Thinking Ahead Could Be Holding Women Back
Different attitudes in how men and women prepare for their futures might be a factor contributing to the gender gap, a new study published in Gender & Society finds.
In imagining their work paths, women were disproportionately more likely to think and worry about parenthood than men. And in anticipation of the responsibilities and challenges that parenthood brings, women were more likely than men to downscale or alter their career goals.
Brooke Conroy Bass, who wrote the article, conducted in-depth interviews with 30 heterosexual couples between 25 and 34 who have not (yet) had children.
Related: Millennial Women Are Taking Charge – at Home and at Work
Preparing for the future has emotional and behavioral consequences for women that men don’t suffer as much from, she found. Because of these “gendered anticipations of parenthood,” the inequality in the market starts much earlier than we tend to think.
Bass told Futurity that career trajectories among men and women shift as parenthood approaches, with men investing more effort in their jobs and women dialing back.
The study suggests that part of the problem contributing to the gender wage gap, penalization for maternity leave and the difficulty of making it to the top is anticipating the future.
But should women be penalized for displaying foresight, a characteristic that employers usually value?
Stat of the Day: 0.2%
The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley tweets: “In order to raise enough revenue to start paying down the debt, Trump would need tariffs to be ~4% of GDP. They're currently 0.2%.”
Read Tankersley’s full breakdown of why tariffs won’t come close to eliminating the deficit or paying down the national debt here.
Number of the Day: 44%
The “short-term” health plans the Trump administration is promoting as low-cost alternatives to Obamacare aren’t bound by the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to spend a substantial majority of their premium revenues on medical care. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of short-term plans, according to Axios, which provided this interesting detail on just how profitable this type of insurance can be: “United’s short-term plans paid out 44% of their premium revenues last year for medical care. ACA plans have to pay out at least 80%.”
Number of the Day: 4,229
The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers on Wednesday updated their database of false and misleading claims made by President Trump: “As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.”
The tally, which works out to an average of almost 7.6 false or misleading claims a day, includes 432 problematics statements on trade and 336 claims on taxes. “Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history,” the Post says.
Number of the Day: $3 Billion
A new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services finds that Medicare’s prescription drug program could have saved almost $3 billion in 2016 if pharmacies dispensed generic drugs instead of their brand-name counterparts, Axios reports. “But the savings total is inflated a bit, which HHS admits, because it doesn’t include rebates that brand-name drug makers give to [pharmacy benefit managers] and health plans — and PBMs are known to play games with generic drugs to juice their profits.”
Chart of the Day: Public Spending on Job Programs
President Trump announced on Thursday the creation of a National Council for the American Worker, charged with developing “a national strategy for training and retraining workers for high-demand industries,” his daughter Ivanka wrote in The Wall Street Journal. A report from the president’s National Council on Economic Advisers earlier this week made it clear that the U.S. currently spends less public money on job programs than many other developed countries.
