In a study of University of Chicago Booth MBA students, researchers found that women and men earned around the same immediately after graduation. But 10 years later, men made 60% more than women.
One reason for this drop off is the motherhood penalty. Women may “lean away,” choosing not to take certain responsibilities; or their workforce may have negative perceptions about their ability to do the work. And there’s also the fatherhood penalty. Women typically has more time off after the kid is born. For men to take more time off, it’s often perceived more negatively.
My grandma grew up in rural China. Her responsibilities were to take care of the household: sew clothing, cook, make blankets. A generation later, my mom would have a college education, and a career as an engineer.
My mom speaks about my grandma with both respect and regret. Your grandma is such a force. If she had the same opportunity as me, she would have been an executive at a company. It’s funny because I look at my mom with that same mix of respect and regret. She grew up with the expectation that as a female she must be the primary caregiver. So unlike my dad, she turned away work responsibilities to take care of us.
If take the long view on my family history, I definitely see progress. But I’m going to have an MBA, and statistics seem to say that I won’t make as much as the guys in my class. Years out of college, looking at life now, I understand better the realities of my generation. There’s one girlfriend who works at a large biotech company. There is not a single women in senior leadership who can be her role model. There’s another girlfriend who works in at hedge fund, a hedge fund which is currently being sued for sexual harassment. In my small manager training group, all the men were young, and expressed interest in becoming managers right out of college, and half the women were asked to be managers and said no because they didn’t feel confident or didn’t real ready. Even at Salesforce, there’s gender pay disparity within the same function and same seniority.
What should we do? Men, be an active caregiver; take more time off, even if it’s not the norm. Women, don’t lean away, demand more. I know that I don’t want my kids to look at me with regret.