work

Work Has Changed: The Impact on Women

by

New research, reported by Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times, notes that while American women are more educated than ever, a smaller share of college-educated women in their early forties are working today than a decade ago. In fact, the most educated women face the biggest gender gap in seniority and pay. Miller points out that women aren’t only opting out of careers because of discrimination, a lack of childcare, or a dearth of paid family leave policies. While these factors all contribute, research by sociologists and economists has converged on a new understanding of the way the nature of work has changed and how this change disproportionately impacts women’s careers. Researchers Youngjoo Cha at Indiana University, Kim Weeden at Cornell, and Mauricio Bucca at the European University Institute explain that “new ways of organizing work reproduce old forms of inequality.” Their findings include multiple alarming statistics:

  • In the last two decades, salaried workers have earned more by working long hours. Four decades ago, people who worked fifty hours a week made less per hour than did those who worked forty hours per week. Today, people who overwork—working sixty hours a week or more—are paid a premium and those with round-the-clock availability earn disproportionally more.
  • Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard, notes that overwork is most extreme in managerial jobs and in the greedy professions, such as finance, law and consulting. These professions demand long, inflexible hours—which has canceled out the effects of women’s educational gains.
  • Goldin explains, “Being willing to work 50 percent more doesn’t mean you make 50 percent more, you make like 100 percent more.” Goldin notes that financial rewards for working extra long hours don’t’ have a gender gap, but far fewer women seek such rewards, particularly mothers. Someone has to take care of the children, and usually that person is the mother. She cuts back on her hours, diminishes her future earning potential, flatlines her career, and underutilizes her education so that her spouse can maximize his earning potential for the family by overworking.
  • Men are much more likely to have a spouse who is on call at home. Cha reports that three-quarters of men in the top 1 percent of earners have an at-home spouse. Just one-quarter of women in the top 1 percent of earners do. In dual-earner households in which a man worked sixty or more hours, women were three times as likely to quit their jobs.

Miller points out that highly educated women aren’t the only ones impacted by the changing nature of work. Unpredictable and inflexible hours pose a challenge to family life and careers for same-sex parents, middle-class families, and low-income workers. She notes that researchers have focused on college-educated women because they are most prepared to have big careers, but their careers tend to flatline. In dual-career families with children, when one career takes priority, it is generally the man’s.

Several factors have contributed to the overwork trend affecting women. Technology makes people more accessible at all hours; business has become more global and people are now expected to work across time zones; the wealth gap in society makes people feel less secure; employment is increasingly unstable; work has become more competitive; and working long hours is a status symbol and a way to stand out.

What can be done to change the nature of work? Goldin states that most solutions for how to close the gender gap are merely band-aids because the problem is systemic. She suggests that the very nature of work needs to change, which will only happen if people demand it. Younger men say they want more involvement in family life. Employers want to keep talent and may listen if young men start to quit. Employers may even begin to notice that they are losing out on women’s talents and training by requiring and rewarding only long and inflexible hours.

We need to start a discussion on a national level about the nature of work and how to make it more humane for everyone. Everyone will benefit if work is predictable and flexible and rewards reflect quality instead of quantity of hours, and employers will gain access to talent pools that are not available to them now.

 

Photo by Sai De Silva on Unsplash

Why Work Is Good for Women

by

I have always had a fierce drive for financial independence. When I was a girl child in the 1950s and 1960s, I remember reflecting on my mother’s traditional suburban life as a homemaker and being horrified by her lack of independence. Although she was living a life that met society’s expectations, she often told me stories about dreams she had abandoned to be a wife and mother. I also knew that while she and my father had rough patches in their marriage from time to time, leaving him was not an option for her. She had only a middle-school education and limited work experience. She had no financial independence. She was stuck. I vowed not to be like her. Her options were limited, and, while more types of jobs are available to women today than in her time, some of our society’s assumptions and expectations about women and work have not changed. Jill Filipovic of the New York Times writes about the ambivalence still present in the United States about women and work. She notes that while work is still acknowledged as important to men’s sense of self-worth and identity as providers, “historically women weren’t supposed to need their individual identity to be formed through work . . . women’s identities have long been relational—daughter, wife, mother—rather than individual.” In fact, this difference seems to have been a strong driver in the 2016 presidential election as white working-class women and men voted for Trump, who promised to bring back the blue-collar jobs that provided self-worth for white working-class men and paid wages that reinforced their identity as providers. Even though women surged into the workforce between 1950 and 2000 and the number of hours worked by both black and white women more than doubled, Americans still remain ambivalent about women working today. Filipovic notes that there is no robust feminist argument in favor of women working outside the home. I remember when early second-wave feminists did try to make this argument in the 1970s and 1980s, and the backlash was so swift and fierce that they had to back down. Remember when Hillary Clinton had to bake cookies in the 1990s when her husband ran for president to prove that she was an acceptable woman even though she had a successful law career? Filipovic writes, “That feminists are so often unable or unwilling to make a vigorous moral argument in favor of women working . . . is perhaps one reason we have not yet seen the political groundswell necessary to pass the workplace policies we so desperately need.” Research shows, however, that it is good for everyone when women work:

  • Women are better off when we work outside of the home: our mental and physical health are better and our levels of happiness are higher.
  • Daughters of working mothers tend to be higher achievers.
  • Men raised by working mothers do more housework and child care as adults.
  • Men who have working wives tend to be more supportive of, and give more promotions to, female coworkers.
  • Women who are financially independent are less likely to get stuck in abusive or unhappy relationships.
Unfortunately, public opinion remains stuck. Filipovic reports that “just over half of Americans believe children are better off with a mother who is at home full time and does not hold a job. Only 8 percent say the same thing about fathers.” Our ambivalence about women working and achieving successful careers runs deep. A recent study reported in the Boston Globe found that “after the hiring of a female or minority CEO, white male executives identified less with the company and felt less valued by it, than when a white male CEO was hired.” No wonder we have not been able to elect a female president or pass legislation that supports women working outside of the home. We seem to have a long way to go, baby! Photo courtesy of Jo Guildl. CC by 2.0]]>

Why Retirement Is Not for Me—or for Many Women

by

I have been irritated for quite some time by constant questions from friends and colleagues about when I am going to retire. Some of them even imply that I am wrong not to be retired already. I love my work and get energy, joy, and satisfaction from it. Why would I want to stop doing what is so life-giving for me? I am now in my late sixties, and a few years ago I asked my mentor, Edith Whitfield Seashore, for advice about how to deal with these annoying questions. At the time she was still working and in her mid-eighties, and she replied: “When people ask me when I am going to retire, I ask, ‘Isn’t retirement doing what you love?’ When they say yes, I reply, ‘Then I guess I’m retired.’” I loved her response then, but I still get irritated by the same constant questions. I was very interested to read a recent article by Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times citing research that shows I am not alone. Women are working longer, many by choice because they are “having way too much fun.” Some, of course, work out of necessity. Miller cites research from two new studies that draw their data from the Health and Retirement Study at the University of Michigan as well as the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and Survey of Income and Program Participation. The new studies show:

  • Women are more likely than in previous generations to work at almost every point in their lives
  • Women are significantly more likely to work into their sixties and seventies—often full time—because they enjoy it
  • The above is also true in most developed countries, not just in the United States
  • Nearly 30 percent of women sixty-five to sixty-nine in the United States are working, up from 15 percent in the late 1980s
  • Eighteen percent of women seventy to seventy-four work, up from 8 percent
  • Men’s employment after sixty is up, too, but not as steeply
  • Women who are college graduates are more likely to be employed in the older age groups, but the age of employment for women with no degree is increasing at roughly the same pace
Sometimes women work longer because they enjoy it, and they want to stay active and engaged in the world of work. Sometimes, of course, women work longer because of financial necessity, and they have no choice. For those who choose to keep working, some are like me and have gone back to school or trained for a new career later in life. They had the energy and desire to stay engaged or start something new. I started a PhD program at the age of fifty-five and graduated at the age of sixty-one because I felt ready for a new challenge and wanted the stimulation. I also knew I wanted to keep working, so it seemed reasonable to me to invest in an advanced degree later in life. Many women go back to school or study for new certifications or licenses in their fifties, sixties and seventies because they find it energizing to master something new and discover new ways to contribute. Other women start new businesses or services that they find fulfilling. While the women described above are choosing to work, many women have no choice. Sometimes late-life divorce, inadequate or nonexistent pensions, or financial losses such as those incurred during the great recession—when many people lost their retirement savings and homes—create the need to keep working. Sometimes people have to keep working due to high accumulated debt, even if they would prefer not to. Health problems can also force us to step out of the workforce, and life can be quite difficult for those with no savings who must rely on Social Security. Many friends and colleagues of mine who choose to keep working have, however, been forced out of their organizations and told they are “too old” to continue. Ashton Applewhite of the New York Times writes about the mix of attitudes and institutional practices that create ageism and force out people with wisdom, experience, and energy before they are ready. Those forced out often struggle to recreate themselves when they know they want to keep working, but they can if they persist. I am grateful to have my health and satisfying work as I head into my seventies. I truly feel that we have no limits if we follow our energy and our dreams. What have you discovered about how to create the next chapter of your life? Let us hear from you.   Photo courtesy of Business Forward. CC by sa-2.0  ]]>