Climbing a different career ladder

Though more women than men have held onto jobs in this recession, here's more proof that women climb fewer rungs on a steeper employment ladder: Women with M.B.A. degrees, especially women with children, are less likely to nab above-entry level positions, be promoted, or be paid as much as their otherwise equal male M.B.A. holders, according to a new study of 9,000 M.B.A.-holding respondents.

According to the study, released Friday by the New York-based nonprofit research organization, Catalyst, 60 percent of women took entry-level first jobs, as opposed to 46 percent of men with the same amount of past work experience, and women earned about $4,600 less than the men. Thus, women take longer to rise up the ladder.

"Findings reveal that instead of women and men being on equal footing and their career trajectories gender-blind," reads the report summary, "inequality remains entrenched."

The discrepancy, experts explain, stems from several factors. Managers are less likely to support women in their first jobs, and women are more likely to switch jobs, which doesn't necessarily allow them to "move up." Employers also assume women will eventually leave the company to have children and thus are not placed on the primary track to promotion. Echoing this, ironically, women themselves sometimes imagine the time and energy required for them to have a family--perhaps--and do not lobby as hard as men for promotions or raises. The Wall Street Journal quotes Ann Bartel, an economics professor at Columbia Business School, who says companies aren't looking to be unequal, per se. But they "have to redesign jobs so flex-time and working from home aren't negatives for the fast track."

Given our cultural norms, and that the majority of caretaking and housekeeping still falls to women (here is a great piece on this at Forbes Woman), it makes sense that women assume they will be the primary caretakers of children, at least more than their partners. Thus, they demand flex time and opportunities to work from home. Unions, such as AFL-CIO, and various women's lobbying groups, including the National Women's Law Center, have proposed similar structures. They're very real, very necessary solutions Americans should embrace.

But these solutions ignore the root of the problem, the question of why women today must act as the default caregivers and men the breadwinners, and more bizarrely, why only the latter merits higher pay and promotions. In a world where the roles were switched--a notion explored earlier this week when the New York Times' Gail Collins and David Brooks lobbied for more "househusbands"--women might be paid more, but more likely, men would demand and earn equal pay, and be guaranteed flex-time and alternative work solutions. In a better world, both sexes would be both caregivers and breadwinners, impartially regarded by employers, and receive the same pay, promotions, and benefits to care for their families. We all need a new ladder. -Jean