The Gender Pay Gap with Laura Fleming

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Can we close the gender pay gap?

Interview Transcript

Megumi

Today, I’m talking about the gender pay gap with Laura Fleming. She’s a labor lawyer from the Harvard Law Class of ’97 and an instructor in political science. We’re going to be diving into everything from the history of the pay gap and what affects it to try and answer the ultimate question, can women really have it all? Thank you for being here, Laura!

Laura

Yeah, thanks a lot. I’m happy to be here.

Megumi

Before we start this discussion, I want to make sure we all understand what the gender pay gap is. The gender pay gap, or the gender wage gap, is the difference between what men and women are financially compensated for or paid for their work. There are typically two numbers when people discuss this pay gap, which is non-adjusted or adjusted, which takes into account differences in things like education, job experience, occupation, hours worked. And we won’t necessarily be getting into the nitty-gritty of those differences, but what’s important to know is that right now, on average, women only make about 80 cents for every dollar a white man makes. And to break it down further by race, that’s about 90 cents for Asian women, 79 cents for white women, 62 cents for Black women, 57 cents for indigenous women, and 54 cents for Latin women.

Now, this pay gap is important to talk about because it really adds up over the course of a woman’s career. For example, Black women, who make 62 cents for every dollar white men make, lose out on $1,962 a month which equals $23,540 a year or nearly $1 million over the course of a 40-year career. And if we continue at the current rate of progress, Black women won’t have equal pay until the year 2130.

So, Laura, I want to start with, how did we get here? How did this all start? How did we end up here?

Laura

Yeah. I mean, that’s an excellent question. I think economists have sliced and diced those numbers in different ways. So the numbers that you’re talking about, basically, what they do is, they take all women and they average what women make, and then they take all men, and they average what men make, and there absolutely is a difference there. But I think hidden within that are issues of class and education and even choices. So you talk about the fact that, unfortunately, Latin women are at the kind of bottom of the wage scale, and when you think about it, what are the kinds of occupations that we see many Latin women engaged in? We see them as cleaners. One of my clients is a large provider of janitorial services. So they provide janitorial services to different office buildings and hotels and hospitals, and the vast majority of their cleaners are Hispanic women. And so there’s a lot of nuance and texture to that discussion, and so you have to ask why is that, what are the factors that go into not just this pay gap in the abstract, but why is there this disparity in the different positions that people are working.

Megumi

Right. And I think — I was doing a little bit of research on the history and saw that until the early 1960s, newspapers actually published separate job listings for men and women, where jobs were categorized according to sex. So, it would be like help wanted, male. And sometimes it could be the exact same job, but there would be separate pay scales – which is crazy. And at that time, between 1950 and 1960, women with full-time jobs earned on average 59 to 64 cents for every dollar men earned doing the same job. So really, for some races, that hasn’t really changed.

You were talking about the stereotypical jobs that some races get stuck in. Do you feel like that’s an educational opportunity or discrimination or something hard to measure, or some combination?

Laura

I mean, so many questions. So with respect to my client that employs janitors – a lot more of these janitors are first generation immigrants, and so they don’t have the English language skills at this time necessary to climb their way up on the totem pole. Many of them may not have even graduated from high school in their home country, so definitely – you have a lot of barriers and this is an entry level job. They’re getting their foot in the door and the hope is that they can begin the slow climb upwards. In the United States, we do believe that people have the ability to make that climb upward and if you look at different stages in people’s lives, you can see this: that many times, we make a lot less money when we’re younger or when we were just entering the workforce and then, hopefully, over time as we gain experience, gain a track record, towards the end of our lives, we will be making more money. So if you’re talking about Hispanic women, the hope is that she won’t always be stuck doing the same job although many times that does happen, but the hope is that she can gradually– maybe she can go to an English school at night and get more skills and education, maybe she can become a manager, maybe she can start her own cleaning business where she can charge more and cut out the middle man. There are different ways where you can work your way up the system, but there’s definitely that difference there.

Megumi

Yeah, the Equal Pay Act of 1963. So what was interesting is that I saw that it was actually first introduced in 1944, but didn’t get actually get passed until 1963, and that’s when, for our listeners – the Equal Pay Act 0f 1963: that’s when it became illegal to pay women a lower rate for the same job strictly on the basis of their sex. And from my understanding, that did help close the wage gap a little bit and things like access, better access, to education. Sort of just not blatantly discriminating against women helped close the gap, but it seems like in the past 15 years or so, there hasn’t been much improvement. Why is that?

