Is There Really a Choice Between Work and Family?

By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

High-achieving women want to be great in all their roles—great workers, great mothers, great friends. Their brains are better equipped for multi-tasking—so they think they can do it, and do it all equally well. But they can’t.”
-Karen Mallia, Associate Professor, University of South Carolina

A recent NPR story quoted Karen Kornbluh, who, as an ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, spent several years trying to determine ways to close the gender gap. In the piece, Kornbluh opines that workplace inequality in the U.S. is not about women—regardless of socioeconomic status — choosing family over work:

“I wouldn’t call it a ‘choice’ in the classic sense, because I don’t think they have a lot of options. You’re expected to give 100 percent on the home front and 100 percent at the work front and 100 percent to your friends and your community and you feel like a complete failure.”

Is the perceived choice that women are sometimes credited as having between work and family an artificial one? To find out, The Glass Hammer polled a group of academics, as well as legal executives, for their opinions and experience.

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What to Do on Equal Pay Day

iStock_000002559773XSmallBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Because women earn less, on average, than men, they must work longer for the same amount of pay. The wage gap is even greater for most women of color.
–The National Committee on Pay Equity

Today – April 9, 2013 – is Equal Pay Day. This annual public awareness event originated in 1996 through the efforts of the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) to bring attention to the gap that exists between women’s and men’s wages.

And lest you think that women have caught up to men in yearly salaries, a newly released report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), titled The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap, reveals otherwise. Equal Pay Day is the symbolic date in April when women’s wages finally catch up to men’s from the year before—and the report confirms that it takes nearly 16 months to get there rather than 12.

The report, which is based on data released by the U.S. Census Bureau at the beginning of the year, provides an annual breakdown of the gender pay gap by state, race/ethnicity, education, and age. What it shows, according to AAUW executive director Linda D. Hallman, is that women are losing “tens of thousands of dollars” in wages. In a statement released by the organization, AAUW’s director of research Catherine Hill stated that the report shows the gender pay gap “hasn’t budged” in the past 10 years.

In a state-by-state comparison, the report shows that Wyoming has the largest wage gap—there, women received only 67 percent of men’s earnings in 2011. Washington, D.C., on the other hand, saw the smallest wage gap—D.C. women received 90 percent of what men were paid.

In terms of race and ethnicity, Hispanic/Latina and African-American women made less in median weekly earnings than white and Asian-American women did. Hispanic/Latina women received only 59 percent of white men’s earnings in 2012. Asian-American women’s salaries had the smallest gap in gender pay when compared with white male workers, at 88 percent of white men’s earnings.

The gap also affects some age groups more than others. For workers age 20-24, the pay gap already is 7 percent. But it widens as women become more senior in their roles and enter their prime earning years. The gap stretches to 24 percent among full-time workers ages 45-54 – which means that older women face a pay gap three times larger than younger employees.

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Voice of Experience: Jane Buchan, CEO and Managing Director, PAAMCO

Picture 3718By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Are there barriers for women in investment management? Yes, of course, began Jane Buchan, PhD, CEO and Managing Director at PAAMCO. “But it’s fascinating, as when I was younger I would have answered no. As you climb up through the pyramid, you see more barriers and more glass ceilings.”

She continued, “They aren’t overt issues. If we pretend that I’m Jack Buchan, not Jane Buchan, people would think I’m at the table because of what I’d done. But as a woman, more and more, you have people saying you’re just here because they ‘needed a woman.’ There are more and more questions of legitimacy, not that you’re here because you’ve earned it.”

Buchan has spent her career in investment management, and now as head of PAAMCO, an institutional fund of hedge funds, she is looking to change the way hedge funds produce returns for her clients. She also wants to see change in the way women are perceived in the industry.

“It’s very hard to deal with. I like what some organizations have done – ensuring there is a diverse pool of candidates for a position, so that it is clear when you pick a person it’s because they are the best person, not just the right gender,” she added.

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Can an App Help Close the Gender Pay Gap?

iStock_000021233733XSmallBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

As we approach Equal Pay Day on Tuesday (April 9), The Glass Hammer spoke with Katie Donovan, whose new mobile app Earn More Girl helps women determine their personal pay gap. The app, which is available for iPhones and iPads, allows women to enter their current pay and select their job type to find out what they would probably earn if they were paid similarly to men.

Donovan was inspired to create her app after reviewing data on the gender pay gap at Narrow the Gapp. There, she discovered that figures from the Department of Labor show the gender pay gap for 135 job categories ranges from 58% to 97%. Donovan recognized that most working women have more than enough on their plate to spend time analyzing the specific data to figure out their personal impact, and thus are unsure if and how the gap affects them personally.

