From a very interesting article in BusinessWeek titled “MBA Moms Most Likely to Opt Out” -
Williams said she believes that what has been termed the “opt-out revolution,” the notion that working women choose parenting over building their careers, is more complicated than meets the eye. Men who are in the upper ranks of their profession with stay-at-home-wives earn 30% more than men who are married to women who work, she said. Those men who want to reach the highest rungs of their career and earn the most money often need a stay-at-home wife to take care of all other aspects of their life, including raising a family, Williams said. “And since many women in business school marry those men, they end up being stay-at-home wives, regardless of their own vision of what they wanted from their careers,” Williams said.
Wow.
Full article: MBA Moms Most Likely to Opt Out by Alison Damast - BusinessWeek, August 21, 2008
I can’t help but think that this article was written from the wrong angle. I find it more likely that women with MBA for some reason have a stronger sense of family values and realize what the trade-off would be to thier family life if they were to choose to chase the big career. How lucky are the kids of MBA SAH mothers!