Laura

Okay. So the principal behind the Equal Pay Act– and we also have Title VII that prohibits discrimination against women in the workplace. So both of those laws have been with us for a long time, since the 1960s, and basically the principal is that if a women believes that she’s been discriminated against in her conditions of employment, including her pay, that she can go to court, file a lawsuit, and the burden is on her to prove that the difference in the pay gap is due to discrimination so if she proves that she’s been discriminated against in her pay – and usually it’s by using some kind of comparative data with people in the same position – then she can receive damages and back pay. That’s how that law works. Now, there has been a call for kind of more aggressive legislation. These are called Paycheck Fairness Acts and some states have these already. California has a Paycheck Fairness Act in place at the state level. We don’t have a national Paycheck Fairness Act. But basically, what those Acts do – these kind of new laws – is they say, “Look. Women may have a hard time proving discrimination. Let’s shift the burden and let’s make the burden on the employer to prove that they’re not discriminating.” Right? So, employers can only use certain very limited measures to explain differences in wages. Okay.

 

So you have to base any difference in wages on kind of objective things like education, experience, and things like that. So really kind of– the consequence of this legislation is that it does put the squeeze on employers and so they have kind of less flexibility overall in determining different pay levels.

Every law is kind of– I don’t know if you know the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, right, where Brer Rabbit is trying to punch this poor baby and it keeps getting more and more stuck. Or if you have the experience squishing the Play-Doh and the Play-Doh kind of oozes out between your fingers. And we do have these laws and they’re intended to help minimize pay gaps between women, between minorities, and white men, but the fact is that the employer really does not have as much flexibility in determining pay.

Megumi

Right. And I was reading that the Paycheck Fairness Act would also sort of – like you were saying – make wages more transparent and also prohibit companies from taking retaliatory action against employees who raise concern about gender-based wage discrimination.

Laura

Right, right. And that’s already in Title VII. So, Title VII prohibits retaliation. So any woman who feels that she’s been discriminated against, there’s different avenues that you can take to file a complaint and then your employer is legally prohibited from retaliating against that.

I did want to go back to something that you mentioned about the 1950s and kind of different advertisements for jobs for men and women. Prior to that period, if you go back 100, 150 years, the idea was that– there was more of a household mentality. The idea was that the husband and wife, kids work together as a family, as a household. Many times, this was kind of an agrarian lifestyle where they worked on the farm. Everybody chipped in. Even the kids chipped in. And so that all changed during the Industrial Revolution. Now, we have people going to the cities, going to the factories to work at jobs, and kind of the productive center of the home was carved out and put in these factories and jobs outside of the home. So, the home became less and less productive. And at the time, there was this assumption– it was still kind of based on this old household mentality, that men would need to be paid more because they were going to bring that money home to support their wife and their family.

 

And that has definitely changed, that perception, and it was viewed as, okay, if women are in the workplace, they’re just looking for a little supplemental income, or maybe it’s before you’re getting married, or until they have kids. And so the employers weren’t as worried about providing for these women as independent employees. They were thinking more about, okay, the husband has this role in the household. He needs to support his family. And so this is a job that you can support your family on. And we’ve come a long way from there. So now, dual incomes are very, very common. We do have some families that are structured in a way that allows the mom to stay home full-time. But I think the default is, well, especially among younger people, that each member of the family, even if they’re married, is going to pursue their own independent career.

Megumi

Right. We are definitely more independent and want to work. So that’s good. Are there any other protections currently in the workplace for women outside of state-wide Paycheck Fairness Act and then the Federal Equal Pay Act and Title VII?

Laura

Yeah, we have a lot of regulations in the workplace today. That’s really the focus of my practice is helping employers comply with those regulations. For example, all the regulations against sexual harassment in the workplace. If a woman believes that she’s been harassed, she can file a complaint. And many employers have trainings on anti-harassment, anti-discrimination – they have all kind of policies and trainings. And especially in California, managers are required to take a two-hour sexual harassment training every other year. And there is a new law, and now, even non-management employees are also required to take this sexual harassment training. So, there are these protections in the workplace, and they’re enforced by various agencies, both at the state level and the federal level. And, of course, you can always get a private attorney. That’s how they help you enforce your rights if the case is serious enough.

Megumi

Yeah. And I think especially with – I know I’m getting a little bit off-topic here – but with the Me Too Movement, for example. That really helped women be able to speak up and be taken seriously when they did speak up. So that’s a new thing as well.

