Work-life balance derails women in many professions

For all of the strides women have made in the workplace, college campuses are still primarily the bastions of men. Less than one-quarter of tenure-track faculty are women, according to a report out of UC-Berkeley. There, a female professor began studying this trend and found it extends to other professions as well. Women tend to choose their families over their careers, even when it means stagnating in a profession or even taking a step back.

Her study lead to the book, “”Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers,” which concluded: “Many women who had started families but continued working had ended up veering off the path to upper management at a point she calls “the second glass ceiling.” Rather than sticking to their original career goals, they allowed themselves to slide into a second tier of management that offers fewer hours, less pay, lower prestige, and limited upward mobility.”

Generational gap on work-life balance

We talk about generational gaps in many arenas — voting, Internet use, civic participation. Why would we assume attitudes about work are any different? At least for some young workers, there appears to be a difference in the way they view the work-life divide. They don’t necessarily see it as a divide, or at least not in the traditional sense. One blogger writes that growing up in an always-on, connected world means that young people don’t embrace a work-life balance in the same way their older counterparts do.

Obama’s commitment to women & work-life balance

During his campaign, President Obama outlined several ways he wanted to focus on families, and among these was fostering work-life balance for Americans. Proposals for this included plans to “double funding for after-school programs, expand the Family Medical Leave Act, provide low-income families with a refundable tax credit to help with their child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules.”

Earlier this month, Obama created the White House Council on Women and Girls. Its purpose speaks to some of his campaign commitments by promoting the inclusion of women’s concerns in public policy decisions. He stressed that some issues, including work life and families, go beyond being women’s issues, saying “I want to be clear that issues like equal pay, family leave, child care and others are not just women’s issues, they are family issues and economic issues. Our progress in these areas is an important measure of whether we are truly fulfilling the promise of our democracy for all our people.”

Why focus on women?

The Corporate Voices for Working Families blog presented a question that bears addressing: When will it stop being news, but rather business as usual, that women and men alike make hard choices to pursue their careers in conjunction with a family?

In an ideal world, it wouldn’t be news. Or it would be news that applies equally to men and women. But the fact is that women, even when they work outside the home, are still the primary caregivers of children when they come home. Women receive the message from society that they’re the ones who must make choice in life when it comes to work and family. Couple this with the “you-can-have-it-all” message they receive — not only do women face making tough choices about their careers and their families, they face the expectation they should excel at managing both.

Opting out of work isn’t an option

A NY Times columnist recently asked: Is the opt-out revolution coming to an end?

She talks about stay-at-home mothers returning to the workforce as a result of their husbands’ layoffs, and points out that while it makes for an interesting story, it’s not a reflection of reality. The truth is, she writes, “most women in this country are just going about their business, much as they always have.” Women forced to return to work after living a life of leisure (although most stay-at-home mothers would argue the leisure part) are interesting subjects, but the women who are really hurting are the ones in blue-collar jobs. They were struggling to make ends meet before the economy tanked and their suffering has been amplified because of it. Meeting the demands of life requires working, and working hard, for these women and the prospect of a work-life balance is so far in the distance it’s not even on the horizon.

Work-life balance, then and now

We found an interesting piece from 2006 that starts out:

“Now that jobs aren’t as scarce as they were just a few years ago, a lot of workers are sitting back and assessing just how happy they are in their current positions. And a big part of their decision will center around whether they have a balance between their work lives and their home lives.”

Is the situation really all that different today? As we face an unsteady economy, are we so grateful just to have a job — even one that demands so much of our time — that we are more willing to accept being less satisfied with our lives? How might this be detrimental for women?

Fathers need work-life balance, too

Working moms get a great deal attention in the work-life balance conversation, but fathers struggle with it as well. A 2008 study by CareerBuilder found more than one-third of working dads would stay home if their spouses could support the family and the same number would opt for a pay cut in exchange for more time at home.

Of course, this raises the question of how this would affect the work-life balance of the wives if they were to become the sole supporter of their family…

Employment perks take a hit in economy

A CareerBuilder/USA Today report out today says bonuses top the list of the workplace benefits that have already been negatively impacted by the economy. Without this extra income, some workers may be forced to work additional hours either at their current job or take on a second position just to make ends meet. This, obviously, will likely have a detrimental effect on workers’ feelings about a work-life balance. Additional perks that have taken a hit and are expected to continue to suffer include medical coverage and wellness benefits –these, too, can seriously affect the work-life balance as employees with less medical coverage are more likely to allow an illness to go untreated, thus darkening their life experience. Finally, workers have already faced cuts in vacation time and expect this trend to continue, creating an imbalance in their time spent at work versus time spent away from the office.

Just how important is a work-life balance?

An article from Business Week, published a couple of days ago, says it’s second only to salary in workers’ concerns about their jobs. And the employees aren’t necessarily looking for what employers have assumed — in the past, companies provided amenities such as a gym and health services, but what employees say they want today is time. About two-thirds of the workers polled said their top value is flexibility in setting their schedules.

G20 Summit: Hot off the blogs

The G20 economic summit starts tomorrow in London, and while the media has been abuzz with news about what’s on the itinerary of each world leader in attendance, relatively little has been reported on the implications of the summit’s outcomes in regard to women. The womenshphere blog posted part of an interview that discusses the need to have more women at the table when leaders are making decisions about the world’s economic future, including:

“Women also tend to be last to be hired and first to be fired during times of economic hardship. Particularly around the cuts that the private sector makes, there are reductions which impact women receiving services such as health care, education, and other social services. So the burden of the financial and the economic crisis falls on women.”

(OneWorld South Asia also posted the interview.)

What this tells us, in relation to women and a work-life balance, is that because of our “expendable” status as employees, we are far less likely to achieve a balance because of a lack of job security and because of limited access to resources (like health care and education) that could make our lives better.

Another blog, linked with Oxfam, cites a new report by that organization in which women were studied in countries across Asia and Latin America. They, too, are more likely to be laid off and to suffer without basic labor rights. For them, there is no such thing as a work-life balance.