Ten per cent of the world’s billionaires are female – many of whom are now coming out of China where communism has bred some great capitalists… what would Chairman Mau say to that?
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| Ten per cent of the world's billionaires are women. |
An interesting little fact crossed my desk today. Did you know that on the recently released 2013 Forbes Billionaires list, there are now 1,426 names. All these super wealthy people own about $5.4 trillion between them. That’s up from $4.6 trillion last year. (Big thanks to Forbes for doing all the investigating involved in putting these figures together.)
Which is fascinating in itself and reveals that there is still a whole lot of major wealth creation going on in our economically troubled world. But here’s the thing that really struck me. Of the 1,426 people named as billionaires, just 138 of them are women. This is an increase on last year’s total of 104 female billionaires but is still a fairly poor percentage (9.6 per cent) when you consider that women make up 50 per cent of the world’s population.
In addition, according to The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report, women represent 40 per cent of the world’s labour force but hold just one per cent of the world’s wealth.
Many, many people who are much cleverer and bigger than me have written oceans of text on the various reasons why women lag so far behind men when it comes to claiming their share of its wealth and being compensated equally for their labour so I’m not going to go there – I think most rational people will agree that if girls are denied access to education and married off at age 12, then it’s not a huge surprise to find they’re not sitting on the board of a large multinational corporation later in life.
It’s not all bad news for women though, in fact there’s a lot of good news. Globally, $20 trillion of spending is controlled by women and that’s expected to rise by another 40 per cent over the next five years, it was stated on the recent BBC series on wealth called Changing Fortunes. Not only that, it seems we might do a bit better than the fellas when it comes to inheritance because, according to Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, women will inherit 70 per cent of the $41 trillion in intergenerational wealth transfer expected over the next 40 years.
The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report also found that, “Since 1980, female participation rate at each level of income has increased sharply... women now account for more than half the world’s university students.” Hurray!
Commenting on this, the BBC series Changing Fortunes said that, “As birth rates fall, discrimination decreases and educational opportunities improve and THUS the growing feminisation of wealth seems likely to continue.”
But let’s move on because there are some really interesting trends now emerging in the world of women and uber wealth. In a nutshell, the majority of the world’s richest women got that way through marriage or inheritance, however the number of self made women is on the rise and it is Chinese women who are taking the lead.
About 30 per cent of China’s millionaires are women and the nation is home for 11 of the world’s 20 richest self-made women. One of them is Zhang Lan, the CEO of South Beauty Food and Beverage, an upmarket chain of restaurants. Lan was profiled on the BBC’s Changing Fortunes episode called The Feminine Touch. Her brand is now worth $400 million and comprises 80 restaurants. She plans to have 100 by 2014.
What is it about China that has unleashed this female entrepreneurial spirit? Surprisingly and ironically, it’s their Communist upbringing that has made them such great capitalists. Growing up under Chairman Mau, who famously said ‘women hold up half the sky’ and a brand of communism that asserts everyone is equal has meant Chinese women have grown up believing that as long as they go out and work hard, nothing is stopping them.
According to the recent Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) report entitled ‘Driving Growth: The Female Economy in China and India’, China's female economy will grow from $1.3 trillion in 2010 to $4 trillion in 2020 – a tenfold increase in 20 years.
For investors looking to cash in this means that “understanding what Chinese and Indian women want - their devotion to their children, their desire for safe and nutritious food, their fondness for affordable luxury, their brand consciousness - will be critical to the success of companies operating in these markets”, BCG states.
So it’s all very good news for Louis Vuitton et al. “China’s female economy is already strong—and over the next few years, we expect to see it grow even stronger. In particular, young professional women will break into middle and top management jobs and fuel the next wave of growth in the luxury business,” BCG’s report states.
The difference between women in China and India is marked, states the BCG report. In India, there is still “significant gender discrimination, limited access to education, low formal labor-participation rates, and low wages”.
“The female labor-force participation rate has been stuck at around 32 percent since 2000, while female wages have actually declined to 26 percent of men’s wages, on average. This decline is driven by repressive, education-stunting conditions in rural areas as well as by a government unwilling to step in and end discrimination, harassment, and physical threats.”
So come on India, lift your game. Don’t you want an army of go-getting successful businesswomen contributing to the country’s GDP as well?
Anyway, if there is anyone out there who would like to see the number of female billionaires leap by one to a total of 139, I would be more than happy to fill that position. I’ll just need someone to invest in my latest project at the discount bargain, no-wait-there’s-more price of one billion dollars.
