This Economist Knows How YOU Can Have It All ... Almost

Data driven tools to improve your life

Earlier this summer friend after friend started forwarding me a viral article from The Cut, “This Economist Crunched the Numbers and Stopped Dating Men. And she’s never been happier.” My terrible dating life notwithstanding, I looked at the cover image and said, Wait - I know this lady! I even went to her wedding because our now-ex-husbands were friends! (more on that later)

Dr. Corinne Low uses hard data to examine some of the biggest questions affecting women today: how do we balance career, caregiving, and happiness in a world that still doesn’t add up? She’s also the author of the new book Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours (find it on Bookshop or Amazon.) If you’ve ever felt like you’re working two full-time jobs, one at the office, another at home, you’re not imagining it. Corinne’s research shows that even when women become the primary breadwinners, they still do twice as much cooking and cleaning as their male partners. An economist at the Wharton School, she has made a career out of proving what so many women already feel in their bones, the math of modern womanhood doesn’t add up.

EMILY:

I want to talk about your wedding - because I actually think about it a lot when I consider the invisible labor women do in partnerships with men. We were in the throes of mid-twenties wedding season, and I was sick of the dynamic of ‘nagging’ my ex about what he needed to wear. I told him to reach out to your ex, get the dress code and figure it out himself. I wore a lovely midi gray dress and patent leather pumps with brooches on the toes. And he wore jeans to your lovely Brooklyn wedding (SMH.) I remember sitting on the subway wondering if the rest of my life would be a constant balance of figuring out how to not be embarrassed and not called a nag.

We all know the invisible labor is real, and it’s a lot more than just picking out your husband’s clothes. Something else that really struck me is your finding that even when women become the primary breadwinners, men’s time in the household doesn’t shift much at all. What does the data say about women’s invisible labor?

CORINNE:

Oh my god, Emily! The writing was on the wall Because also in the lead-up to the wedding I was constantly having to nag and manage and remind and catch dropped balls, including while I was literally in Zambia doing fieldwork. But YES, invisible labor. I use this survey called the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), and it shows that women who out-earn their husbands still do twice as much cooking and cleaning. And there’s a lot to critique about the ATUS, like Eve Rodsky will say it doesn’t capture the conception and planning, just execution. And that’s so true, and yet it still shows the disparities are just huge. I think cooking and cleaning is the canary in the coal mine that captures that mountain of invisible labor, because it’s unglamorous, ya know? Childcare is actually more evenly split. But the basic work of running a household just falls to women. Men will also push back saying they mow the lawn or take out the trash, but you’ll notice the tasks they do are often weekly or every-other-weekly tasks, so it’s just a tiny portion of household labor. And then, yes the planning, the multi-tasking, the reminding, the following up.

Some of the “good guys” want to do half, but often they’re doing half of what they see–half the school drop-offs, for example. But they don’t see that to get the kids to school she bought seasonally appropriate clothes, grocery shopped and packed lunches, checked homework, arranged aftercare… he’s doing half of the tip of the iceberg. To surface this, I actually recommend couples try tracking their time, to make all the invisible labor she’s doing–ordering groceries while at work on a zoom call, for example–visible.

And again, it doesn’t change with women’s earning power relative to men. One of the most shocking stats I uncovered was that in couples who both work hourly wage jobs, when her wage is more than twice his wage, she still works fewer hours. So the lack of housework that he’s taking on is actually costing the whole household money, because if he would pick the kids up from daycare she could pick up an extra shift, at twice his wage!

EMILY:

Your data show mothers today spend nearly twice as much time with children as a generation ago. What do these changes look like for mothers today?

CORINNE:

It’s so many things–it’s babywearing and extended breastfeeding, it’s sitting on the floor with our toddlers, and at the kitchen table with our grade schoolers. Every parent of young kids reading knows about the extended bedtime routines, with the books, the stories, processing highs and lows. I grew up in the 1980s–my bedtime routine was “go to bed.” We were out biking until it got dark! And … we all need a lot of therapy–so, there’s some positives about this change. It has to do with our greater understanding of child development and how crucial connected, attentive caregiving time is. And, it’s also about increased competition in the labor market and a kind of arms race to pour as much into our kids as possible so they can win one of those limited slots at elite schools (tell me–why do my undergrads apply to college with a “CV”?). And these changes fall disproportionately on mothers, of course. Dads spend more time with kids than their dads did, so they’re patting themselves on the back, but meanwhile because moms’ time with the kids has increased so much more, the gender gap in the household has actually gotten worse. So, once we understand this data, I hope it empowers parents, especially moms, to make choices. To decide where we’re getting a high enough return on our time with kids to justify it, and what might be social pressure or guilt. Because, more than they need a million activities, more than they need homemade baby food or hand-decorated birthday cupcakes, our kids need us. To be calm, and patient, and able to listen to a story for the thousandth time. The biggest cure for my mom guilt was seeing how my relationship with my son blossomed when I made changes (in my case, divorce, and moving closer to my job) that meant my needs got met.

EMILY:

You are not only studying this subject, but you are living it, a mom to two little kids. Has anything surprised you at home or in your research?

