Women currently control about $20 trillion in global annual consumer spending, a figure which could climb to $28 trillion in the next five years. Their $13 trillion in total yearly earnings could reach $18 trillion in the same period. In aggregate, women represent a growth market bigger than China and India combined.
In January 2011, the French government passed a gender quota law for corporate boards, which will become legally binding in 2017. Medium and large companies are now required to fulfill 40% women in their administrative and supervisory boards. Board decisions will still be valid for companies which do not meet the quota, but board election […]
The World Economic Forum has introduced a quota for female executives at the 2011 Davos summit and at least one of the five delegates sent by “strategic partners” must now be female. A WEF spokesman said, as a membership organization, there is a limited amount that they could do to improve female representation in boardrooms […]
In the latest salary survey by the UK-based magazine ‘Financial Director’, analysts have discovered that the pay gap between male and female finance directors has widened over the past two years. Women are now earning 68 percent of the average remuneration package of their male counter-parts – two percent less than the numbers in 2008. […]
The recent heated discussions over quota reignited by EU Commission Internal Market & Services Member Barnier reveal the true nature of Diversity: It is an emotional, personal and political issue in any sense of the words. Forget about the former choice of ‘social’ or ‘economic’ approaches. We are (finally) down to the pure power play […]
According to a survey conducted by the French organisation Liberation and the economists from the University of Evry, Thierry Laurent and Ferhat Mihoubi, being gay in the workplace has an effect on wages. In the first French study of its kind, the report shows that gay men earn 6.5% less than their heterosexual colleagues in […]
More men have reached a point where preserving or increasing their personal time is more appealing than bigger jobs and more money. According to a study by the ‘Association of Executive Search Consultants’, more than half of senior executives surveyed would strongly consider refusing a promotion if it meant fewer hours available for their personal […]
When it comes to intelligence, the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. A new study co-authored by Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Union College researchers shows:
Earlier this month, members of the European Parliament ruled in favour of expanding minimum maternity leave in Europe from 14 to 20 weeks and paternity leave to two weeks on full pay, a proposal which they must now try to sell to individual governments. In the end, MEPs decided to go beyond the initial proposal […]
The Commission recently adopted a five-year strategy for promoting equality between women and men in Europe. The strategy aims in particular to make better use of women’s potential, thereby contributing to the EU’s overall economic and social goals. It translates the principles set out in the European Commission’s Women’s Charter into specific measures, ranging from […]