So then, what is currently affecting the pay gap, say, for a woman who has gotten a college education, is middle class, and should have the same opportunity as, say, another white man and yet is getting paid less? What are these other factors that might be affecting this pay gap?

Laura

So I think it’s very interesting. If you’re talking about urban men and urban women who are highly educated, the pay gap really almost disappears. So what we’re talking about is variations like at a law firm or engineering firm, most of the time, the men and women are going to be making very close to the same amount in the same position. But there are so many factors that go into the pay gap. So, the first factor is when a woman goes to college, you have a choice to make about what you study. I teach at a tech university, Louisiana Tech. And I know that Louisiana spends a lot of money trying to promote STEM to more women, help get women into the sciences, into engineering. If you go to the engineering building, there’s definitely no sign that says “Stinky girls not allowed” or anything like that. But for some reason, these classes are filled with guys, right? So, for some reason, guys naturally gravitate toward the hard sciences, the engineering which does– the curriculum for engineers is very difficult, very challenging. But at the end of it, you make more money, right?

Megumi

Right.

Laura

So, if money is important, and some women may feel money is not as important to them, but if money is important to a young woman, then I would encourage them take advantage of opportunities to go into professions that are going to make you more money. On the other hand, we also have this role of education, right, early childhood education, social work, etc. There’s no sign on that door that says guys are not allowed. But you go in and what do you see? You see all these women who want to become preschool teachers, elementary school teachers, etc. That curriculum is not as demanding as an engineering curriculum. That profession, I mean, it takes a certain kind of personality to want to deal with these little munchkins all day. But the profession is not — it’s not as demanding as an engineering profession. Women don’t have to choose to go into those fields. But for some reason, they do. So, I’d say the first factor is, a young woman who’s going to college has a choice of what to study. If money is important to you, then take a look at, okay, what professions make the most money? And you have the choice to do that.

Now, everything is a trade-off. If you go in the engineering school, there are some really tough classes there. And I tried to be pre-med when I was at Harvard. And I’m getting into calculus and physics and I’m like, “I don’t want to do this.” Right? “This is blowing my brain up.” And I think my skills are in language and I ended up being a linguistics major in college. But if money is important to you, then think about what you want to study in college and make that decision accordingly. So that’s one thing. There’s many more.

Megumi

Alright. Do you feel like that starts with, and I know there’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about the lack of women in STEM, and I feel like a lot of it is– like you were saying, no one’s saying, at least I was never told, “don’t study science” or “don’t study math.”

Laura

Well, it’s the opposite. There’s tons of money put in to help young women go into STEM.

Megumi

Right.

Laura

We want our young women to go into STEM.

Megumi

But I feel like for older generations and even for me, growing up — I don’t want to simplify it so much as like pink toys versus blue toys. But so many times, the girl gets the kitchen-baking set toy, and the dolls, and the barbies, and whatnot, and the boys get to play with the trains and the Legos. And they are sort of more encouraged to play around with these more technical skills and building things, and they’re encouraged to do that whereas girls are – I don’t know if encourage is the right word – but they’re given the dolls, and the cooking, and whatever it is. And so, I feel like it is a choice. And now, there’s so much funding for educating young women in STEM. But from the very beginning, especially when you’re going to school = kindergarten, elementary school – almost all of my teachers were women. I had very few male teachers. And so I feel like as a girl, I’m like, “Okay. I can be a teacher.” And I feel like maybe as a boy, you’re like, “Okay. So teachers are women.” And maybe you grew up going to the doctor and most of the doctors you see are men, for example. And it’s just reinforcing those stereotypes. So, I feel, at least, I know it’s great that we are trying to encourage women to go into STEM more and in these higher paying jobs but it starts at childhood. [laughter]

Laura

Yes. Okay, so Megumi, that’s an old, old question. It’s basically nature versus nurture, right? We see that women do make different choices, and we can talk more about that, but just at the university level even, what to study. Here we have women– there’s no external forces saying, “You must study this or that.” And they make different choices, so the question is, why is that? Is it all socialization? Is it all a result of, “Okay, this is what women are expected to do. This is what men are expected to do.” Or is there also kind of a nature component, a component that has to do with women’s bodies? Okay, so if you look at a woman’s body: a woman’s body is softer. We can’t escape the fact that our bodies are made to carry children in the womb for nine months. Our bodies are made to feed and nurture children. This is how our bodies are in the world and men don’t have these things. Men don’t have breasts. They don’t have uteruses. And so, does that have some kind of subtle influences on women’s choices as well?