SOURCES
Which is fascinating in itself and reveals that there is still a whole lot of major wealth creation going on in our economically troubled world. But here’s the thing that really struck me. Of the 1,426 people named as billionaires, just 138 of them are women. This is an increase on last year’s total of 104 female billionaires but is still a fairly poor percentage (9.6 per cent) when you consider that women make up 50 per cent of the world’s population.
In addition, according to The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report, women represent 40 per cent of the world’s labour force but hold just one per cent of the world’s wealth.
Many, many people who are much cleverer and bigger than me have written oceans of text on the various reasons why women lag so far behind men when it comes to claiming their share of its wealth and being compensated equally for their labour so I’m not going to go there – I think most rational people will agree that if girls are denied access to education and married off at age 12, then it’s not a huge surprise to find they’re not sitting on the board of a large multinational corporation later in life.
It’s not all bad news for women though, in fact there’s a lot of good news. Globally, $20 trillion of spending is controlled by women and that’s expected to rise by another 40 per cent over the next five years, it was stated on the recent BBC series on wealth called Changing Fortunes. Not only that, it seems we might do a bit better than the fellas when it comes to inheritance because, according to Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, women will inherit 70 per cent of the $41 trillion in intergenerational wealth transfer expected over the next 40 years.
The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report also found that, “Since 1980, female participation rate at each level of income has increased sharply... women now account for more than half the world’s university students.” Hurray!
Commenting on this, the BBC series Changing Fortunes said that, “As birth rates fall, discrimination decreases and educational opportunities improve and THUS the growing feminisation of wealth seems likely to continue.”
But let’s move on because there are some really interesting trends now emerging in the world of women and uber wealth. In a nutshell, the majority of the world’s richest women got that way through marriage or inheritance, however the number of self made women is on the rise and it is Chinese women who are taking the lead.
About 30 per cent of China’s millionaires are women and the nation is home for 11 of the world’s 20 richest self-made women. One of them is Zhang Lan, the CEO of South Beauty Food and Beverage, an upmarket chain of restaurants. Lan was profiled on the BBC’s Changing Fortunes episode called The Feminine Touch. Her brand is now worth $400 million and comprises 80 restaurants. She plans to have 100 by 2014.
What is it about China that has unleashed this female entrepreneurial spirit? Surprisingly and ironically, it’s their Communist upbringing that has made them such great capitalists. Growing up under Chairman Mau, who famously said ‘women hold up half the sky’ and a brand of communism that asserts everyone is equal has meant Chinese women have grown up believing that as long as they go out and work hard, nothing is stopping them.
According to the recent Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) report entitled ‘Driving Growth: The Female Economy in China and India’, China's female economy will grow from $1.3 trillion in 2010 to $4 trillion in 2020 – a tenfold increase in 20 years.
For investors looking to cash in this means that “understanding what Chinese and Indian women want - their devotion to their children, their desire for safe and nutritious food, their fondness for affordable luxury, their brand consciousness - will be critical to the success of companies operating in these markets”, BCG states.
So it’s all very good news for Louis Vuitton et al. “China’s female economy is already strong—and over the next few years, we expect to see it grow even stronger. In particular, young professional women will break into middle and top management jobs and fuel the next wave of growth in the luxury business,” BCG’s report states.
The difference between women in China and India is marked, states the BCG report. In India, there is still “significant gender discrimination, limited access to education, low formal labor-participation rates, and low wages”.
“The female labor-force participation rate has been stuck at around 32 percent since 2000, while female wages have actually declined to 26 percent of men’s wages, on average. This decline is driven by repressive, education-stunting conditions in rural areas as well as by a government unwilling to step in and end discrimination, harassment, and physical threats.”
So come on India, lift your game. Don’t you want an army of go-getting successful businesswomen contributing to the country’s GDP as well?
Anyway, if there is anyone out there who would like to see the number of female billionaires leap by one to a total of 139, I would be more than happy to fill that position. I’ll just need someone to invest in my latest project at the discount bargain, no-wait-there’s-more price of one billion dollars.
SOURCES
- Female Billionaires
- Forbes Billionaires List 2013: http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/
- Changing Fortunes is a co-production by D&E and Films of Record for BBC World News. Filmed with the sponsorship of Coutts Private Bank and airing from February to March 2013, the episodes of the show can be viewed at: http://international.coutts.com/en/news-and-insights/bbc-changing-fortunes/
- Boston Consulting Group’s report entitled ‘Driving Growth: The Female Economy in China and India’ report available here: http://www.bcg.com/expertise_impact/publications/PublicationDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-119928
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