The Economist has an article today about the importance of women in the workplace. Some key points:

1) Girls get better grades at school than boys, and in most developed countries more women than men go to university.

2) Surveys show that women consistently achieve higher financial returns than men do.

3) Increase in female employment in the rich world has been the main driving force of growth in the past couple of decades. Those women have contributed more to global GDP growth than have either new technology or the new giants, China and India.

The article also addresses concerns about whether women working has any bearing on child raising. For instance,

Some people fret that if more women work rather than mind their children, this will boost GDP but create negative social externalities, such as a lower birth rate. Yet developed countries where more women work, such as Sweden and America, actually have higher birth rates than Japan and Italy, where women stay at home. Others fear that women’s move into the paid labour force can come at the expense of children. Yet the evidence for this is mixed. For instance, a study by Suzanne Bianchi at Maryland University finds that mothers spent the same time, on average, on childcare in 2003 as in 1965. The increase in work outside the home was offset by less housework-and less spare time and less sleep.

Speaking of women in business, the Center for Women’s Business Research has some great statistics on women business owners.

Nearly half (48%) of all privately-held U.S. firms are 50% or more women-owned. This means that 10.6 million firms are at least half owned by a woman or women. These firms employ 19.1 million people and generate nearly $2.5 trillion in sales.