Emma

Emma

Here’s the idea. Suppose employers discriminate among women mostly on statistical grounds. The average woman is more likely to give birth, work fewer hours and fewer years, and be less able to travel. Therefore, employers will avoid hiring women (and if they do, pay them less).

But wait — some women don’t become mothers, or are able to be just as productive as men while they have children, and the employer loses by excluding these productive women. So they set up a probation period during the prime childbearing years to distinguish “productive” from “unproductive” women. Professional school, medical residency, the race for tenure — a period of low pay and heavy workload in your 20′s and early 30′s. If a woman can survive that, she’s productive enough to be worth a high salary.

The trouble is, women game the system by delaying childbirth — and then, apparently, spending all their time on their babies. My guess is that employers will eventually get wise and continue extending the “probationary” period up until the biological limit of childbirth.

So we’re all doomed, I guess.

Here’s the idea. Suppose employers discriminate among women mostly on statistical grounds. The average woman is more likely to give birth, work fewer hours and fewer years, and be less able to travel. Therefore, employers will avoid hiring women (and if they do, pay them less).

But wait — some women don’t become mothers, or are able to be just as productive as men while they have children, and the employer loses by excluding these productive women. So they set up a probation period during the prime childbearing years to distinguish “productive” from “unproductive” women. Professional school, medical residency, the race for tenure — a period of low pay and heavy workload in your 20′s and early 30′s. If a woman can survive that, she’s productive enough to be worth a high salary.

The trouble is, women game the system by delaying childbirth — and then, apparently, spending all their time on their babies. My guess is that employers will eventually get wise and continue extending the “probationary” period up until the biological limit of childbirth.

So we’re all doomed, I guess.

I’d be much more impressed if she had actually looked back at earnings at retirement age and found the same results. The problem is that there are likely very few women of retirement age now who delayed motherhood until their 30s for career reasons.

Anecdotally, I would say that my experience in the workplace would support her findings that having children early in one’s career delays advancement. I was once told unofficially that I had been passed over for a promotion because I had to pick up my kids from daycare at 6 pm and they wanted to avoid any potential conflicts with mandatory overtime. Also, business travel is much easier without children.

However, what I saw in my mid-late 30s was that women in that age group having children for the first time were much more likely to change their fixation from work to motherhood and quit work or go part time as a result. When you wait until 39 or 40 to have a baby, my observation is that it tends to be your end-all and be-all when it finally happens.

Meanwhile, women who had children early and were maybe a bit delayed in promotions as a result continued to plug along as their decision to stay in the workforce was usually cemented by this time.

The question to me is— will the younger mothers who keep at it ever catch up? My guess is that they will, but it will be in their 40s when their children are mostly grown and the older mothers have small children. This study doesn’t address that.

I’d be much more impressed if she had actually looked back at earnings at retirement age and found the same results. The problem is that there are likely very few women of retirement age now who delayed motherhood until their 30s for career reasons.

Anecdotally, I would say that my experience in the workplace would support her findings that having children early in one’s career delays advancement. I was once told unofficially that I had been passed over for a promotion because I had to pick up my kids from daycare at 6 pm and they wanted to avoid any potential conflicts with mandatory overtime. Also, business travel is much easier without children.

However, what I saw in my mid-late 30s was that women in that age group having children for the first time were much more likely to change their fixation from work to motherhood and quit work or go part time as a result. When you wait until 39 or 40 to have a baby, my observation is that it tends to be your end-all and be-all when it finally happens.

Meanwhile, women who had children early and were maybe a bit delayed in promotions as a result continued to plug along as their decision to stay in the workforce was usually cemented by this time.

The question to me is— will the younger mothers who keep at it ever catch up? My guess is that they will, but it will be in their 40s when their children are mostly grown and the older mothers have small children. This study doesn’t address that.