Kira Espiritu, PhD Director, International Studies Abroad @ USD USD = #1 in Study Abroad!

Careers & Motherhood

What are common tasks that help a home run smoothly?

Can Women have it ALL? How does this list of tasks impact a woman’s ability to prosper in the workplace?

Do family responsibilities hold women back? “When a husband and a wife are both employed full time, the mother does 40 percent more child care and about 30 percent more housework than the father.” (Milkie, Raley, Bianchi, 2009) Yet… “Risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework.” (Cook, 2006)

Why does there not seem to be a national discussion of male executives and their familial duties?

How do we even things out? Avoid gatekeeping behaviors

Wives that engage in gatekeeping behaviors do five more hours of family work per week than wives who take a more collaborative approach.” (Allen, Hawkins, 1999) “When husbands do more housework, wives are less depressed, marital conflicts decrease, and satisfaction rises.” (Coltrane, 2000)

This all assumes a “traditional” family 25% of children in US live in single-parent households 85% are single mothers People in single mother families had a poverty rate of 42.2% and an extreme poverty rate of 21.6%.3 (population as a whole = 15.1% poverty rate)

Are things easier with a Harvard MBA?

Single mothers and careers Americans want to believe the prime barrier to socioeconomic advancement is ourselves. Sandberg believes that, too. The U.S. provides the worst support structure for single parents of any economically comparable nation. The study found that American single mothers work more hours than single mothers in any developed nation.

Many of them [single mothers] work for subsistence wages for the same companies that have signed up to sponsor Sandberg's Lean In campaign for executive equality. Wal-Mart, a Lean In "partner," is facing sex discrimination claims from 2,000 female employees in 48 states.

So what can business do to help?

How some women cope: They Opt Out What does it mean to “opt out?” Why don't women run the world? Maybe it's because they don't want to.

A specific sub-set of women Elite, successful women who can afford real choice -- who have partners with substantial salaries and health insurance – making it easy to dismiss them as exceptions. These are the very women who were supposed to be the professional equals of men right now, so the fact that so many are choosing otherwise is explosive.

What success used to look like Her apple-pie recipe Her husband's promotion Or her well-turned-out children Suddenly, being successful required becoming a man. Success was about the male definition of money and power.

Yale Graduates Sally Sears Katherine Brokaw Newsroom to homeroom Left six-figure job Took nine years to make it happen Feels guilty “failed the movement” Lawyer to stay @ home Mom Huge salary and potential partnership No options for part-time 15-hour days Feels like she “failed herself”

Is biology the reason for opting out? ''It's all in the M.R.I., the brains of men and women ''light up'' differently when they think or feel. And those different brains inevitably make different choices.” Moral development Carol Gilligan

Biology also builds in “pauses” for women “I am not a housewife. Is there still any such thing? I am doing what is right for me at the moment, not necessarily what is right for me forever.”

What if we get rid of pauses? T. L. Ceranic

Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton ''My fantasy is a world where there are two kinds of people -- ones who like to stay home and care for children and ones who like to go out and have a career.” ''In this fantasy, one of these kinds can only marry the other.'' But the way it seems to work now is that ambitious women seem to be attracted to ambitious men. Then when they have children together, ''someone has to become less ambitious.'' And right now, it tends to be the woman who makes that choice.

Opting out: Making companies work harder? Flexible scheduling Holding positions Family leave

The Opt Out Myth American women—white, highly educated, in well-paying professional/managerial jobs. 8 percent of American working women fit this demographic

Not REALLY opting out… “I define that as redistributing household labor to adequately take care of one’s family.” -Colombia University labor historian

Pushed out? “People who’ve left promising careers to stay home with their kids aren’t going to say, ‘I was forced out. I really want to be there.’ It gives people a sense of control that they may not actually have.”

Executive Women and the Myth of Having it All

Suggestions for improved life choices (Sylvia Hewitt) Figure out what you want your life to look like @ 45 Give urgent priority to finding a partner Have your first child before 35 Choose a career that will give you the gift of time Choose a company that will help you achieve work-life balance

Don’t believe her “statistics" Average marriage age (2010) Men = 28 Women = 26

It’s about deciding what works for YOU! T. L. Ceranic