Between education, childrearing and eldercare, women have little time before mandatory retirement to build a career that goes beyond middle management or local government
Career trajectory, Mr. Average Western-Male:
- From six years to 25 education
- 25-34 years of age entry position and initial promotions
- 35-44 years of age career success and entry to local politics
- 45-54 years of age middle management and entry to state/provincial politics
- 55-65 years of age upper management and federal politics
- 65 years of age mandatory retirement, appointment to upper houses of government
Career trajectory, Ms. Average Western-Female;
- From six years to 25 education
- 25-34 years of age entry position and initial promotions
- 35-44 years of age leave the workforce, childrearing
- 45-54 years of age return to workforce, often into a different career
- 55-65 years of age working while meeting needs of aging parents and maturing children
- 65 years of age mandatory retirement
When women add childcare and eldercare to their resumes, it is obvious that they haven't been at home 'doing nothing' -- but they also haven't been in the workforce (or the public arena) making contacts, networking and getting known. No matter what skills they bring, women have simply got less time to use them to develop a meaningful career when they've had children.
Neither the work world nor the world of politics are structured to intentionally discourage women from participation at upper levels, but the effect is the same. Consider that women outlive men, often by decades, and are having their first opportunity since their early 30s to really focus on their careers, just as they're reaching 65. Since women will be living an average of twenty years beyond that, they need to plan to work for a couple of decades while saving for a couple of decades of unpaid retirement. Beyond unrealistic, this is a demonstration of just how little of the fundamentals of the work world have changed since women entered the workforce in large numbers in the 1970s.
Mr. Western-Male, retiring at 65, has an average life expectency of 12 more years. Out of a 40 year career, concentrating on advancement and career above all else, saving for less than a decade and a half of probable retirement doesn't sound too daunting. Take Ms. Western-Female, and add up her work life -- 10 years before children, 10 years while still raising them and an additional 10 years while caring for elderly relatives. In addition to making saving for such a long retirement very difficult, the divided attention and divided career impedes advancement, both into the board rooms and into the upper houses of government.
If there is a glass ceiling for women in the workforce and politics, it is the mandatory retirement age.
