On the 50th anniversary of the Harvard Business School admitting women to its MBA programme, the Harvard Business Review conducted a research and spoke to Harvard graduates of three different age groups, about their experiences with work and family, and the difference in their experiences, attitudes, and decisions.
The research found that even though most men and women across all age groups have similar ideas of success, the men are more satisfied with their careers. The research states that male graduates were more likely than women to have direct reports, profit-and-loss responsibility, and positions in senior management.
Keeping in mind that all the graduates have similar qualifications and intellect level, it is difficult to digest that most women aren’t as happy, in terms of their careers, as their male counterparts. This, according to the research, turned out to be the major reason behind women leaving the workforce and not the urge to prioritize their family lives.
An alumina told Harvard Business Review, “I last quit three years ago because I could not seem to get new challenges and became bored by the work. I had great reviews and the company liked me. There appeared to be preconceived notions about part-time women wanting less challenging work, off track, when I was seeking the more challenging work, on some sort of track. And being part-time took me out of the structured review and promotion ladder.”
The Atlantic>
The research also revealed that majority of the male graduates in the senior age group expected their female partners to take primary responsibility for child care. And even only though half the women expected to take primary responsibility for raising children, more than two-thirds of them actually did so in their lifetime. Thankfully, the younger group of men, most of whom did have families of their own, did not have the same expectations.
However, where three-quarter women from the younger age group expect that their careers will be as important as their partners’; only half the men of their group share their expectations. The research also states that two-thirds of the younger men expect that their partners will handle the majority of child care, where only 42% women in their age group feel that way.
In conclusion it was found that women, contrary to popular notion, don’t always choose to take on less challenging work or want to slow their career graphs, it is mostly the expectations of their male partners and unfair workspace culture that prevents them from rising up the ladder at the same speed and in the same numbers as their male peers.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: Harvard Business Review
https://hbr.org/2014/12/rethink-what-you-know-about-high-achieving-women?utm_campaign=Socialflow&utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet
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