To think young women should consider future income and career prospects when choosing their degree?

[strengthandhonor]

I post on a student forum and I see the same discussions again and again : boys talk about how much income and prospects a certain career will provide them with or what is the future of that industry while girls are all about following their passion and treat ''uni'' as a life experience with little or nothing to do with future employment prospects. No wonder the gender wage gap is still here and shows no sign of going away.

Countries like India, China and even Iran have far better results in getting girls into science, engineering and other lucrative degrees than say places like Sweden or Norway . So how can countries that year after year are trumpeted as the most gender equal societies on the planet have such awful outcomes especially when compared to medieval type patriarchies ? Why does reducing the social factors cause such imbalance in outcomes instead of equalizing them? What are we doing wrong as parents and as a society?

OP - I totally agree with all your posts. My son (14) was asking me the other day, "Why is there still a gender pay gap when there is equal access to education? Why don't more women push their way to the top?" I found it hard to answer him.

If I think of my female friendship group at uni, we generally studied what we loved eg. languages, history, literature (a few law or psychology students thrown in). The males in the same peer group nearly always did "x with business or economics", if not a STEM subject. Hey presto, twenty years later, the men are all bankers, entrepreneurs etc. The women took mainly PA roles until getting pregnant around the age of 30, since which time their careers dwindled or they because SAHMs. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but in my experience this patttern has transpired in over 90% of cases.

It's as if the women always knew that their projected salary would be less crucial in defining their lifestyle. They factored in children and a career break before they even started working. Maybe they subconsciously knew that they could potentially fall back on their future husband for income? I can't see any other explanation for it.

Now my DS in in a very academic London school - interestingly, only two boys (out of 90) have opted to do art GCSE, though about 30 girls are doing it. There are some boys who are super-talented in art, yet they've no doubt been told by parents that its a waste of a subject - "DT is more vocational, if you're not the next Picasso, where will art get you?" etc. So, even today, the "steering" starts early.

This is what Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO)’s book Lean In is all about... She says she sees lots of sensible practical women overthinking their career and planning to put themselves into more flexible / lower stress roles years before they’re ready to have children, as they assume they will need that when they eventually do have children. She says don’t do it - cross that bridge when you come to it and in the meantime PT yourself forward for all the same jobs as the men. If you do that successfully then if and when you do want to have children, you’ll be in a decent position to negotiate for the changes in work terms that you want. Better that than trapping yourself in a lower paid job on a “just in case” basis.

The thing about "lean in" is that it's a manifesto for high flyers dressed up as a manifesto for women.

"Leaning in" seems to depend on a supporting cast of at least a dozen low pay workers (mostly women) propping you up. So there's a mathematical flaw there, not to mention the ideological one.

Considering nearly all well paid jobs (most jobs that arn't in the service industry at all for that matter) will be in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, medicine) I do not think that you are being unreasonable at all. Just took our daughter round schools and every school without fail basically told us this regarding careers, education ect.

Get into those STEM subjects ladies!

This is also in regards to in 10/20 years time

Potteryprincess30 Tue 09-Jan-18 09:38:18
"Considering nearly all well paid jobs (most jobs that arn't in the service industry at all for that matter) will be in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, medicine) I do not think that you are being unreasonable at all."

Not really. Plenty of well paid jobs in business, civil service and law go to people with no STEM.

I know plenty of people with degrees in STEM struggling to get work or working in low paid jobs, in shops or similar. So one thing I would not be telling any child of mine is that a STEM degree is any kind of automatic passport to a well paid job.

Besides, what Battleax said:

"Leaning in" seems to depend on a supporting cast of at least a dozen low pay workers (mostly women) propping you up. So there's a mathematical flaw there, not to mention the ideological one.

We are never going to have an economy where the majority of people can hold down managing jobs. It's in the word: "manager" means you have people to manage.

What we should be working at is to have an economy where even the people being managed have a decent quality of life.

Interesting point battleax... I agree that the high flyer does need a lot of support from lower paid workers. But he Lean In advice still feels useful to me on the basis that (1) the high flying jobs need to be done by someone and I’d rather see a fairer mix of women and men (because I think the benefit of this for gender quality should run deeper through the employer organisation) and (2) there isn’t a finite number of high flying jobs that are shared out, we can increase the number of these jobs. If we find ourselves with increasing numbers of high flying women then they will create jobs for themselves and others, either by setting up new businesses or helping to grow existing businesses bigger than they would otherwise be.

Yes I can see it works for the few, but it makes no sense to tout it as an answer for "women" or "mothers".

What we should be working at is to have an economy where even the people being managed have a decent quality of life.

YY. Job design. Living wage. Housing economics. Etc.

We shouldn’t assume that all “high flying” jobs involve managing lots of people. A lot of technical specialists, designers, professionals etc do not manage many people at all and yet have a fulfilling career and earn a lot. So doesn’t necessarily need a pyramid of lower paid workers underneath them. And increasingly we can outsource the lower paid work to lower cost countries or automate them with technology so everyone has the opportunity to join a rising tide.

The social challenges arise those with the people that get left behind and aren’t directed towards jobs of the future, or can’t do them, for all sorts of reasons. No easy answers to this but surely we should t be trying to hold back the able and ambitious people?

