Increase profits by bringing women into business
With International Women's Day today, we see the usual focused interest on women's issues including increasing female participation in political and legislative processes, decreasing violence against women, increasing the number of years of education for girls and women and decreasing the pay gap between men and women. While they are all important issues, focusing energy on improving women's economic rights and standing may well be key to unhinging other challenges women face. And thus solutions come not only from the public sector, but also from the business world.
In 2009, Michael J. Silverstein and Kate Sayre published "The Female Economy" in the Harvard Business Review, an article arguing that "women now drive the world economy" because they "control spending in most categories of consumer goods." While in their 2009 study, Silverstein and Sayre found that 12% of the female population was in the "Making Ends Meet" category, the Shriver Report in its "A Women's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink" compendium (due out March 11, 2014) states that women make up 70% of the 100 million Americans at or near the poverty line and that two thirds of minimum wage workers are women.
