Female chief financial officers and chief operating officers earn 50 percent less than men in Australia.

An academic says, the myth of the male breadwinner still lurks in the corridors of corporate Australia and is one of the underlying reasons why female executives are paid less than men.
Female chief financial officers and chief operating officers earn 50 percent less than men in the same positions, according to a survey of companies.
The Equal Employment For Women in the Workplace Agency study, released by Status of Women Minister Tanya Plibersek, also revealed female chief executive officers earned two thirds of the salary of male CEOs and there was no industry where women were the top earners.
Plibersek said it was up to business--not government--to tackle the problem.
“It is the government’s responsibility when it comes to pay equity for ordinary workers and our changes to the industrial relations system will make it easier and fairer for men and women workers to come further into parity,“ she told AAP.
“I think this matter of the highest paid executives in Australia is really a matter for boardrooms and for shareholders.
“If we don’t pay our top female executives properly, I’m worried that we’ll lose them.“
But Sara Charlesworth, of RMIT University’s Center for Applied Social Research, said both government and business had important roles to play in bridging the executive pay gap.
She said the myth of the male breadwinner still prevailed in workplaces and women started a job on a lower salary than men in the same position.

China will host the first Asian session of the influential Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society from May 15 to 17 this year in Shanghai.
The Women’s Forum Asia aims to be an international platform for the region’s leading women to share opinions on major economic, political and social issues.
The event is run by the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, a global group set up in 2005 to bring together elite women from fields including business, politics and academia, Xinhua reported.
The Asian forum is expecting over 700 participants, with 350 from China, the organizer said. It will also include 90 top-level speakers from around the world discussing how women are making a difference in Asia’s economic and social development.
Growth and sustainability are the themes of the first Asian forum, and participants will get the opportunity to discuss the role of women in Asian economies and societies and how it can be enhanced.
The event is supported by 20 partners and organizers are in the process of signing up more sponsors.
The forum has received funding from some 50 private companies since it was set up in 2005.
The original event has been held for the past three years in Deauville, France. A delegation of 50 women represented China at last year’s forum in France.
It was named one of the world’s top five most influential forums by the Financial Times in 2007.

Some 40% of ultrasound scans fail to fully check for abnormalities in unborn babies in UK.

Women are being failed by maternity services, results of an independent review suggest.
The Healthcare Commission found huge variation in quality of care across England with women in London receiving the worst service.
The report also highlighted problems with staffing and inadequate screening checks in some trusts.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson has announced extra funding for maternity services over the next three years, BBC reported.
It is the first time such a wide-ranging review of maternity services has been carried out.
Just over a quarter of the 148 trusts assessed were classed as “best performing“ on 25 factors which included screening tests, ante-natal care and midwife support.
But 21 percent of trusts fell into the “least well performing“ category.
In London, antenatal and postnatal care tended to be consistently poorer, with women not having as many checks as recommended, and inconsistent quality of care around the time of birth.
In contrast, in the North, 33 out of 44 trusts were ranked as “better performing“ or “best performing“.
The review, which also took into account a survey of 26,000 mothers, was launched in response to concerns about maternity services.
Data collected from trusts showed that 40 percent of ultrasound scans carried out fail to fully check for abnormalities in unborn babies.
A quarter of trusts reported breast feeding initiation rates of 58 percent or less, while the highest performing trusts reported rates of 78 percent or more.
A third of hospitals did not have the recommended level of attendance by consultants.

Two Finnish banks announced the creation of a new index option invested solely in companies headed by women, pointing out that recent studies indicate such firms are more profitable.
Aalandsbanken and Tapiola banks jointly launched “Top Women“, an option invested in a bouquet of 15 multi-national companies “selected for their strong profitability and large number of women in high-level positions,“ AFP reported.
“Companies with both women and men in leading positions are more profitable than those led solely by men,“ the banks said in a statement, referring to several recent studies.
One of the studies, conducted by international consultancy McKinsey last year and titled “Women Matter“, found that companies with more gender-balanced boardrooms are on average 10 percent more profitable than their peers in the same sector.
“Women making most of the household purchasing decisions and women-led companies are good at picking up on customer needs,“ the banks explained, adding that women leaders also offer alternative and fresh approaches to business deals.

