Inside these posts: Women

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Ariel’s Hobson, others on the rise of women

Movie director George Lucas and Mellody Hobson attend the 2009 opening night of "Dreamgirls" at the Apollo Theater in New York City. (Jemal Countess/Getty)

The challenges women face often cut across industries. But some are also unique to specific sectors. Women who have risen high in four industries — finance, health, technology and media — sought to illuminate these issues by recounting their own experiences and assessing how women generally have fared in their fields.

Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments in Chicago, spoke with The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Blumenstein. Julie Louise Gerberding, president of Merck & Co.’s Merck Vaccines unit, sat down with the Journal’s Laura Landro. Marissa Mayer, Google Inc.’s vice president, consumer products, talked with the Journal’s Julia Angwin. And Debra L. Lee, chairman and chief executive of BET Networks, a unit of Viacom Inc., spoke with the Journal’s Alessandra Galloni. Get the full story »

Study: Women more practical when buying cars

The efficient Mini was the car with highest percentage of women buyers. (Timothy Clary/AFP/Getty)

Men prefer their cars beefy or fast, while women go for lower price tags and higher miles per gallon, according to a survey released Thursday. TrueCar.com, which studied data from 8 million purchases in the United States last year, found BMW AG’s Mini had the highest percentage of female buyers at 48 percent, while 93 percent of buyers for Fiat SpA’s Ferrari were men.

“The study shows that women car buyers are more cost-conscious and purchased fuel-efficient vehicles while male buyers were completely the opposite, purchasing vehicles that were either big and brawny, like a large truck, or chose a high-priced, high-performance vehicle,” TrueCar analyst Jesse Toprak said in a statement. Get the full story »

Women make gains, but still lag in pay

Women are gaining ground educationally and economically, but men still make more money on average and women are more likely to live in poverty, according to a White House report expected to be released Tuesday. Get the full story »

Affluent women worry about outliving money

Affluent women expect to be more active than their male counterparts in retirement, but they are also more worried about outliving their money, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch study.

The vast majority of affluent baby boomers believe their retirement will be more active and prosperous than that of their parents, the quarterly survey found. Get the full story »

Study: Women in high-stress jobs face heart risks

Simone Cox takes a breather in her office at Ariba Network. (Dai Sugano/MCT)

Working women are equal to men in a way they’ll wish they weren’t. Female workers with stressful jobs were more likely than women with less job strain to suffer a heart attack or a stroke or to have clogged arteries, a big federally funded study found.

Worrying about losing a job can raise heart risks, too, researchers found.

The results seem sure to resonate in a weak economy with plenty of stress about jobs — or lack of them. The mere fact this study was done is a sign of the times: Past studies focused on men, the traditional breadwinners, and found that higher job stress raised heart risks. This is the longest major one to look at stress in women, who now make up nearly half of the workforce. Get the full story »