RebelDad

Why Bad News for Women MBA is Bad News for Dads

Posted on 22. Feb, 2010 by Brian Reid in Uncategorized

The Wall Street Journal published a by-the-number article on a new Catalyst report that shows that female MBAs are more likely to start at a lower level than their male counterparts, earning nearly $5,000 less. This isn’t a case of women with kids being hurt. The researchers assume that it’s a case of women being hurt because, maybe, someday they will have kids and set off of the fast track. From the WSJ:

Ann Bartel, an economics professor at Columbia Business School who studies labor economics and human resource management, says women may lag behind men for two reasons. In some cases, companies anticipate female employees will have children and do not include them in succession planning. The other reason is not driven by corporations, but rather by women themselves, who, anticipating the time commitment of a potential family do not lobby hard for plum positions.

I’m not sure about the second point, but they both make me uncomfortable. What it says is that a perceived willingness to put family first will sock you in the pocketbook. It’s worst for women, who are perceived as family-firsters just because of their gender, but it also suggest that if you’re a guy who wants to assume “daddy” as a core identity, you risk being cut out of the planning process.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to say it: parental status does not signal bad workers, and may actually say the opposite. If you want to delve into this, get to your library and borrow Ann Crittenden’s “If You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything.”