“A personal, provocative, and challenging book for career women who want less guilt, more life.” —Diane Sawyer Womenomics, the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, is an invaluable guide for this generation of professional women, provide knowledgeable advice on how to “Work Less, Achieve More, Live Better.” Shipman and Kay, two TV journalists well acquainted with the stress of the workplace, describe the new economic trends that offer today’s overworked working women more professional and personal choices than ever before. At last, you no longer have to do it all to have it all—Womenomics shows you how.
You are not alone. Finally, here is a book that gets to the heart of what professional women want. You've probably been loath to admit it, but like most of us, you have had enough of the sixty-hour workweeks, the day-care dash, and the vacations that never get taken. You don't want to quit, you want to work—but on your own terms and in ways that make it possible to have a life as well. Women have power. In Womenomics, journalists Shipman and Kay deal in facts, not stereotypes, providing a fresh perspective on the largely hidden power that women have in today's marketplace. Why? Companies with more women managers are more profitable. Women do more of the buying. A talent shortage looms. Younger generations want to work flexibly, too. It all adds up to a workplace revolution that is great news for professional women—not to mention men and businesses as well. As Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee, notes: “Companies need to recognize that this kind of flexibility offers employees the ability to manage and balance their own careers and lives, which in turn improves productivity and employee morale.” This new way of thinking and working is all the more valuable in a recession, as companies begin offering flexible schedules, four-day workweeks, and extended vacations as a way to avoid layoffs, save costs, and still reward employees. It is personal. Womenomics does more than marshal the evidence of this historic shift. It also shows women how to redefine success, be productive, and build satisfying careers that don't require an all-or-nothing lifestyle. Most appealing are the candid personal anecdotes from Shipman's and Kay's own experiences and the stories they have gathered from professional women around the country who are coping with the same issues. It is possible. Shipman and Kay don't waste time on what women can't do or can't have. Instead, they show women how to chart an empowering, exhilarating course to a richer life. Inspiring, practical, and persuasive, Womenomics offers a groundbreaking blueprint for changing the way you live and work—with advice, guidance, and fact-based support that proves you don't have to do it all to have it all.
Through analysis of trends and policy options, combined with interviews with 21 female role models from business to the arts, Bill Emmott takes an optimistic look at how a society with an extreme level of gender inequality, an ageing population, and slow economic growth can achieve greater social justice and sustainable prosperity for the future.
You are not alone. Finally, here is a book that gets to the heart of what professional women want. You've probably been loath to admit it, but like most of us, you have had enough of the sixty-hour workweeks, the day-care dash, and the vacations that never get taken. You don't want to quit, you want to work—but on your own terms and in ways that make it possible to have a life as well. Women have power. In Womenomics, journalists Shipman and Kay deal in facts, not stereotypes, providing a fresh perspective on the largely hidden power that women have in today's marketplace. Why? Companies with more women managers are more profitable. Women do more of the buying. A talent shortage looms. Younger generations want to work flexibly, too. It all adds up to a workplace revolution that is great news for professional women—not to mention men and businesses as well. As Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee, notes: “Companies need to recognize that this kind of flexibility offers employees the ability to manage and balance their own careers and lives, which in turn improves productivity and employee morale.” This new way of thinking and working is all the more valuable in a recession, as companies begin offering flexible schedules, four-day workweeks, and extended vacations as a way to avoid layoffs, save costs, and still reward employees. It is personal. Womenomics does more than marshal the evidence of this historic shift. It also shows women how to redefine success, be productive, and build satisfying careers that don't require an all-or-nothing lifestyle. Most appealing are the candid personal anecdotes from Shipman's and Kay's own experiences and the stories they have gathered from professional women around the country who are coping with the same issues. It is possible. Shipman and Kay don't waste time on what women can't do or can't have. Instead, they show women how to chart an empowering, exhilarating course to a richer life. Inspiring, practical, and persuasive, Womenomics offers a groundbreaking blueprint for changing the way you live and work—with advice, guidance, and fact-based support that proves you don't have to do it all to have it all.
