Finance and Consulting Careers Hardest on Families

As we mentioned in a recent post, most of the wage gap between male and female MBAs can be explained by the choice to have children. This recent New York Times article mentions that according to work by Goldin and Katz (co-authors of Bertrand’s recent study) the penalty is highest for those in finance and consulting who want to take time off for children. The medical profession affords the best pay and flexibility through arrangements which allow physicians to share work through group practices. The punch line is that this flexibility is a more recent evolution in response to growing numbers of female physicians and it seems feasible that other professions could find similarly creative solutions.