I remember sitting in one day on one of those ad-hoc social experiments that professors often conduct to prove a point. The professor asked the women in the lecture hall who wanted to have children to raise their hands. A handful went up. The professor then asked for the same show of hands from the men. More than twice as many shot up.
If this experiment were replicated in almost any classroom at Brown, the result would probably be the same. Women are less likely to say they plan on having children because, for them, children require a careful plan. Recent studies have revealed this is not something that can be overcome even at the most elite education level. A survey of Harvard Business School graduates in their 30s and 40s found that nearly a third of female graduates were only working part-time, and another third were not employed.
Although no survey of Brown alums exists, a recent study of Yale graduates found that, of women in their 40s, only 56 percent were still in the labor force. Of the men in their 40s, 90 percent were still working. This gap is huge and shows why so many women were unwilling to say that they wanted children without serious consideration, even in an informal classroom survey. The fact that this gap extends all the way to the top proves that no measure of success can make this commitment easier.
Unsurprisingly, the male-female wage gap reflects this. The average woman with a bachelor's degree earns $37,800 per year. The average man with a bachelor's degree earns $66,000 per year. The gap between men and women with college degrees may be even larger than that of their less-educated counterparts because educated women are more likely to have high-income spouses, meaning they have greater financial flexibility to stop working. Plenty of articles have lamented the plight of the modern working woman who cannot, as it turns out, have it all. Is that just the way it is? The wage gap is simply the result of women's desire to have children and to raise them and the incompatibility of this desire with the corporate world. In the modern day, women face the same world and the same options as men — they just make different choices.
But the fact of the matter is that the options for women are actually not the same as they are for men. Even life-long, dedicated, childless career women do not face the same world. The most grueling — and highest-paying — jobs are easier if dinner is ready and the laundry is done when the breadwinner arrives home at 11 p.m. on a Friday night. These benefits are not pure conjecture, either — in 2010, an analysis of census data revealed that married men with children actually made 14.3 percent more than their childless counterparts, which is probably due to both the support of having their other halves stay home and the pressure of being the primary breadwinner. Many women might happily embrace the option of simply dropping in every couple weeks to go with the kids to an amusement park or the zoo while pursuing their careers, safe in the knowledge that their children are being well-raised. But for the vast majority of women this possibility is simply not available to them and will never be no matter how educated or accomplished they become. What would men do if having a career automatically precluded them from having a family and home life? Some might say all men would have a career anyway, and not whine about it, but I am not so sure.
Radical feminists and hack psychologists alike are quick to blame women for their own impractical choices and even for the unhappiness that can come from being put in a position of being unable to do two things well. But women know they cannot simply focus on their careers and expect all the other aspects of their lives to fall into place. Even the exact same level of success will not bring women what it brings men, and women likely internalize this early in their careers. The lifestyle of which both genders dream does not end in lonely desperation. Everyone wants to be Jack Donaghy, not Liz Lemon. But the fact of the matter is that almost no one is actually given a choice between the two.
Michelle Uhrick '11 is an international relations and economics concentrator about to be flung out into the big wide world. She can be contacted at michelle_uhrick(at)brown.edu.