Additionally, women trying to be informed job seekers currently are not able to see the true market value of a job since all salary research sites combine the salaries of men and women working in a job to determine the salary range and key data points, such as the median income for a job. Unfortunately, using such information creates an artificially low target salary. To help address this, Donovan decided it was time to automate the process, enabling women to learn their true target salary (or corresponding data point for men) through an app.

When she first found the data revealing the breakdown of men’s and women’s salaries in the exact same 135 jobs, Donavan knew she could adjust salary research to target the men’s salary. She began by providing a simple spreadsheet with a formula on her website that women could use to calculate comparable median points and other target salaries with what men earned. Yet she quickly realized the value that a mobile app would have in providing this information more seamlessly.

“From my perspective, this is a chicken and egg issue,” says Donovan. “Do women want this information and thus I provide it, or do I promote the fact that such information is available so women will begin to ask for it? I decided to provide the information and help raise awareness.”

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Do Women Really Make Better Decisions than Men?

Businesswoman holding presentationBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

According to a new study, companies would be foolish not to hire more women to their boards of directors. The reason, as the authors say, is that women are better at making complex decisions: “women simply have the capacity to make better directors and their presence on corporate boards has been linked to higher organisational performance.”

The research, published in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics was based on the results of a test given to 624 board directors. The Defined Issues Test (or DIT) is used to measure three types of decision-making styles: personal interest, normative, and complex moral reasoning. Male directors were significantly more likely than women to make use of normative decision-making on the test. Female directors were significantly more likely than men to base their decisions on complex moral reasoning (CMR).

The authors, Chris Bart, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University and Gregory McQueen, School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, A.T. Stills University, believe, that in a board setting, this makes a big difference.

They write, “It is a superior form of reasoning which logically leads to the higher quality decision making reflected in higher rates of return and lower rates of bankruptcy. And our research shows that CMR is what separates the male and female director.”

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Best Practices: How One Corporate Sponsorship Program Creates More Confident Women Leaders

iStock_000006952019XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Within Citi, enthusiasm and support continues to grow for a new program designed to develop and advance women leaders in Risk. Brian Leach, Head of Franchise Risk and Strategy at Citi and architect of the program, said he designed the “Women in Risk” program (WIR) to focus on developing key leadership attributes.

“We believe the essential attributes of a leader include decision making, building and maintaining a strong professional network and team, and a willingness to take intelligent risks,” he said. The multi-faceted one-year program provides visibility, training, career planning, and access to senior leadership within Risk and across Citi, pairing a carefully selected group of senior, high performing women with a sponsor from the Risk function’s executive committee.

Leach continued, “To be blunt, I expected success. But what I was pleasantly surprised to see was how many of the participants, in the first year, took on new jobs with increased responsibilities as a direct result of the access and the opportunities the program provided them.”

In fact, more than half of the participants moved onto bigger roles in their first year. He explained, “When you go through a program like this, if it is successful, you wind up with an incredibly confident group of people. And if you’re confident, you’re willing to take on new challenges. Once you have that mindset, when opportunities present themselves, I think a lot of things line up.”

Diana Lozano Zay, now a Director in Commercial Risk at Citi, was one of the participants in the program’s inaugural class. She summed it up, “While the WIR program helped me transition to New York, and provided a great sponsor, most importantly, it allowed me to join a virtuous cycle that leads to better opportunities.”

Zay continued, “Since participating, I have received new and increased responsibilities. I feel more confident and am more aware of the importance of ‘taking control of my career. Thus, I have become more vocal about what I want. Further, my managers became more aware of my potential. I feel this new opportunity is a direct result of the program.”

In just three years, the Women in Risk program has produced better prepared, more self-assured female leaders. Here’s how it works, what Citi has learned since the program launched, and advice on how to develop your own high potential sponsorship program.

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Why We’re Not Sure We Want to Be #1

Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

“I am a really good #2. I don’t want to be #1.”
“I really love the job I’m in and don’t want my boss’s job. It just seems too political.”
“I think I could do my boss’s job, but I don’t really want that much stress in my life right now.”
“My kids are young, I’m already working as hard as I can, I can’t really take on that stretch project.”

In March, I spent did a lot of speaking at conferences and connecting with women as part of Women’s History Month. As women approach me with questions, I’m struck by the ambivalence I see in many to pursue the top job. I understand. I actually wrote about why so many women drop out of corporate America. I was one of them.

For those who want to stay, I advise them to get clear (as hard as it is given the trade-offs) about work life priorities and stop being ambivalent. Ambivalence keeps us stuck. It zaps our energy. Here are the five mindsets I’ve observed that keep us stuck. Do any of these apply to you?

