Every mother is a working mother. Via Krypto @ Flickr.
Anyway, a post-doc fellow in the social sciences named Jane Leber Herr (if you assume her name is German and translate it, you get “Jane Liver Lord,” which is terribly funny to me for some reason) on fellowship at the University of Chicago recently completed a study on the different levels of opting-out among women with different professional degrees: MDs, JDs, PhDs, and MBAs.
I think the study is quite interesting, but I have a quibble with the lead-in sentence: Highly educated women tend to opt out of the labour force at motherhood. That’s a weirdly sloppy generalization, especially considering that a few paragraphs later, the study notes that according to 2000 census data:
91% of doctors continue working, compared to 80% of lawyers and 78% of managers
So, between 1/10th and 1/5th of professional women–that is, not even close to a majority–leaving the working world equals women “tending” to opt out? It’s just as unhelpful as that notorious NYT article from 2003 (wow, that makes me feel old) by Lisa Belkin that made it seem like women are leaving the professions in droves–just cuz, ya know. That gets my hackles up, when really, this study might have something useful to tell us. So let’s look further.
Among mothers with a graduate degree, MDs are the most likely to be working (94%), and MBAs are the least likely (72%).2 Among PhDs, 86% are working, among lawyers (JDs), 79%, among women with non-MBA masters, 74%, and among those with no graduate degree, 69%.
So it does seem education beyond a Bachelor’s degree will keep a woman in the workforce longer or more consistently. And not just because women have invested more in their professional training. Leber Herr seems to believe that it is the “family friendliness” of the workplace environment that leads to a 10% increase the likelihood of women staying employed.
Say it with me now: “durrrrrr.” Still, I can appreciate hard data, and the conclusion that highly-educated mother’s participation in paid professions is likely curtailed by systems that rely on an outdated, Dr. Laura-approved model of gendered work and family life that is “the way we never were” (I highly suggest you read Stephanie Coontz’s study by that very title).
If we actually value children, marriages, and families, rather than just paying them lip service, we might consider revamping our professions to include policies that protect and promote responsible business and responsible parenthood for both mothers and fathers.
I’m somewhat surprised that the medical profession is more family-friendly than the academy or law, actually. I’m not surprised about MBAs, though. We’ve got a lot of professional harpies here–whether or not you’ve got kids, what do you see going on in your fields?
I will never quit my job to raise children. Period. End of sentence. I want kids but I would be miserable staying at home and I know it and thank Goddess for feminism because now I won’t be forced to.
I would also interpret this study as: Highly paid women can afford quality child care and therefore, stay in the workforce. Women making $40k in a lower-paying professional field (like education, gov’t or non-profits) would have child care eat up such a large part of their salary that staying at home sometimes makes more financial sense.
The business I work in allows for some flexibility–I could work a day or two a week at home–and is female-dominated, and yet, I wouldn’t say they’re especially advanced in their thinking on work-life balance or maternity leave. But I blame the Patriarchy–as you said, P.Soul, until there’s a sea change in policy and cultural attitudes, it’s not likely to improve much.
maybe easier for docs to go part time? does this include part time?
i am dying for a full time job with benefits like maternity leave. i would definitely have already had a kid by now if i had ever had a job remotely accomodating. so far i have only done contract work with limited benefits. my school pays my loans as long as i dont make above 40 grand and work full time, but the minute i leave or go part time i have to pay my (frighteningly hefty) school loans every month and it’s just impossible. i actually cannot even see a time in the near future when i will be able to afford to have the child i deeply want — even if i get a full time job with benefits i would feel too guilty to take maternity leave in the first year. i worry about what this means for my fertility and the health of my future children. i would even be willing to not work if if meant i could have kids, but it’s just not possible financially.
Did I just call you PSoul? I meant PhDork! You harpies with your names that begin with the same first letter!
I’ve been a lawyer for four years and have seen one woman leave to become a SAHM, after she had her third kid. I think her husband was also a lawyer — or had a high-paying job, at any rate.
Most continue to practice. But I work in a smaller market so the hours aren’t quite as punishing. And only one of the women I mentioned has a husband who earns more than she does, which I think is a key factor. When you’re the primary breadwinner, staying home isn’t much of an option. It certainly wasn’t for me.
