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| Dr. Schneer to Research Whether Women Are Dropping Out of Top Managerial Posts
A growing notion is that more women are dropping out of top corporate positions to take care of their families and find more balance in their lives. This is one of the significant areas Dr. Joy Schneer, professor of management at Rider University, will research through a grant from the Graduate Management Admission Council Management Education Research Institute. Dr. Schneer and Dr. Frieda Reitman, her colleague and retired professor of management from Pace University, have followed a cohort of men and women MBAs for 20 years, and in 2000, they added a second cohort. Dr. Schneer, the principle investigator for the grant, is concerned that the suggestion women are opting out of top positions may be based on anecdotal data rather than a thorough study of how women are managing their careers and whether they really are opting out. “We have always found that about 20 percent of women are not employed full-time,” she said. “This number hasn’t changed since 1984 when a pilot study was done. The suggestion by the media that this is a new phenomenon of professional women dropping out really isn’t accurate. They’ve always dropped out. “It is just that now they are dropping out from more high profile positions,” she added. “When you had women dropping out from middle level or lower level management, nobody noticed.” Dr. Schneer said when women CEOs leave, it usually is not just to take care of children. “They leave and reappear at some other company, their own business or another venture. Taking care of kids or for family issues are easy explanations for their leaving,” she noted. “I want to research this issue thoroughly and determine what is really occurring.” “The average age of the older cohort is 58, so we will begin to move toward issues of retirement,” Dr. Schneer said. “We will look at their attitudes toward retirement and what factors are influencing their decisions about retirement.” Over the years, Dr. Schneer has found women MBAs still face a glass ceiling (only 18 percent hold top management positions versus 27 percent of men) and continue to earn 20 percent less than comparable men. Married fathers whose wives are not employed earn more than married fathers in dual-earner households. Surprisingly, Dr. Schneer has found that marriage and children were unrelated to career success for women. “I am certainly hoping that women in the older cohort, who have paid their dues, are really getting representation in top management jobs,” Dr. Schneer said about her current project. “They should be poised to reap major benefits for staying in all these years and contributing to corporate success. Our study will also include an analysis of whether top-level women are earning comparable salaries to men.” Regarding fathers with employed wives earning less than fathers with unemployed wives, she said, “I am not sure what we’ll find there. You would think family structure may be less relevant to the older cohort as they age. They are at an age when young children are not likely to still be at home, and there are fewer issues about how much one can commit to work. “In the younger cohort,” she continued, “we
may find that for men, family structure will not be so much of
a factor. Maybe now that less than 15 percent of families are
the ‘male-earner, wife-at-home’ type, we may find
that perhaps men in dual-earner families will have the same high
salaries that men who are the sole earners have. But that remains
to be seen.” |
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