Month: September 2019

Research on Successful Dual-Career Couples: What Works?

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New research by Jennifer Petriglieri on dual-career couples, published in the Harvard Business Review, sheds light on how these couples successfully manage careers and family life. The researcher and author notes that the number of dual-career couples is growing: the Pew Research Center reports that in 63 percent of couples with children in the United States, both partners work.

Petriglieri defines dual-career couples as having partners who both:

  • Are highly educated
  • Work full-time in demanding professional or managerial jobs
  • See themselves on an upward path in their role
  • View work as a primary source of identity

The author notes that sociological research shows that “when both partners dedicate themselves to work and to home life, they reap benefits such as increased economic freedom, a more satisfying relationship, and a lower-than-average chance of divorce.” But, not surprisingly, they face unique challenges that they must learn to navigate such as how to decide whose job to relocate for or if one partner’s risky career change is worth it. The key to successfully figuring out these and other issues comes from being able to openly discuss their personal hopes and fears, assumptions about relationships and cultural expectations about roles, and shared values they want to live by.

One finding from this research is that dual-career couples go through three transitions that they must navigate successfully together:

Transition 1: Working as a couple—This typically includes dealing with the first major life event, such as the birth of a child or the merger of families from previous relationships. This transition requires that couples make choices jointly and openly about how they are going to prioritize their careers and divide family commitments. People can choose different models to follow. Petriglieri found that while they can all work, the most important factors for success are that the couples keep openly discussing how their choices align with their values and have the best chance of long-term satisfaction for both partners.

Transition 2: Reinventing themselves—Sometimes one member of the couple (at least) will discover that his or her career choice early in life was shaped by the expectations of others and no longer fit his or her own desires. During this phase, couples must be able to support each other during a period of exploration or retraining, which can unsettle the arrangements that worked previously to manage work and family life.

Transition 3: Loss and opportunity—Children leaving home, the death of parents or the need to care for aging parents, or the desire for reinvention can all trigger a new need for realignment or renegotiation of the relationship. The decision to retire can create a loss of identity and trigger depression. This phase can be most successfully navigated by going through the reinvention phase together by exploring possibilities and experimenting.

The author summarizes her findings as “dual-career couples are better off being relentlessly curious, communicative, and proactive in making choices about combining their lives.”

Dual-career couples have their own trials to overcome, but with good communication comes a more solid—and rewarding—relationship.

 

Photo by Haley Phelps on Unsplash

New Research: Americans Believe Women Are as Competent as Men

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I had mixed feelings as I read the report by Maya Salam of the New York Times about new research on the public’s opinion regarding women’s intelligence in comparison with men’s. I am thrilled with the results from by Alice Eagly, a well-known social psychologist at Northwestern University, that reflect this significant measure of social change for women. At the same time, I feel exasperated about how long it has taken for Americans to see women as competent. And I feel sad about the underrepresented women in the United States who are still not valued and women in all regions of the world who are still voiceless and powerless. Nonetheless, this research by Eagly is good news. Salam notes that the study “published by the American Psychological Association . . . found that a majority of Americans (finally) believe women are just as competent as men, if not more so.” (Emphasis in original.)

Eagly and her colleagues studied opinion polls from 1946 to 2018 looking at how Americans rated a number of factors, including competency (defined as intelligence, organization, and creativity) along gender lines. Here’s what they found:

  • In 1946, 35 percent of people thought men and women were equally intelligent.
  • In 1995, 43 percent thought men and women were equally intelligent.
  • In 2018, 86 percent thought men and women were equally intelligent.

Eagly reportedly told Salam that these findings represent “massive social change.” Eagly notes that one important factor contributing to this change is that until recently, few women were in visible leadership roles. Salam notes that this situation is now changing: in 2019, college-educated women edged out college-educated men in the workforce and, for the first time, six women stepped forward to run for president and were visible on the debate stage for the first two Democratic debates.

Many women are stepping into visible leadership roles. Here are just a few:

