This book addresses the challenges and subtleties behind marketing to women and confronts the idea that gender alone can be used as an indicator to target your market. Darroch provides practical insights into market segmentation and recommends a new approach that focuses on targeting human needs, not gender, in order to reach female customers.
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chapter 1 Demographic Differences Between Men and Women
THE POPULATION IN GENERAL
The population is more or less split 50:50 between men and women. In 1990, the US Census reported that 48.9 percent of the population was women, rising to 50.8 percent in 2012. Women have a longer life expectancy than men (80 vs. 75 years in 2007) and, as a result, women are a slightly more dominant group in the 65-plus age group (57 percent) (Anon, 2011d).1
Women are important. After all, they represent half the population. Since women are likely to outlive many men, they will be consumers for a longer time. Many will also eventually buy products designed for older single/widowed women.
EDUCATION
Overall, levels of literacy continue to rise around the globe, with younger women aged 15-24 the most literate group amongst women. The literacy of women is still, however, 15-30 percentage points behind the literacy of men (Lawson and Gilman, 2009).
Not only are women becoming more literate but women now attain higher levels of education than men. In the US, 140 women enroll in higher education every year per 100 men. In Sweden the number rises to 150, but in Japan drops to 90 female students for every 100 male students (Anon, 2006).
Looking more closely at the US data reveals a number of other interesting trends. In 1950, for example, more women than men had completed four years of high school education (22.5 percent vs. 17.6 percent) but more men than women had completed four years of college education (7.1 percent vs. 5 percent). By 2010, the number of women aged over 25 with four years of college education was almost the same as that of men (29.6 percent vs. 30.3 percent) (see Table 1.1).
Women are now equally as likely as men to finish four years at high school and four years at college.
Table 1.1 The Proportion of the Total Population 25+ with Either 4 Yearsâ High School or 4 Yearsâ College
Source: US Census.
Table 1.1 reports education levels across the whole population aged 25 years and above. When we look at degree completion rates, women not only outnumber men but are also more likely to go on to obtain advanced degrees. The National Center for Education Statistics counted 1.65 million bachelorâs degrees conferred in 2009-10, of which women earned 57.2 percent. In addition, a total of 693,025 masterâs degrees were conferred, of which women earned 60.3 percent, and 158,558 doctorates were conferred, of which women earned 51.7 percent.
What this means is that a greater proportion of women aged 25-9 are now earning degrees, and therefore achieving higher levels of education than men. More specifically, 35.7 percent of all women aged 25-9 years have attained a bachelorâs degree, compared with 27.8 percent of all men aged 25-9, and 8.5 percent of all women aged 25-9 years have attained a masterâs degree, compared with 5.2 percent of all are men aged 25-9 (Anon, 2013m) (see Table 1.2).
Not only are women better educated than men, but they are also more likely than men to finish college and earn bachelorâs, masterâs or doctorate degrees.
Another interesting finding reported by the Pew Research Center (Patten and Kim, 2012) is that women place more value on higher education than men and are more likely to say that their education helped them to grow intellectually and to grow and mature as a person.
Table 1.2 Educational Attainment for 25-29-Year-Olds
Source: National Center For Educational Statistics.
Women value their education more than men and appreciate the opportunities for personal growth that education provides.
In 2009-10, the five most popular fields of study for women were business, followed by health professions and related programs (almost two-thirds or 65,554 study nursing), social sciences and history, education (of which 35,952 or 44.6 percent study to become elementary school teachers) and psychology (see Table 1.3). What I found interesting when I looked at data on advanced degrees is that more women have masterâs degrees in education conferred than bachelorâs degrees in education (140,843 vs. 80,539).
For men, the top five fields of study are business, social sciences and history, engineering and engineering technologies (ranked 17th for women), biological and medical sciences (ranked 8th for women) and visual and performing arts. Computer and information sciences came in 6th for men but was ranked 20th for women. Math and statistics ranked 18th for men and 21st for women (Table 1.4).
Table 1.3 Most Popular Fields of Study for Women at Degree Level
Source: National Center For Educational Statistics.
Even though women are now more likely to study business, women still prefer traditionally female subjects such as nursing and teaching. Women continue to stay away from traditional male fields such as engineering.
The National Center for Educational Statistics notes a total of 15 specific disciplines where women outnumber men (admittedly, library science is small with only 74 graduates) (see Table 1.5).
Women outnumber men in traditionally female subjects such as nursing and teaching. Women also outnumber men in mass communications, music, drama art, and biological and biomedical sciences.4
I have already mentioned that 60.3 percent of all masterâs degrees (or 417,894) are earned by women. Most women get a masterâs degree in education (33.7 percent of all masterâs degrees awarded to women), followed by business (19.4 percent) and health (13.5 percent). Most men get a masterâs degree in business (35.1 percent of all masterâs degrees awarded to men), followed by education (15 percent) and engineering (11.1 percent).
Table 1.4 Most Popular Fields of Study for Men at Degree Level
Source: National Center For Educational Statistics.
Table 1.5 The 15 Fields of Study Where Women Outnumber Men
Source: National Center For Educational Statistics.
When it comes to doctorates, the playing field is more level, with women earning only slightly more doctorates than men (81,953 or 51.7 percent). For both men and women, the top two fields for doctoral study are health (33,900 women and 23,949 men, with women preferring medicine and dentistry, physical therapy and pharmacy) and legal professions â primarily law (21,074 women and 23,552 men). The third most popular field of study for women is biological and biomedical sciences (4,066) and for men is engineering (5,984). The same holds true in the UK where more women than men train as doctors and lawyers (Anon, 2006).
Women are more likely to earn a masterâs degree or doctorate than men. Women pursue masterâs degrees in education, business, health or law. Women pursue doctorates in health, law or the biological/biomedical sciences.
While conducting research for this book, I came across an interesting article in Foreign Affairs by Mehta (2013). Mehta argues that historically women were drawn to teaching because they had few other employment opportunities. The countryâs top universities did not train teachers because teaching carried with it a stigma of low-status, feminine work â instead, top universities trained male administrators to manage schools and school districts. Today, even though women earn more masterâs degrees in education than men, educational administration jobs still mostly go to men.
This leads to the next broad theme: in spite of the gains women are making in education, men continue to out-earn women (Table 1.6). Women continue to feel underserved, undervalued in the marketplace and underestimated in the workplace (Anon, 2013g).
On average, women earn only 77 percent of what men earn, although this income gap is closing (Anon, 2011d; DeNavas-Walt, Proctor and Smith, 2012). In the BRICS and N-11 countries, women earn only 48 cents in the dollar of what men earn (Lawson and Gilman, 2009). The pay discrepancy is explained by two phenomena. First, 20 percent of women continue to gravitate toward low-paying occupation categories, which in the US are jobs that include secretaries, registered nurses, elementary school teachers, cashiers and nursing aids (in other economies, agriculture is an example of a low-paying occupation that attracts women). Only 14 percent of women work in management, business or finance jobs, and only 7 percent of women work in high-paying professions such as computing and engineering (Anon, 2011d).
During my research I came across a number of interesting exceptions, where women either earn the same as men or out-earn men. When women do the same work as men (for example, software development, computer systems administration, teaching or nursing), salaries are in fact equivalent (Anon, 2013e). In 47 of the 50 largest US metro areas, single, childless women in their 20s earn more than their male counterparts (Anon, 2012a). Furthermore, 29 percent of all married women now earn more than their husbands, up from 18 percent in 1990 (Anon, 2011c) and 6 percent in 1976. I found this data interes...
