Why professional women opt out

A recent Business Week article reports that MBA moms are significantly more likely than doctors or lawyers to stay at home full-time. The study, “Opt-Out Patterns Across Careers: Labor Force Participation Rates Among Educated Mothers,” was conducted by the University of California-Berkeley’s Hass School of Business and follows the career paths of 1,000 women who graduated from Harvard between 1988 and 1991.

The data was collected from 10th- and 15th-anniversary reunion surveys, and the results are impressive. Fifteen years after college graduation, 28 percent of the Harvard women who went on to get MBAs were stay-at-home moms, compared with 6 percent with medical degrees and 21percent with law degrees. The study highlights the challenges women with MBAs face as they try to balance family life with business careers.

The conclusion reached by Berkeley professors and co-authors Catherine Wolfram and Jane Leber Herr:

Women in the fast-paced world of business appear to face greater obstacles than women who choose careers in law or medicine. MBAs who work in fields such as banking and consulting find that mandatory face time and long hours are required, whereas doctors and lawyers are more likely to have flexible schedules and may be able to work part-time. In short, the business workplace is not structured to be as family-friendly as the fields of medicine and law.

Another factor in the disparity is that women in the business field seem less tied to their profession than women in other careers. The training time and financial investment is less for MBAs than for doctors and lawyers. Also, unlike the defined career trajectories in the fields of medicine and law, a career in the world of business often feels more nebulous.

Yet another consideration is that MBA moms are often married to men who are as ambitious as they are, and high-earning men need stay-at-home wives to take care of other aspects in their lives including raising a family. Regardless of the vision these women may have for their own careers, they often discover that a balanced family life requires their presence at home.

The Business Week article is particularly interesting to me on the eve of Carolina Parent’s annual Women@Work Breakfast, where we honor the 2008 N.C. Family-Friendly 40 Companies. These companies have been chosen as a result of efforts to help families balance work and family life. As we recognize these companies and highlight their initiatives to promote a family-friendly workplace, we celebrate progress in the work/life arena, while recognizing that improvements are still needed.

Our keynote speaker for the event is none other than Pamela Stone, whose ground-breaking study, "Opting Out: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home," offers rare insight into the real reasons professional women with children leave the workplace.  After interviewing 54 highly educated, high achieving women, Stone charts the institutional obstacles and cultural pressures that led them to leave their jobs after having children. Stone concludes on a positive note, offering concrete ideas for redesigning workplaces to make it easier for women – and men – to attain their goal of living rewarding lives that combine both families and careers.

The Berkeley study channels Stone with similar findings about the inflexible work environments that can lead professional women to quit their careers after having children. Both studies are based on interviews with women who never expected to be stay-at-home moms, and both reveal the realities of workplace constraints behind the rhetoric of choice. In the final analysis, both studies call for continued workplace initiatives to help all parents find a balance between family life and career.

Carolina Parent is committed to work/life balance and we're proud to feature someone as important as Pamela Stone at our annual Women@Work Breakfast. For anyone who cares about the fate of families, work and gender equality, we encourage you to come hear Pamela Stone on Sept. 17 at American Tobacco in Durham. For more information and to register for our Women@Work Breakfast, visit the Carolina Parent Web site.