  • Christine Lagarde—Already a groundbreaking visible leader for some time now, Christine Lagarde has just broken another barrier. David Segal and Amie Tsang of the New York Times report that she has just been named the new president of the European Central Bank, becoming the first woman to be picked for this role. She will leave her post as the head of the International Monetary Fund where, appointed in 2011 as the first woman to hold that post, she successfully steered the economies of many countries reeling from the global financial crisis. Lagarde is committed to promoting women as a moral urgency. She states that her research shows that “a higher share of women on the boards of banks and financial supervision agencies is associated with greater stability. . . . If it had been Lehman Sisters rather than Lehman Brothers, the world might well look a lot different today.”
  • Julie Sweet—David Gelles of the New York Times reports that Julie Sweet has become the first female chief executive of Accenture. With her appointment, twenty-seven women now lead S&P 500 companies. Her promotion means that slightly more than 5 percent of the biggest public companies in the United States are currently led by women. Sweet has been a leading voice within Accenture for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the development of more female leaders in the corporate world. She intends to maintain her commitment to diversity and inclusion in her new role.
  • Sarah Zorn—As she completes her term as the first female regimental commander of the Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, Sarah Zorn provides another example of a woman in a visible leadership role. Alyssa Schukar of the New York Times notes that “for most of its 176-year history, the Citadel . . . did not admit undergraduate women.” Only in 1995, when Shannon Faulkner won her two-year court battle to be admitted, did the state school allow women in, by a ruling from the Supreme Court. Twenty-four years later, women make up 10 percent of the Citadel’s student body, and 25 percent are students of color. Since Zorn ascended to regimental commander as a twenty-two-year-old junior, the school has seen a record number of female applicants.

These women are just a few of those breaking barriers to become visible examples of women’s competence as leaders. We still have a long way to go to reach parity, but change is moving in the right direction—slowly but surely.

 

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Gender Judo

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One of my favorite authors and researchers, Joan C. Williams of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings, just published new research on the likability trap for women. She reports on both her own research and other new studies that show the ways successful women overcome the likability trap and offers practical strategies that many women will find useful.

What is the likability trap? Williams defines it as a double bind that women face when they move into positions of leadership and need to be assertive and direct. She explains that the problem is in today’s American society, women are expected to be helpful, modest, nice, and indirect while men are expected to be direct, assertive, competitive and ambitious. When women move into the traditional male domains of leadership, where demonstrating masculine qualities is necessary (which women can do quite well), they do not fit the feminine stereotype. Men and women both can become uncomfortable with them. They are deemed unlikable and can find it difficult to be effective. In her interviews with two hundred successful women, Williams found that “savvy women learn that they must often do a masculine thing (which establishes their competence) in a feminine way (to diffuse backlash),”or as Williams calls it, “gender judo.” Gender judo requires extra effort for women that men don’t have to expend, but successful women report that they have to do it.

What are some strategies that successful women use? Williams pulls from her own and others’ research to describe some strategies that work. She also warns that some may be hard for the reader to swallow, but they are, unfortunately, necessary and effective. Here are some strategies for leading in a feminine way:

  • Playing Office Mom—Some successful women adopt the strategy of Office Mom. One former chief executive explained, “I’m warm Ms. Mother 95 percent of the time, so that the 5 percent when I need to be tough, I can be.” She embraces the stereotype that women are naturally nurturing so she can be assertive when she needs to be, a form of judo when you can intentionally flip back and forth from one direction to another to maintain momentum and survive and thrive as a woman leader.
  • Using a social impact cover—Williams reports that social scientists Matthew Lee and Laura Huang found that female entrepreneurs are more likely to get venture capital funding if they pitch their companies as having social impact. This “cover” helps overcome the mismatch of the stereotype of a good, community-focused woman with a hard-driving entrepreneur.
  • Negotiating—Numerous studies have been reported in recent years about the double bind for women when negotiating. Williams summarizes this research as “women who negotiate as hard as men do tend to be disliked as overly demanding.” Women have to use “softeners,” such as asking questions for clarification of the salary rather than assertively making demands. Men can just be direct and make demands.
  • Using femininity as a toolkit—This strategy requires some experimentation. Being an authentic leader is important, so each woman may have to find what works for her to do something masculine in a feminine way. For example, some women try smiling more or being more relational and asking about people’s families—which can feel unnatural for many people. Williams does caution, though, about not using a submissive conversational style, like apologizing and hedging, which can undercut your leadership credibility. Some women try to find a good mix of authoritative mixed with warmth that works for them.
  • Displaying gender—This strategy might be harder for some than others, but Williams found that some women in her study reported that wearing feminine clothes or pink lipstick when they are the only woman in the boardroom or on the leadership team helped to soften their impact on the men.

In this report, as in her book What Works for Women at Work, Williams suggests some steps that organizations can take to create cultures where women do not face barriers to success because of gender or race:

  • Organizations need to be aware and vigilant about challenging the biases that force women to take these extra measures to succeed.
  • Reward systems need to stop rewarding behavior considered appropriate for white men while punishing women and people of color for not fitting neatly into the stereotypes for their groups.
  • Both women and men should be rewarded for displaying empathy and putting the common good above self-interest.

The fact that women have to perform gender judo is unfair. But the more we talk about this double bind, the closer we get to gender equality at work.

