Why She Buys (12 page)

From Canada to China (where most women have worked since the time of Mao), from Japan to Mexico, women’s participation in the workforce is impacting the way they spend money and how they make purchasing decisions. In nearly all developing countries, the proportion of working women in informal employment is greater than the proportion of working men.
⁵

The advent of working women has not only increased household income (particularly in industrialized countries), it’s significantly changed consumer spending patterns along the way. Seventy percent of American women with kids under eighteen are earning a paycheck while raising their children.
⁶
Seventy percent
. That’s a lot of working moms, with needs and wants that are different because of the inherent tension involved in managing both a family and a career.

The shift of women to working outside the home has been under way for nearly forty years, and there’s no turning back. From a consumer standpoint, every time a woman takes a job outside the home, her spending patterns are altered. Not only does she increase her household income, she wears different clothes, eats different foods, travels in a different direction on the roadways, involves other people
in caring for her children if she has them, and has a different relationship with money. If it’s a job she likes, she may even look at herself differently, with increased confidence. In short, an outside job impacts:

• When she shops

• Where she shops

• What she buys

• What car she drives

• When she eats

• What she eats

• What she wears

• Where she lives

• How much she is prepared to spend on any given product or service

• How much money she invests and where she banks

• How she uses health care providers and insurance programs

• Where, when, and how long she goes on vacation

And then there’s the multiplication effect: every time a woman heads off to a job, the event changes not only her own life but also the lives of everyone around her. This is especially true if she has a family. Her participation in the workforce impacts:

• What her family eats

• When her family eats

• Where her children go during the day

• How many “helpers” are employed in the household—from babysitters to housecleaners and tutors

• When she schedules her kids’ appointments

• Where her family lives

• What her husband’s family responsibilities are, if she’s married

• How much time she and her kids spend in the car

• How and where her family spends its leisure time

“When a mother goes off to work, the whole family hustles differently. It creates a domino effect that impacts everyone in the household,” says Eric Elder, a senior executive for Ryland Homes, one of America’s largest home builders. Ryland has redesigned a number of the floor plans of its homes around the phenomenon of working women and their families. The company has discovered that not only does working change a woman’s personal traffic patterns, it also changes the needs of her physical environment. We’ll examine exactly what Ryland has done to accommodate these changes in the next chapter.

When Women Work, Economies Grow

W
OMEN
have worked since the beginning of time, but since their efforts historically were confined to the unpaid environment of the home, their contributions had less impact on factors that drive economic growth. Not anymore. Women are the engine of the global economy. As the
Economist
magazine trumpeted in a widely publicized article, “Forget China, India and the Internet: economic growth is driven by women.”
⁷
And since service jobs continue to replace those in the manufacturing sector, the opportunities
for women have never been greater. Not many jobs require big muscles anymore. With so many women working outside the home these days, we not only understand their economic power, we also have a better sense of the economic contribution of stay-at-home moms, since there is now widespread awareness that quality child care is expensive, and comes with its own set of management issues.

In the United States, the growth rate of women in the labor force has been much faster than men’s for the last twenty years. Women have filled two new jobs for every one taken by a man since 1970.
⁸
And according to predictions made by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women’s job growth will still be slightly higher than men’s until at least the year 2014.
⁹
After three decades of growth in workforce participation, one-quarter of all married women now earn more money than their husbands.
¹⁰
This is a far cry from the 1960s, when married women couldn’t get credit cards or mortgages in their own names, and female employees could be fired just for getting pregnant or old.

Recessions notwithstanding, the size of the labor force gender gap is a good way to measure a country’s economic health. It’s no coincidence that Scandinavian countries, with their high levels of women in the workforce, are considered to have the highest standards of living in the world. Urban women in emerging economies such as Brazil, China, and India are altering the consumer landscape with their paychecks. Conversely, the lack of women’s participation in many Middle Eastern economies is one of the factors holding these countries back. They have yet to unleash the energy and intellectual contributions of half of their population.

More Paychecks Equal More Disposable Income

O
NE
of Goldman Sachs’ finest minds on the subject, Kevin Daly, has a compelling analysis:

As the male-female employment gap closes, female disposable income growth will surpass male income growth … the relative rise in female affluence is also likely to result in a shift in consumption patterns; a shift that is likely to be most notable as female incomes exceed the level required to acquire essential goods and services, and rise to the point where a significant proportion of income can be spent on discretionary goods
.
¹¹

In other words, working women don’t just earn money, they spend it. Based on the labor force data, women are now (and will continue to be for the foreseeable future), the bull’s-eye for consumer goods manufacturers. This is a particularly valuable insight for multinational companies trying to penetrate and grow in emerging markets. Studying the female labor-force participation trends in countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China can help provide a road map to how women’s daily lives are changing and what it means in terms of economic opportunity for your business.