CORINNE:

I have an 8 year-old and a 4 month-old, and I would say the biggest surprise to me has been how irrational we can be when it comes to our kids. I know that the research on breastfeeding is not that strong, and if there are any benefits they’re front-loaded to the first few months of life (other benefits are more likely selection, or based on comparisons in countries without access to clean water, where formula can be really dangerous). And yet I not only breastfed both of them, with both of them I’ve insisted on pumping whenever I travel so they don’t need to have formula. I know there’s nothing wrong with formula. And pumping is terrible! And yet…

I tell people that we can’t predict sometimes just how forcefully having children reshapes our preferences, because we’re ultimately shaped by the forces of evolution. This is why I think it’s so important to write a book about the economics of being a woman, because there’s so many popular books about behavioral economics–the way our evolutionary instincts warp our decision-making–and none of them examine the most important decisions to women. In the environment our genes were shaped in, caring was crucial to our survival. Caring for our partner, our kids, and even our community, because we needed them to share food with us in case of a famine. But in the modern world, whether or not we’re the world’s best PTA volunteer is not going to determine if we make it through the winter. And yet we still feel like it will. So, I think it’s important to sometimes take a step back from our feelings and our instincts and be just a little bit analytical about, as I said, where we’re actually getting the return we want from our time.

EMILY:

You’ve argued that the real goal isn’t career success but utility, this idea that what matters most is maximizing the mix of joy, meaning, and fulfillment in our lives. I love that framing, but I also know it can be hard to apply when the world is constantly measuring us by titles, promotions, or salaries. I’d love to hear your take on how someone can actually sit down and figure out their own utility function in practice, and how they can make those tradeoffs without feeling like they’re settling or failing.

CORINNE:

This is the key framework in the book, so I’m so glad you asked this. Economics is about maximizing subject to constraints. So, to figure out the best choices for us, we need to know what we’re maximizing. That’s your utility function–your personal profit function. But, what’s different from a firm’s profit function is that every firm has the same way of calculating profit, essentially, but utility is unique to each individual, because only you know what brings you joy and meaning!

How do we figure that out when we’re inundated with messages of what we’re supposed to care about and value? I think a really useful first step is thinking about a life without constraints. If money were no object, what would your life look like? How would you spend your time? Very few people when they think about that say “oh, I would make sure to finish up those powerpoint presentations for my boss.” Even people who love their job say, “ok, I might spend 5 or 10 hours a week doing this, but I wouldn’t spend 60.” Well, that tells you your job is not a major source of utility in and of itself. It’s a means to an end. It’s a tool to convert your time into money, which lets you buy things you do value. And looking at what that unconstrained picture is, can help you sort out how much time you want to put into the money machine, versus how much you want to spend on those things that give you utility directly, like reading books, exercising, or spending time with loved ones. For example if you value a lot of expensive things, or even value spending money taking care of people you love, then financial resources are helpful in maximizing your utility. But, if a focal point is spending time in ways you value, then you might recognize that the focus on money or title or prestige is actually taking you away from what matters most for you.

And then you can be unapologetic in pursuing that right mix for you because your utility function is unique! I can’t look at someone else and say–oh, they’re publishing more papers than me, they must be better. Because, well, they’re maximizing something else. Maybe they don’t care about making sure they have dinner with their kids every night, or impractically breastfeeding / pumping while trying to do a book tour. I’m doing the best job maximizing my utility function subject to my constraints.

EMILY:

If you could wave a policy wand, what three policy changes would do the most to close that time gap for working parents?

CORINNE:

1. Boundaries not flexibility. I talk about this study in the book, but basically if you offer working parents a 9 to 5 versus flexible hours or work from home, they’re not willing to give up very much pay to get those options. But if you offer them a job where the employer sets the hours whenever they want, they’re willing to give up 40% of their pay to keep the 9-5. Healthcare is highly inflexible, and yet nursing is 86% women. Why? It’s highly structured. But this is something firms can do! If you want employees back in the office, then make facetime end at 5pm. Have assigned on-call shifts instead of everyone waiting for their weekend plans to get called off.

2. More parallel tracks and on-ramps. There’s too many exit ramps when the squeeze of parenting time and work time hits, and far too many women end up with permanent career hits for a temporary problem. We need more flexibility across the lifecycle by allowing temporary downshifting to a parallel track–a business route if you will–with an entrance back to the express track when the squeeze abates.

3. Finally, we need to treat this as a shared load for women as well as men, which requires a concerted societal effort. It’s paid, designated paternity leave. It’s home economics treated as a basic life and survival skill. It’s role models telling men that if they want to find partners, they need to show up as a partner and not get angry at and try to control women who don’t want to have sex with them. We need an antidote to the manosphere that is just helping men find that connection we all crave by actually bringing more to the table.

Thank you for these amazing questions!

EMILY:

Thank you so much for joining the EYP community, and I hope you’ll come back and answer more questions on this important topic. For now, everyone grab a copy of Corinne’s book! (find it on Bookshop or Amazon.)

If you’d like to win a copy of Corinne’s book and the Having it Almost tote bag, comment ‘HAVE IT’ to enter!