It is no longer true, as Chairman Mao once observed, that “women hold up half the sky.”

Proof that their 50 percent share has grown is that by 2014 women’s consumer dollars will amount to US$18 trillion or double the GDP of India and China combined. Female employment in the developed countries has driven growth in the past two decades, a feat not unknown to China, where 80 % of working women are employed in small-to-medium enterprises, and the Philippines, where 63 % of overseas workers who contribute their heroic remittances are women. In the rest of Asia, 65 % of women who work are in SMEs.

At the Standard Chartered 2009 Women in Business Summit held over the weekend in Singapore, “women as an economic force” was the topic that brought together speakers, entrepreneurs and professionals from 30 countries. Standard Chartered banks on its woman-friendly outlook, offering products such as “diva accounts,” a microfinance unit catering to women (80 %), and strategies like appointing a woman CEO in Zambia and leadership training for women employees with high potential.

Singapore’s data reveal the new reality of a world that relies more and more on woman power: 64 percent of its architecture and engineering graduates are women, 63 percent of graduates in sciences are women, and two out of the four to-die-for President’s Scholars this year are women.

“Women who are economically empowered are an incredibly powerful source of development,” said Peter Sands, Standard Chartered’s group chief executive. They spend money on goods and services for their families, thus contributing to social, economic and political progress, just as the opposite – investing in and empowering women – impels the long-term success of businesses, countries, and the global economy.

Simply put, “women who work have a great impact on the economy and reduce poverty.” But as every woman knows, “ultimately childcare is key.” Without a surrogate mother at home to take care of the children, a woman’s chances of unfolding her potential are severely limited.