Finally, a thoughtful article about women and work in the NYT. This quote I found particularly important:
"When we saw women starting to drop out in the early part of this decade, we thought it was the motherhood movement, women staying home to raise their kids," Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, which did the Congressional study, said in an interview. "We did not think it was the economy, but when we looked into it, we realized that it was."
Food for thought: how does this manifest itself in science and engineering jobs particularly? Or is it all as Tierney said (shudder)?
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I found this quote informative (and indicative of my own experience)
And only those families with a working wife have seen real improvement in their living standards.
So when folks need to keep that in mind for two issues:
1) deciding whether to leave workforce
2) when pointing out the "advantages" men with stay at home wives have in the marketplace
This is a bit disconcerting that people didn't realize it was the economy. It's a bit insulting to women a bit, also. I'm not sure if this affects academia. I would have to ask around. As it sits, however, the University I am fortunate enough to belong to has a largely female science department... faculty and students. The science chair is also a woman as is the president of the University. Seems to be o.k. here in the islands.
A good follow-up from Judith Warner is here:
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/the-other-home-equity-crisis/index.html.