Women's Economic Opportunity: Eastern Europe looking good!

From the Economist:

Opportunity is defined as a combination of prevailing labour policies, access to finance, education and training, and legal and social status. One surprising finding: under communism women were encouraged (or expected) to work, and this attitude has persisted in many former communist countries, which continue to provide more opportunities for women.

A quiet revolution: Women gradually taking over

In an earlier post, I commented that we need to acknowledge the changes and progress we have achieved when it comes to the rights and responsibilities for women.


The Economist has the same idea as well, which simply delights me :-)  The magazine calls this the greatest social change of our time, and notes that 

within the next few months women will cross the 50% threshold and become the majority of the American workforce. Women already make up the majority of university graduates in the OECD countries and the majority of professional workers in several rich countries, including the United States. Women run many of the world’s great companies, from PepsiCo in America to Areva in France.

Yes, indeed.  As a kid, my formative years were when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister of India.  And then there was Golda Meir, and Sirimavo Bandaranaike.  So, I did not know anything better than the reality that there was no difference between men and women.  I think it also helped that I had a sister who was five years older and she and her fellow girls were as good as the boys at school.  Many of my own girl classmates were good and competitive students as well.  And, of course, I had a big time crush on one of those girls :-)

As I grew older, my experiences did not provide me with anything to change my mind and, to some extent, I was always puzzled that there were lots of people who had a tough time understanding Annie Oakley's line of "anything you can do, I can do better"

Now, the daughter is training to be a brain surgeon. I have females in my extended family working away as well as, or even better than, their male counterparts at leading multinational firms.  Female colleagues and friends who are even better than some of the male colleagues I have had.  I mean, if at all, I can only imagine that the female power will be way more than the male power as we reach equal rights throughout the world.

As the Economist notes though,

If the empowerment of women was one of the great changes of the past 50 years, dealing with its social consequences will be one of the great challenges of the next 50.

Population growth is undoubtedly the domain where we will see the most of the consequences.  After all, biology restricts reproduction--and I am thankful for that! Bringing up children then will dramatically change as well.  So will taking care of the elederly--most of these were traditionally the responsibilities for women.

The magazine further notes that:

The trend towards more women working is almost certain to continue. In the European Union women have filled 6m of the 8m new jobs created since 2000. In America three out of four people thrown out of work since the recession began are men; the female unemployment rate is 8.6%, against 11.2% for men. The Bureau of Labour Statistics calculates that women make up more than two-thirds of employees in ten of the 15 job categories likely to grow fastest in the next few years. By 2011 there will be 2.6m more women than men studying in American universities.

Women will also be the beneficiaries of the growing “war for talent”. The combination of an ageing workforce and a more skill-dependent economy means that countries will have to make better use of their female populations. 

Good for them, and good for all of us.

I hope that this quiet revolution will soon spread to the many parts of the world where women are considered a level or two lower than men ..... I suppose the ignorant have no clue that the times are changing, and changing rapidly.

Real Working Wives

The university where I teach is quite the norm when it comes to one statistic: female students outnumber male students.  So, it did not surprise me at all when I read that:

In more than a third of American households, women are now the chief breadwinners. This reversal of traditional roles was accelerated by a brutal two-year recession, in which 75 percent of all jobs lost were held by men.
Even in homes where both spouses work, one in four wives now earns more than her husband. That’s partly because of rising education levels among women, falling salaries in manufacturing and blue-collar jobs and the growing need for both spouses to bring home a paycheck. Wives’ earnings, said Kristin Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, have become “critical to keeping families afloat.”

Now, I don't mean to suggest that there is a direct and sole causal relationship between college education and this role-reversal.  But, it is yet another piece of data that point to dramatic changes in gender-related issues in society.

There is one related pet-peeve I have, from an academic perspective: while many universities, including mine, offer "gender studies", they do not seem to make efforts to point out such trends in American society.  Of course, gender discrimination exists, and many other aspects of society make it clear that we are not quite at equal rights yet.  But, shouldn't we at the same time acknowledge the changes and progress we have achieved?


ps: during the years that I was married, I was one of those one-in-four-husbands whose earnings were exceeded by the wives'

Obama, basketball, and the madness

I hate the multimillion dollar business that Division I sports have become. I mean, to such an extent that sports team logos of universities don't even include anymore the "U", which stands for "university" in their names. Even here in the state of Oregon: the University of Oregon goes simply with "O", and its rival, Oregon State University matches that with "OS." As my former neighbor jokes, he was surprised to find out that there are real buildings and people associated with the football team! (notice how athletics have their own domain names that has nothing to do with the "edu" of their universities?!)

So, naturally, I didn't care a shit when the President took time off his schedule to participate in the "March Madness"--another term I have come to dislike. On top of everything else, I agree with this excerpt from a report in the Christian Science Monitor:

USA Today columnist Christine Brennan is taking him to task saying that he “absolutely should have acknowledged” the women’s tourney.

“As the father of two athletic daughters, President Obama should know all about the importance of sports for women and girls,” she writes. “Which is why he should have filled out not only a men’s NCAA tournament bracket but also a women’s tournament bracket in his well-publicized appearance on ESPN last week.”

On the air

She also appeared on NPR this morning to discuss the snub.

“Even if one [tournament] completely overshadows the other, wouldn’t it be nice if the president showed some interest in the one that’s a bit smaller?” she asked

“And for those little girls playing basketball in the driveway, maybe say to them I care about your tournament too,” she said.

Adjectives

She’s got one more gripe with him. He didn’t specify that he was filling out the brackets for the “men’s” tournament.

“Those who don’t use that pesky little adjective — and you know who you are — are acting as if there’s no women’s tournament at all, or it’s so beneath them, it’s not worth mentioning. This is rather silly. It is 2009, after all.”