The Opt-Out Phenomenon: Why Are Women Leaving the Workforce?
Almost half the labor force in America is women. Yet college educated women with children are leaving the workforce in significant numbers in the last few years. Why are educated talented women with children deciding to “opt out”? and what does this say about gender and society in America and women’s relationship to work? My guests today, Karine Moe and Diana Shandy, co-authors of Glass Ceilings and the 100-Hour Couples, will share with us their insight on what this trend is all about and why this is happening now.
Featured Guests
Karine Moe is a Professor of Economics at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics at the University of Minnesota, a Master of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.A. in economics from Saint Olaf College. She is a labor economist with particular interests in how the use of time (especially for women and girls) affects labor market outcomes. She is the author of over a dozen articles and book chapters and the author/co-author of two books: Women, Family, and Work: Writings on the Economics of Gender (2003) and Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples: What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us About Work and Family (2009, with Dianna Shandy).
Dianna Shandy is Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology and Director of African Studies at Macalester College, where she has been teaching since 1999. She earned a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in Anthropology at Columbia University and a B.S. in Languages and Linguistics with Certificates in African Studies and Russian Area Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of three books and more than 30 articles and book chapters.
Listen to the August 31, 2010 show, or visit our VoiceAmerica archive to hear any of our previous shows.
If You’re Stuck, You’re Going Nowhere
A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Libby Gill on my Head over Heels Radio show about her book, You Unstuck: Mastering the Rules of Risk Taking in Work and Life. Reflecting on that discussion this week, I realized that there are so many ways we get stuck in our personal lives and in our businesses. I guess it’s part of the human condition to get “stuck in our ways”, especially as we get older.
Sometimes we get stuck because we become so comfortable where we are that we are fearful of taking any risks that might bring about change. So we stay in a job that has no potential or a job that we hate because in our minds, the choice is between the job that we have become so accustomed to and the unknown. We are frightened of the change. Needless to say, whatever the reason is that we don’t make a change, it is important to realize the consequences of being “stuck”. After all, being “stuck”, quite simply means going “nowhere”.
As an entrepreneur or small business owner, it is critical to not only be flexible, but willing to take some risks and embrace change. Any company that is fearful of change will eventually miss the boat. We all need to keep the pace of the many changes in the business world today. Think about this; if you did not embrace technology or the internet, where would your business be right now? What about social media?
I often laugh when I think about the phrase “business as usual”. In today’s marketplace, does that have any meaning at all? Changes happen so rapidly and the need to adapt and be flexible so critical, that the way we did business just last week, can be obsolete!
In my own business, I am constantly making changes to my business model and tweaking my approach, yet I still find that I get very comfortable with some aspects of my business. Consequently, it becomes more of a challenge for me to let go of certain business practices as my business gets more sophisticated. It seems that there are so many choices relative to how to move forward that it’s daunting. It’s much easier to procrastinate or vegetate instead. (By the way, when this happens, it is a good time to hire a business coach!)
Take a good look at your own business and evaluate your flexibility and willingness to change. Have you resisted any changes to your business recently? Are the reasons for your resistance valid or are you stuck because of your comfort level and fear of taking any risks?
Remember that being “stuck” means “going nowhere”.
Can You Take a Break from Work?
I did something really important last weekend. I took a whole day off! I have been consistently working seven days a week for months without a break and my coach strongly suggested that I try to take one full day off each week. Well, if my coach told me to do this and it was part of my assignment, I could not refuse.
I have to admit I was very anxious about this. If I do indeed take Sunday off, what will my Monday be like? Won’t I be even more stressed than if I worked the whole week?
I had to make a plan. I knew that if I stayed around the house, I would be compelled to look at my computer and blackberry and do some work. I know myself all too well. So I planned a trip with a friend to go to Provincetown for the day. It was a beautiful day and a perfect time for an outing on Cape Cod. We took the ferry from Martha’s Vineyard and drove the length of the Cape, listened to great music, ate a fabulous lunch at an outdoor café, and shared some small talk.
My next challenge was to not discuss business all day. I didn’t do too well in this category, but this “taking a break” thing is a process for me, and at least I was off to a fairly good start. After all, I physically removed myself from my office and work environment. (I do think I might have cheated though when I came home that night and did a little work before heading to bed. Don’t tell my coach!)
Monday morning I felt refreshed and energized and not at all stressed. It was a good experiment for me and a great lesson as well.
Sometimes our drive to be successful drives us to work compulsively. Can you relate to this? Intellectually, I’m sure we all recognize this is not healthy. I know that I certainly do, yet pulling myself away from work once a week to do something entirely different makes me anxious; a clear sign to me that this is unhealthy behavior.
