David Leonhardt’s article Labor Market Punishes Working Mothers written for the New York Times explores the disparities in income between working mothers and professional women without children and how they relate to men in the market.
Thanks to feminist movements, legislation has been created to give working men and women equal rights in the workplace. However, there is little legislation that offers protection to workers with families. Additionally, men still dominate the workplace in executive and middle management, with only 15 Fortune 500 companies with female CEOs and and women still earning an average of 23 percent less than men.
Leonhardt’s article continues to show how working women with children – irregardless of income still struggle with balancing their familial responsibilities with work.
A recent study of business school graduates from the University of Chicago found that in the early years after graduating, men and women had “nearly identical labor incomes and weekly hours worked.” Men and women also paid a similar career price for taking off or working part time. Women, however, were vastly more likely to do so.
As a result, 15 years after graduation, the men were making about 75 percent more than the women. The study — done by Marianne Bertrand, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz — did find one subgroup of women whose careers resembled those of men: women who had no children and never took time off.
On the other end of the spectrum, low-income women generally do not have a choice between career and family. Many are single parents. Their chances of escaping poverty are hurt by the long-term costs of taking time off after childbirth and having little flexibility in their schedules.
A good deal of my clients are women. I have had just one female client with an adult child. All of my other female clients are single with no children at varying levels of promotion; 80 percent have a PhD and are first generation to go to college. When I ask them about their choice to be in their 30s without children and not married, they usually respond with the following question, “What man is going to take care of our children while I work and in what world would I could I earn the same as my male colleagues so I could be the main bread winner?”
Shockingly aware of the facts that stand in their way, this group of professional women choose not to have children to ensure their own financial security. Knowing their personal and professional schedules, these women have little free time to date. Many of these clients balance their personal lives which includes caring for sick parents or helping their younger siblings. The female CEOs and executives I personally know do not have children and made the decision not to have children in order to advance their careers and increase their financial security.
Many of the working women with children I know unfortunately usually do not keep jobs long. They take a lot of time off to care for their children or quit when balancing their children and work becomes too much to handle. Many mothers who stay at home take on many side projects to earn extra money, however most do not become profitable or viable businesses. These women are faced with the decision to choose between their own professional success and their children.
With that said, it is understandable that working mothers do not rise to the top faster and earn higher incomes, because they do not always have 100 percent attention focused solely on their careers. Many working mothers cannot spend long hours at work, go on business trips, nor can they sacrifice their children for a work project. Working mothers, in many cases, cannot offer the type of consistency and long term dedication that men can provide to their work especially in the ways that men owned and operated companies demand.
If you are a woman reading this, don’t let that discourage you. Women are opening more businesses and earning more money than ever before. One of my former bosses owns a successful real estate firm and has three children and was for a period of time divorced. Here in France, women can take 1 year paid maternity leave without fear of losing their jobs when they return.
It’s important to stress that today’s woman must consider career planning to be as equally important to family planning.
Read the rest of Leonhardt’s article here to see how current legislation and employment trends affect working mothers.
Are you a working mother? How far have you advanced in your career? Have you beaten the legal and financial odds stacked against you?