When we’re trying to get away from the nurture part, we’re trying to say, “Okay, women have the opportunity to study whatever they want. They should be encouraged to study these professions that make more money.” But is there something inside our bodies that’s actually kind of a counter force in saying — there’s something about our bodies that wants to nurture and care for and teach young children? I think that’s an open question, and if you talk to psychologists and researchers about nature and nurture, they’re always going to say, “They’re inextricably entwined.” It’s really, really hard to parse all of that apart.

Megumi

You can’t really measure that yet. [laughter]

Laura

It’s hard to figure out! Okay, so what part of this is because I was given a Barbie doll when I was little, and my brothers were given Legos. Is that why I went into this profession or is part of it an expression of femininity and maybe there might be some guys who could be great kindergarten teachers, but maybe most guys would not. [laughter] Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop or something, but it’s funny. We laugh at it because men’s bodies or way of interacting with the world is different.

Megumi

That brings me to then– my next point is children. [laughter]

Laura

Yeah, I know. So, this is a big reason for the pay gap.

Megumi

Yeah, and I saw that women with children tend to make less than men with children, or even women without children – which is often referred to as the motherhood penalty or the childbearing penalty.

Laura

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is a big one. And again, we’re kind of fighting our biology, right? Because I was a working mom and a lot of my colleagues were working moms, and when you’re growing a baby inside of you, you get tired. It’s a physical demand on your body, and it makes it difficult to work full-time. And then of course, you have to take time out to have the baby and then if you’re breastfeeding, the baby’s attached to you and that really throws a monkey wrench right into the whole works.

I did have a colleague who was our partner in our office in San Francisco. And she scheduled her baby, right, by C-section. [laughter] I know. I was incredulous. She took 10 days vacation. She went in. She had her C-section. Had her baby. And then she had a great support system at home, obviously. And 10 days later, she was back in our office. I could not believe it. I was like, “Wow. You are Superwoman.” But then, on the other hand, I talked to many women — under national law, we have 12 weeks, 3 months, of unpaid leave. Your employer has to give you 3 months after childbirth to bond with your baby. And so many, many moms take those three months to bond with their baby.

 

And again, especially if you’re breastfeeding, there’s these hormones and — very, very powerful hormones that are biologically bonding you to this little screaming person, right? I mean that that’s– kids are really difficult. They’re a real pain in the rear end. I mean, you’re looking at them and this is the little person that’s keeping you up all night and taking up all your time. And you look at them, and your heart is just filled with love. You can’t help it. And it’s just all of these hormones within your body. And so, many, many women – when they get back to work after their maternity leave – number one, the baby isn’t even sleeping through the night after three months. You’re not sleeping good. And then number two, they’re being torn from this child. It’s just heartbreaking. And you see women when they first come back to work after having a baby, and they just sort of cry in their office. They’re trying to pump so they can– so their nanny or whoever can feed the baby and it’s very, very traumatic for women. And so I’ve seen many women attorneys – and these are very fierce, feminist women like, you would not want to go up against them in a courtroom. They can make opposing council cry, right?

 

And they have these babies. And they feel so attached to them that they will voluntarily – no one’s forcing them – voluntarily go to the partner in charge of their law firm and say, “Hey, I need to cut back my hours. I can’t work the same number of hours that I was working. I want to spend more time with my kids. I want to be with my kids and I’ll take a cut in pay,” because there’s always a tradeoff, right? So, “I’m willing to take a cut in pay so I’ll have more time to be with these little humanoids that have somehow captured my heart.” So, I also have women – and they make this decision with their husbands, okay – many women in prestigious law firms may actually make more money than their husbands. And so when they have the baby, they are thinking, “Okay. Economically, it doesn’t make sense for me to stay home. Really, my husband should be the one to stay home with the kids.” I had several, several female colleagues – they make that decision, that their husband is going to stay home with the kids. And they’re going to keep working. And inevitably, we’ll be at lunch, chitchatting, shooting the breeze, whatever. And they are complaining. They are complaining about how my husband doesn’t do it as well as I would have done, what does he do all day?

Megumi

Of course. Of course.

Laura

I’ve even had women express to me that they are so jealous of their husbands for getting to stay home. And if their husbands just made more money, if their husbands were just working as an attorney, then they would get to stay home. That might just be the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side phenomenon, but I’ve been seeing this over and over again. Women who are at the top of their field, who can accomplish anything they want, and childbearing and child raising changes them so completely that they are willing and actually would rather give some of that up at least, so they can be at home with the kids. It’s really crazy.

