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For Eve, job breaks don't pay
ADAM GELLER
AP
NEW YORK: Professional women who put careers on hold for
family or other reasons earn 18% less once they return to
the workforce, a new survey reports.
The salary penalty for hopping off the career track is even
higher in the business world, where earnings drop an average
of 28%, according to the survey by the New York-based Centre
for Work-Life Policy.
The drop in pay partly reflects many women’s decisions to
return to jobs with less responsibility, or to part-time
jobs.
But it may also reflect that women are exiting the workforce
during the years when many men make the largest leaps up the
corporate ladder, the survey’s authors conclude.
The price for exiting work steepens the longer women wait
before returning. Women who take less than a year off from
their careers, return to the labour force at an average of
11% less pay.
But those who take off for three years or more return to pay
averaging 37% less than what they originally earned, says
the survey.
The research is detailed in the March issue of the Harvard
Business Review. The survey tapped more than 2,400 women
nationwide, focusing on those with a graduate degree,
professional degree or undergraduate degree with high
honours.
The group also surveyed 653 similarly qualified men as a
means of drawing comparisons. The notion that more executive
women are choosing to exit the workforce has generated
considerable attention over the past year.
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