Celebrating International Women's Day | 3.8.23

Today marks #InternationalWomensDay, a day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women and calling for greater gender parity.

With a long history of supporting initiatives for women, The Conference Board continues to take a thought leadership role in advancing women in the workplace.

That thought leadership includes Trusted Insights for What's Ahead? in the form of reports and analyses, webcasts and podcasts, and events supporting the empowerment of women.

View a selection of our insights and offerings below:

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Women Lead Festival

October 5-6, 2023 | Brooklyn, NY

Join us at the 2023 #WomenLead Festival with some of the world's top women leaders in business, nonprofits, public policy, science, and the arts. Collaborate with your peers on advancing allyship, redefining authentic leadership, innovating on recruitment, retention, reentering the workforce, and recreating new and inclusive workplaces.

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Use the code WOMEN50 for $997 off, today only.

LISTEN

Women At Work: A Pathway For Success

What are some of the obstacles and detours that women face on the journey to becoming CEO? How can business leaders create more pathways for women, and what can women do to create new opportunities for themselves?

In this episode of CEO Perspectives, Steve Odland , President and CEO of The Conference Board, and Anna Mok , Partner at 德勤 and Co-Founder and President of Ascend , sit down with Deborah Liu , CEO of Ancestry , to discuss pathways to becoming a CEO.

Each For Equal: A Conversation With Annette Stube

Join one of our Council directors, Anne Stevens. MBA, DrUniv , and #sustainability guru Annette Stube , in an insightful discussion on being a role model, lessons gained from a successful career, and some advice and thoughts for emerging leaders. With a focus on sustainability and leadership, Annette shares some of her hopes, ambitions, and desires for the world.?

READ

Women Are More Swayed than Men by Brands’ Social and Climate Action

Brands’ support of #humanrights, payment of market-typical #wages, and #workplaceequity appeal more to US women than men to inspire purchases. Women are more concerned with climate change than men and are also more swayed than men by brands’ climate change action.

Moreover, the use of natural ingredients, a health criterion, is more of a draw for women than men. At the same time, conservation of natural resources and use of renewable energy seem to resonate slightly more with men.

Considering that the majority of purchasing decisions, especially for consumer goods, are made by women, brands can make communications about social, climate, and health benefits of their products and operations most effective by targeting women in particular.

The Gender Gap in the US Labor Market

The gender gap in labor outcomes in the United States is a persistent issue that impacts the well-being of women throughout their entire lifetimes. Women earned an average of?82 cents for every dollar?men earned in 2022—a rate that hasn’t changed in almost two decades.

The gap is even wider for women of color, with Black women earning only 63 cents and Latina women earning only 55 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men. And the wage gap is not the only challenge for women. Women continue to have lower labor force participation compared to men by?more than 10 percent.

Women are Less Satisfied With Their Jobs Than Men

#JobSatisfaction among women remains below that of men. The largest gaps in satisfaction are in job security, promotion policy, and bonus plan, as well as across compensation and benefits, including #pay, #sickday policy, #vacation policy, and #healthplans. As a result of the dissatisfaction in economic components of their jobs, women are also less satisfied with other job-related areas including recognition, performance reviews, growth potential, and communication channels.

In a survey on employee turnover, The Conference Board also found that more women quit because of job fatigue than men. Moreover, women reported substantially less satisfaction with mental health benefits than their male counterparts. Employers seeking higher worker satisfaction and retention should continue addressing employee burnout, mental health concerns, and long running inequities, especially when making hiring and promotion decisions.

CED Fellowship Program for Professional Mid-Career Women

The Committee for Economic Development , the #public[olicy center of The Conference Board (CED), sponsors the CED Fellowship Program for professional mid-career women, an innovative corporate mentoring, networking, and leadership training program, designed to create pathways for mid-career women to the C-suite. The Fellowship Program furthers CED’s longstanding objectives, to advance women in the workforce, enhance their future economic success, and help, in this initial way, to counter the devastating impact COVID has had on mid-career women and the C-suite pipeline.

The one-year fellowship program includes:

1. Mentorship: CED Trustees and sponsoring companies recruit mid-career professionals and designate a C-suite executive mentor of the candidate to ensure a pathway to success. Former CED Fellows also serve as mentors.
2. Networking:?CED Women Fellows have all of the benefits of CED Trusteeship to increase their access and networking opportunity with the broad array of CED corporate leaders.
3. Leadership Training:?CED conducts a Leadership Seminar Program, exclusively for the Fellows, with a curriculum focused on successful pathways to the C-suite—developed and hosted by CED Trustees.

This very successful program is positively impacting the lives and careers of our Fellows.

VIEW

Women Chair Almost Half of the Compensation Committees at Large Companies

As shown above, the share of women who serve on boards and in committee chair roles is increasing.?Women now represent about 30 percent of S&P 500 directors, up from 22 percent in 2018. Women now represent an even higher percent of committee chairs (33 percent) in the S&P 500, compared to 21 percent in 2018.

What’s driving this?

2 percent of board compensation committees in the S&P 100 are chaired by women. By contrast, women chair only 27 percent of nominating committees, which are responsible for recommending who serves on the board, on committees, and in key leadership roles.

SPOTLIGHT

Spotlight on Paulette Le Corre Lydon

The Conference Board is celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day by looking back at one of the true giants in our history—and an unsung pioneer of modern data visualization.

As Chief Chartist, Paulette Le Corre Lydon led The Conference Board charting and graphics department for more than three decades—from the late 1920s to the mid-1960s. Over that time, she directed a team of artists in the production of thousands of innovative charts, graphs, and tables—reaching audiences of millions every year.

Lydon was a trailblazer in midcentury design, transforming how complex statistical information was presented to business leaders, policymakers, and the public at large.

Far from an aesthetic throwback, her consistently modern use of color, fonts, symbology, and language set the stage for the visual style that’s become the standard in business presentations, newspapers, magazines, and—decades after her retirement—the internet.