Megumi

Yeah. Say, hypothetically, even if this woman did not care about staying home, she’s like, “I want to let the husband do this, I’m going to go back to work.” There is still the– I mean, you are the one carrying the baby. You are the one giving birth to the baby and breastfeeding or pumping or whatever it is that you need to do at work, which the husband would not need to do.

Laura

Correct. Correct. There’s a certain aspect of biology that the women are fighting against when they get into these kinds of very competitive, high-paying professions.

Megumi

Right. I was reading that in 2016, the median length of leave that fathers take after birth was just one week off, compared to the 11 weeks that mothers take, and that even the amount of people that took the 12 weeks or more was less than half. And I think that’s– it depends on the person, but if you are the mom who’s like, “My career is important. I got to get back to work.” There is maybe that fear of, “If I take too much time off– I want to be home, and I want to take this full amount of time off that I can, but what happens if I do that? Will the company think that I’m not loyal?”

Laura

Oh, yeah. Okay, so that’s another issue, right? So, if you have a job that’s important and a job where you’re actually earning the money that you earn, very difficult to say, “I’m going to stop it here and then go for three months, and then I’m going to expect to start it back up right where I left off.” Because, as an attorney, if you go on maternity leave, you have to transfer all your cases over to your colleagues while you’re gone, and then it takes a while to build your case load back up when you come back. And you think about employers– companies are in the business to make money, right? So their job is to provide goods and services to the public in such a way as that they can make money and continue their operations. And when a woman takes maternity leave, objectively, that’s disruptive to their operations. So, different companies are more progressive, and they can try and give different lengths of paid maternity leave, etc., but the bottom line is that, just like the woman is in a difficult place trying to balance work and home life, the company is in a difficult place because the company exists to make money, and women who stop working and expect to come back and start right back up in three months, it’s objectively difficult to pull that all together. I think companies should try, and many companies do better than others, but you also have to recognize the fact that that isn’t necessarily consistent with the company’s bottom line business model.

Megumi

Yeah, and I was thinking also about women who — say they take a couple of years off. They are like, “I have a baby. I want to be at home with the baby, so I will take two years, three years–” whatever it is, and then they come back into work. They end up losing 20% of their income during that two-year career gap which, of course, over time, really adds up a lot. The example I found was, if you’re earning $85,000 a year and want to take a two-year career break, you might think, “Oh, that’s just going to cost $170,000.”

Over the course of your career, it can cost you almost $2 million, because you’re not investing in your 401(k), you’re not contributing to Social Security. But two years feel so small, and that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth it, but that is also another thing that can contribute to the pay gap and also the wealth gap.

Laura

Oh, it’s a big problem, right? So many women want to do that. Maybe they’re in a financial position to take time off where their kids are little, and they need their moms more. But during that time, you’re using a completely different part of your brain. A lot of your skills, maybe are not as up to date, all right? If you took two years off or three years off from your law firm, for example, and you go back, they might have upgraded their computer systems several times. There might have been major legal developments that you’ve missed out on. There may have been tons of client relationships in building your practice that you missed out on. And you’re going to have to almost start from scratch, and go back and kind of restart and rebuild your career. And so that’s going to be a hit to your pay, for sure. It’s definitely a dilemma for working women. So again, you get to the point where you think about trade-offs. For each woman, she has to decide what’s important to her. I was talking to one of my clients, who’s a very high-powered in-house attorney, and she has three small children. And, especially during COVID, you can hear the kids in the background. And she said, “Sometimes, I wish I’d only had one kid.” [laughter] And I said, “Oh, no,” I said, “your children are your contribution to the future of the world, right? So these kids, they’re important.” And she said, “I know,” and she says, “I get a lot of enjoyment out of my kids. I don’t really mean that. I love my kids.” Right? So I mean, it’s very difficult, but ultimately, you have to realize that everything is a tradeoff, and sometimes, a very difficult tradeoff.

Megumi

Yeah, I do want to point out, because you were talking about working from home and COVID, that a survey found that 34% of men with children at home say that they received a promotion while working remotely, while only 9% of women with children at home say the same. And 26% of men with children at home say they received a pay raise, while only 13% of women said the same while they’re working remotely.

I think the comedian Sarah Cooper is coming out with a book —  I saw she posted part of it on Instagram where there was this comic with a man and a woman, and they both have children. And for the man it’s like, “Oh, he has children at home. He needs to take care of them, so we need to promote him or give him a pay raise and pay him properly,” whereas for the women it was, “oh, she has children at home. We can’t rely on her. Don’t hire her,” or “don’t promote her,” or whatever.

