In Japan, women in the workforce are only 4% of managers and hold only 2% of seats on boards of directors. Women hold only 10% of the seats in the lower house of the legislature.
Married couples are not allowed to have different last names, which is a special burden on women who have established themselves in the workplace. 42.5% of adults support changing the law which requires women to take their husband’s name, while 29.3% oppose change. 52.3% of those aged 70-79 opposed the change while 13.6% of those aged 30-39% oppose the change. [Marika Katanuma, Bloomberg]
- In 1946, 35% of people thought men and women were equally intelligent.
- In 1995, 43% of people thought men and women were equally intelligent.
- In 2018, 86% of people thought men and women were equally intelligent.
- Also, in 2018, 9% believed women were more intelligent than men while 5% believe men were more intelligent.
Women’s labor force participation has increased from 32% in 1950 to 57% in 2018. Men’s labor force participation has fallen from 82% to 69%.
Women now earn more bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees than do men. [Gender Stereotypes Have Changed, American Psychological Association 7/18/19]
The overwhelming majority of student debt is held by women. Of the country’s $1.46 trillion student debt, women hold two-thirds of this amount — $929 billion. [Women & Politics Institute, AU, 7/27/19]
For the first time, there are more college-educated women in the work force than college-educated men. Women age 25 and older now make up 50.2% of the college-educated work force – up about 11% since 2000.
57.5% of the people who earned a bachelor’s degree last year were women.
Women are still earning far less money than men. It’s true that women have been more likely to enter fields with lower income potential like nursing, education and administration. However, even women doing the same work as men earn less. [NYT 7/2/19]
Sotheby’s Mei Moses’s Art-Female index rose 72.9% between 2012 and 2018. That means that “a work by a female artist bought in 2012 would, on average, be worth 72.9% more if solid in 2018”.
During that same period, the men’s index rose 8.3%. The leap in the monetary value of women’s art is jaw-dropping on its own but consider that for the past 50 years men’s and women’s indexes have moved in parallel and the jump is even more noteworthy. [Broadsheet 8/2/19]
56% of voters have heard the media talk about how women candidates are unelectable. (75% of them also heard the media talk about how the current president is unelectable.)
However, looking at the last few years, 78% of voters say, “We can’t predict what types of candidates are actually electable and shouldn’t listen to people who say we can.” [AU Women & Politics Institute/Barbara Lee Family Foundation 7/15/19]
Men with bachelor’s degrees make an average of $26,000 more per year than women with the same credentials. Women are also severely underrepresented in certain fields with higher earning potential, namely STEM fields – science, technology, math and engineering – where they account for only about 25% of graduates and less than 30% of college-educated employees. [GenderAvenger Blog 7/16/19]
In the S&P 500…
- 10 companies have boards that are at least 50% women, 5 of these companies have a female CEO or president.
- 27% of current board members are women, up from 16% in 2009.
- 6 companies have boards where women make up a majority of board members.
- In 2009 there were 56 firms that did not include any women. Today there are none.
- There are 329 companies in the Russell 3000 index have no women on the board.
- Male or female minority directors make up 16% of the Fortune 500 Board seats.
- California has passed legislation that requires companies with their main offices in the state to have one to three female directors, depending on board size.
[WP 7/21/19]
Women working in the technology industry are subject to “staggering” levels of sexism as discrimination remains a rampant problem, according to new research.
A study conducted by CWJobs, a recruiter in the industry, found that women are regularly subjected to backhanded compliments and uncomfortable encounters, while being overlooked and losing out to men during promotion opportunities.
From the more than 500 women surveyed, 50% claimed that they had been told that being a woman would hold them back in their career, while one in four women felt they were denied promotions due to their gender. [Article by Hasan Chowdhury – The Telegraph via GenderAvenger Blog 8/11/19]