Success for women

Despite women still lagging behind men in compensation in certain industries and professions, there is finally some good news for the supposedly weaker gender: According to a survey by the U.S. Labor Department women have recovered all the jobs they lost during the recession whereas men have not.

As the Wall Street Journal reports a record 67.5 million women have a job in the U.S. today, up from the prior peak of 67.4 million in early 2008. Compared to that, 69 million men currently work, almost 2 million less than in mid-2007. Overall men lost more than six million jobs in the recession and its aftermath. Compared to that women lost 2.7 million jobs.

Apart from the smaller loss the main reason for the healthy recovery of the female job market depended mainly on the good recovery of certain industries where women tend to hold jobs: health, education, hospitality and retail have all faired fairly well during the economic turmoil of recent years whereas male-dominated sectors like construction and manufacturing have been hit much harder.

Apart from the US, good news for women also comes from Germany, where the female German chancellor Angela Merkel and her potential coalition partner SPD agreed on women's quota in supervisory boards during their coalition talks. Women will represent at least 30 per cent of these boardroom members at German-listed companies from 2016 on.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579203833804047994

http://live.wsj.com/video/five-jobs-where-women-are-most-underpaid/6F9B22CB-AFA6-4B4E-9E8D-09991C22643F.html#!6F9B22CB-AFA6-4B4E-9E8D-09991C22643F

http://www.thelocal.de/20131118/merkel-and-spd-agree-on-womens-quota-in-coalition-talks-germany-boardroom-company