But they should and they want to take it

"Growth", "expansion", "prosperity": that these three words, in France, are always a little false have in common Look no more: they are female. Since always on grammar, but also now, the figures and facts. Forget China, the India, and even new technologies: since 10 years, the first engine of world growth, are... women.

The statistics are formal. The GDP growth, at the level of each State as at the global level, is either an increase of capital (investment), or an increase in work (number of employed persons), or an increase in the productivity of capital and labour. However, since 1970, on three new jobs created, the women took two. and, according to the weekly "the economist", which is the synthesis of the work of many research centres, the arrival of this new labour further fueled global wealth as capital injected or the increase in productivity. "On the last decade, increased use for women in developed countries has helped more that China global growth", concludes the British newspaper.

Take the France or the United States. The development of women's activity is likely to be the most surprising phenomenon and this rate increases more rapidly. At the beginning of the thirty Glorieuses, seven million women employed paid in France (on a workforce of nearly $ 20 million), or about one-third. Today, an asset out of two is a woman. Women represent 47 of the active population. The latest survey of Insee are 27 million of assets including 14.5 million men and 12.5 million women on the labour market. The same demonstration can be made in the United States (one-third of women employed in 1950, today two-thirds and 12 points less to the share of male employment) in Sweden or Britain. Their reinforcement in the labour force compensates for the effects demographic ageing or the after-tax penalisation. And the phenomenon now breeds in emerging countries. The success of Southeast Asia is essentially based on the women, two thirds of the jobs in export, the country's most dynamic industries. Will the world of work, where women have fought for freedom of the city, become the city of women

One thing is certain: the rise women, correlated with the increase in per capita wealth, is exercised in all areas and at all levels. Women not only to provide an effective workforce or to be a consumer decision-maker, with increasing budgets and a broad autonomy to expend. They are also, and more in more, leaders, managers or entrepreneurs. Some studies have even highlighted the existence of a correlation between the presence of women in management positions and the financial performance of a company.

And it is only a start! The phenomenon will worsen, because girls do better than boys in the school system and are more heavily to the University. Good number of observers, we therefore already entered the era of the "womenomics" feminized, thought and economy exerted by women, a concept built on the model of the "freakonomics" (whimsical economy) and the different way to see the economy invented by the American scholar Steven Levitt.

But this is going a little fast in work. Of course, the followers of the male single child Chinese will soon realize that give the day a girl can be a better investment. And all patterns of society know that a joint team is creative and more effective that a team 100 male. But despite their irresistible rise in power, women are still "underutilized". Not just in the emerging areas: in Italy for example, their activity rate is 40. And even in countries where they are, in large number, doctors, lawyers or executives, they represent only a small percentage of the surgeons, "partners" and CEO. It is true that the "glass ceiling" prevents them from access to ultimate levels is also, in part, in their heads: women seek more often that men happiness and balance in what they do and, at least, is often away from responsibilities when they involve the sacrifice of their family life. Mean that the legal advances, as French law February 23, 2006 on equal pay for men and women in business, constitute only a part of the work to be done: If the company wants to take advantage of the women's resource, if companies do not want to lose these great talents, need them to invent new forms of work or social protection systems that eliminates the effects of disruption of career or the choice of constraints pared-down professional. Because penalizing women who are children is an aberration, when it is possible to combine high fertility rates and high level of women's activity, as shown in the example of the United States and, to a lesser extent, the France.

The "womenomics", feminized, economy is not, as some claim, a fashion phenomenon but a background pattern. For us, which laid the foundations of "Women's Forum for the Economy and Society" in 2002, the existence of a "women's vision" in matters economic, political or societal has long been a deep conviction. The "Women's Forum Centre" we put in place now will focus on the study of these phenomena and will produce between two annual forums, reviews, and reports that will provide support for proposals. Our goal Do think and advance corporations. Women are in first line on all issues vital health, education, environment or demography. The next forum, to be held in October next in Deauville (5-7) with theme: "Women's new responsibility for improving our societies", will show and to draw the consequences. Because, at the time where women massively access to positions of responsibility, their own responsibility on the fate of the world and the functioning of companies is growing. But they should, and they want to take it.