Registry Opportunity

Today's New York Times has an article summarizing the astounding wage-surge among unmarried young professional women in big cities. It is the first time a group of women have wages that surpasses their male peers. It's called For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor and you can read it at www.nytimes.com.

Here's the key quote for me:

Diana Rhoten, a program director at the Social Science Research Council in New York, said well-educated women were migrating to urban centers where there are diverse professional opportunities and less gender discrimination than in smaller cities and suburbs. There may also be nonworkplace factors at play, she said.
“Previously, female migration patterns were determined primarily by their husband’s educational levels or employment needs, even if both were college-educated,” she said. “Today, highly qualified women are moving for their own professional opportunities and personal interests. It’s no longer an era of power couple migration to, but one of power couple formation in places like New York.”
Dr. Beveridge, based his findings of young women’s earning power on data from the census bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey used to analyze people working at least 35 hours a week 40 or more weeks a year.

What does this mean for Macy's? Why does our gift registry literature still state that marriage marks the beginning of a woman's major shopping life in the Home Store? Note that Macy's headquarters is NOT in one of these "major cities," but the good old flyover zone of Cincinnati. I am a single professional woman who left Cincinnati precisely to join these urban wage-earning ranks (and pretty much failed, due to inabilty to focus on money). In Cincinnati, a woman's life DOES begin with marriage. Men, too. It's a traditional city -- a GREAT place to raise kids and practice citizenship.

But our registry needs to serve all consituencies (we're now in every state except Alaska). So it's time for Macy's Gift Registry language to follow the lead of such organizations as Home Depot and Crate and Barrel. Diversify your occasions -- or make the occasion optional. Be sure the consultants know it's a GIFT registry with a HOUSEWARMING category. But from corporate -- PLEASE REDO THE ADVERTISING FOR US SINGLES!