Work and Family: Getting to 50/50

How do I take the life I have now, which is chock-full, and add a family?
Myra Strober

It’s time to innovate how we think and talk about work and family. In this video, experts offer key strategies and frameworks for achieving equal partnerships, so that men and women can better navigate work and life dynamics. “Work & Family: Getting to 50/50” starts with a new framework for making important career and family decisions based on a unique approach, economics! Professor Myra Strober reveals how economic concepts such as investing in yourself, the economics of childcare, and maximizing your well-being can help families plan for the present and future. Then Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober (co-authors of Getting to 50/50: How working parents can have it all) host a casual yet informative panel that highlights effective strategies and tips for communicating with your partners and employers when planning for careers and parenting.

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Key Takeaways

The Economics of Well-Being
  • Utility Maximization: Optimizing the well-being of yourself, each member of your family, and each of your family relationships.
  • Investment in Human Capital: Maintaining the value of your education, training, skills, and networks in the short- and long-term.
  • Economics of Childcare: Calculating childcare cost as a family investment and recognizing the value of the father’s contribution at home.
  • Efficiency: Getting more output with the same resources, relevant to both work and home.
Strategies for Getting to 50/50
  • Be an Anthropologist: Ask questions and get to know each other’s vision for work and family.
  • Have a Couples One-on-One: Carve out time each week to coordinate schedules, review to-do lists, and touch on emotional issues.
  • Practice the Art of the Deal: Try to approach conflicts as collaborative problem-solving, e.g., “If you wash, I’ll dry”.
  • Give Up on Perfection: Learn to value “good” over “perfect” to avoid unnecessary stress and unhappiness.
  • Make Room for Family At Work: Be efficient and learn to ask questions and negotiate.

Additional Information

Work and Family: Getting to 50/50 Resources

Read more about Work and Family - Getting to 50/50:

  • Getting To 50/50: How Working Parents Can Have It All: This game-changing read is set to do for the cultural dialogue around working families what "Lean In" did for working women.
  • Young Women And Men Seek More Equal Roles At Work And Home: NPR presents findings from an American Sociological Review study that reveals a growing shift away from traditional gender roles in relationships and a greater desire to form equal partnerships.
  • The Secret to an Equal Marriage? Ask for What You Need: This LeanIn article shows how Sharon Meers began an open dialog about her desires for an equal partnership with her husband early, helping she and her husband find a balance that fit both of their needs.
  • The Case for Filth: Female breadwinning has quadrupled since 1960 yet the amount of household work done by men has remained largely unchanged since the '80s. Stephen Marche's The New York Times op-ed piece celebrates the more recent trend of women's divestment from household work as a method of creating a more equal gender balance of household tasks.
  • Behind Every Great Woman Is a Great Man: CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter presents the case for society to respect care-giving men and encourages women to be competitors in the workplace.
  • 10 New Year's Resolutions for Working Mothers: Author Liz O'Donnell presents ten concrete tools including embracing "good enough" and building a strong network of support to increase productivity, happiness and balance for working and parenting.
  • Baby Bust: Professor Steve Friedman's book presents research to explain why so many young people are not planning to become parents and offers ideas for what we can do as a society and in our workplaces to make it easier for men and women to choose the lives they want.
  • Rethink What You "Know" About High-Achieving Women: Harvard Business Review presents survey results from three generations of Harvard Business School graduates' views on work and family.
  • Why Men Need to Read 'Lean In,' Too: The Atlantic presents why men should read "Lean In" so that men can also fight inequality and support women fighting inequality in the workplace.
  • 7 Things Men Should Do At Work To Help Women Get Even: Business Insider presents seven actions that men can take to support equality among men and women in the workplace.
  • Man Up on Family and Workplace Issues: This Huffington Post article presents why men should get involved in issues of gender inequality in family life and in the workplace.
  • Men For Equality In The Workplace: Richard Branson describes how men can fight gender bias and support equality in the workplace.
Work and Family: Getting to 50/50 References

Unbending Gender: Why Families and Work Conflict and What to Do About It

Williams, Joan C. 2000. Unbending Gender: Why Families and Work Conflict and What to Do About It. New York: Oxford University Press.

Understanding the 'Family Gap' in Pay for Women with Children

Waldfogel, Jane. 1998. "Understanding the 'Family Gap' in Pay for Women with Children." Journal of Economic Perspectives. (Winter 1998): 137-156.

Part-Time Work as Deviance: Stigmatization and Its Consequences

Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs, Carroll Seron, Bonnie Oglensky, Robert Sauté. 1999. "Chapter 4: Part-Time Work as Deviance: Stigmatization and Its Consequences." Pp. 29-37 in The Part-Time Paradox: Time Norms, Professional Life, Family and Gender, by Epstein, et al. New York: Routledge.

The Economics of Women, Men, and Work

Blau, Francine and Marianne Ferber. 2002. The Economics of Women, Men, and Work. New York: Prentice Hall.

Fast-Track Women and the 'Choice' to Stay Home

Stone, Pamela and Meg Lovejoy. 2004. “Fast- Track Women and the ‘Choice’ to Stay Home.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 66 (November 2004): 75–76, 78–79.

The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the the Least Valued

Crittenden, Ann. 2001. The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the the Least Valued. New York: Metropolitan Books.

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