momgoesback.com

“It’s a myth — based on a handful of anecdotes in the popular press about white, high-income women — that women are opting out of the workforce in droves, ” said  Mary Shapiro of the Simmons School of Management. 

“Women are at the leading edge of shifting the career paradigm for everyone. They’re no longer acting as agents of their employers, but as career ’self agents,’ using flexible work arrangements and setting their own terms of employment as a way to make ‘work work.’”

“There’s a workforce shortage on the horizon,” she said, “and flexible work arrangements may be the main strategic advance in the coming decades in attracting and retaining male and female essential talent.”

Mary’s conclusions were based on a  Simmons study of more that 400 mid-to-senior level women who attended a leadership conference at Simmons in 2006.  Her analysis of the survey is detailed in “Optioning In vs. Opting Out” by Mary Shapiro and Cynthia Ingols, Ph.D.

Reminds me of the Bob Dylan lyric, “and the times they are a-changing.”