80% of these women presidents manage their business.

Other Key Findings:
Health Care

84% provide health insurance to their employees
27% cover 81%-100% of health insurance for employees

Optimism in Small Business

51% of members have experienced positive growth
51% are optimistic about their financial performance in 2011 relative to 2010
40% indicated the greatest threat to their bottom line are the current economic conditions
71% of WPO members have six figure salaries

WPO

58% of member businesses have grown since joining; 75% of these believe WPO has helped them grow
80% Believe the WPO helps manage business concerns in the current economic climate
72% Believe their WPO Chapter is the most valuable resource that WPO provides.

This survey was sponsored by Wells Fargo and had a sample size of 275 WPO members.

Additional survey data and interviews are available upon request.

Methodology
WPO members were surveyed for their responses in July/August 2011. Members responded in an anonymous electronic format.

About the WPO:
The WPO is the premier peer advisory organization connecting women who own multi-million dollar companies. In monthly meetings across four continents (US, Canada, Peru, South Africa and the UK) chapters of 20 women presidents – from diverse industries– invest time and energy in themselves and their businesses to drive their corporations to the next level. Local WPO chapters are coordinated by a professional facilitator and meet monthly to share business expertise and experience in a confidential setting. For more information, call 212-688-4114 or visit www.womenpresidentsorg.com.

Source:

PR Newswire press release

URL:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/woman-owned-businesses-retaining-and-hiring-employees-in-tough-economy-132922148.html

Date:

November 2, 2011

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Girls equal in British throne succession

Teaser:

Sons and daughters of any future UK monarch will have equal right to the throne, after Commonwealth leaders agreed to change succession laws.

Editorial:

From the article:

Sons and daughters of any future UK monarch will have equal right to the throne, after Commonwealth leaders agreed to change succession laws.

The leaders of the 16 Commonwealth countries where the Queen is head of state unanimously approved the changes at a summit in Perth, Australia.

It means a first-born daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would take precedence over younger brothers.

The ban on the monarch being married to a Roman Catholic was also lifted.

Under the old succession laws, dating back more than 300 years, the heir to the throne is the first-born son of the monarch. Only when there are no sons, as in the case of the Queen's father George VI, does the crown pass to the eldest daughter.

The succession changes will require a raft of historic legislation to be amended, including the 1701 Act of Settlement, the 1689 Bill of Rights and the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

The change to the Royal Marriages Act will end a position where every descendant of George II is legally required to seek the consent of the monarch before marrying.

In future, the requirement is expected to be limited to a small number of the sovereign's close relatives.

Announcing the succession changes, Prime Minister David Cameron said they would apply to descendents of the Prince of Wales. They will not be applied retrospectively.

"Put simply, if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a little girl, that girl would one day be our queen," he said.

"The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man, or that a future monarch can marry someone of any faith except a Catholic - this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we have become."

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard said it was an extraordinary moment: "I'm very enthusiastic about it. You would expect the first Australian woman prime minister to be very enthusiastic about a change which equals equality for women in a new area."

She said the changes appeared to be straightforward. "But just because they seem straightforward to our modern minds doesn't mean that we should underestimate their historical significance, changing as they will for all time the way in which the monarchy works and changing its history."

But the campaign group Republic - which wants an elected head of state in Britain - said "nothing of substance" had been changed.

"The monarchy discriminates against every man, woman and child who isn't born into the Windsor family. To suggest that this has anything to do with equality is utterly absurd," spokesman Graham Smith said.

...

Source:

BBC News

URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15492607

Date:

October 31, 2011

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Fewer Nations Made Progress to Close Gender Gap: Study

Teaser:

Fewer countries made strides toward improving equality between men and women in 2011, while Nordic countries held the top spots, according to a ranking of 135 nations by the World Economic Forum.

Editorial:

From the article:

Fewer countries made strides toward improving equality between men and women this year, while Nordic countries held the top spots, according to a ranking of 135 nations by the World Economic Forum.

Iceland claimed the No. 1 position for the third year in a row, followed by Norway, Finland and Sweden, in the 2011 Global Gender Gap Index released today by the Geneva-based group. Of the countries surveyed, 55 percent narrowed the gender gap, compared with 59 percent the previous year, while 85 percent improved gender-equality ratios since the first survey in 2006.

“Women make up one-half of the brain power of the human capital that’s available to an economy,” Saadia Zahidi, head of the World Economic Forum’s Women Leaders and Gender Parity program and co-author of the report, said in an interview. “If that one-half is not fully integrated into a particular country’s development and into its development over time, it’s fairly evident that there would be a detrimental effect.”

The survey measures the difference between men’s and women’s economic participation and opportunities, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment. While differences in health and education are disappearing, women still lag behind in economic participation, which includes salaried and skilled jobs, and political representation, according to the report.

“Labor-force participation is where the success starts to drop off,” said Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a co-author of the report and professor at the University of California-Berkley, during a press briefing today about the study in New York.

...

Source:

Bloomberg

URL:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-01/fewer-nations-made-progress-on-reducing-gender-gap-study-says.html

Date:

November 2, 2011

Affiliate:

The Global Gender Gap Report 2011

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 9:26am

The Global Gender Gap Index, introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006, is a framework for capturing the magnitude and scope of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress. The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups, and over time. The rankings are designed to create greater awareness among a global audience of
the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them. The methodology and quantitative analysis behind the rankings are intended to serve as a basis for designing effective measures for reducing gender gaps.

