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Asian women shoppers don't rely on
their men
Singaporean women
do not need to depend on their men to pay for their shopping. A survey
conducted by Synovate - a market researcher - found that nearly
three-quarters of Singaporean respondents confirmed that they can afford to
pay for what they want without asking for money from their partners or
husbands.
Synovate's survey aimed to reveal retail attitudes
and spending habits of women around the region. Over 2,000 women in
Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China, from the ages of 15 to 64 across
all income levels were polled.
The report found that across the Asian region,
women from Hong Kong were the most financially independent - with 81 per
cent of respondents paying for their own purchases, followed by the mainland
Chinese at 75 per cent.
With financial independence comes equality, and
the majority of women in Singapore also felt that they were on equal footing
with their partners or husbands. More than half of the respondents in
Singapore - 60 per cent - acknowledged that they have an equal say in the
purchase of big-ticket items such as property and cars. Women from Hong Kong
and China, again, led the way with a bigger proportion.
The independent attitudes of Singaporean women
spilled over to their shopping habits. More than half said that when it
comes to shopping, they preferred to shop alone to avoid being pressured by
friends, partners and relatives.
In terms of amount spent, Singaporean women
frittered away an average of $180 each month on shopping for non-essential
items or 10 per cent of their monthly income.
'But what really stood out was the fact that
Singaporean women are practical when it comes to spending as they set aside
a larger portion of their income for housing and utility bills,' said
Miranda Cheung, managing director of Synovate Singapore.
Singaporean women also sought quality when
shopping for goods and services. Over three-quarters (76 per cent) said that
they would pay extra for quality. 'The quality factor was confirmed again as
we asked each respondent what would make them loyal to a retailer apart from
lower prices, and the majority of respondents said better product quality
and services - something which Singaporean retailers should take note of,'
said Ms Cheung.
And social responsibility is big business, with
Singaporean women embracing environmentally friendly products. The survey
found that two-thirds of Singaporean respondents said that they would be
willing to pay more to buy a product which is environmentally friendly.
'Singaporean women have definitely adopted a
socially responsible attitude when it comes to the environment and this has
become evident in their purchase decisions,' said Ms Cheung. 'In essence,
retailers that promote and practise green policies have a definite
advantage.' - 2008 August 9 BUSINESS
TIMES
Look Who's Bringing Home More Bacon
The American family has something new going for it: The
femmes who finance. One in three wives now outearns her husband.
A mere month into his relationship with Betsy Morgan, Chad
Gifford found himself sitting nervously in her parents' dining room in
Suffield, Conn., where the clan had gathered for Easter lunch. "So tell
me, Chad," Betsy's banker father began, lowering the boom before the
roast was served. "How much does an archaeologist earn?"
Gee, Mr. Morgan, not much. Today, 10 years later, Betsy,
34, and Chad, 36, are a happily married Manhattan couple. Betsy is a CBS
executive who makes fat cash. Chad is an archaeologist who jaunts all over
the world for digs that barely pay. She buys Prada shoes. He still owns
clothes from high school. She burns water. He learned how to wash lettuce
from a family friend -- Julia Child. "We joke that I should make Chad a
nonprofit," says Betsy.
The American family has something new going for it: the femmes who finance.
After only three decades as members of the mainstream workforce, one in
three wives now outearns her husband, up from one in five in 1980. Women
with MBAs are doing even better: Nearly 60% have direct deposits bigger than
their grooms'.
POWER-SHARING. Look for the ranks of the Ms. Breadwinners to rise even more,
with 20% more women than men graduating from college and more women swelling
the managerial ranks every year. Francine M. Deutsch, a psychology professor
who studies gender roles and parenting at Mount Holyoke College in South
Hadley, Mass., believes the trend will help erode the mommy tax -- the heavy
penalties women pay for having children -- and help ease female poverty in
old age.
The shift puts a twist on the term "purse strings." Researchers
say the phenomenon is helping restructure marriage by creating mergers of
complementary strengths, in which power is shared and spouses act as
flexible allies who easily switch back and forth between roles. In essence,
the family now has co-CEOs. "I expected to find these women lording it
over their husbands," says Barbara Stanny, author of Secrets of Six-Figure
Women. Stanny studied 150 women earning $100,000 or more. Nearly 70%
earned more than their partners. But even though they raked in more
cash--and often managed the family finances--Stanny found that most wanted
interdependent relationships. "They all talked about how crucial their
husbands were to success," says Stanny.
How well a couple fares depends on how successfully they share childrearing
and what their pact was upon marriage. Resentment can flare if the
breadwinner role was unexpectedly foisted on the wife by a layoff or sudden
failure, says Breadwinner Wives and the Men They Marry author Randi
Minetor.
