Advantaged women are more likely to work full-time, study says: Are better work policies the answer?
A study of Baby Boomer women has found that those with the greatest financial needs were less able to find steady, full-time work than those who were more advantaged.
The study found that women who appeared to face the greatest barriers to continuous full-time work had experienced poverty when they were young, were unmarried and lacked access to a second income, or were less educated. The American Lawyer’s Careerist blog (sub. req.) noted the findings, summarized in a Harvard Business Review article.
“You might find this puzzling and a bit infuriating, but here it goes,” the Careerist says in its take on the findings. “Career women are born of privilege, not necessity. What allows women to pursue and stick with careers is their high social-economic status. It’s women who don’t really need jobs—those born into comfortable circumstance who don’t have to be the primary breadwinner—that have the best shot at success.”
The study authors are sociology professors Sarah Damaske of Pennsylvania State University and Adrianne Frech of the University of Akron. The study was based on surveys of women born between 1957 and 1964 who were recruited into a longitudinal study in 1979. The surveyed women provided information about their careers from their 20s through their 40s.
The researchers say the full-time workforce could be expanded with paid parental and sick leave and universal childcare. The Careerist isn’t optimistic. “Remember, the U.S is the only country among the world’s wealthiest that offers no paid parental leave of any sort,” the blog says. “Second, who says that having better parental leave, sick leave and childcare is enough? It’s essential to have those benefits, but that’s just the starting point.”
