Understanding how work-family dynamics shape the supply and retention of talent in STEM, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership.
Innovation and strategic leadership are critical elements of our rapidly changing economy. But evidence suggests that training, recruiting, and retaining talent is frequently complicated by the mismatch between work and family demands.
Our work in this area is oriented by questions like:
- How do workplace and family factors shape the supply of talent in areas like STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), entrepreneurship, and executive leadership roles?
- How can family-supportive interventions improve retention and career success in such fields?
Motherhood Bias Harms Women’s Careers in STEM
Research suggests that young women are less likely than young men to remain in academic science and engineering fields. Why? In an analysis of 57 in-depth interviews with advanced students and researchers in the U.S., Sarah Thébaud and Catherine J. Taylor show that workplace cultures surrounding the topic of motherhood are an important contributing factor. Findings indicate that, across elite university science and engineering departments, motherhood is often believed to be incompatible with professional success and treated as something to be feared, rejected, or made the subject of public controversy. This pervasive fear, or specter, raises anticipatory anxieties and career concerns among young women scientists and engineers who don't yet have - or even yet know if they want - children. The findings offer a new way to understand gendered patterns in these careers by detailing what these cultural beliefs are, how they circulate in workplaces, and how they can motivate some young, talented women to alter their long-term career plans.
Read more about this research in recent coverage by The Conversation and Gender and the Economy.
Passing up the Job: Organizational Policies and Family Demands Shape the Entrepreneurial Career Process
This article theorizes and evaluates the idea that when workers encounter rigid schedule demands and lack access to family-supportive policies, those who need flexibility - especially those managing family demands - are more likely to pursue self-employment. Using novel survey data from the Harris Poll, the study makes two key discoveries about how this process works. First, passing up a job specifically because it lacks flexibility is strongly linked to women’s pursuit of self-employment, but not men’s. Second, motherhood and a spouse's employment status predict women's self–employment, but only among those who have already sacrificed a job opportunity. Ultimately, the research suggests that for some women, especially those who have caregiving responsibilities, the decision to become an entrepreneur is often a constrained choice . This dynamic is a major driver of gendered pathways into entrepreneurship.
Read more about our research demonstrating the link between workplace policies and practices and entrepreneurial pathways in The Conversation.