FROM AUDI TO SATURN. One PR executive financed her husband's new restaurant
and ended up pleading her case in bankruptcy court with $960,000 of debt
attached to her name. She lost the 2,200-square-foot house with the pool and
her Audi A6. "I thought supporting his dream would get me to my dream
-- to be a stay-at-home mom," she says. Instead, she wound up a
Saturn-driving single parent living in a condo with no credit.
Some husbands balk, threatened by their wives' new power. One recent Penn
State University study found that men tend to become gloomier and more prone
to headaches when their wives begin earning more.
Still, the positives can be considerable if men have strong self-images,
feel no need to compete with their wives, and don't have in-laws shaming
them for their role. Men with breadwinner wives are often relieved to share
the onus, especially given the enormous resources required to raise a family
in an era of slippery job security. The role swap allows men to spend more
time with their children and pursue passions that a megacareer would
prohibit.
Indeed, the more economic power the wife has, the more men help out at home.
Minetor found that 51% of men with breadwinner wives are the major
housekeepers. Finally, more career women are getting the one thing they say
they need most: a wife. - by Michelle Conlin
Business
Week 28 Jan 2003
At the opening of The Sweet Smell of Success last
month, a successful New York guy I know took me aside for a lecture that was
anything but sweet.
He said he had wanted to ask me out on a date when
he was between marriages, but nixed the idea because my job made me too
intimidating.
Men, he told me, prefer women who seem malleable
and overawed. He said I would never find a mate, because if there's one
thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties. Will she be
critical of absolutely everything?
Now comes Time magazine with an equally
distressing commentary. The cover story offers the scariest statistics for
women since Newsweek declared in 1986 that a 40-year-old woman was more
likely to be killed by a terrorist than tie the knot.
Time chronicles the new baby bust -- women who
focus too much on their careers suddenly realizing they've squandered their
fertility.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist, conducted a
survey and found that 55% of 35-year-old career women are childless. Between
a third and half of 40-year-old professional women are childless. The number
of childless women age 40 to 44 has doubled in the past 20 years. And among
corporate executives who earn $100,000 or more, she says, 49% of the women
did not have children, compared with only 10% of the men.
Hewlett, the author of Creating a Life:
Professional Women and the Quest for Children, observes, yet again, that men
have an unfair advantage.
"Nowadays," she says, "the rule of
thumb seems to be that the more successful the woman, the less likely it is
she will find a husband or bear a child. For men, the reverse is true."
On a 60 Minutes report on the book Sunday, Lesley
Stahl talked to two young women who go to Harvard Business School. They
agreed that while they are the perfect age to start families, it was not so
easy to find the right mates.
Men, apparently, learn early to protect their
eggshell egos from high-achieving women.
The girls said they hid the fact that they go to
Harvard from guys they meet, because it's the kiss of death. "The
H-bomb," they call it.
"As soon as you say Harvard Business School
... that's the end of the conversation," Ani Vartanian said. "As
soon as the guys say, 'Oh, I go to Harvard Business School,' all the girls
start falling into them."
So the moral of the story is, the more women
accomplish, the more they have to sacrifice?
The problem here is not only that women are
procrastinating too long; it is that men veer away from
"challenging" women because they have an atavistic desire to be
the superior force in a relationship.
In the immortal words of Cher: Snap out of it,
guys.
Male logic on dating down is bollixed up: Women
who seem in awe of you in the beginning won't stay in awe once they get to
know you. Women who don't have demanding jobs are not less demanding in
relationships; indeed, they may be more demanding. They're saving up all
that competitive energy and critical faculty to lavish on you when you get
home.
If men would only give up their silly desire for
world dominance, the world would be a much finer place.
Look at the Taliban. Look at the Vatican. Now,
look at the bonobo.
Bonobos, or pygmy chimpanzees, live in the
equatorial rain forests of Congo and have an extraordinarily happy
existence.
And why? Because in bonobo society, the females
are dominant. Just light dominance, so that it is more like a co-dominance
or equality between the sexes.
"They are less obsessed with power and status
than their chimpanzee cousins, and more consumed with Eros," The Times'
Natalie Angier has written. "Bonobos use sex to appease, to bond, to
make up after a fight, to ease tensions, to cement alliances ... Humans
generally wait until after a nice meal to make love; bonobos do it
beforehand."
The males were happy to give up a little dominance
once they realized the deal they were being offered: all those aggressive
female primates, after a busy day of dominating their jungle, were primed
for sex, not for the withholding of it.
There's no battle of the sexes in bonoboland. And
there's no baby bust. - By Maureen Dowd
New York Times
Here is list of few of the strong women we
admire in today's world:
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