Laura

Yeah, yeah. So, one way to look at this, right? Let’s say you’re in a situation where you have children. Most of the time, before, you’re going to have an involved partner or husband, etc. I was a single mom for a while. That was super difficult. I don’t recommend it if you can avoid it, right? But usually, if you have a kid, there’s somebody who also helps create these kids with you that’s involved. And so, I think this is a great chance to have that discussion with your husband and say, “Okay, this is no longer just me doing my thing and you doing your thing. Maybe we can think of ourselves as a household, as a unit, and think about, okay, what is this for us and for our family and for the children? And if I’m going to take a pay cut, hopefully, you’ll be able to make some of that up and that together, we can move forward in a way that’s not going to jeopardize our long-term future.” If I’m sacrificing and I’m not going to make $2 million during the course of my lifetime, I certainly hope that my husband is going to be there at the end of all this and help make some of that up and that it’s not just me against the world raising these kids, but it’s me and my husband working together for the good of — The family is its own entity. And so, if you can broaden that a little bit and say, “Let’s look at this as its own entity. I’m part of this entity. If the entity at least can sustain itself and be successful, then perhaps we can raise a happy baby.”

Megumi

Right. I did also hear some older colleagues once talking about how, when they had children, the tough decision was — they didn’t want to give up their work. They wanted to be able to keep working, whether that was because they actually wanted to keep working or they’re just scared about taking a career break and they were–

Laura

They liked having more money.

Megumi

Right, yeah. And they were talking about, specifically, a friend of theirs who ended up not working because– She wanted to work. She definitely wanted to be able to work, but her husband was also working which meant that they needed to get a nanny because they didn’t live near family. And the cost of the nanny was higher than what she was making at the time. And so, it just didn’t make any sense for her to stay at work, even though it was something that was really meaningful for her or whatever the case was. And so, because she made less money, it made more sense for her to stay at home. She had to stay at home.

Laura

Yeah. Well, okay. This is interesting and sometimes you can get around this by being a little more creative. Let’s say you’re someone who has skills and abilities, and you enjoy and want to work, and you have these kids. I think the good thing about today’s economy, and even about the move toward remote work and all the technology that we have today, is that there are more options for women to kind of have gig work and work from home and work part-time and kind of be creative about their schedules so that you don’t have to think about, “Okay, I’m going to work, it’s going to be a 9:00 to 5:00 job working for an employer.” Maybe there are ways that — instead of having a full time nanny, which is super expensive, maybe I can have a babysitter a couple days a week that can play with the kids in the other room, keep them occupied, and I can work project work, independent contractor work, and gig-type work, and that can still satisfy that desire that I had to be involved with the world, to produce something of value, but also save money and still be here for the kids. So again, talking about attorneys, because that’s my experience, a lot of attorneys who have kids do move towards kind of this contract attorney model, where they can work from home on their own time and part-time in the different spaces that they– and it helps them be able to actually work, but also juggle their childcare duties because nannies are super expensive. I put my kids in daycare and I was paying way more than my mortgage on daycare for three small kids. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.

When a woman takes time off from her career, she doesn't only miss out on income. She misses out on 401(k) contributions and company matches, raises, potential new opportunities, and may fall behind on the latest industry updates - technical, legal, or otherwise.

Megumi

I like what you were saying about talking with the husband, your husband, and talking about how you’re a team and you’re an entity if you have someone there, a partner to support you in raising your children. And I think that’s really important because — I know we’re getting a little bit away from the pay gap — but in terms of just unpaid work that women do. I think we talked briefly a little bit before about the mental load. But women in the US spend two hours more per day on unpaid care work. And this was before COVID. And there’s all these studies coming out about men saying, “I put in hours at home.” And the women being like, “Nuh-uh,” [laughter] and with domestic chores and looking after kids or providing care to sick or elderly family members, that, on average, equals 95 extra eight-hour workdays or five months of work for free each year that women are doing, unpaid. [laughter]

Laura

Oh, yeah. So, caretaking is a big part of life. And then, depending on what stage of life you’re in, maybe you don’t have small kids, maybe you have older parents, even if it’s only you and your husband, the house still takes maintenance. You still have laundry and dishes and cooking and cleaning. And so, you do have to figure out how you’re going to get all that done. And again, it goes back to the whole nature versus nurture question. There’s no doubt that there’s this kind of tradition of women taking on a lot of household duties. But at the same time, I just notice stuff, and my husband doesn’t notice, right? So, I notice things and they bother me – the laundry, the dishes, etc. I notice it, and I take care of it. Now, in my husband’s defense, there’s certain stuff that I don’t notice. For example, what does he take care of? He takes care of the yard, right? That’s hard, sweaty work, right. I mean, if you have a husband and you’re doing the cleaning inside, definitely, you want him to be outside doing the hard, sweaty yard work, number one. Number two, cars. I don’t have to worry about the cars at all. I had a flat tire one morning, and he said, “Don’t worry about it, sweety.” He put the spare on, took it to the tire shop and got it all fixed up for me, did the oil change, etc., brought it back.

