Who Runs The World?

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(Video transcript/lightly edited)

It's International Women's Month, and it also marks six years since the pandemic began and this research called the Journey Back to Joy became a reality. We've been tracking consumers sentiment ever since. Today, I'm asking a simple question: who really runs the world?

You can't ignore this one data point: 85% of all US decisions are made or influenced by women. So if you want to understand the economy, you have to start with "how are women feeling?"

We're going to dedicate March to a mini series called Women First: The New Meaning of Worth It. We're going to dive into a bunch of topics, such as economic sentiment, wellbeing, and spending priorities, to shine a light on what's happening with the economy from a woman's perspective.

The first thing we're going to talk about is women as the early warning system for the economy. So let's look at this economic sentiment data. There's a massive gap that we're seeing between men and women, and the gap has been growing. In my February survey from just two weeks ago, 16% of women said that they're spending as usual, and that number has been pretty consistent over the last three months. When we look at men, 31% say that they're spending as usual. Women are half as likely to be spending as usual as men.

But when we look at the other side of that scale, those who are anxious and stopping their spending, we can see that 35% of women, just over a third, have pulled back completely from spending, versus 26% for men.

The important thing is the gap between the two numbers. When you look at the green versus the red for men, it's actually positive, a plus five. That basically says, if you have a business that is really skewed to men, you're probably feeling a little bit better than if the business is skewing to women. Females have a 19 point gap between the green number and the red number. That is not a good sign for the economy in the near term, in the coming months.

Unfortunately, these gaps don't stop. When we look at some other data, we also see that women are more likely to live paycheck to paycheck, they're more likely to be feeling financial stress, and they're more likely to cut back as prices have been rising. And so what's happening is that women tend to feel the economic pressures faster, but then they also change their behaviors more quickly than men.

So What? Now What?

We're seeing this underlying shift that may not show up in our businesses fully for another couple of months. Women in general, are pulling back pretty significantly, and that is going to make the next couple of months, from a business perspective, tough.

Next week, we're going to talk about "how to make experiences worth it." How are women choosing to make things worth it? How are their priorities shifting?

Make sure to also check out the podcast down below, we are featuring some incredible women as part of our International Women's Month celebration. Our latest episode features Carol Goglia, President and CEO of Catch Up and Read. It is an incredible program that is focused on improving literacy, so please check that out!

Until next time!

Watch this Chart of the Week video on YouTube! Click here!

🎤 🎥 Watch the latest episode of The Business of Joy: Why 3rd Grade Reading Levels Matter: America’s Literacy Crisis with Carol Goglia

Catch Up & Read's Website: catchupandread.org