URL:

http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-2011/

Employment Crisis Worsens for Black Women during the Recovery

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 10/31/2011 - 10:15am

While total job growth has been weak since the recession officially ended in June 2009, women actually lost jobs and their unemployment rate increased during the first two years of the recovery (June 2009 to June 2011), while men gained jobs and their unemployment rate declined.

URL:

http://www.nwlc.org/resource/employment-crisis-worsens-black-women-during-recovery

Member Organization:

National Women's Law Center

What Men Have to Do With It: Public Policies to Promote Gender Equality

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 10/31/2011 - 10:03am

Most policies that strive for equality still focus exclusively on empowering women and neglect the role that men can play in the effort. This report summarizes how policies of seven countries (Brazil, Chile, India, Mexico, South Africa, Norway and Tanzania) involve men in gender equality goals. The study also examines whether the policies address social norms that reinforce traditional perceptions of what it means to be a man.

URL:

http://www.icrw.org/publications/what-men-have-do-it

Member Organization:

International Center for Research on Women

Limited Seating: Mixed Results on Efforts to Include More Women at the Corporate Board Table

Teaser:

Article discusses the lack of women on corporate boards and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of quotas.

Editorial:

From the article:

Fortune Magazine's annual Most Powerful Women list arrived on newsstands last week. With it comes inevitable chatter from the business press about who is in and who is out, who moved up a few notches and who has been knocked down a few pegs. And yet, perhaps what is most striking about the list is not the jockeying among the boldface names. Rather, it is the fact that even amid a lingering financial crisis that has highlighted poor governance and the scarcity of senior women at big corporations, the total number of women CEOs in the Fortune 500 is only 15, up from just two when the list debuted in 1998.

Indeed, at a time when women have gained more standing in politics and society, they have not made equal progress at the top of corporate America. Women comprise half of the workforce but hold only 16% of the board seats in Fortune 500 companies. More than 10% of those companies have no women serving on their boards.

In many countries, the numbers are even starker. Women hold approximately 12% of the seats on corporate boards in Germany, the United Kingdom and France. In China, women hold 8.5% of board seats; in India, that figure is 5.3%, and in Japan, only .9% of directors are women, according to data compiled by Catalyst, a nonprofit group seeking to expand opportunities for women in business.

Efforts to change this, however, have been under way for several years. Norway in 2003 passed a quota law requiring that by 2008, 40% of all board members at state-owned and publicly listed companies had to be women. Today, women represent 37.9% of corporate boards in Norway, according to the European Professional Women's Network. Other countries, including Spain and the Netherlands, have passed similar laws.

But while quotas accomplish one very big goal, they have unintended negative effects. For one, companies looking to appoint new board members end up choosing from a smaller talent pool. Because the pool is narrowed, the candidates are less experienced. Second, quotas could perversely perpetuate discrimination; companies might purposely appoint less competent women to the board as tokens, but not take their views seriously. Instead, rules that encourage companies to foster diversity on their boards -- rather than coerce them into all looking the same -- may be a better way to get more women in U.S. boardrooms, experts say.

...

Source:

Knowledge@Wharton

URL:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2861

Date:

October 28, 2011

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Number of female 'Fortune' 500 CEOs at record high

Teaser:

A record has been set for female leadership: More women are slated to take the reins ofFortune 500 companies than ever before.

Editorial:

From USA Today:

A record has been set for female leadership: More women are slated to take the reins of Fortune 500 companies than ever before.

Wednesday, pharmaceutical firm Mylan said Heather Bresch will succeed Robert Coury as CEO. Tuesday, IBM tapped Virginia "Ginni" Rometty to succeed Sam Palmisano, making her the first female CEO in the company's 100-year history. Both appointments are effective Jan. 1.

If no women step down before the end of 2011, there will be 18 women running Fortune 500 companies in 2012. Previously, there haven't been more than 16 female CEOs at Fortune 500 firms at the same time.

...

Source:

USA Today

URL:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/story/2011-10-26/women-ceos-fortune-500-companies/50933224/1

Date:

October 28, 2011

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

The Myth of the Ideal Worker: Does Doing All The Right Things Really Get Women Ahead?

Submitted by asklar on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:50am

Catalyst's longitudinal project, The Promise of Future Leadership: A Research Program on Highly Talented Employees in the Pipeline, develops timely reports on the retention and advancement of high potential women and men. The project surveys graduates of leading business schools in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, with the intent of assessing their career values, goals, and expectations, the developmental opportunities afforded them, and their strategies for managing work and family life. The reports highlight the differences in women's and men's career experiences and satisfaction; some feature perspectives from global leaders and other experts.

URL:

http://www.catalyst.org/publication/509/42/the-myth-of-the-ideal-worker-does-doing-all-the-right-things-really-get-women-ahead

Member Organization:

Catalyst

Michigan Women's Leadership Index (WLI)

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 10:23am

The Michigan Women's Leadership Index (WLI) is released biennially by Inforum Center for Leadership - the research and education arm of Inforum. The WLI is a data-based instrument used to measure the presence of women executives in the highest leadership positions of the top 100 publicly-held companies headquartered in Michigan (Index 100).

Executive Summary: 2011 Michigan Women's Leadership Index

URL:

https://www.inforummichigan.org/michigan-womens-leadership-index

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NCRW is a network of leading university and community based research, policy, and advocacy centers with a growing global reach dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls. We also have a Corporate Circle comprised of senior diversity professionals from leading U.S. and global member companies and a Presidents Circle of college and university leaders who share our commitment. NCRW harnesses the collective power of its network to provide knowledge, analysis, and thought leadership on issues ranging from reducing women’s poverty to building a critical mass of women’s leadership across sectors.

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