Musings & Amusings

The gender pay gap persists almost everywhere – and has done so since pre Victorian times.   On average, women earn 18% less than men, according to analysis by Korn Ferry Hay Group, a consulting firm which looked at more than 8m employees in 33 countries. The pay gap is largely explained by a lack of women in highly paid roles. Women make up 40% of the global workforce for clerical jobs but only 17% of executive roles.  However, the pay...

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Everyday Money

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Investors These are the basics of running your financial life. In a recent study, just 8 percent of college students taking a recent survey gave themselves an A for how well they manage their finances. In a larger, 2014 survey of U.S. adults, 18 percent gave themselves the top grade for their personal finance knowledge. Many people get stressed even thinking about managing their money, seeing it as just...

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Who's Counting?

Gender pay gap in children's pocket money as boys get 12% more than girls. There was also a gender gap last year but it was just 2%. It’s reasonable to assume that the New Zealand situation reflects that of the UK. Boys received almost 12 per cent more weekly pocket money compared to girls, according to the Halifax’s annual pocket money survey of more than 1,200 children and 575 parents. The gender gap grew from only 2 per cent the year before. In...

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Finance & Investment

Finance industry fails to attract female investors Women savers alienated by ads for ‘older rich men.’ The finance industry is failing to attract cash from female investors who feel “alienated” by jargon-filled marketing campaigns designed to appeal to wealthy older men, given my experiences in that industry can’t say I’m surprised. Advertisements used by the investment industry are confusing women rather than inspiring confidence, a...

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Womenomics

Women bosses boost female places in boardroom Having a female boss makes it more likely that there will be more women on your board, according to new research. Headhunter Spencer Stuart, which compiles an annual report reviewing governance at the UK’s largest listed companies, found that boards have significantly more female directors where the chief executive or chairman is also a woman. The proportion of women serving as non-executive directors...

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Why?

The struggle of women in science is written in the stars. In her 1968 poem, Planetarium, the poet Adrienne Rich wrestles with the crisis of female identity through the lens of astronomy. Rich wrote the poem after learning about the case of Caroline Herschel, an astronomer born in Germany in 1750 who discovered eight comets and three nebulae, and drew praise from the King of Prussia and London’s Royal Astronomical Society. Yet Caroline...

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