IMF’s Lagarde: Women In Workforce Key To Healthy Economies

As the first woman to lead the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde is among an elite group of people determining how money is saved, spent and invested worldwide.

It’s not the first time she’s been a “first.” Lagarde was France’s first female finance minister, and before that, the first woman to chair the global law firm Baker & McKenzie.

As part of NPR’s look at the Changing Lives of Women, Morning Edition’s Renee Montagne spoke with Lagarde about her career, and what the IMF is doing to encourage economic growth by promoting women in the workforce.
Interview Highlights: On the findings of a recent IMF study on women in the workforce
Women In Workforce Key To Healthy Economies

The percentages are way up, often over fifty percent.  The problem with these boards is that they’re often unpaid directors.  On paid corporate boards, women still hover at around a 10 percent.

Sport NSW, the peak body representing sport in the state, has just appointed three women to its board, seeing its female representation hit the 60% mark.

And according to Sport NSW CEO Cheryl Battaerd, it wasn’t actually that hard to find the women. By seeking new names for its three open board positions via a nomination process, which hadn’t previously been done, they invited applications by advertising widely — including with Women on Boards, Pro Bono Australia and within their own existing newsletters.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen women dominate a sporting board: Netball Australia and Pony Club Australia have boasted female representation around the 80% mark for a number of years.  According to 2013 research by Women on Boards, 24.4% of directorships at national sporting bodies are held by women, a handful still do not have any women on their board. So far this financial year, less than 30% of new such board appointments have gone to women.

The organisation is also supporting the training and development of more female directors, running a three-day foundation course for women aspiring to join boards in the future.

Sport NSW has tipped the balance well past the 30% mark, uncovering new talent that will bring exceptional skills and expertise to the table. These women widen the pool of experienced female board directors, and hopefully the list of women who’ll recommend other women for such roles in the future.

That one of the brightest of Japan’s graduates needs to say such things should worry Shinzo Abe, the prime minister. Japan educates its women to a higher level than nearly anywhere else in the world: its girls come near the top in education league-tables compiled by the OECD. But when they leave university their potential is often squandered, as far as the economy is concerned. Female participation in the labour force is 63%, far lower than in other rich countries. When women have their first child, 70% of them stop working for a decade or more, compared with just 30% in America. Quite a lot of those 70% are gone for good.

At a private dinner in Davos Prime Minister Abe listened to a small group of senior women, including a former head of state, discuss what Japan should do differently. An awkward moment came when one of the guests, Miki Tsusaka, a partner at the Boston Consulting Group, told him she had dreaded returning to Japan after a successful career spent mostly in New York. Yet increasingly, behind their soft tones and feminine demeanour, many Japanese women are getting ready to break out of their dolls’ house. If the country’s policymakers can find the right ways to help them, those women could boost the economy and reform corporate culture. Both they and their sararimen stand greatly to benefit.   Japanese Women and the Workforce

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

The scale of this weekend’s anti-austerity protests in Spain spells political instability ahead for the country. Despite an influx of investor capital into the country’s export sector, the rest of Spain’s economy continues to lag, especially in creating employment for millions of young people.

“There’s a lot of frustration from all sides with the political establishment,” says our correspondent in Madrid. “Spain’s recovery, like much of the periphery, is a two-sided story. Some sectors are certainly benefiting, and there is growth, and there is job creation in some very specific sectors. But for broader society, there is no recovery.”

The hundreds of thousands of protesters who turned out Saturday are looking for the government to roll back deep austerity cuts in health-care, education, and the welfare state. Frustration with the rising cost of living and an unemployment problem that will take at least a decade to clear up has brought even center-right voters into the anti-austerity fold. But with fiscal targets mandated by the European Union, politicians’ hands are mostly tied, our correspondent notes.

The ruling center-right party looks increasingly weak heading into a trio of elections over the next year and a half. The ruling party hasn’t even fielded its candidate for European parliamentary elections in May, essentially throwing in the towel, our correspondent says. Then voters will head to the polls twice in 2015, first for regional elections, then a national election.

“Whoever wins is going to have a very weak majority, and they are going to need to negotiate. And regardless of how you negotiate, [the government] is just not going to have a lot of governing power. So it’s going to be hard to push through all the reforms that still need to be applied,” says our correspondent. “Even with the European elections, it’s just going to open up a lot of tension, and that’s without including external factors like Ukraine.”

Spain’s economy is driven by internal consumption, but there’s just no internal consumption.

Zimbabwe Women fight gaps in micro-finance systems
The Masimba Women’s Irrigation group says it has the drive to engage in meaningful economic activities but its efforts are stymied by the numerous gaps in micro-financing systems and the law.
Women fight gaps in micro-finance systems