My mom graduated with her BA when she was 7 months pregnant with me, then graduated from law school when she was 6 months pregnant with my sister. She entered the workforce right after giving birth to sister.of.a.lesser.god, and instead of taking maternity leave she somehow found a law firm that was willing to let her work 3 days a week so she could be home with her kids 40% of the time. And when that segued into working full time a year or two later, I certainly never batted an eye.
In my own case, I got so much crap about maternity leave from my former employer. My fellow harpies got several ranty emails about it, because I would have had no choice but to work even though a big part of me might have stayed home with my child if I had possessed the means to do so.
And PhDork, thank you for mentioning Stephanie Coontz. The Way We Never Were has been on my bookshelf, unread, for years and maybe now I will leapfrog it to the top of the list.
@JDRegent: I think doctors tend to work in swing shifts, either at clinics or hospitals, so they probably have more flexibility than us 9-5ers. Although if you’re a young doctor, you might get stuck with whatever you’re given b/c the senior docs get first crack at scheduling.
My pediatricians job share. They each have two kids, and each work half a week.
I wonder if doctors aren’t benefitting from more flexibility, but are actually operating under less–if you have a kid during residency, I’m pretty sure you’re going to have to keep doing your residency or else your career could be screwed if you ever want to go back to being a doctor. That said, I’m not an MD, so I’m totally making things up.
My point, though: Honestly, some of this could just be a function of how easy it is to get back into your field after a break when you have a grad degree. I don’t know of anyone younger than my grandmother who never went back to work even after their kids were in high school/college. If you take a long break as a Ph.D. (in the sciences at least), for example, it’s probably assumed that you haven’t kept up with the research, so good luck getting the same sort of job you’d have gotten (and tenure) without that break. I’m more willing to believe that in non-research-heavy fields, more people will take significant time off because it won’t affect them as harshly.
@BeckySharper “I would also interpret this study as: Highly paid women can afford quality child care and therefore, stay in the workforce.”
That was my first thought. I know a lot of women who are that sort of middling pay range where day care eats almost their entire paycheck, so they choose to stay home. If you can afford it without having to think about it, then I think it makes you more likely to do it.
Also, how likely is that women who go into certain professions *tend* to know in advance that they will not be leaving their careers when they have children? It seems to me that if you know your career will involve a lot of additional education, a lot of long hours, and so on, you are probably already planning to continue working after you have children or have given some thought to how you will make it work for you. Many of the women who opt out of more education or more demanding fields are already planning on returning home as soon as they have children. I think in addition to giving women (and men) options to both work and take care of their families, we should really stress the value of women in the workplace. So many women tend to view themselves, at least as workers, as completely disposable. I think people in careers like medicine or the law…maybe they feel they are of greater value than a woman who, say, works a job that is more data entry and paperwork (the kinds of things that many young women seem to get shuffled into all the time.)
*they feel they are of a greater value in their workplace than does a woman who…
Not implying that some women feel they are more valuable than other women, but rather that some women view themselves as valuable in the workplace and others may not. Realized after the fact it could be taken a very different way than I meant it.
I definitely agree with BeckySharper that its important to look at how much women are paid and how accommodating their work environment is. It is generally easier to find a good paying job with an M.D. than it is with a PhD. Also, there is a stronger female presence in the physician profession than there is in scientific research or engineering.
This is something I’ve thought a lot about because I have a PhD in a Biological field, am currently a Post-Doctoral researcher, and can hear my biological clock ticking in my ear minute by minute. Its very hard to find the time and money to be able to have kids when trying to establish a career in research. The women I’ve known that have done this have taken virtually no maternity leave, which I find pretty unacceptable.
@JD-
I know a lot of female docs who work in practices set up such that everyone can have time with their families.
I actually am really hopeful that medicine will respond to both the dire need for primary care practitioners and the need for residency programs that understand they take place during prime childbearing years by creating part-time residencies that allow women to have children, continue their education as doctors, and go on to practice in fields that allow them to keep practicing medicine and spend the kind of time with their families that they would like. Almost all of my friends are pediatrics residents, so I hear a lot about the frustration that comes from having to be workaholics at the time when they’d also most like to be having children.