 

Photo by NESA by Makers on Unsplash

The Debate Over Universal Childcare: What Is Really Going On?

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Have you noticed that we keep talking about universal childcare in the United States, but, with the exception of a handful of states and cities, it never happens? Nearly all of the current Democratic candidates for president are promising it, but this has happened before without legislation ever passing at the federal level. We know that the United States is one of the few Western industrialized nations that does not provide subsidized childcare for working parents. Why not?

Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times writes that the reasons are not economic. She notes that substantial research shows that children and parents benefit from access to affordable or free day care:

  • Women being in the workforce helps the economy and is economically beneficial for families.
  • High quality, affordable, easy-to-find childcare and longer school days result in higher levels of employment for women. In Washington, DC, public (free) prekindergarten increased labor participation of women with young children by 10 percent.
  • The economic benefits of good, affordable childcare for low-income children extends for generations, and spending on it more than pays for itself.

Miller notes, though, that conflicting beliefs in US society create resistance to universal childcare. She describes some examples of the conflicts:

  • Both parents work in two-thirds of American families: 93 percent of fathers and 72 percent of mothers with children at home are in the labor force. Yet one-third of Democrats surveyed by the Pew Research Center say that one parent staying at home is ideal. In another study, nearly half of Americans said one parent should stay home. These statistics conflict with the reality of the lives of Americans.
  • A moral question has resurfaced about whether mothers should work at all. Tucker Carlson of Fox News states, “It is more virtuous [for mothers . . .] to raise your own kids”; in other words, the proper place for mothers is at home with their children.
  • However, poor women, especially black women, have always been expected to work from the time of enslavement to the present, and are denied childcare support or required to work for it when support does exist.
  • Research shows that when subsidized childcare and education are available, the participation of women in the labor force expands, showing that women want and need to work. When childcare costs increase, mothers (more so than fathers) drop out of the workforce. Researchers at the Universities of North Carolina and Maryland note that “you’re boxing women out of the labor market” with the high cost of childcare.

As described by Miller, most women and men who are parents of young children work. Yet Christina Caron of the New York Times notes that the lack of affordable childcare creates a significant financial stress for families. A study by NYT Parenting, based on data collected by YouGov, an international polling and market research firm, found these worrying statistics:

  • Almost 60 percent of parents around the country with children enrolled in preschool or day care reported that the costs created a significant financial strain.
  • Some families had to go into debt to pay childcare expenses.
  • Half of Americans live in places with no licensed childcare providers or very limited slots available.

The moral ambivalence in the United States about whether mothers belong in the home rather than in the workforce is still actively blocking progress on achieving universal childcare. Miller notes that “Americans are more likely to believe in gender equality in work and politics than in the home”—but we can’t have one without the other. It’s time to move on from the moral ambivalence embedded in our culture about mothers working.

 

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

New Lawsuit for Parental Leave: Forcing Change

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In a recent article, I wrote about class-action settlements won by fathers against a handful of large companies that have brought about change. While only a minority of companies offer paid parental leave, a new federal lawsuit filed against Jones Day, one of the nation’s largest law firms, promises more change. This new lawsuit, filed by a couple previously employed at Jones Day, charges discrimination against fathers in parental leave policies, along with other gender-based discrimination. Noam Scheiber of the New York Times writes that this lawsuit joins another suit filed against Jones Day earlier this year by six female lawyers for gender and pregnancy discrimination. Scheiber explains all the charges in the complaint filed by the couple Julia Sheketoff and Mark C. Savignac:

  • The firm unlawfully denied Savignac the full leave he was entitled to.
  • The firm’s policy gives biological mothers eighteen weeks of leave but gives fathers only ten weeks. The plaintiffs submit that this policy “enables [fathers] to prioritize their careers over childcare.” They go on to state that this policy “reflects and reinforces archaic gender roles and sex-based stereotypes.”
  • The firm unlawfully fired Savignac when he complained about the unfair policy. He was, in fact, on approved parental leave when the firm emailed to say he was fired.
  • The couple also contends that the firm paid Sheketoff less than a man because of her gender. She was given a smaller raise in 2017 after a male partner scolded her in her evaluation for being insufficiently deferential to him. This same partner did not scold male associates who failed to defer to him.

The class-action suit filed by the six female lawyers in the firm charges that women who give birth face obstacles to advancement in the firm, and those who have a second child are often fired within a few months of returning to work.

We have made some progress in the United States with offering working women paid parental leave. Some men also have paid leave but usually very little. But clearly, many organizations are still operating in the dark ages of gender discrimination. And most workers do not have access to any paid parental leave at all. We have a long way to go. Let’s hope that the lawsuits keep coming to force much-needed change.

 

Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash