Blog

The war on baby girls

This week's edition of The Economist has a highly interesting, though disturbing feature on gendercide - the phenomenon of over 100 missing women, who have been killed, neglected to death or aborted because of continued societal preferences for boys. The situation is especially stark in countries like China, where research has found that there will be an extra 30 to 40 million of boys aged 19 and below by 2020. While the one child policy in China has contributed to this problem, other countries that do not have it still display unnaturally high ratios of boys to girls. They include Armenia, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Serbia, among others. The consequences of this gender imbalance could be profound - resulting in increased violence and higher crime rates. This alone should be enough to convince societies to raise the value of girls.

International Women's Day Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)

In 2009, our forum member PwC conducted an interesting survey on the impact the recession has had on women's career prospects. The survey respondents were mainly from the UK and the findings revealed that the economic downturn had rather negatively impacted women's career prospects. To mark International Women's Day, PwC is looking to update the research and get as many people as possible to take the survey around the world. The online survey will be open for four weeks and the results will be made available in due course. You can access it here.

Happy International Women's Day

Around the world, March 8 marks the celebration of International Women's Day. For the occasion, the World Bank Group has organized a series of educational and celebratory events. It is also using this date to highlight the progress it has made in integrating gender into its work. A story on the World Bank's website today, for example, notes the progress the institution has made in supporting gender-related projects in developing countries. Gender issues informed the design of 45% of all lending operations in FY08 –from July 2007 to June 2008-- compared to 35% in FY06.

A new database on gender and land rights

FAO has just launched a database that puts the spotlight on continued inequalities in access to land between women and men worldwide. The database covers 78 countries and includes information on national and customary laws, land tenure, civil society stakeholders working on the subject, and sex-disaggregated statistics. Such information has been generally difficult to come by, and this new tool is therefore a great addition to researchers and advocates for gender equality. Even though in many countries women form the majority of agricultural workers, they tend to have smaller land plots and less secure land rights, or no access to land of their own. This issue is also important because access to land is often needed for securing credit and growing a business. Improved information on the subject is the first step towards lowering the continued gender inequalities in access to land.

Benchmarking women's leadership

The White House Project, a non-governmetal organization that works to advance women's leadership to the American Presidency, recently released an interesting new report focused on women's leadership in the United States. The report surveys women's leadership in 10 different fields - from sports, to military and politics. The researchers report some encouraging progress, but find that women still rarely make it to the top. The overall news remains discouraging: women still make up only 18% of the nation's top leaders. Still, the American public believes that women have what it takes to lead - with the mental acceptance already accomplished, actual change can't be far behind.

Call for papers: challenges for research on gender and science

The final conference of the 'Meta-analysis of gender and science research,' to be held in October 2010 in Brussels, Belgium, is inviting paper submissions on possibilities and challenges for research on gender and science, and policies towards gender equality in science. The conference is part of a European Union project that includes more than 50 experts from EU member states. The deadline for abstract submissions is May 31st, 2010. For more information, visit their website.

Women and Mobile: A Global Opportunity

Guest blogger: Henriette Kolb, Director, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women Did you know that women in developing countries are almost a quarter less likely to own a mobile phone than men? Or that you can use a mobile phone to find a job, access a bank account and improve financial literacy? A new report by the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and the GSMA Development Fund demonstrates why this gap matters. This is the first global study of its kind, quantifying the gender gap in the mobile phone industry in low and middle-income countries and showing why it makes socio-economic sense for women to use mobile phones. The foundation is now working to support organizations promoting mobile uptake for women in business. If you would like to get involved, you can email the foundation (enquiries@cherieblairfoundation.org).

Women | Tools | Technology Competition

Our new forum member ExxonMobil has teamed up with Ashoka's Changemakers and ICRW to sponsor an exciting challenge to help advance women's economic opportunities in developing nations. The challenge - called Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic Power - is to look for ideas to enable women to access and use the power and tools of technology to expand their economic opportunities. A recent ICRW paper further explores the importance of this issue. Those interested can enter online for a chance to win a prize of $5,000. The deadline for the challenge is April 14, 2010.

Women in the 21st century

In an intriguing new series of articles, columns and multimedia reports entitled The Female Factor: A Seat at the Table, the International Herald Tribune is exploring women's place in the 21st century around the world. This January, articles have focused on the effects of Norway's legislation mandating a 40% quote of women on boards of companies, U.S. military efforts to empower Afghan businesswomen, or the dearth of women on Wall Street. Yet another article examines the growing power of female bankers in India, showing how a supportive industry environment has led to a wealth of women in management.

The new economics of marriage

The Pew Research Center has just published some interesting new research on the changes the institution of marriage has undergone in recent years, as women have outpaced men in education and earnings growth. Their research finds that there has been a 'gender role reversal in both the spousal characteristics and the economic benefits of marriage.' While in the past, the economic gains of marriage were larger for women, these gains are now larger for men. As the article points out, a typical man did not gain another breadwinner in the household when he married forty years ago - and now he does!