 

Right now, he’s in the bedroom doing a remodel project for us. That’s why our bed’s in the office because he’s remodeling the bedroom. So, he does all this stuff. Sure, I could complain, “oh, yeah, most days I’m the one that cooks. I’m the one that gets up on Saturday morning and cleans with the broom and the mop, etc.” But he makes valuable contributions. And I think that if you want to be happy in your marriage – I know that he appreciates my contributions to this thing and I definitely appreciate his contributions to this thing. And I think however you divide it up, if you’re always going around trying to tally who does what and how many socks get left on the floor and blah, blah, that is not the secret to a happy relationship. Okay? [laughter] So you’ve got to figure out a way, again, to see yourselves as a team. Each person making their contribution and not always trying to keep the mental score going. Because if you do that, I mean you’re sunk. You are not going to be happy.

Megumi

There’s no sock-on-the-floor tally on the wall? [laughter]

Laura

No, I know! So, I try to keep those tallies — I try to just clear them out when they start running. Yeah.

Megumi

So, getting towards the end of this episode, what can we do to bridge this gap? I know we talked a little bit about home life and what you study in college affecting what career you have and then the family – whether you choose to have a family or what kind of family life you have and making sure that whoever your partner is you’re really a team in talking about it. But how can we as women support each other, and what can we do to start bridging this gap?

Laura

Yeah. I think number one is that– I really appreciate you being willing to talk to me and talk through these ideas with me. And the fact that you’re reaching out to a young audience and trying to help them with some of the skills that they need just to survive in this world, I think that’s admirable what you’re doing. And it’s a big help. I think that one of the biggest things that I’ve learned is that you come to college and you’re very idealistic and you think you know– you watch these superhero movies with these strong woman characters. They’re just taking on the world, kicking butt, taking names, right? And you think that you can have it all. And the reality is, is that you can’t have everything all the time. You can have good things but everything in life is a tradeoff. And I think that the sooner women recognize this, what are the tradeoffs in my life, and then hopefully talk to the older women in their lives that have been through the various stages and can give them hints and tips and things to think about when they’re navigating, I think that’s a good thing. Just talk more. I’ve benefited a lot all along the way from women who are just a little bit older than me. Just have been a little bit further into this saga of work and family and career and now parents getting older and needing care themselves.

 

And if we can just talk to each other, share with each other– sure, we have these ideals that are really important that we would like to see achieved, but don’t let those ideals take the place of just the nitty-gritty of trying to find a life that works for you, works for your family, is satisfying and happy. You can be happy even with a life that’s not everything that you wanted it to be. Your life is not going to be everything that you want it to be. I can say that categorically, but I can also say that if you approach the tradeoffs in a realistic way with hope and a sense of gratitude for the things that you have and looking to other people for help in figuring it out, that you can achieve a reasonably happy life.

Megumi

Yeah, I like that you talked about talking to other women because, I do think that is important. And especially when it comes to family choices or even money, you feel rude bringing it up. Or it feels like this taboo–

Laura

I know, we don’t like to talk about it.

megumi

Yeah, this taboo topic. But it only is going to empower us if we do talk about money, whether it’s, “hey, you have the same job as me. And you live in the same city. How much are you making?” Or, “you’re a little bit older. You decided to have a kid. And you were still working. You stopped working. Why did you do that?” And I think it was when Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In came out, everyone’s talking about, “you can have it all. You just have to lean in and be a superhero.” And everyone was like, “Yeah.” And then, after a while, I was like, “Wait.” [laughter] I would like to be able to have it all. But people were talking about, “You have the same hours in a day as Beyonce does.” Yes. Technically, I do. But I don’t have– I mean, I don’t have children right now. But even if I had kids, I don’t have the full-time nanny and the chef and the personal assistant and the housekeeper or whatever it is. And if you do, that’s awesome. And you do you. But for most of us, it is a tradeoff of sorts. And that doesn’t mean you can’t have it all, whatever that necessarily means. It just means picking, I think, what is most valuable to you. And if that changes over time, that’s also fine.