I was talking about the extensive outsourcing of childcare, cleaning, gardening, DIY etc that "lean in" seems to entail.

IRL with the very high earning couples I know are either working two compressed weeks, or have family childcare, or at least one of them is self employed. So maybe that makes "lean in" beg rarified or maybe I don't know the right people.

I don't even know what beg was a typo for

I don’t think we should put so much focus on STEM as the solution to all problems. In the USA, where degrees are a lot more expensive, there is a glut of STEM graduates and unemployment is still an issue among them. We may well see the same thing, now that fees are so high and people are being told that a STEM degree guarantees them a fabulous career.

If someone genuinely has a talent in humanities, let them do it. We still need properly talented creative people. Until the robots take all our jobs.

It’s a really interesting perspective. My husband and I both work FT and outsource all of those things. My gut instinct is that we net benefit the economy by being able to provide work to all those individuals (all either self employed individuals or small business owners) and we all collectively pay more tax that should benefit the lowest earners in society. Alternative way of thinking about it is that my husband and I could work fewer hours and earn less, do more of the domestic stuff ourselves, everyone would earn a bit less and pay less tax but the income disparity between us would be lower and that might make for a “fairer” society.

Complicated system and beyond me to work out what is the better outcome for everyone. But interesting theoretical question.

Agree with points being made about STEM degrees and there is a bit of a backlash against this by certain big employers. Lots of professional careers that don’t require a STEM degree and indeed as a society we might benefit from different, more creative ways of thinking.

It’s a really interesting perspective. My husband and I both work FT and outsource all of those things. My gut instinct is that we net benefit the economy by being able to provide work to all those individuals

I'm sure you do. But you're necessarily in a minority.

So I'm questioning how much the example of "women in boardrooms" helps when determining what we should all, collectively, be deciding what to advise our daughters to pursue.

I think this is a common mistake we've made in feminist discussion; We've been very preoccupied over the past 20-30 years with talk of boardrooms and glass ceilings and corporate ladders, which means we're perpetually discussing about 5-10% of the cohort, at best.

@corythatwas yes I do agree with that but other then business and Law that's it really when regarding future jobs in a well paid position. I know I made a very general statement and I posted to early because I meant to add that it was in regards to the future (in like 10/20/30 years) but this really is the advice from a lot of educators.

There will also always be bankers but maybe even that will fall under a stem subject as is considered a 'science' subject (maths ect) by many and the job market will look very different in 20 years as so many jobs will involve technology and engineering. Even librarians these days are training in 'science and technology'. STEM is just an umbrella term as well and how many jobs will start to fit under that umbrella in the future

Considering nearly all well paid jobs (most jobs that arn't in the service industry at all for that matter) will be in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, medicine)

That is TOTAL bollocks.

Lawyers and people in the civil service will need fairly advanced skills in computer science in 20 years. I am sure many people now are struggling to find work i those sectors but I thought this was a discussion to the future (our children's generation who are perhaps primary age). apologies if I got confused

@LaurieMarlow we visited 8 schools and every head teacher said that by the time our oldest child was 'looking for work' most (not all) jobs that paid well would be within these sectors. Non of us have a crystal ball and I am no expert (obviously). But I was just passing on my experience to other mums/dads/anyone after these enlightening school visits. I don't know if it's true or 'bollocks' but I assumed mumsnet was about passing on what we collectively experience and learn out there in the world.

I think they’re connected battleax. Of course boardroom positions are small in number but most people that get there have had a 20/30+ year career beforehand working their way up through an organisation in professional or managerial roles, and these are the roles that personally I would want to encourage my DD and other young girls to aspire to. Well paid, fulfilling. Young girls need role models and they need inspiration and that’s the value (in my opinion) of promoting the very top board room roles. Having women / mothers in the top jobs makes the path behind them easier for others to follow.

I do get so frustrated on threads when women are like "oh of COURSE it makes sense to priporitise my husbands career, he earns 3x what I do" and i'm like WHY? WHY is this? You are both from the same educational and class back ground. You are both degree educated. The same age. Both in good health. Why don' you earn more or the same?

Interestingly there are two guys in my team who's wives out earn them (and we earn well!) and they are having interesting discussions now because both of them have had children recently.

I think whichever PP upthread said that teachers don't seem too well informed about careers, had a point, TBH.

Maybe, also, it's the pressure that schools are under to market themselves against competition and the temptation to lapse into impressive sounding "brave new world" sound bites at open days.

Think about the logic of it. What's going to happen to all the other industries with well paid jobs within 10 or 15 years? It's "We'll save your child from a dystopian future" marketing tactics.

@LaurieMarlow we are both women why can't we debate and discuss things without resorting to swearing and indignation? such a shame that in a female debate we start to attack each others views. I might change my mind, I might admit i'm wrong or know nothing... but I would never dismiss another's opinion in such a way. Who does that help? not ourselves, certainly not our daughters who we wan't to support and educate. I guess I am also just trying to champion Science and Maths as surely it's undeniable that these skills are useful, and will be, in EVERY job.

Yes, I don't doubt the connection lulu. I'm sure you're right in much of what you say.

I'm just chafing against the way "STEM" and "lean in" are always produced as the answer to everything