Off-Ramps and On-Ramps on the Road to Success
Founding president for the Center for Work-Life Policy, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, has a new book called “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success.” In it she writes that while 37 percent of qualified women “off-ramp” or opt out of their career at some point, generally to raise a family, a majority (97%) would like to eventually return to work.
This whole idea of off-ramping or opting-out for at least some portion of a woman’s career seems to be more common than in the past. In fact according to a recent CBS News story, the number of college-educated moms working outside the home has dropped 7 percent in the last decade.
However, the entire off-ramping subject seems to have sparked quite a debate, as others have weighed in saying that women are NOT opting out more there has just been a weak labor market. An October 2006 article in The Christian Science Monitor indicated that men’s labor rates have also dropped.
Another side of the coin seems to be that women are not opting out by mere choice but due to the inflexibility the workplace seems to offer. They feel they have no other option because of prejudice against working mothers. In fact the same CS Monitor article indicated that a recent survey showed that 86 percent of women felt obstacles such as an inflexible job were the main reason they left.
What this all says to me is that the struggle is not over. Choices have to be made even as women continue to push ahead to have careers while raising a family. Whether you’re off-ramping or on-ramping, it is still an uphill road.
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This is always a struggle of an issue for me. I don’t have children, but I eventually want to. I constantly ask myself, “Do I prepare my career in a fashion that will eventually allow me to work from home or have some sort of scheduling freedom so I can raise kids or am I shooting myself in the foot?” I wonder if I should just continue down the track and then stop completely when I want to have children and then take the risk that it will be hard to jump back in. It’s a tough subject
Besides “off ramps” for family and so forth, I sometimes worry about a slight switch in career - not say, going from being a doctor to being a plumber, but a switch within similar fields. If it doesn’t work out and I want to return to what I was doing, does the blip in my resume look bad?
These days I think career shifts are common. People don’t remain with one company their whole life and that’s okay. In an interview, if asked, I’d tell the truth - you wanted the experience and b/c of it you have more to bring to the table.