harvardbusinessschool:

How We Make It Work

The phrase “work-life balance”—that mythical equilibrium between career and family responsibilities—has been firmly embedded in the collective consciousness since the 1990s. Its currency only grew with the 2012 publication of Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic Monthly article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” followed by Sheryl Sandberg’s (MBA 1995)2013 book, Lean In.

This conversation was born out of a cultural shift: According to Pew Research, nearly half of two-parent families in the United States with children reported both parents working full-time in 2015—up from less than a third in 1970.

For some, there has been a tangible impact on their professional lives, with 30 percent of the Pew survey respondents reporting that being a working parent made career advancement more difficult. A 2013 survey of HBS alumni explored this question in greater detail, finding that a majority of both men and women had made at least one accommodation to integrate their professional and family lives, including everything from choosing to travel less for work to making a lateral career move.

There are benefits to being a working parent, of course—not only for family income and personal fulfillment but also potentially for children’s choices as adults. Research by Kathleen McGinn, Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, has found that women raised by mothers who were employed tend to be more successful in the workplace than those raised by mothers who weren’t employed. Men whose mothers were employed spend more time caring for family members.

“There’s a lot of parental guilt about having both parents working outside the home,” McGinn says. “But this research shows that being raised by mothers and fathers who work both inside and outside the home gives children a signal that contributions at home and at work are equally valuable, for both men and women.”

Still, the changes and choices necessary to integrate work and family aren’t always easy to plan for: The HBS survey found that 83 percent of alumnae expected to successfully combine their jobs and their personal lives, while only 47 percent said their expectations matched with the reality; 86 percent of men had expectations of success, with 70 percent saying it matched with reality.

So what does that reality look like? To further understand the families behind the statistics, we asked alumni to offer stories from their successes and struggles—their doubts, their decisions, and their daily routines.

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