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New Study Shows Women are Increasingly Seeking Global MBAs

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iStock_000007530963XSmallBy Natalie Soltys (Kansas City)

The world is becoming more connected, companies are becoming more global, and the workforce is more international. As a highly-motivated woman, you may have had the intuition that you need global experience and education to further advance your career. You see a need to manage culturally diverse teams and deliver growth in new markets. You’ve thought of going back to school either part- or full-time, but a business school in the United States just doesn’t seem quite enough.

The good news? You’re not alone in your thinking. Increasingly, women are recognizing and taking action on the desire to build an international network and enhance their business acumen and skills. You understand that we are all operating in a more global world.

“Business education is the single most effective investment you can make in one year to transform your career,” noted Wendy Alexander, associate dean, London Business School for Degree Programmes and Career Services. “But, if you want a global education, you need to come to a global school.”

Jointly, the London Business School and the Forté Foundation researched an emerging trend: North American women heading to Europe to study for and obtain their MBA degrees. These women, according to Alexander, have found “the X factor for the future: experience, expertise and cultural awareness.”

That is not to say those who chose this path did not already have successful careers. Most graduated from some of the best universities in the U.S. and embarked on finance or consulting careers. They, however, reached a point where they needed to take the next step to move forward.

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Census of UK Women Board Directors Reveals Seniority Differences

iStock_000017139688XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Ever since Lord Davies of Abersoch released his 2011 report on the shockingly low representation of women on UK boards of directors – 12.5 percent of FTSE 100 directors in 2010 – companies have ramped up their efforts to attract women to these posts. The report recommended that FTSE 100 boards work toward achieving 25 percent representation by 2015. Today about 17.3 percent of director positions are held by women in the FTSE 100 and about 13.2 percent of director positions in the FTSE 250 are held by women.

Initially, companies complained that there certainly weren’t enough qualified women to expand the percentage of women directors. But, a new survey [PDF] by the Ashton Partnership, an executive search firm, shows that boards have found plenty of women non executive directors by broadening their search parameters. Even still, if they are to meet the 25 percent goal in the next three years, they will have to ramp up their search for female directors even more.

According to report authors Nick Aitchison and Bibi Boas write, “In order to pinpoint the talent pool for the next wave of female FTSE 250 NED appointments, The Ashton Partnership set out to understand the earlier Executive career backgrounds of the 183 women appointed by the end of 2012 as NEDs on FTSE 250 Boards.”

Aitchison and Boas found two key differences in the men and women NEDs – and both of them point to the root of the issue. There are fewer women in the pool of executive roles from which NEDs are traditionally found. The result is that companies are looking at a more diverse field of talent for their directors, and given the state of group-think and rubber stamping of risky behavior that contributed to the recent economic crisis, that can’t be a bad thing.

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Working Dads are Feeling the Work/Life Squeeze Too

iStock_000010170880XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Norway* to learn about the country’s innovative efforts toward gender equality. Norway had legislated that the boards of all publicly traded companies have to be 40 percent women. But that was only one side of the equation. If women were going to be empowered at work, the country reasoned, men would have to be more empowered at home.

Norway already offered lengthy paid parental leave (now 46 weeks at full pay) to be divvied up between new moms and dads, but when legislators realized that moms were taking the majority of the leave time, they created a period of parental leave reserved only for fathers – now ten weeks long. “Use it or lose it,” became the mantra – if dads don’t take paternity leave, they miss out, and moms can’t use that time in their stead. The law does two things. First of all, it ensures that fathers are taking on more of the heavy lifting at home after the birth of a child.

Secondarily, tn makes employers consider younger men and women the same way when hiring them – male and female applicants will likely be taking time off if they have children, so employers can’t cite looming maternity leave as a reason not to hire women.

The cultural change hasn’t been seamless, though – even in progressive Norway. During my trip, I met with a “daddy day-care circle” – a group of young dads on paternity leave. One of them talked about how he was offended when an older woman had stopped to straighten his child’s hat while he was taking a walk with the stroller, as if he, a man, couldn’t possibly have gotten it on right. Another talked about how his family didn’t approve of his taking time out of work to be with his child. A cab driver mentioned that his son was preparing to take time off work to spend with his new child, but he himself was glad his kids were grown up because spending time at home wasn’t interesting to him.

I was also asked repeatedly during the week what I thought American men would think of the “use it or lose it” paternity leave scheme. Most people responded with surprise when I said I thought they’d love being able to spend more time with their children – especially younger men of my own generation.

That brings us to the here and now. Pew recently released the results of a study on modern parenthood. Researchers found that fathers in the US are now more worried than mothers that they are not spending enough time with their kids. Almost half (46 percent) of dads say they think they should be spending more time at home. A quarter (23 percent) of moms said the same.

The Pew survey indicates that traditional gender roles are becoming increasingly blurred here in the US. It also indicates that many workplaces aren’t keeping up, and that matters for men and women.

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