The Working Mother: Do You Know Her?

W
ORKING
moms are everywhere, and yet the reality of their lives is unknown to many of the colleagues who toil alongside them. This is because, generally speaking, women try to make the work-life balance look easy (which it isn’t) and
don’t want to be viewed as less committed at work by talking at length about family responsibilities. The situation is different for their male colleagues. When men have children, it often enhances their status at work. They’re viewed as being more committed to the job because they have a family depending on their paycheck. Marriage and children make a man appear stable and responsible; this usually helps him get ahead. Even today, it’s hard to run for a major political office or to make it as a CEO of a big company as a single man.

When women have children, it can have the opposite effect. The perception at work is that a woman’s family responsibilities will be a distraction. Employers know that a woman may need time off when her child gets sick or when she has babysitting issues. In many countries, it’s assumed that a woman’s working life is over with her first pregnancy. Though some companies are genuinely working hard to create more family-friendly and female-friendly work environments, women are still aware that motherhood isn’t considered an asset in most careers. They’re also conscious that child-related absences may create additional work for their colleagues, which is just one reason that the tension between family and career can be stressful.

When men take time off work to do something with their children, they’re often seen as noble, because they’re pitching in with parenthood and being good dads. Women do not receive the same reflected glory. A midlevel executive named Melanie told me this story:

One of our big bosses at work has a sick wife. He told us last week that she has stage IV cancer and not much longer to live. He has two young kids. This is a tragic
situation, but I couldn’t help but notice the reaction he’s gotten from all the men in the office. They’re all standing in doorways whispering, “How is Mike going to handle the kids? How is he going to get them to school and pick them up, take care of them when they’re sick, and still do his job?” And so on and so on
.

The ironic part is that these conversations are taking place in the hallways, where all of us women can hear them. Most of us are mothers, and quite a few of us are single mothers, and we all handle these very situations every day of our lives. But the men can’t see it, because they’ve never had to do it on their own, and we don’t complain about it. So when it comes to talking about Mike’s situation, we just shake our heads in sympathy and say nothing about the fact that Mike is simply going to be doing what half the women in the office do already
.

The double standard still exists because modern corporate culture was built in the years following World War II, and created on a model in which male executives were expected to have a wife at home to take care of every aspect of their personal lives. What makes it difficult for women—and for all parents—is that no matter how much the workplace changes, there is no getting around the simple fact that young children cannot stay home alone all day and raise themselves. Somebody’s got to do it.

“What I Need Is a Wife”

Y
OU’LL
often hear working women say, “What I need is a wife.” It’s shorthand for “I need someone to take care of all
the endless errands and housekeeping, so I have more time to focus on what’s important.” We’re going to dissect this big trend of working women by analyzing an average day in the life of just one. We’ll call her Jamie, and even though Jamie earns a good salary in a white-collar job in Chicago, her family’s life is stretched to the breaking point by child care costs and the juggling act that comes from all four members of the family going in different directions every morning. She is like many of your customers.

Do you know her?
A typical day in the life of an everywoman

MORNING

5:15: Wakes up, showers, gets dressed.

6:00: Wakes up kids.

6:30: Feeds and dresses kids and prepares their food and snacks for the day.

7:00: Leaves house, straps kids in car seats.

7:15: Drops off one child at preschool.

7:30: Drops off other child at day care center.

7:45: Parks car in corporate parking garage.

8:00: Stops at Dunkin’ Donuts for large coffee.

8:15: Arrives at desk and eats yogurt while checking e-mail.

8:30: Officially starts the day.

AFTERNOON

12:00: Eats lunch at desk and does as many family errands as possible by phone and e-mail (pays bills online, books appointments online, calls the pediatrician).

1:00: Back to work.

4:00: Checks in with babysitter to see if she has safely picked up Jamie’s older child from preschool.

5:45: Leaves work and picks up her younger child at day care.

EVENING

6:00: Drives home thinking about dinner. She’s too tired to make something but her stomach is growling. Maybe she’ll have something delivered? She calls her husband to see if he has any ideas. He doesn’t. “Let’s just scrounge,” she says into the phone.

6:30: Dismisses the babysitter and feeds kids the minute she gets home; she doesn’t even change out of her work clothes. Her husband isn’t home yet because he has a longer commute.

7:00: Husband gets home and they decide whose turn it is to bathe the kids, then put them in pajamas.

7:30: Jamie and her husband look through the kitchen cabinets for something to eat. They each choose something different, and both meals involve the microwave as the only
cooking instrument. They eat while they play with their kids.

8:00: Husband starts the process of putting the younger child to bed.

8:30: Jamie starts the process of putting the older child to bed.