With greater educational opportunities yielding better jobs for women
than ever before, female spending power has become a central engine of
the economy-and is changing the world for the better. While male incomes
have remained rather flat over the past 30 years, adjusted for
inflation, women's incomes have grown exponentially. Much of the
increase, of course, is a factor of women's participation in the
workforce, generally, but it nonetheless has implications for the
economy. A 2007 Goldman Sachs report says : "Closing the gap between
male and female employment rates would have huge implicaitons for the
global economy, boosting U.S. GDP by as much as 9% Eurozone GDP by 13%
and Japanese GDP by 16%.
The inverse is also true, The united Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the pacific countries reports that restrictiong
job opportunities for women costs the region between $42 billion and $46
billion a year in GDP growth. A gap of 30 to 40 percentage points
between men's and women's workforce participation rates is common in the
Asia-Pacific region. The gap in women's education limits their
participation in the workforce, causing a further loss of $16 billion to
$30 billion to the region's economic output.
Gaps in the worforce aside, women have become the major drivers of the
consumption economy in the United States, says Maddy Dychtwald, author
of "Influence : How women's soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our
World for the Better."
She says that women today influence 83% of all dollars spent on consumer purchases, including :
- 62% of all New Cars
- 92% of Vacations
- 90% of food
- 55% of consumer electronics
- 93% of health-care spending
- 94% of home furnishings
And as women have gained more economic might, they have also wielded
this power differently than men, says Dychwald, In developing countries,
it has been documented that women reinvest 90% of their income in their
families and communities, compared to men who reinvest only 30% to 40%
of their income-with the remainder going to extravagances such as
alcohol and cigarettes, says Dychtwald. "Even in the United States, what
we notice is that women have a tendency to spend their money more on
their family and more on education, on health and on things that really
make life for families a little bit better."
For Dychtwald, this increased purchasing power has its roots in trends
begun by the Baby Bommer generation-and especially in the increase in
education of women. 'Today, for the very first time, we see a critical
mass of women entering the workforce with that education and gaining
earning power," she tells Big Think. The change also has its origins in
an evolving economic base. "We went from an economy that was industrial,
manufacturing-based, where brawn really defined your role and gave you
the power to really earn income, to a more knowledge-based economy,
where the skill set was more education-based," She says. "So women got
that education at exactly the right moment in history that allowed them
success in the workplace."
Some marketers have begun to take note of women's purchasing might,
says Dychtwald. Catering to female economic clout, Citigroup began a
program called Women & Co.
targeting female banking consumers. Yet others have been slow to
respond, despite a spate of examples and books on the potential boon in
advertising to women. The automobile industry, where women buy 62% of
all new car purchases, is one example. "They are notorious for doing a
horrible job of speaking out to women,” says Dychtwald. “If anything
they give just kind of lip service or what we call 'pink marketing' to
women.”
