Happy Thursday:
The first article questions changing dynamic of how our society views women with careers and asks the question, are women (finally) allowed to love their jobs? It is taken as a given that a man is allowed to find fulfillment at work, and have his career feed both his sense of importance and sense of self. Interestingly, studies have shown that for women, working outside the home correlates with better mental and physical health and reported happiness. And it turns out that daughters of mothers who work tend to be higher achieving, work themselves, make more money, and spend more time with their own daughters, so a win-win all around. Also, men with stay-at home wives tend to penalize their female colleagues denying them promotions. Not having financial independence puts women at risk as they are more likely to be stuck in abusive relationships. So the question is, what is not to like about working? And can we finally stop apologizing for enjoying a career? Sadly, the lack of paid parental leave, adequate sick days and affordable child care can force women out of the workforce. Many of them don’t opt out, they are pushed. This author’s dive into the subject makes for great reading. The full article can be found here.
Which brings us to the next article from HBR which explores the question, “Does a woman’s high status career hurt her marriage?” It turns out that the answer is no IF the woman has tangible and instrumental support from her spouse. And by instrumental support the authors mean a spouse that roll up their sleeves and pitches in with childcare and household duties. Seems like a sound plan to me. The full article can be found here.
Also from HBR, an article details a Grant Thorton study on the glacial progress of getting women into executive roles. It turns out that financial service firms are some of the worst offenders in terms of promoting women. The full article can be found here.
The next article notes that based on 40+ years of research, it seems that women make better managers than men. Based on the analysis of 27 million employee responses, it seems that female managers are better at driving employee engagement. Why does this matter? It seems that 87% of employees worldwide report being disengaged. Companies that have engaged employees outperform their peers by 147%. That is a lot of unrealized potential no matter how you count. The full article can be found here.
Finally, a paper by Barbara Stewart, CFA is changing the conversation around women and investing, and negative stereotypes around women’s financial confidence and risk tolerance are being challenged. The full article can be found here.
We have some terrific events lined up for you this year and look forward to seeing you all at an event in 2017! To learn more about our 2017 events, please visit www.txwsw.com