by Jennifer Manlowe, PhD

A big job with a fat salary, regular perks, travel and stock options is what some women want. These accoutrements, alone, are no longer enough for other women. After thinking long and hard, many women are deciding that corporate pay-offs don’t outweigh the constancy of demands.

Many professionals with a super-achieving temperament [men and women] are questioning the trade-offs for this-“more glory, more stuff”-version of the American Dream.

The stress and strain of coping with family demands while staying on top of one’s field is increasingly challenging in our current Information Age where technological shifts and global economic trends must be studied, integrated and built-upon in a creative and daily way. For many, the workday never ends, mentally, emotionally or physically. Most female executives who are also mothers feel like they have at least two full-time careers.

For some women, stepping out of the professional whirlwind is like quitting one job to take more satisfaction in their primary job. For many this is a deliberate choice. For others, this kind of break is out-of-the-question due to economic pressures at home. Of the 37 million poor people in this country, 21 million are women. Many of them head single-parent households, which are four-and-a-half times more likely to be impoverished than two-parent households. 1

A Watson Wyatt study found that employed women ages 25 to 40 who were making over $75,000 a year were nearly 20% more likely to leave their jobs than men. Female turnover was 11.4% a year, compared with 9.6% for men. But research also shows these women seek to return to the work force fairly quickly, as long as they have a workable and appealing setup.2

One survey of 2,443 women and 653 men, co-authored by Sylvia Ann Hewlett of the Center for Work-Life Policy, found women who take career breaks are only out of the work force for 2.2 years, on average. And only 5% of mothers who return even want to go back to their former employers; instead, they seek flexibility at smaller firms or [start] their own businesses.3

As women return to work after a hiatus-chosen or forced-they are learning that there’s a different world “out there” in business-one based on a new model of employment called “free agency.”

More and more women are welcoming the chance to return to work on their own terms, as free agents who choose their own hours. Such women want work flexibility where earning doesn’t have to compete so unrewardingly with building and maintaining meaningful family connections.

Creating professional possibilities for oneself after time away from work involves a crucial, but often-neglected step called “smart planning.”

“Some mothers make the decision to ‘drop out’ as they fall in love with their new babies in the delivery room, at the end of maternity leave or after the birth of their second baby,” says Mary Quigley, a New York University professor, based on interviewing and surveying 1,150 women. Then, driven again by inner desires or by financial need, they return to work, usually five to nine years later. 4

Due to lack of career planning, many women are taking on low-level “starter jobs” upon re-entry.

“Women need to think this through a little more in advance,” Ms. Quigley says. Even in today’s slack labor market, prospective mothers-and the relatively small number of fathers who plan to stay home-can ply several strategies to reduce career damage from sequencing, the most common label for this in-and-out career path.5

A study6 by researchers Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce of the Center for Work Life Policy is called “Off-ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success.” It appears in the March 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

The news is not encouraging. An overwhelming number (93%) of the 2,443 women surveyed said they wanted to return to work. Only 74% of those ever managed to get back in, and only 40% return to full-time, professional jobs. About one in four take part time jobs, and 10% go to work for themselves.

The consequences to women’s earning power is stunning. Women who stay out three or more years lose an average of 37% of their earning power. And they may never make it up.

As Wayne Farrell revealed in his book, “Why Men Earn More,” the gender wage gap starts to open up when women have children, and their husbands start working longer hours to make up the difference.7 Hewlett’s research reports the same: at ages 25 to 29, women earn 87% of the male wage. By the time they reach 40-44, they’re earning only 71%.

Taking the time to prepare for these transitions has proven to be well worth it for many women. Finding work that is meaningful, rewarding and practical has been difficult for most-when they are pursuing such work on their own.

1Donna Brazile, “Poverty is a Women’s Issue” Ms. Magazine (Winter, 2006).
2Sue Shellenbarger, “Employers Step Up Efforts to Lure Stay-at-Home Moms Back to Work” in Wall Street Journal, Feb 10, 2006. http://www.careerjournal.com/columnists/workfamily/20060210-workfamily.html
3Ibid.
4″Advice for Mothers Before They Return to Work” by Sue Shellenbarger Wall Street Journal (online http://www.careerjournal.com/columnists/workfamily/20030725-workfamily.html)
5Ibid.
6See this study: http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=71111
7Warren Farrell, Why Men Earn More Than Women: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap and What Women Can Do About It, (AMACOM: 2005).

Essay written by Life Design Unlimited founder and author, Jennifer L. Manlowe, Ph.D. http://www.lifedesignunlimited.citymax.com/