Laura

Right, right. Okay, so this is going to be a little controversial. But I’m going to —

Megumi

Let’s do it.

Laura

— get it out there. Going back to women’s biology. A lot of women don’t know this, but if you do want to have kids, if having kids is important to you, it’s much easier to have kids in your 20s than in your 30s. And it becomes very, very difficult to have kids in your 40s. And this is another aspect of biology that we don’t talk about. But if you have a career, your 20s are really where your career and any desire to start a family are in conflict, because the trajectory for most women is, they graduate from college, and they want to work on their career. And it’s not until their late 20s that they get married. And then, they wait to have kids. Women need to be aware of that tradeoff because I’ve seen a lot of women who are in their 30s. They’re revved up. They’re ready to have kids. And they just can’t. They face infertility problems, things like that. So, it’s totally countercultural, but if you are a young woman that wants to have a lot of kids for some reason, then I would encourage you, don’t put that off. Get that out of the way. And then, you’ll have time later to come back and work on your career if that’s what’s important to you, even though it’s backwards. But your body will thank you. That’s more in line with what your body naturally wants to do, okay?

 

So that’s another one of these tradeoffs. You can’t expect to go hard on your career. And then, many women are just devastated when they’re in their late 30s and they’re not able to have kids. They can’t flip that switch and say, “Okay, now I’m ready for my body to have kids now.” And we have lots of great infertility treatments today. But they’re very, very expensive and difficult and heartbreaking. And so, if having a family is one of your goals, you might want to think about putting that earlier and then coming back to your career, right, in your 30s if that’s important. So you can cut that part out —

Megumi

I feel attacked. [laughter]

Laura

I know. It’s controversial. But I just wanted to bring that up.

Megumi

I think that’s really important because it is exactly what my friends and I have been talking about. Because work is important to me and actually, very recently, I was watching some YouTube video by someone who was like, “this is how you be happy” or something. And part of it was, they were saying — this was a man saying, “you just work on your career from when you’re 20 to 40. You have very little personal life. And then after you’re 40, then you can focus on your personal life.” Doesn’t mean get married at 40 or whatever, but 20 to 40 is for working. And at the time, I was like, “Wait, women…women can’t do that!” If you’re 20 to 40, say you have to find your husband during that time and also have a baby, or you just wait until you’re 40 to start even dating seriously, and you’re just focused on your career. And then at that point — it doesn’t mean that women can’t have children after their late 30s, but it does become more difficult. And it’s so tough. And talking to my friends about what do we do, are we supposed to freeze our eggs? But that’s also expensive.

Laura

I know. Okay, so there’s horrifying stories of women who froze their eggs, okay, so they could focus on their career. And then they come back and in the end, these reproductive technology companies make it sound so easy. But then by the time they come back, they’re ready to use their eggs and it’s not easy and the eggs don’t work for whatever reason, and then it’s horrifying.

Megumi

So we can’t really have it all.

Laura

Unfortunately, yeah.

Megumi

This is the depressing end to this episode, that we cannot have it all. [laughter]

Laura

I think if you have a realistic vision for life, then ultimately, you will be happy. I do believe that.

Megumi

Yeah, I think – just to end on a more uplifting note – that what you were saying of being realistic. And if you’re younger, if you’re in high school and you’re listening to this, think about your career and what you want to study in college. But if you’re like me and you’re already working, it is just trying to be realistic. And if you’re dating someone or married to someone, talking to them about what kind of lifestyle you want to have and whether you want to have children or not, and being able to be open and supportive and being a team and ultimately, being honest and realistic about it.

Laura

I sure appreciate you having me along and being able to have this conversation. I enjoyed it so much.

Megumi

Thank you. Yeah, this was great. I know a lot of people were really interested in this. And I think we covered a lot I think is important to talk about. And also, like you were saying, and maybe it’s controversial to talk about nature versus nurture and just the biology of it, but at the end of the day, that is the one thing we cannot escape, so. Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Laura

Thank you, Megumi. Take care.

Megumi

You, too. Thank you, again, to Laura for bringing both her personal experience and professional expertise to the podcast. You can check out her book, The Passion of Job: Meditations for When You Hate Your Life, which is an awesome title.

I definitely have a lot to think about after this episode and I hope that it inspires you to have more honest conversations like this with everyone around you, not just the women. Let me know how you’ve been affected by the pay gap and how it’s affected the choices you make on Instagram and Twitter @moneywithmegumi!

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