Navigating the 21st century consumption highway is a challenge for business. Across America, women in every age and income demographic are reconsidering what to buy and how much money to spend on it.

Let's put this "R-state" in perspective. Women are credited with making between 80 and 85 percent of all purchase decisions for American households. However, women's economic clout extends far beyond home and hearth. Today, more than 50 percent of business, government, and nonprofit purchasing managers and purchasing agents are women. Women hold majority status in HR departments and they make up more than 50 percent of corporate administrative officers.

In his new book "Re-imagine!", Tom Peters sums up the total impact of women's economic power in this way:

"the result is an American women's economy that accounts for more (than) half of U.S. GDP. That is to say: around five trillion dollars. Hence, according to one wag, the world's largest economies could be ranked as follows:"

• Earth's third-largest economy: American men.
• Earth's second-largest economy: All of Japan
• Earth's largest economy: American women.

At Leading Indicators, we’ve identified eight new long-term trends that have high impact on women’s lives and the products they will buy.

Girl's Rule: American women now wield a lipstick in one hand and a hammer in the other. They constitute new majorities as college grads and new business owners. In 2002, single women bought 18 percent of homes, while single men purchased 9 percent. Surprisingly, women are only beginning to recognize their economic power as a vehicle for dictating changes in how products and services are designed, manufactured and marketed to them.

Complicated Lives: The conventional wisdom has been that women lead increasingly stressful, guilt-ridden lives, torn between work and family obligations, with simmering resentment over no personal time. New research suggests that the real picture is more complex, that millions of working women are functioning as effective, happy, multi-tasking managers at home and at the office. Their good mood evaporates quickly in the consumer marketplace, where buying products as simple as tooth paste has become a too-many-choices nightmare.

Viva La Difference!: During most of the Seventies, women were determined to prove their equality with men by emulating men. Feminists argued that sexual differences were driven largely by nurturing or social conditioning. New scientific research concludes that there are differences in the male and female brain. And women like what they are hearing about how their brains function.

Goodbye Mayberry: The face of the American household has changed dramatically in the past 40 years. Simply stated, Ozzie and Harriett don't live here, in the United States, anymore. In 1960, 59% of all households consisted of three or more persons. In 2002, that number stood at 42%. The decline in household size comes with the growth of the single-person household, which has increased from 13% to 26% since 1960.

365 Super Sexy: We are seeing a major pushback on the boundaries of appropriate sexual behavior in America, and we're just getting warmed up. From Madison Avenue to Wall Street, Coast to Coast, seven nights a week, the beat goes on. Las Vegas is the new Ocean Beach. And as "Sex and the City" enters its final season, we're convinced that Americans are thinking about sex, if not having sex, most of the time.

Forever Young: What a difference a few years makes. Today fifty is the start of middle age, and a time that is expected to be vigorous and productive. Renewal . . . Rejuvenation . . . Reconsideration. Many women are starting new careers or embarking on travel adventures. Others are parents for the second or even the first time. In fact, today's 50-year-old woman is more likely to be touring the country on a mountain bike than watching TV in her Lazy-Boy. . . And even Lazy-Boy has had a makeover.

I'm the Brand: We are entering an age where women will no longer be dictated to by advertisers and consumer product marketers. Women are no longer buying into the fantasy lifestyle created by a single designer. Women want to create their own brand -- the brand called Me. And they will purchase new products with a keen understanding of price as a function of real value: emotional, aesthetic and functional value to each individual woman.