Randy's Corner Deli Library

15 March 2006

Working It Out

The author asks the question at the end of the article: Why is there so much focus on women leaving the work force? One answer is immediately clear to me: It's floated about as a "given" by those in our male-dominated society to say "Aha! Look! Women don't want to work. Even if given the chance, they STILL leave the workforce to go make babies and stay home"--"there's your proof", so they would say, "that women don't really want to work", thereby creating the perception on the part of our 'follower' society that women should just stay home and be moms and not even try to advance professionally and be good mothers at the same time. Because, proponents say, it's impossible to do both and to do both well. It depends on where one is on the American society's food chain, in large measure.

In my view, the whole concept and the recent attention to this supposed "fact" is fairly in line with the fact that the "radical religious right" in American society is very powerful politically and therefore is able to spread its agenda as if it were the gospel itself. As they would deny a woman the right to choose what to do with her body in cases of abortion, they would deprive women of their equal right to feel comfortable about a decision to seek fulfillment in ways that do not involve children. This proposition is anathema to the radical religious right, since women, by definition, exist to procreate and populate the earth.

Thoughtful humans should understand this and realize that the claims that 'women are leaving the workforce in droves' is just more propaganda from the radical religious right to drive women back into the home full time, regardless of that woman's particular choice or desire to advance professionally. The only ones to win this debate are men, as the women who say they are not leaving the professional ranks will be looked at as "bad" mothers, made to feel guilty for nursing their own particular sense of self-worth that may be beyond and therefore inclusive of being a mom and homemaker. What's more, those that do elect to stay home will be subjected to odd looks as if there is actually something wrong with that choice as well. The point is, I suppose, that those who propogate the myth under discussion are the only ones to win - everybody else loses.

I would also note in closing that this propaganda is likewise economically skewed. You will, regardless of the presence of children, but especially in situations where there are, not find poor women 'leaving the workforce in droves'. They do not have the luxury of choice. In those households that are headed by a single mother, a woman cannot leave the workplace, lest her children not eat or have a roof over their heads. I am particularly sensitive to this since I was raised in a single-parent household and do not have a memory of a father being at home. My mother, divorced as she was in the 1960s, raised two children alone; believe me, she did not have a choice to leave the workforce just as many in her position 30-40 years later do not. The propaganda, therefore, is largely aimed at couples who have two incomes from professional earners, where a choice is possible. The radical right is happy to see single mothers work out of the house in generally low-paid jobs, but is not happy when a professional woman who has the capacity and desire to find fulfillment via her professional achievements as well as in her role as mother. They argue that both are not possible; but that is not a choice that anyone but the individual can make according to the circumstances that person finds themselves in at the time.

The supposition that women can't be both successful mothers and successful in their professsional lives has led, as the article points out, to many women delaying marriage, pregnancy and child-bearing until their late 30s or beyond, or, in many cases, not at all. The supposition that women cannot do both things simultaneously or that a choice to do one or the other is not fully acceptable societally (or that it is society's business) has left many women confused. And confusion often leads to emotional paralysis, so that a woman in her 20s who is 'on track' at a law firm, for example, bombarded with messages subtle or direct, that if she leaves, she will no longer be 'on track'. Or that if she leaves for a period of time to have a child and then decides to return (or in reality to add on to her responsibilities as a mother) to her professional life that she will be considered - again, subtly or not -- a 'bad' mother or a selfish person in general. Which leads her to a decision that creates a double-loss for society: to do one or the other but not both. Leaving more and more women single and without children or husbands, married to their jobs, parenting projects or patients but not boys or girls - the choice having been denied them by the implantation of a sense of permanent guilt over whether or not to do one or the other. It seems to me, as the article suggests, that if really given a choice and left to feel good about whatever it might be, women have the power to "work it out".

RS

March 15, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Working It Out
By CLAUDIA GOLDIN
Cambridge, Mass.

HIGHLY educated women are getting a bum rap from the press. There has recently been a spate of news and opinion articles telling us that these women, especially graduates of the best universities and professional schools, are "opting out" in record numbers, choosing the comforts of home and family over careers.

And because there are now 1.33 women graduating from college for every man, the best and brightest women will either have to "marry down" or, more likely, we are told, remain single. Taken together, highly educated women will have either family or career. Half of it all, rather than "having it all."

But the facts speak loudly and clearly against such suppositions. Women who graduated 25 years ago from the nation's top colleges did not "opt out" in large numbers, and today's graduates aren't likely to do so either.

To know whether a woman sacrificed career for her family, we need to know her employment status over many years. The Mellon Foundation did just that in the mid-1990's, collecting information on more than 10,000 women (and 10,000 men) who entered one of 34 highly selective colleges and universities in 1976 and graduated by 1981. We thus have detailed data about their educational, family and work histories when they were in their late 30's. That gives us enough information to figure out whether many women who graduated from top-ranked schools have left the work force.

Among these women fully 58 percent were never out of the job market for more than six months total in the 15 or so years that followed college or more advanced schooling. On average, the women in the survey spent a total of just 1.6 years out of the labor force, or 11 percent of their potential working years. Just 7 percent spent more than half of their available time away from employment.

These women were, moreover, committed not just to their careers. They were also wives and mothers — 87 percent of the sample had been married, 79 percent were still married 15 years after graduation and 69 percent had at least one child (statistics that are similar to national ones for this demographic group from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey). Women with at least one child spent a total of 2.1 years on average out of the labor force, or 14 percent of their potential time. Fifty percent of those with children never had a non-employment (non-educational) spell lasting more than 6 months.

You could argue that they opted out of their careers in more subtle ways, say, by choosing less demanding careers than those for which they had trained. But the occupation data for these women suggest otherwise. Women in these graduating classes stuck with their specialties to about the same degree as did comparable men. The vast majority of women who went to medical school were employed as doctors when in their late 30's; similarly, women who received law degrees were practicing lawyers.

What about more recent graduates, those who finished school 10 years ago and are, today, in their early 30's? It is too early to tell for sure, but there are strong hints that little has changed on the opt-out front. Statistics from the National Vital Statistics System show that highly educated women today are having babies even later in life on average than did the entering class of 1976 (and are having more of them). The Current Population Survey tells us that the percentage of college-educated women in their 30's who work has been high (in the 80 percent range) and fairly constant since the early 1990's, although the percentage dropped a bit — along with that of their male counterparts in the recent economic slump.

The fraction in their late 30's who are married, moreover, is around 75 percent and has not budged in the last 25 years. Taken together, the facts — later babies, more babies, high and fairly constant employment rates, stable marriage rates — don't spell big opt-out to me. And they don't spell big opt-out change either.

I'm not saying that all is rosy. These hard-working women still earn less than their male counterparts and they work more around the house. Given their lower earnings, it isn't surprising that some do opt out. But for the most part, female college graduates — especially those from top-notch schools — who are in their 30's are career women who care for their children if they have them and work hard for their families.

These are the opt-out facts. So why is there so much focus on women leaving the work force instead? My friend Ellen, a Ph.D. economist with two young children who teaches in a top-ranked medical school, recently noted with frustration that many people have difficulty believing that "women can actually contribute professionally and participate meaningfully in the raising of a family." But the truth is that a greater fraction of college women today are mixing family life and career than ever before. Denying that fact is ignoring the facts.

Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard, is the author of "Understanding the Gender Gap."

No comments: