Women Here Doing Better in Workforce

Women Here Doing Better in Workforce

by Pamela Chow(MyPaper March 3,2010)

MANAGING director Joni Ong, 49, is feeling upbeat about her finances, her independence and, indeed, about her place as a woman in Singapore's working world.As a young graduate, she had ambitions of climbing the corporate ladder but, at 27, her plans took a back seat after she and her husband started their family.Eight months after giving birth, she went on to take her master's degree in Education and continued to make progress in the field of human resource.

"Women are very much a presence to be reckoned with... We've always been able to make decisions for ourselves," she said.She continues to feels positive about the economy, even in the wake of the financial crisis, and recently started a training consultancy."This is the year to start... It's time to move forward," she said.Ms Ong is just one example of a Singapore woman who feels she's on solid ground, just a year after the global economic meltdown.The MasterCard Worldwide Index of Women's Advancement 2010, a biannual survey that measures consumer confidence amid prevailing market expectations, studied a total of 3,306 women and 3,316 men in the region.The survey compiles an index to compare whether expectations of economic performance favour men or women.A figure of 100 indicates equality between the sexes.Numbers less than that mean that expectations favour men, while numbers higher than 100 indicate that expectations favour women.

The index, which surveyed 200 women and 200 men in Singapore, shows that:

* Women here form 51.3 per cent of the labour force, up from 51.1 per cent last year.
* Women's regular income has also improved against men's, doubling from 34.9 to 68.9 index points, from the first to second half of last year.
* Singapore women's expectations of future economic performance have also gone up, from 31.4 index points to 86.5 over the same period.
* More women are also taking charge in the household.
* Throughout the region, an estimated 66.5 per cent of women are taking on the role of decision-makers, up from 45.6 per cent last year.

Women continue to make strides in labour-force participation and tertiary- education enrolment, and we are glad to see this translating into a greater sense of self-worth," Ms Georgette Tan, MasterCard's vice-president of communications for the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said in a statement.

The survey also received responses from people in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.