Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples: What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us about Work and Family

by Karine Moe, Dianna Shandy

When significant numbers of college-educated American women began, in the early twenty-first century, to leave paid work to become stay-at-home mothers, an emotionally charged national debate erupted. Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy, a professional economist and an anthropologist, respectively, decided to step back from the sometimes overheated rhetoric around the so-called mommy wars. They wondered what really inspired women to opt out, and they wanted to gauge the phenomenon’s genuine repercussions. Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples is the fruit of their investigation—a rigorous, accessible, and sympathetic reckoning with this hot-button issue in contemporary life.Drawing on hundreds of interviews from around the country, original survey research, and national labor force data, Moe and Shandy refocus the discussion of women who opt out from one where they are the object of scrutiny to one where their aspirations and struggles tell us about the far broader swath of American women who continue to juggle paid work and family. Moe and Shandy examine the many pressures that influence a woman’s decision to resign, reduce, or reorient her career. These include the mismatch between child-care options and workplace demands, the fact that these women married men with demanding careers, the professionalization of stay-at-home motherhood, and broad failures in public policy. But Moe and Shandy are equally attentive to the resilience of women in the face of life decisions that might otherwise threaten their sense of self-worth. Moe and Shandy find, for instance, that women who have downsized their careers stress the value of social networks—of “running with a pack of smart women” who’ve also chosen to emphasize motherhood over paid work.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism

215 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a young woman in business (unmarried and childless), this book TERRIFIED me. I didn't pick my career thinking about what will be best for when I have children. I like working a lot. Hell, I don't even know if I like children. And this book methodically (and using statistics) told me about women just like me who found themselves "opting out." They left the workforce (or significantly reduced their participation in it) after they had children even though they loved their careers and were succeeding at them. Am I going to be that one day? Oh my goodness, I need to ramp up the number of hours I work now so that I can scale them back later (called "sequencing" according to the book).

If this subject doesn't interest you, don't pick this book up. The writing is fairly dry, and the anecdotes really aren't that engaging. But if this is a subject that really gets you going, this book is wonderful. It's packed with real numbers about real women (and couples) and the real issues they face. It talks about bias at work and the difficulty finding childcare and what happens when women try to reenter the workforce. It even offers some solutions for women facing these problems.

I'm recommending it to my company's women's network.

[Megan Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this wasn’t a *fast* read, since it’s actually an anthropological and economic study of the opt-out movement. I found it really interesting anyhow. Learning about the reasons and ways women opt-out of the work force, for how long, and the difficulties they face kept me coming back to it. Not any real conclusive resolution in terms of the problems present for women who decide to opt out and then later return - but insightful suggestions were provided for how to limit the negative, long-term career effects, nonetheless.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this to learn how you can change the workplace culture with a few good policies.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suddenly started worrying about having to give up my career in the next 10 years in order to raise a family. So I started looking for inspiration and borrowed this book from the library. This book was inspirational in that it gave what I thought was a nuanced description of the phenomenon, a comprehensive overview of the cultural and economic consideration that cause women and their families to make this decision, and a thorough discussion of the issues that come up for many of the women who choose to modify their career path. It's a complicated situation, and this book doesn't offer any simple solutions or reassurances. However, the knowledge that other women have struggled through the same thing and the fuller understanding of the various issues and options I might encounter in the future did a lot to reduce my anxiety. I'm grateful for that.

This was also one of the more enjoyable academic books that I've come across: clearly organized and mostly free from stilted language and jargon.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and interesting read. It's not often you get to read an anthropological examination of your own lifestyle, but that's what this is -- a study of women (including college-educated, professional women) who have chosen to take some time out of the workforce to raise kids and what that says about the work-life balance issues faced by working women.

There were a few times when the tone felt condescending -- repeated mention of those who just can't figure out why a woman would just drop out of the workforce after all that education and hard work, for example -- but the book did ring true for the most part and accurately identified the competing demands placed on a mother's time and the reasons one might opt out of the workforce for a while to be a full-time mom.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reflects my experience as someone who once had a "professional" career, then spent 5 years as a stay-at-home mom, then struggled back to the paid workforce by going into business for myself. It does a good job of pretty evenhandedly describing the challenges of living in a society that as they put it "treats children as pets, placing the full burden of raising the next generation squarely on the shoulders of the nuclear family" - despite the fact that "parents who raise the next generation of workers create extraordinary value for society at large with little to no support from government or firms."
Hopefully someday our culture will realize and value that care is work and find some way to economically signal its recognition of that fact.

[The Sapphic Nerd · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting looking at the reasons behind the trend of women opting-out of the workforce, leaving their careers in favour of being stay-at-home moms, and the challenge they face if/when they decide to re-enter the workforce after being away.

The writing is fairly dry and I wouldn't have made it that far if I hadn't been forced to read it for one of my classes. I'd have preferred something more concise... like, the length of an article instead of an entire book. But oh well.

It's decent for what it is.

[Hillary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This topic is fascinating to me, plus I took Econ 19 with Karine almost 10 years ago. I was excited to read this book and it didn't disappoint.

The style's a little more academic than I'm used to these days, but the content is food for thought for any women contemplating her place in the workforce.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually maybe 3 1/2 stars. I can't say I *really* liked it, just because it was kind of depressing! But unfortunately it did seem an accurate portrayal of my own decisions and those of many women I know.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think women will find something personal in this book no matter what choices they have made in the career/family trajectory. And, knowing that other women have faced similar (difficult or not) choices is comforting though I'd still have liked to "have it all."

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

fantastic and well-written; unfortunately, not a how-to with an internal locus of control.

damn the man.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing scholarly survey of how women's careers are affected when they have children. Who do you think picks up the children most often when they are sick at school?

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, scholarly, well written but didn't learn very much new.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really comprehensive book about the history of 'opting out' and women's choice to stay at home with kids, continue working, or do something in between.