An Iranian woman in a sport event in Tehran.

That ratio of women's participation in governance puts the UAE ahead of countries like the United States, France, Ireland, Japan and Canada.

The fact that the Persian Gulf Arab region still lags behind other parts of the world in terms of women’s enfranchisement makes stories like those of Kuwaiti Education Minister Nouria Al-Subeih, the Daily Star reported.
Last Tuesday Subeih, known as the “Iron Lady“ by many of her compatriots, survived an attempt by conservative members of parliament to oust her from her position accusing her of legal and administrative irregularities.
Her triumph in the no-confidence vote was hailed by many as a victory for Kuwaiti women, and indeed all Arab women of the Persian Gulf region. And although major victories such as these are still in relatively short supply, there is an overall trend toward the greater enfranchisement of women that bodes well for the future of Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region.
The past decade has seen significant gains for Arab women in the Persian Gulf, not least of which their having voted and run for office in elections in Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Considering that the battle for women’s rights such as suffrage has taken decades in other parts of the world, Arab women are in many respects advancing with far greater speed than their counterparts in other countries.
By assuming leadership positions, they are also setting an example for women around the world.
In 2006, for example, Haya bint Rashid Al-Khalifa became the third woman in history to hold the post of president of the United Nations General Assembly.
In the UAE, women already hold eight of the 40 posts in the country’s Federal National Council, an advisory body that lacks legislative powers but is expected to see its authority expanded in the coming years.
That ratio of women’s participation in governance--22.5 percent-- puts the UAE ahead of countries like the United States, France, Ireland, Japan, Canada and Greece and gives good reason to believe that women will play a very powerful role in the country’s future.

Statistics Canada reveals, the overall rate at which Canadian women are being charged with crimes is declining but the number of young women who committed serious violent crimes more than doubled in the span of a decade.
For both female youth and female adults, charge rates for serious violent crimes have gone up since the mid-1980s. But the most stunning jump in the rate is for girls aged 12 to 17, Canada.com reported.
In 1986, 60 female teens per 100,000 were charged with a serious crime. By 2005, the rate was up to 132 per 100,000.
For adult women, the rate increased to 46 from 25 per 100,000.
Serious violent crimes include murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, assault with a weapon and robbery.
The rate for young women grew steadily between 1986 and 2002 and since then has started a downward slide, according to the report published in Juristat.
Another age-related highlight from the study was that among all women, 15-year-olds had the highest rates of committing property violations and violations against the person, such as common assault.
“Research has found that the teenage and young adult years are times when individuals are most at risk of getting involved in criminal activity,“ states the report.
The study also showed that young women are more likely to commit a crime against someone they know than adult women.
For violations against a person committed by female youth, 67 percent were against friends or acquaintances compared to 45 percent for older women.
When adults assault someone they know, the report says it is often a spouse.
Overall, the rate at which women have been charged by police has dropped 28 percent since peaking in 1992. The decline mirrors overall trends in the national crime rate, Statistics Canada said.

It’s a more painful separation for working Indian women than housewives when a marriage ends in a divorce.
Their non-housewife status works against them with estranged husbands being asked to pay much less as maintenance to earning ex-wives as against those who do not work.
Even in cases where a woman’s monthly salary is as less as Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000, the maintenance amount she gets is a fraction of what non-working women would.
For, the woman’s salary is taken into account while deciding the maintenance, reported Timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
In maximum number of cases the quantum of maintenance being decided is much less than what the woman would need to live comfortably.
A woman usually gets one-third, one-fourth or one-fifth of the husband’s basic salary (excluding the compulsory deductions).
Most often, they do not get the one-third share and have to settle for much less.
Marriage law experts note that while the law states the living standards of both parties (man and wife) to which they were accustomed to should be maintained even post separation, it is not being followed in true letter and spirit.
In the bargain, women with poor salaries are forced to compromise on the living standard they were used to in their marital life.
In some cases, even the professional qualification of the woman becomes an obstacle to her getting a reasonable alimony.
Civil working women getting poor maintenance has been the case from the very beginning, just that it has become more evident with more women working now than in the past, notes civil lawyer K Ranganathan.
He notes that while the law does say that the alimony has to be commensurate to her lifestyle so far, the amount depends on the court. “Each court views it differently,“ he says.