While there has been a lot of focus on flexibility as a key to women’s careers, I think the popular discourse has largely missed what would be helpful. And that isn’t flexibility during the workday; it’s more flexibility across the life cycle.
When it comes to investing in their human capital, women face a major consideration that men don’t have to think about: something I call reproductive capital. The ability to create children is hugely valuable, and it’s time-limited for women. To show that this form of capital has not only personal but also financial value, I ran an experiment as part of my dissertation, randomly assigning ages to dating profiles. I showed that a woman had to make $7,000 more to make up for being one year older on her profile to appeal equally to potential suitors.
While new forms of technology allow us to extend this form of capital — and even save it a little through egg freezing — fundamentally, we don’t have the same ability to borrow and bank time that we do with financial capital. This means we’re most likely going to have children at a point in our lives when we’d still like to be making career investments, because high-powered career paths have also lengthened over time.
I document this phenomenon in my new book, Having It All: Women face a “squeeze” (on average, in our 30s) of child care and home obligations, which both peak while income is still growing. During this stretch, we see men get more time for work and leisure, while women’s time gets squeezed out. But from a profit perspective, there’s a huge missed opportunity. Once the squeeze abates, women’s work hours and income never recover. Companies are failing to see that a tremendous amount of human capital — talent, innovation, leadership — is being sidelined by the design of our careers.
The life cycle of our careers is built around what works for a man — and often, more specifically, a man with a stay-at-home wife. That’s not the reality for most employees these days, so firms need to think differently; those that do are going to win by retaining talent and spurring more innovation that will give them a competitive edge. One way to do this is by creating more “parallel tracks” for employees temporarily, during the squeeze. Just like when you’re traveling on a highway and can take the slower business or local route but later rejoin the express path, we need more career options that let you accelerate when the squeeze abates. The current system is full of exit ramps that land you in the middle of nowhere, with a tortuous route back to the highway.
While we wait for firms to implement these reforms, parents looking to rejoin the express path can implement a few strategies.
Sharpen Your Skills
In the year before you’re thinking of returning to full-time or more intense work, try to take a class or pursue a certificate, even if it’s online. Employers value recent knowledge of the business. The fear with résumé gaps is that they signal outdated knowledge. Find a way to put the current year next to something on your résumé, so you can show that your skills and know-how are up to date.
Network Shamelessly
Research shows that women self-promote less and tend to think they might not be eligible for jobs, or that they ask for lower pay than their male peers. There is still discrimination against women in the labor market. Don’t discriminate against yourself, too, by taking your hat out of the ring! Use all the connections you’ve formed while doing the intensive work of parenting — mention that you’re ready to start searching again at school pickup and PTA meetings, and cold-DM people on LinkedIn. Reach out to old contacts and update them. Go for the informational coffee or Zoom chat. You never know where the right opportunity will come from!
Document What You’ve Done
There are tons of articles by women on the transferrable skills they learned during maternity leave. Negotiating, multi-tasking, community-building — our brains and ideas aren’t on hold while we’re investing in our kids. We’re still being economically productive, but through the creation of vitally important child human capital — a development task that’s every bit as cognitively taxing as a new product rollout. So write a section about how your time in a slower role or on leave contributed to your ability to lead, and own the investments that you’ve made not just in your child, but in becoming yourself in this moment.
Corinne Low is an associate professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School. Her new book, Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours, is available wherever books are sold.
