Incredible Success Story Of Young Man Goes From Homeless To Harvard

Harvard Study Shows Husbands Could be the No. 1 Roadblock To Women Success

ERIN ANDERSSEN | Globe and mail
The debate about why more women aren’t filling seats in the corporate boardroom has produced a spreadsheet of explanations. Women need to bridge the “confidence gap” in the workplace. They need more mentors. They pay a mommy penalty. And they still do most of the child-care and housework.

That last point – the role of expectations within a marriage and their potential career-downsizing effects – doesn’t get as much attention, even though what happens at home is impossible to separate from work. But a new study of Harvard MBA graduates suggests that Sheryl Sandberg’s most important advice for women comes halfway through her bestselling book, Lean In: “Make your partner a real partner.”

That is, don’t marry a man who thinks his career comes first.

For the study, published in Harvard Business review, the authors surveyed about 6,000 men and women between the ages of 26 and 67, most of them MBAs, the group that is the focus of findings. They found that while both genders tended to have the same career and family aspirations, how that actually played out in real life was very different.

For those graduates working full-time, men were more likely to be senior managers. This wasn’t because their female peers were “opting out” – only 11 per cent had left the workforce to care full-time for kids. In fact, 74 per cent of the Generation X women – the group most likely to have young children – were working full-time. And many of the stay-at-home group – especially those in the Baby Boomer group – reported to have taken up this role reluctantly after being sidelined into unfulfilling work, or, as one woman in her late-50s told the research team, after being “mommy-tracked” when she returned from maternity leave.