Quick back story which you can skip if you know it:
I moved here not quite two years ago (June 28, 2008 to be precise), without a job and with no prospects of finding one although I was optimistic. I shouldn’t have been—while I had some contract work in 2008, I didn’t get full time work again until four months ago. As anyone who read my blog over the last 18 months knows, that wasn’t the best of times for me.
To the main point:
Now I’m working in my field at a job I love. And Kent is unemployed.
This morning he told me he’s expanding his job search to New York City. In my rational mind, I get it. NYC is a huge hub for his field and hey, his severance package runs out at the end of this month. True to gender norms and despite my greater level of education, I still don't earn what he did. I'm at about 80% of what he earned pre-bonus AND my commute costs a lot more ($59 a month vs. $430-ish). That means we have a season of budget squeezing upon us, so we could definitely benefit from both of us being employed. (Note: the good news is that I’m doing better than the national income norm, about which you can read here but be warned it's a PDF. According to this PDF, 10 years post college, we women earn about 69% of what men do, and I attribute my 80% of his previous wage to me having earned that master's of science).
Yet I find myself feeling a little cranky about the situation. When I started interviewing for my current job, we already knew Kent was losing his. I told him then that if I took this job, I wasn’t going to move if he got a job elsewhere—to which he said he wouldn’t look on the West Coast (which he had previously, and which is also a good source of jobs in his field).
I know why I feel cranky—I suspect that he will get a job in NYC and then the pressure will be on me to move again. So I fear I’ll get stuck between two competing desires, neither of which is wrong. My marriage is beyond important to me AND I don’t want to crater my career again. I’m damn lucky I pulled things out last time. I’m also not really interested in being judged by others who would choose differently. And I’m faced with the pressure that generally speaking, it’s the woman who makes those concessions and trundles off into something less fulfilling so she can support her husband.
Kent—this isn’t aimed at you. If anything, it’s aimed at societal pressures. And they weigh on me greatly.
3 comments:
I have no comforting words to say on this topic. It's good to have desires (even when they compete) and it really sucks to be unemployed. Long-distance relationships are hard, whether with a job or with a spouse. Oddly enough, I feel like I've just chosen a minimalist approach by giving up my commuting job. We'll have to live on less, but there will be less stress in the household as long as I can keep my underemployed dignity together.
Very well put. I have done this six times.
As to women's salaries...we need to remember that as late as the mid-1800s, a woman's land and paycheck went to her husband. Time to wake up and exercise that vote with some education on these issues.
Tough dilemma. (You know, of course, I weigh daily if I should stay or go.)
Very interesting study! My own experience in hiring is that--when at a certain point in the process we ask candidates about their minimum expectations for salary--my unscientific assessment is that women tend to state lower minimums.
For the record, we don't use this data for anything other than weeding out the people whose expectations are beyond the salary range we have. In general, I make salary offers based on how that person's experience level lines up with existing employees in the same or similar positions.
Academia still has gender/salary imbalances, though because careers are so long in the faculty, the highest paid professors are the ones that started in 1970 (and are almost entirely men.) The really interesting gender issue is that the students, the administrators, and the custodial and maintenance staff are all more likely to be women, but the faculty is more likely to be men.
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