I am mindful that at least once a day I need to leave my desk and my office and do something unrelated to work. I am mindful that once a week I should take twelve hours of respite to renew my energy, spirit and passion for my work. What I have discovered is that when I step away from work my creativity kicks in and I can actually think more clearly.
Case in point, for weeks on end I was trying to think of a new name for my radio show. Women Mean Business is trademarked by NAWBO and though I was unaware of this when the show launched, I did receive notice from them to stop using the name. I loved the name and racked my brain trying to think of something equally sticky and clever. I even ran a contest on LinkedIn to get more ideas. Trying to get a new name was on my mind night and day. Here’s the lesson though. As soon as I let it go and stepped away from the problem, a solution came to me. Miraculously out of the blue, the new name, Head over Heels, popped into my brain. WOW! I could not believe it. This process of “letting go” really worked.
If I can pass along any wisdom about this it is to be mindful yourself of how your drive to be successful can work against you at times if you don’t take a break and let go. Not only is it not healthy, but the consistent compulsive need to work actually stifles your creativity and is counter productive.
This is a process that I’m just beginning myself.
Well, need to get back to work. :>)
The Need for Flexible Work Solutions is Now
Sometimes I look back on the earlier days of my business career and wonder how I managed to raise two children as a single parent and still maintain and advance my career; most of all, I wonder now how I maintained my sanity and how I managed to focus any attention at all on work. I think my children, now grown and successful in their own right, turned out pretty good, and my career flourished as well, but it was not without an undercurrent of stress and guilt, and a constant juggling of babysitters and after school programs.
With this experience behind me and the knowledge that work/family balance is an ongoing challenge for most women, I applaud the White House conference on flexibility in the workplace for the attention it has brought to the topic.
The Economic Office of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers released a 35 page report , Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility, which addresses not only the need to create flexible solutions for work, but also the benefits to companies who embrace these initiatives.
According to the report, there is a greater need now for flexibility in work than ever before. Why? because women now make up almost half of the labor force in the United States. The majority of children now are raised in households where both parents work. Another key factor is that more adults are attending school.
The report also states that flexible work environments can vary tremendously by gender, race, work status, education, and industry. Flexible hours and location of work were considered.
The most impressive section of the report focuses on the economic benefits, the business case, for companies that provide flexible work solutions. These companies experience a decrease in employee turnover and absenteeism along with an increase in productivity and the ability to attract new talent to the organization.
With these types of statistics behind us, women now need to take the lead to move these initiatives forward in their own work environments. It’s time to speak up and rally the troops. Flexible work solutions benefit men and women as well as companies.
The Glass Hammer’s article on the subject provides some guidance on how best to do this from their interview with Flexpath’s CEO, Meryl Rosenthal.
Coping with Fear and Anxiety
This is a guest post from Art DeLorenzo, CFP, ChFC, CLU, MSFS, a retired Group Vice President at a Fortune Magazine top 100 firm and Frederic Luskin, Ph.D. a psychologist at Stanford University. Mr. DeLorenzo, Dr. Luskin and Dr. Rick Aberman are co- owners of MYT Group, LLC. MYT is an emotional competence development programs. Details about this program can be found at www.maximizeyourtalent.com.
Here are some thoughts and tips on how to cope with fear and anxiety to help people understand the impact that fear and anxiety have on them physiologically and emotionally and then some steps to help deal with those feelings.
Things to Know:
1. It is natural to feel anxious during financially stressful times so do not think that you are alone or that you are odd. It is natural and there is nothing wrong with you for thinking in an anxious way. A recent TV interview between Donny Deutsch & financial newscaster Larry Kudlow revealed that Mr. Kudlow was no more prepared for the onset of the recent market collapse than you and I were.
2. It is natural for the brain to create fear and anxiety. Therefore experts surmise the brain is trying to protect us by bringing a difficult situation like the economic crisis to our awareness. When in our awareness the brain is saying find a solution because there is something wrong here. You can read more about this in Margaret Wehrenberg’s book “The Anxious Brain”.
3. Psychologists distinguish between fear – which has a specific cause (the Saber Tooth Tiger finds you in the woods) and anxiety whose cause is more general and vague.
4. Anxiety creates cognitive distortions according to Myra S. White a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School who focuses on workplace performance. Cognitive distortion weakens our judgment which causes decision-making to be impaired. Bottom line – we make more mistakes.
5. When we experience cognitive impairment from anxiety we do not listen as well and instructions need to be repeated more often and our memory is weaker.
6. When we are cognitively impaired we tend to have shorter fuses and we often feel impatient.
7. When we are cognitively impaired we tend to obsess about the past and/or worry about the future both of which impair our present performance.
