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Chapter 2

The Reasons Why

After the birth of her second child, Grace found it hard to deal with the pressures of her job as an executive at a large technology company. She lived on the East Coast, and with most of her team in California, after-hours conference calls were an almost daily occurrence. To make matters worse, her husband had a similarly demanding job in the finance industry. The couple had trouble finding a nanny able to accommodate their long and unpredictable hours. Tempers were frequently frayed, and Grace sometimes wondered if she were stretched to the breaking point.

Grace’s company offered flexible work arrangements, and Grace negotiated a change in her schedule, working reduced hours for four days a week while retaining her senior-level title and responsibilities. Even though she cut back from working 60 hours a week to 45 hours, she wasn’t able to spend the time she wanted with her kids. Finally, she decided to off-ramp.

Over a year later, Grace loves being at home with her kids. “I think I’m more tired now, but it’s a happy tired,” she says. She and her husband are getting along better, too: “Before, I was working full-time at work and at home. Now it feels like my husband and I are equals.” She wants to go back to work once her kids enter kindergarten, but not to a frenzied job in the technology sector.

What prompts so many ambitious, highly qualified women to take time out of their careers? There’s no simple, one-size-fits-all explanation for why women off-ramp. Career breaks are, for most, the result of a complex interaction between “pull factors” (centered on family and personal life) and “push factors” (centered on work).

Pushed or Pulled?

As Figure 2.1 illustrates, pull factors have increased in significance over the past five years. In 2004, less than half of the women who off-ramped cited wanting or needing to spend more time with their children as a major factor in their decision; in 2009, that number had jumped to 74%. Spending more time caring for parents also rose from 24% to 30%.

The bump in eldercare responsibilities is likely due to demographic changes as a larger proportion of the American population moves into old age. The increase in childcare demands is more surprising. Certainly increased pressures at work make the balancing act more difficult—this will be discussed later in this chapter. In addition, our data show that high-performing women are having their children closer together: on average, the women in our 2009 survey had their second child 3.2 years after their first, compared to a 3.6-year gap in 2004. Meanwhile, despite the fanfare about stay-at-home dads, women continue to shoulder the lion’s share of domestic responsibilities. (We will unpack this in Chapter 3.) The combination of skyrocketing pressure at work and chaos at home can make the decision to focus on family for a time seem increasingly attractive.

While pull factors have taken on a new importance in the lives of highly qualified women, the prevalence of push factors has decreased slightly. However, it is clear that thwarted ambition is still causing women to head for the door. More than one-quarter of women say that they off-ramped because their careers were not satisfying or enjoyable (in law, the figure was 64%); 16% of women felt stalled in their careers (see Figure 2.2).

Not all off-ramping women are struggling with childcare or eldercare: 15% of women cited wanting to change careers as the trigger reason for leaving their job.

Ellen was a high-potential talent in the IT world, her career flying high until she ran out of rocket fuel. “The ideas I usually had weren’t flowing in the same way,” she recalls. “I was feeling stuck professionally and, frankly, mentally, too. I needed some time away from work.” She took six months off to travel, something she’d always dreamed of doing, before returning to the same company—in a different job and with new energy.

Many of the women reported experiencing push and pull factors simultaneously. One former financial services executive attributed her off-ramp in equal parts to a sick father and the feeling that she had hit a glass ceiling at work. Other women cited feeling so burned out by their overly demanding jobs that they had nothing left to give their children. When push and pull factors interact and build on each other, they create an irresistible momentum that impels women to leave.

Men take time out for a different set of reasons (see Figure 2.3). Childcare is much less significant: only 26% of men cite this as their trigger factor, compared with 74% of women. Men cite switching careers (23%) and obtaining additional training (22%) as the most important reasons for taking time out. For highly qualified men, off-ramping seems to be more about strategic repositioning in their careers. That’s a far cry from the family-centered concerns of their female peers.

The Economy Strikes Back

It’s important to emphasize that many women don’t have a choice as to whether to work or not. They remain on the job for reasons of economic necessity. We find that the decrease in the frequency of off-ramping, from 37% in 2004 to 31% in 2009, is likely due to the recession which was at its nadir when we refielded the survey in the spring of 2009. A significant proportion of respondents said they would take a time out were it not for the tough economy. Indeed, fully 15% of the women surveyed who are currently in the workforce would like to off-ramp, but can’t afford to.

Increasing numbers of women are now the breadwinners in their households, as we will explain in Chapter 3. National unemployment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that layoffs in 2008 and 2009 disproportionately affected men, which increases the economic load on women.8 According to our survey data, women in 2009 were 28% more likely to have a nonworking spouse than they were in 2004. Twenty-seven percent of the women in our survey who have an unemployed spouse or partner say that their unemployment is the result of being laid off.

Tough economic times also mean that it’s more difficult for women who are currently off-ramped to get back on track. The next chapter explores the challenges these women face.

Takeaways

The reasons that women off-ramp are no less complicated now than they were five years ago. Pull factors, particularly childcare, dominate. But push factors emanating from the workplace also play a role in women’s decisions to take a break. These push factors have been exacerbated by the Great Recession.

 Pull factors have increased in significance: 74% of off-ramped women cite wanting or needing to spend more time with their children, up from 45% in 2004; 30% target eldercare, up from 24% five years ago.

 Among pull factors, thwarted ambition is still the leading reason for leaving: 26% of women off-ramped because their careers were not satisfying, and 16% because their careers had stalled.

 The threat of recession-prompted layoffs and the resulting rise in face-time pressure means that fewer women feel they can ease up on the accelerator, no matter how much they would like to: 15% of the women surveyed who are currently in the workforce would like to off-ramp but can’t afford to.