{"id":135683,"date":"2010-01-04T08:57:02","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T13:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/economics\/2010\/01\/04\/harvard-prof-wonders-why-are-there-so-many-women-veterinarians\/"},"modified":"2010-01-04T08:57:02","modified_gmt":"2010-01-04T13:57:02","slug":"harvard-prof-wonders-why-are-there-so-many-women-veterinarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/135683","title":{"rendered":"Harvard Prof Wonders: Why Are There So Many Women Veterinarians?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why are there so many women veterinarians? In part because educated women are drawn to professions that are providing flexibility to combine work and careers, \u00a0Harvard University economist Claudia Goldin<\/a> said in a lecture at the American Economic Association in Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Veterinary medicine provides flexibility that women crave. (Bloomberg News)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The increase of women in various professions since 1970 has been spectacular. But why do highly educated women enter some professions and fields more than others? \u00a0\u0093Women are 77% of all newly minted veterinarians, but they were a trivial fraction 30 years ago,\u0094 she noted. Women are 25% of all recent MBAs from the University of Chicago but are 8% of those who work in venture capital. Among young medical doctors, 41% are female, but the fraction in public health, pediatrics, dermatology, psychiatry, immunology and\u00a0obstetrics and gynecology\u00a0is far higher than in surgical specialties and cardiology.<\/p>\n

Some of this has nothing to do with hours and workloads, said Goldin (who hasn\u0092t had any children). Women are more likely, for instance, to be labor economists than macroeconomists. \u0093But in other cases the decision is largely governed by a desire for career and family and involves a trade-off between earnings and aspects of the job such as work flexibility over the year, week and day.\u0094 Women are trading pay to get workplace flexibility, she suggests, and are drawn to professions where it\u0092s relatively easier to do that.<\/p>\n

\u0093The goal of ‘career and family’ for college women is a relatively new one historically,\u0094 she said. \u0093Only with cohorts born since circa. 1950 and graduating college in the early 1970s could many college graduate women have even considered having a career and family.\u0094 \u00a0For previous generations, there was a choice –sometimes career OR family, sometimes family THEN career.<\/p>\n

Drawing from data on Harvard graduates and on University of Chicago MBA grads, Goldin contrasted MBAs to veterinarians. Fifteen years after college, among those women who have kids, 23% of MBAs weren\u0092t working, versus 3% of MDs and 14% of lawyers. \u0093The MBA lure for women is large; incomes are substantial even though they are lower than those of their male peers. But some women with children find the inflexibility of work insurmountable and leave or become self employed,\u0094 she said.<\/p>\n

\u0093If women are ‘fleeing’ the corporate and financial sectors, they have been flocking to professions in the health field, particularly veterinary medicine,\u0094 she said. \u0093Why? The demands of professional training have not changed. But the practice setting has. Small animal clinics open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week, with no evening and no emergency hours have proliferated. Being a veterinarian has prestige, equivalent to that of a physician. Like some physicians there is considerable room for part-time and flexible work. The training period is less than that for doctors. Veterinarians work lower hours than MBAs and engage in more part-time work sooner in their professional lives.\u0094<\/p>\n

And vets earn a lot less money than MBAs, and thus give us a lot less money if they work part-time. \u0093The vets win the horse race but they lose the rat race,\u0094 she said.<\/p>\n

Why are there so many women veterinarians? In part because educated women are drawn to professions that are providing flexibility to combine work and careers, \u00a0Harvard University economist Claudia Goldin<\/div>\n
iinsert link: http:\/\/www.economics.harvard.edu\/faculty\/goldin<\/div>\n
said in a lecture at the American Economic Association in Atlanta.<\/div>\n
\u0093The increase of women in various professions since 1970 has been spectacular. \u00a0But why do highly educated women enter some professions and fields more so than others? \u00a0\u0093Women are 77% of all newly minted veterinarians, but they were a trivial fraction 30 years ago,\u0094 she noted. Wen are 25% of all recent MBAs from the University of Chicago, but are 8% of those who work in venture capital. \u00a0Among young medical doctors, 41% are female, but the fraction in Public Health, OB-GYN, Pediatrics, Dermatology, Psychiatry, and Immunology is far higher than in surgical specialties and cardiology.<\/div>\n
Some of this has nothing to do with hours and workloads, said Goldin (who hasn\u0092t any children.) Women are more likely, for instance, to be labor economists than macroeconomists. \u0093But in other cases the decision is largely governed by a desire for career and family and involves a trade-off between earnings and aspects of the job such as work flexibility over the year, week, and day.\u0094 Women are trading pay to get workplace flexibility, she suggests, and are drawn to professions where it\u0092s relatively easier to do that.<\/div>\n
\u0093The goal of \u0093career and family\u0094 for college women is a relatively new one historically,\u0094 she said. \u0093Only with cohorts born since circa.1950 and graduating college in the early 1970s could many college graduate women have even considered having a career and family.\u0094 \u00a0For previous generations, there was a choice \u0096 sometimes career OR family, sometimes family THEN career.<\/div>\n
Drawing from data on Harvard graduates and on University of Chicago MBA grads, Goldin contrasted MBAs to veterinarians. Fifteen years after college, among those women who have kids, 23% of MBAs weren\u0092t workings versus 3% of MDs and 14% of lawyers. \u0093The MBA lure for women is large; incomes are substantial even though they are lower than those of their male peers. \u00a0But some women with children find the inflexibility of work insurmountable and leave or become self employed,\u0094 she said.<\/div>\n
\u0093If women are \u0093fleeing\u0094 the corporate and financial sectors, they have been flocking to professions in the health field, particularly veterinary medicine,\u0094 she said. \u0093Why? \u00a0The demands of professional training have not changed. \u00a0But the practice setting has. \u00a0Small animal clinics open from 9am to 6pm, 6 days a week, with no evening and no emergency hours have proliferated. Being a veterinarian has prestige, equivalent to that of a physician. \u00a0Like some physicians there is considerable room for part-time and flexible work. \u00a0The training period is less than that for doctors. Veterinarians work lower hours than MBAs and engage in more part-time work sooner in their professional lives.\u0094<\/div>\n
And vets earn a lot less money than MBAs, and thus give us a lot less money if they work part-time.. \u0093The vets win the horse race but they lose the rat race,\u0094 she said.<\/div>\n

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Why are there so many women veterinarians? In part because educated women are drawn to professions that are providing flexibility to combine work and careers, \u00a0Harvard University economist Claudia Goldin said in a lecture at the American Economic Association in Atlanta. Veterinary medicine provides flexibility that women crave. (Bloomberg News) The increase of women in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}