The curse of motherhood - Building Gender Balanced Business

The ugly numbers

• There are only 15 Fortune 500 companies with a female chief executive.

• Full-time female workers make, on average, 23% less than full-time male workers.

• The problem lies in the temporary absences from full-time employment that turn into a permanent hit to earnings.

A recent study by Marianna Bertrand, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz

• The three women examined the graduates of the University of Chicago’s business school and came up with some interesting data.

• In the years subsequent to graduation, men and women had “nearly identical labor incomes and weekly hours worked.”

• Both sexes suffered equally from time off work and part-time work but women were much more likely to do so.

• 15 years after graduation, the men were earning approximately 75% more than their female counterparts.

• Only one subgroup of women had careers that were similar to those of men: women who had no children and had never taken any time off work.

“Women do almost as well as men today, as long as they don’t have children.” Jane Waldfogel, Columbia University professor

• Obviously, counterexamples abound but those women are the exception, not the rule, and they had to overcome some pretty steep odds to get where they are today.

Parents can’t have it all

“American feminists made a conscious choice to emphasize equal rights and equal opportunities, but not to talk about policies that would address family responsibilities.” Jane Waldfogel

• As it becomes clear that time off parental necessities like part-time work, flexible hours and extended leaves translate into irreparable career damage, parents are adapting.

• Faced with few good job options, many moms are opting for full-time parenting and dropping out of the labor force.

• Many low-income, single parent, women do not even have a choice between their career and their family which means that their chances of escaping poverty are slim considering the effects on their career and the added burden of a child.

• Last year, 40.2% of married women with children under the age of 3 were outside the labor force, a 1.6 point increase since 1998.

A tough problem to solve

• The United States is the only rich country in the world without a paid leave policy.

• It would require $25 billion a year, less than 0.2% of GDP, to give parents a full year of leave for each child.

• There are ways to help parents:-Oklahoma has a statewide universal preschool program.-California has a limited version of paid parental leave.-In England, workers can request a switch to a part-time or flexible schedule.-Their employers can still deny their request, but thus far, approximately 90% of requests have been accepted.

• Though all of these measures would be a step in the right direction, they are far from being adequate solutions.

• In the European countries that boast much more lavish parental leave laws, women still lag behind men on career ladders.

• To really solve the problem, we’re going to have to get creative and find a way to incorporate part-time jobs and flexible schedules into successful careers.

The New York Times