SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

Wednesday's Woman: What Working Women Want Mo$t

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Jul 2, 2008, 11:57 AM ET

Wanted: Some jerk named Dan's head on a platter.

First: A little background.

Last week advocacy group Working America published the results of its 2008 Ask a Working Woman survey, co-sponsored with the AFL-CIO. Some 12,000 working women participated. The main finding: Above all else--flexible schedules, more affordable health and child care, etc.--working women most want a (freakin') raise.

"Unemployment is up, the credit crunch is squeezing people and gas prices are hitting record highs. America’s working women need a raise and a break," said Karen Nussbaum, Working America's executive director, on the company's Web site.

Here's a closer look at more of what the survey found:

• Asked what would make life substantially easier, 53% of working women said a 10% boost in their paychecks would do the trick. Next on the list was better health care, cited by 20%. That's a pretty wide gap.
• Given more free time (haha), 50% of respondents said they'd work a second job, followed by 43% who said they'd spend more time with family.
• A better paying job vs. a job that's more fun? Money, again, won out for a whopping 72% of working women.
• Another whopper--80% of respondents said having kids has negatively impacted their careers. Two-thirds also think their chances for a promotion would increase if they were male, younger or more attractive.
• In terms of expectations, 59% of working women thought they'd be making more money than they are, while 66% expected to have less debt.

Now: Back to Dan. Dear Dan read BusinessWeek's Working Parent blog about the Ask a Working Woman survey. He was the first to comment. His words of wisdom? "Try working a little harder, stop leaving early to pick up little johnny and maybe you'd get a raise."

I think Dan better crawl back under his rock before an avalanche of them begins.

Your thoughts? How would you have answered the survey (available for download here as a PDF)? Do you think there's any truth to Dan's words?

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Previous Wednesday's Woman articles:
>> Do Wedding Bells Cause Last Name Hell?
>> Meet Mytopia Co-Founder Galia Ben-Artzi
>> Hear Our Ringtones Roar
>> The Makings of a Smooth Maternity Leave
>> A Rocker Girl's Journey to Tech CEO
>> Why So Many Women Are Bolting From Tech
>> Meet TodaysMama CEO Rachael Herrscher

The Wednesday's Woman series is especially for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest. As always, send me your ideas.

Research | Women in Business

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