McKinsey & Company

Women leaders, a competitive edge in and after the crisis

Hei-ock

This report provides a perspective on several levers that could raise the priority of gender diversity and increase the efforts to achieve it within organizations. The first one is to convince the skeptics of the benefits of having more women in top management: after all, there’s still a long way to go to persuade most executive boards and male business leaders of this. The second is to make gender diversity development a priority within organizations. The third lever is the most important for long-term effectiveness: implement appropriate programs. Based on our survey and our experience of companies that are highly committed to this issue, the success of gender diversity initiatives depends above all on deploying comprehensive programs that comprise a broad range of measures. It is not enough simply to provide more flexible working conditions or career management. Reaching a critical mass of women in the top management of organizations requires a critical mass of measures, if we want to create deep-seated and sustainable change.

Woman Putting on PPE

The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality

Hei-ock

The economic downturn caused by the current COVID-19 outbreak has substantial implications for gender equality, both during the downturn and the subsequent recovery. Compared to “regular” recessions, which affect men’s employment more severely than women’s employment, the employment drop related to social distancing measures has a large impact on sectors with high female employment shares. In addition, closures of schools and daycare centers have massively increased child care needs, which has a particularly large impact on working mothers. The effects of the crisis on working mothers are likely to be persistent, due to high returns to experience in the labor market. Beyond the immediate crisis, there are opposing forces which may ultimately promote gender equality in the labor market. First, businesses are rapidly adopting flexible work arrangements, which are likely to persist. Second, there are also many fathers who now have to take primary responsibility for child care, which may erode social norms that currently lead to a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in house work and child care.

Rachel Morrison on the set of "Against all Enemies"

Hollywood working moms and the brutal conflict between family and career

Hei-ock

Nearly every mother in Hollywood has a horror story.

There was the time screenwriter and showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna was 8½ months pregnant and a studio executive joked, “I guess today would be a bad day to punch you in the stomach.” There was the time Nisha Ganatra, director of the upcoming Mindy Kaling film “Late Night,” went on a scouting trip to India when she was a new mom and found herself driving around the country in a van “with 15 dudes,” pumping breast milk in “a woodshed in the middle of a desert and an outhouse behind a restaurant.” There was the time a dream job offer fell through for Oscar-nominated “Mudbound” cinematographer Rachel Morrison because producers panicked that she’d be going back to work a few weeks after giving birth — something she was willing to do to help realize one of the most exciting scripts she had ever read. The experience, she says, “made me acutely aware of the prejudices in this industry, specifically in my line of work.”

Meet the Woman who Discovered a Whole New Type of Galaxy

Hei-ock

Now a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, Mutlu-Pakdil analyses data collected from telescopes to help unravel the mysteries of the universe—especially how galaxies form and change over time.

While Mutlu-Pakdil and her team continue to study the intriguing object, she hopes that her work and her story will inspire other immigrants and students, especially those from underrepresented communities.

Unequal depression for equal work? How the wage gap explains gendered disparities in mood disorders

Hei-ock

Mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety, are more prevalent among women than men. This disparity may be partially due to the effects of structural gender discrimination in the work force, which acts to perpetuate gender differences in opportunities and resources and may manifest as the gender wage gap. We sought to quantify and operationalize the wage gap in order to explain the gender disparity in depression and anxiety disorders, using data from a 2001–2002 US nationally representative survey of 22,581 working adults ages 30–65.

Woman Standing with a Text Box Cutout Saying "PONO"

A Celebration of Women Woodworkers

kendra

In honour of Women’s History Month & International Women’s Day, we wanted to shine the spotlight on Australia’s remarkably talented women woodworkers. Meet a few of Handkrafted’s fantastic female furniture makers, who have carved out big names for themselves in this male-dominated domain.  Women have played a critical role in the woodworking sector for centuries, despite often sliding under the radar. Fortunately …

Three Japanese business people meeting in an office

Lessons from the rise of women’s labor force participation in Japan

kendra

Brookings November 1, 2017 By Jay Shambaugh, Ryan Nunn, and Becca Portman After decades of steady gains, U.S. women’s labor force participation peaked in 2000. In retrospect, this was an important turning point: rising women’s participation had fueled household income and economic growth, and helped offset declining prime-age male labor force participation. Declining prime-age women’s participation since then has weakened growth, exacerbating …

Pop Art of.a woman with an Atom for an Eye

Most Wikipedia Profiles Are of Men. This Scientist Is Changing That.

kendra

Jessica Wade has added nearly 700 Wikipedia biographies for important female and minority scientists in less than two years. “Our science can only benefit the whole of society if it’s done by the whole of society.” — Dr. Jessica Wade, a physicist who adds biographies of female and minority scientists to Wikipedia daily Fewer than 20 percent of biographies on Wikipedia in English are of women, …

Mapping Gender: Shedding Empirical Light on Family Courts’ Treatment of Cases Involving Abuse and Alienation

kendra

This article provides a brief literature survey, focusing on the theory of “parental alienation” which operates as a primary vehicle for making abuse invisible in custody litigation. This Article reports on the co-authors’ pilot study, which begins empirically mapping family courts’ uses of this theory. These pilot results provide preliminary empirical support for the critiques from the field.

Fancy Dress

HOW FINANCIALLY LITERATE ARE WOMEN? AN OVERVIEW AND NEW INSIGHTS

Hei-ock Kim

We document strikingly similar gender differences in financial literacy across countries. When asked
to answer questions that measure knowledge of basic financial concepts, women are less likely than
men to answer correctly and more likely to indicate that they do not know the answer. In addition,
women give themselves lower scores on financial literacy self-assessments than men. Both young
and old women show low levels of financial literacy. Moreover, women for whom financial knowledge
is likely to be very important—for example widows or single women—know little about concepts
relevant for day-to-day financial decisions. Even women in favorable economic conditions are less
financially knowledgeable than men. This is important because financial literacy has been linked to
economic behavior, including retirement planning and wealth accumulation. Women live longer than
men and are likely to spend time in widowhood. As a result, improving women’s financial literacy
is key to helping them prepare for retirement and promoting their financial security.