Why do Japanese women enjoy a high sense of well-being in a context of high inequality? Beyond the Gender Gap in Japan brings together researchers from across the social sciences to investigate this question. The authors analyze women’s values and the lived experiences at home, in the family, at work, in their leisure time, as volunteers, and in politics and policy-making. Their research shows that the state and firms have blurred “the public” and “the private” in postwar Japan, constraining individuals’ lives, and reveals the uneven pace of change in women’s representation in politics. Yet, despite these constraints, the increasing diversification in how people live and how they manage their lives demonstrates that some people are crafting a variety of individual solutions to structural problems. Covering a significant breadth of material, the book presents comprehensive findings that use a variety of research methods—public opinion surveys, in-depth interviews, a life history, and participant observation—and, in doing so, look beyond Japan’s perennially low rankings in gender equality indices to demonstrate the diversity underneath, questioning some of the stereotypical assumptions about women in Japan.
WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS “...gives example after example of the price that we all pay for a situation in which ‘women may hold the keys but men still control the locks’.” The Times “What’s especially valuable is the authors’ analysis of where companies go wrong in managing women...that’s how it will help women in the workplace.” Harvard Business Review “Lays out the importance of retaining women in senior leadership positions.” Harpers Bazaar “Wittenberg-Cox and Maitland have opened new ground.” Management Today WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS They make up much of the market and most of the talent pool. Reaching women consumers and developing female talent is essential for sustainable economic growth in the 21st century. Studies show that better gender balance in business means better bottom line results and greater resistance to economic crises. So why are there still so few women in leadership roles in business? Why are companies struggling to respond to today’s female consumer? Why is there a persistent pay gap between men and women around the world? Why Women Mean Business takes the economic arguments for change to the heart of the corporate world. Fully updated in paperback, the book shows why getting gender right matters – as much when the economy’s bust as when it’s booming. A must-read, packed with ideas from companies that have made it work, views from top business leaders and step-by-step guides to how we can all become gender bilingual.
This volume addresses the family situation in Japan and Germany. Gender-segregated labor markets and precarious employment patterns bear detrimental consequences for the socioeconomic capacity to maintain family households and to have children. By applying a gender-sensitive approach, this volume’s focus is on the impact of family law, family policy , and family support measures. Scholars from Japan and Germany examine differences and characteristics of social security legislation, intergenerational support systems, single-parent families, inequality among households and poverty situations, local domestic and care service provision, female labor market participation, parental leave systems, organization of child care, domestic violence, historical developments of housework as an institution, and labor market policies.
This book, based on extensive original research, presents a detailed analysis of the varying opportunities and challenges experienced by Japanese women with professional careers, an important category of the population in Japan, whose lives remain little known. It addresses many key issues, including the problems of flexible work in an increasingly neoliberal environment; the pervasiveness of precarious work conditions in gendered managerial employment; the state’s neglect in transforming antiquated labour laws and in combating abusive corporate practices; the implications of dysfunctional employee-employer relations and those among co-workers; media representations as barometers of resistant social norms; the ambivalent effects of work related drinking practices; and the lack of collective representation due to ineffective labour unions. Overall, the book presents the disheartening realities of conflicts and ambivalence experienced by many women managers in contemporary Japan.
"A very graceful, erudite job . . . extraordinarily revealing."—The New York Times Thirty years after its first publication, Womansword remains a timely, provocative work on how words reflect female stereotypes in modern Japan. Short, lively essays offer linguistic, sociological, and historical insight into issues central to the lives of women everywhere: identity, girlhood, marriage, motherhood, work, sexuality, and aging. A new introduction shows how things have—and haven't—changed. Kittredge Cherry studied in Japan and has written about the country for Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. She has a journalism degree from University of Iowa.