8. If during a stressful time like this you are not cognitively impaired, you may become so if someone else in our office has high anxiety. That occurs through a process known as emotional contagion according to Professor Sigal G. Barsdale associate management professor at the Wharton School of Pennsylvania.
9. Anxiety wrecks havoc on the body and the mind according to psychologist Dr. White.
10. According to a study released by CNN in mid March of 2009, 8 of 10 Americans are experiencing stress over the economy as evidenced by their concern over their jobs and their perceived loss of their life style.
What can you do?
1. Encourage your people to express their anxieties openly so that leaders can provide honest information about what is occurring. The leader of the group can convene a meeting so that individuals have an open opportunity to share their thoughts and fears. Set a start time for the meeting and an end time. Explain that once the meeting is over, everyone is advised that “worry time” is over until the next meeting and productivity time is at hand.
2. Be strategic about your anxiety. When you experience it, acknowledge it and then practice stress management so that you can move on. Take two or three slow deep breaths into and out of your belly and relax.
3. When you catch yourself back in your anxious spot, remind yourself that you were there before and it is not necessary to remain there. As a practice: Consider the difference between the mind, the brain, & the body. The mind controls what the brain does. So if you remind your brain, to be grateful or optimistic it will do just that. When you do this the body receives less stress hormones and your mind stays clear. Imagine then your body says to your brain, wow, less adrenaline…thank you.
4. Remind yourself on a regular basis that right now you are fine. You are healthy. Your loved ones are healthy. You have food, water, and shelter. Today, at this moment, there are no real threats to your safety and the safety of your family. Fear is not needed and you have the tools to deal with your anxiety.
5. Create a meditation and or regular exercise routine. Both produce natural mood elevators that will dispel the symptoms of anxiety according to Dr. White.
Some of this information came from a NY Times article written by Phyllis Korkki on Sunday, October 19th on page 11 in the Business Section.
Work/Life Balance is Not a Just for Women
With the advent of birth control in the 1960’s, women had a choice for the first time. They could plan their family/career path strategically. Often women started their careers and then took time to have a family. Whether or not they returned to their previous careers, they did have choices.
But with more and more mothers in the workforce who contributed to the income of the family, discussions began around work/life balance and how best to manage both a career and family. Women were still responsible for most of the childcare and housework along with their jobs. It became obvious that to do it all at the same time was a difficult, if not impossible task. The emphasis on self-care for women and work/life balance became a hot topic.
The lack of flexible work solutions, therefore, was initially focused on women who wanted options for balancing career and family. This assumed little if no participation from their male counterparts in childrearing. The lack of flexible work solutions was also tagged as an obstacle to women’s advancement in business as more and more women were forced to drop their careers to seek better alternatives than their companies were offering.
The concept of flexibility is emerging now as a gender neutral issue that focuses more on the need for everyone, male and female, to have a more flexible, healthy workplace. Flexibility is not just related to working mom stress as more and more men share household responsibilities. It encompasses alternative work solutions such as part time work, job sharing, telecommunting, on site child care. Men are now more interested in having options to take time off whether it’s for childcare, elder care, or personal pursuits.
Businesses are becoming increasingly aware that there is a business case around flexibility in terms of reduced overhead, improved recruitment and retention of talented employees. as well as the importance of a flexible work force.
To learn more about the options and benefits of flex at work, listen to my interview with Karol Rose, Chief Knowledge Officer at Flexpaths. www.flexpaths.com.
Re-discover Your Inner Child
Whenever I hear people talk about re-discovering their inner child, I have noticed more often than not that it’s about connecting with the innocence and joy of childhood. Usually the quest to re-discover our inner child is focused on incorporating more playfulness and happiness in our lives. It’s a call to “lighten up”. And boy, do we most of us need this!
I’m a business coach and I help women achieve their professional and personal goals. Setting intentions, creating action plans are all part of my coaching work. But I’ve noticed more and more lately, that the more we push to accomplish our goals, the less we accomplish unless we incorporate joy in our lives as well. Quite simply, we need to “lighten up”.
Is it OK then to set our intentions, create goals and then just let them go? No, of course not. We should do the daily work, take the necessary steps toward reaching our goals. But as we perform the tasks, keep in mind that plodding through our work each day is not the sum total of our existence. We take ourselves way too seriously. Finding ways to connect with your inner child, to incorporate joy in your life is another important part of any daily plan.
Set your intentions and visualize your success every day. If you are someone who requires structure, then set aside time each day to do an activity that brings you joy, that will give you some distance from your work. I find that sometimes these foster our most creative moments.