Does the study mention for how long these women tend to leave the workforce?
I never wanted to be a stay at home mother, but if I have kids in the foreseeable future, my situation will be low-paying, low-satisfying job and no extended family nearby to help with childcare. I can’t imagine leaving the workforce entirely, because I want to remain employable. But I also can’t imagine working full-time and caring for a baby (/paying for childcare) in my circumstances.
Katie, you raise a good point–there is no way on God’s green earth that I would have put myself through what has turned out to be the Ph.D. from hell if I thought I was going to stop in ten years. I’d have done something that paid better and didn’t give me psychiatric problems (coincidentally while I was studying psychiatric problems).
DangerMouse, you are ruining my escape-by-PhD-program plan over here.
If I were studying psychiatric problems, DangerMouse, I would swear we were the same person.
I’m a lawyer at a *big law* firm, and my husband and I are working on the kid thing (IVF looks like the next step). Big firms are lemmings when it comes to materinity leave, and the current standard is 4.5 months paid (during which you still accrue vacation) with up to six months off. I know that sounds incredibly generous, and it isn’t something that I take for granted, but it’s everything outside of that fact that makes it so hard to think about working here once we have a kid. When the economy is not in the tank, the hours here are pretty ridiculous, even once you make partner (consistently working 70 or 80 hour weeks, punctuated by really busy spans of time). And no matter how much lip service they may pay to “alternative” work schedules, as I’ve observed from my female colleagues with kids, it very rarely works. The standard model here for successful women is pretty much one of the following: (1) no kids, (2) stay at home spouse, or (3) full time nanny.
I have worked really hard to get where I am, and my practice doesn’t really allow for me to work at a small shop (I am a securities/M&A lawyer). I’m lucky in that my husband wants to be a SAHD, but if that was not the case, I’d be pretty screwed if I planned to stay at the big firm. My only other alternative would be trying to find an in-house job (working as a lawyer for a company), but those are notoriously hard to find in a good market, let alone now. But at least the hours at those jobs are more reasonable, even though it usually means a big pay cut.
[...] sgeigeresq put an intriguing blog post on Wherein I am unsurprisedHere’s a quick excerptEvery mother is a working mother. Via Krypto @ Flickr.After yesterday’s post on the truly unhelpful “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger, I thought this study on the supposed “opt-out revolution” might make for an interesting read for us super-edumacated types; you know, the ones who are ever given… [...]
@victorine – My firm gives 18 weeks too – we’re a smaller boutique firm that does biglaw work at biglaw rates but in a smaller market. They gave it so our NY office would be in step with other firms. I was the first one to take it. One of my friends just got told she shouldn’t take the whole maternity leave, that she should “show her face” during her leave, like the associate who took his four weeks paternity leave one week at a time.
In-house is where it’s at, but like you said, almost impossible to find now.
@Victorine & Maritsa: You ladies are lucky–we only get 12 weeks here at big media shop. And Victoirine, I love that your husband wants to be a SAHD. I wish I could find a dude like that (and that I made enough money to comfortably support a family, which could be tricky in NYC on my salary).
And good luck and Goddess bless with the baby-making!
I work in healthcare. My children are grown now, but 15-20 years ago I was allowed to bring them to work with me if they were ill (I had my own office, so it sort of worked), breastfeed on demand (my childcare provider was close, only 5 miles away) and my hours were flexible enough to come in late or leave early. Even now, I know a lot of nurses who work nights (when their partners are home with the kids) so they can be at home during the daytime and avoid daycare. Hard on the parents but saves a lot of money. The profession’s also flexible enough to allow for part-time or weekend work.
@DangerMouse, @funnyface: I was born when both my parents were doing their residency, and my mom left because she said that she rarely got to see me. She has gone back to work a couple of times, but in research labs, because she doesn’t want to start her residency all over again and the labs have been very flexible. I do think that if her residency had been part-time she wouldn’t have left, so funnyface, I do agree with you that medicine should respond to those needs.