Marketing Review — Summer 2008 - (Page 18) TREND #14 Advanced communications technologies are changing the way we work and live. male peers. Generation Xers and Millennials are virtually gender-blind in the workplace, compared with older generations. This is true even in societies such as India and Japan, which have long been male-dominated, though not yet in conservative Muslim lands. ASSESSMENT: This trend is valid only in the developed lands. In the developing world, the movement toward women’s equality is barely beginning. In the United States, the trend could be seen as complete, with women’s equality now taken for granted and only mopping-up operations required to complete the process. However, we believe that the women’s equality movement will continue to retain some importance, less with each passing year, until the gender-blind Generation X and Millennials accede to leadership in business and politics. IMPLICATIONS: In most of the developed world, whatever careers remain relatively closed to women will open wide in the years ahead. Japan will remain some years behind the 18 curve, owing to the strength of its traditionally male-dominated culture. Women’s increasing entrepreneurialism will allow the formation of entrenched “old girl” networks comparable to the men’s relationships that once dominated business. The fraction of women entering the American labor force has leveled off in recent years. The percentage of female workers is likely to remain approximately stable until some force appears to begin a new trend. Demand for child care, universal health coverage, and other family-oriented services will continue to grow, particularly in the United States, where national services have yet to develop. Over the next twenty years, American companies may increasingly follow the example of their counterparts in Europe, whose taxes pay for national daycare programs and other social services the United States lacks. There is little sign of progress for women in much of the 55 TRENDS FOR TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY • SUMMER 2008 200390538-002/BLASIUS ERLINGER/GETTY IMAGES
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