This study examines some issues that genetic testing raises and the implications for the health-care and insurance industries, as well as for the workplace. Today, increasing numbers of women are participating in financial decision making for their households, and women are increasingly confident in their financial decision-making ability. Although women are making steady advances as financial consumers, industry perceptions about women may not be keeping pace. CFD's findings suggest that today's women do not constitute a single market segment that is uninformed, risk averse, and savings-product oriented. Increasing numbers of women are choosing investment-oriented financial products and have the desire or need to be financially independent and secure.
Women are a powerful force in the financial market.
Whether sharing or solely responsible for financial decisions, women are active in directing the financial stability and security of more than three-quarters of all U.S. households. For transaction, credit, investment, or protection needs, women are finding themselves cast into roles of responsibility as the U.S. social system and government entitlement programs evolve. The need for effective generation and use of organizational knowledge and innovation has reached a critical level for many companies. Relying exclusively on internal resources for knowledge creation and innovation is rarely sufficient in this brave new world of electronic commerce and Internet-paced product development. The program has also recently published the director's travel report, and the second LoD bulletin is in production.