Think about moments in your early childhood when you experienced the true bliss of life. What were you doing? What did that feel like? How can you re-create that feeling?
It’s that feeling of joy that fuels our life energy and our success. The best path to success still includes planning and hard work, but what fuels our continual determination and productivity? What keeps us motivated and moving forward?
Connect with your inner child and re-discover that joy and you will reach your goals faster. It will provide the energy to move you forward in whatever direction you choose.
How do you bring joy into your life? I would love to hear from you.
Are the “Shoulds” Getting You Down?
As women, we are continuously striving for work/life balance because we believe it’s possible. All the subject matter experts (myself NOT included) tell us that we can achieve balance in our lives and we should make every effort to create this equilibrium for ourselves. It is doable.
We are all superwomen. As a result, we have an ongoing list of things we “should” do for our career and our family/personal life. We seem to punish ourselves with this list of “shoulds”. The “shoulds” contribute to our guilt on a daily basis and we often give more focus to what we “should” have done or “should ” do instead of everything we have accomplished.
I propose that we create a different type of list; a list of things that we choose NOT to do. This new approach is a powerful guilt-free antidote to the “shoulds” for we are CHOOSING not to do the things on the list. I choose NOT to volunteer to make brownies for the class picnic. I choose NOT to do the laundry before work this week. I choose NOT to stay late at work one night a week. I will NOT have the dinner party this weekend.
So many of our “shoulds” actually add very little value to our lives. Take a look at your list and see if you agree. So why do we persist on focusing on them everyday?
Let’s try to let the “shoulds” go. Take back your power and intention and focus on your accomplishments and success. Don’t beat yourself up with guilt. Try a new approach and create a list of what YOU CHOOSE NOT TO DO.
The choice is yours!
A Day to Honor Mothers Everywhere
It’s not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it. ~ from the television show The Golden Girls
This post today is to honor all my clients, colleagues, friends, and family who are mothers. Words can barely express my admiration for all the wonderful talented women that I have the good fortune of knowing through business and pleasure.
Everyday, I speak with women who are balancing their roles as mother, wife, and business woman. They accomplish this with elegance and grace. Their daily routine of running a household, running a business, and running around to baseball practice and games, piano lessons, hockey, girl scouts, dance lessons etc. seems effortless. They are on auto pilot most of the time and manage to make it through their busy schedules and keep everyone happy. It is truly amazing to see. How do we as mothers manage to focus on our profession and family and do everything so well?
Of course, we are not perfect though we try so hard to achieve perfection. We expend a lot of energy attempting to keep the many different balls in the air and hope that nothing drops. Most of the time, we are as near to perfection as is humanly possible. Super heroines!
Each role that we take on as women whether it’s motherhood or career or relationship partner and spouse is a really a full time job and we are constantly under pressure (though most of it self-directed) to perform all these roles perfectly (or at least to the best of our abilities). We rarely let any one down.
So let’s take the time today to honor our mothers and also to acknowledge OURSELVES as mothers and give OURSELVES credit for being the amazing women that we are!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Bonnie
8 Tips to Prepare for Your Performance Review
Performance reviews are a great opportunity to highlight your accomplishments and talk about your contribution to the organization. Always be prepared. The worst thing you can do is to walk into a performance review cold.
Here are some simple tips to set the stage for a great review that showcases your talent and value.
- Outline your progress over the last year. If you have been journaling about your accomplishments, you have already started an ongoing performance review. This journal gives you the hard data you need to show what you have done. Start a journal NOW, in preparation for your review.
- Don’t let your manager control the entire review and do all the talking. Make sure that you are prepared to tell your boss what you want him/her to hear. When you are prepared, you can present yourself in the most positive manner.
- Think of your review as an opportunity to speak about your value to the company and your unique talent.
- Create a conversational message that summarizes all your accomplishments and gives specific examples.
- Graciously accept compliments. Do NOT deflect any praise that comes your way. Do NOT put yourself down. Present yourself as a valuable person who deserves the credit for the good work you’ve done.
- Don’t be defensive if some negative comments come up. Just acknowledge and focus on your strengths.
- Practice your message beforehand.
- Smile. This is your opportunity to shine.
Need practice with your positive self-talk? Check out the Friday morning breakfast brag club or enroll now in the May teleclass.
The Power of Positive Self-Talk
In the fun interactive group class you will:
- Explore your limiting beliefs around positive self-talk
- Connect with your value and talent
- Practice positive self-talk to build your self-esteem.
3 one hour sessions consecutive Tuesday evenings 7-8pm EDT
May 5, May 12, May 19th
$125. Register before 4/30 for $99
May Group Teleclass
