The Purchasing Power of Women

Women control 51% of wealth. Forbes reports they earn the majority of all university level degrees, and that 70% of women with children under 18 participate in the labour force. In the US, women are the primary breadwinners in 50% of households with children under 18. The folks at Sheconomy report that women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from cars to health care. 45% of video game players are women, according to Girlpower Marketing, an all-woman marketing firm with an expertise in marketing to women. But, according to the Harvard Business Review, women feel vastly underserved, still appear to be undervalued in the marketplace (and underestimated in the workplace), and businesses behave as if they have no say over purchasing decisions – despite the statistics just quoted. Women are constantly juggling conflicting priorities (work, home, family), but few companies have responded to their need for time-saving solutions or for products designed specifically for them – perhaps because they are underrepresented in companies that design these products.

According to Kat Ely (designer and co-founder of Clear Design Lab in Boston, and writer for HH Design, a collection of writing by designers within the context of technology on Medium.com), it is rare for a woman to be in a design or engineering role at a consultancy. She looked at 27 design and engineering consulting firms which public information about their teams, and she found out of 27 design firms made up of 743 people, 188 were women and 555 were men. Only 24.4% of the staff at these design and engineering firms are female.

The Economic Case for Women in STEM

The labour market is increasingly demanding higher skill levels in STEM. According to the report by TD Bank, STEM jobs have experiencd the eighth most pronounced expansion in their share of total employment since 1997 - STEM jobs currently account for 9% of full- and part-time jobs combined. Computer science and engineering occupations experienced the most pronounced job gains, and represent the majority of STEM jobs (during 2009-2016). In Canada, around 557,000 STEM jobs fall into the "technical" (as opposed to "professional") category (making up 45% of the STEM market), however, technology companies have identified immediate talent shortages in the areas of machine learning, data science, product management, user experience design, sales, and digital marketing. There are a few factors that negatively affect women's presence in STEM.

The "wage premiun phenomenon" involves "occupational sorting" - differences in earnings due to a woman's chosen field of study, and by extension, occupation. Women account for 23% of full-time STEM positions, and women working full time in STEM generally earn 30% more than women working in other industries. But if women had the same representation in full time STEM jobs as they do in middle management occupations (roughly 40%), the gap in average hourly earnings between men and women would narrow by 16% on this alone.

As women are huge players in the economy, and as their presence in STEM grows with the passing of time, their role in the STEM labour economy should not be undervalued. As early as primary school, shaping attitudes towards STEM-related subjects must be attempted. Educational choice is influenced by environmental and cultural factors. And within the workplace, employers need to revisit whether ongoing marginalization is present via occupational sorting within technical fields, lower wages than male peers, and/or a scarcity of meaningful internships and challenging opportunities. In addition, companies need to be able to attract and retain the highest talent, but also re-evaluate their recruitment methods (you can hear more about that in this interview with Dr. Danielle Gaucher of the University of Winnipeg, who took part as a speaker in the fall 2017 President's Dream Colloquium).

The TD Bank report also contends that women already in STEM fields should engage with younger generations as mentors and sponsors, and to influence corporate policies. See more about mentorship in our White Paper here.