For Women Lawyers, Gender Gap Is Generation Proof

By the Staff of New Jersey Law Journal
New York Lawyer
May 10, 2007

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study finds what lawyers already know: Women are less likely to make partner at large firms because of difficulties faced in blending work and parenthood.

MIT's Workplace Center said it surveyed 1,000 Massachusetts lawyers and found that 35 percent of female associates with children left large firms between 2002 and 2004, compared with 15 percent of male associates with children.

The authors found that most male lawyers have spouses who are less career-oriented and can assume childcare responsibility, while female lawyers tend to have spouses with an equal or greater commitment to career and who earn as much or more. In a nutshell: long work hours and parenthood don't mix.

Earlier research has produced similar results, Mona Harrington, program director of the Workplace Center, told the Boston Globe. "The conclusions of all these studies are very much the same." she said. "That in itself is a story: nothing is changing."

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