Swedish daddies paper Read Case 9.5: Swedish Daddies, attached file.Swedish caddies.pdf Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you answer the following questions: 1. Describe the balance that you currently seek between career and family life. Do

Points: 275

Assignment 2: Case Study 9.5: Swedish Daddies

chapter nine

The Workpl ace (2): Today’s

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351

years a

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o, the fa

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wedish

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Samuelson quipped that “women are just men with less

money.” He was referring to the financially dependent posi

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tion of women at that time, when they were unlikely to be

employed outside the home and, if they were, were likely to

earn substantially less than men. That has now changed for

the better. Although women have yet to achieve full equity at

the highest levels of business, they constitute nearly half the

U.S. workforce, and their pay is not so very far behind that of

men. Moreover, with the decline of manufacturing and the

growing importance of the service sector in today’s economy,

brain power matters more than brawn. Here women can

compete as well as men, and they have proved their value

to employers over and over again. In fact, they now outnum

-

ber men in professional and managerial positions. And, with

women continuing to graduate from college at a higher rate

and in greater numbers than men, their future looks bright.

121

But for many women there is one continuing source of

frustration. They often feel forced to choose between moth

-

erhood and a high-powered career. Jobs that offer the hours

and flexibility that suit women with family responsibilities

tend to pay less, while the most financially rewarding jobs

frequently require brutal hours and total commitment to the

job. And the higher you go, the rougher it gets. Not only must

those who want to fight their way to the top of the corporate

world work long, grueling hours, but they are also often

expected to gain experience working in different depart

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ments and divisions and even in different countries. That

tends to rule out women with family commitments. As a

result, women with children, especially single mothers, earn

less on average than men do while childless women earn

almost as much as men.

Over the years, some business writers have argued that

we should simply accept this fact and that companies

should distinguish between the career-primary woman and

the career-and-family woman. Those in the first category

put their careers first. They remain single or childless or, if

they do have children, are satisfied to have others raise

them. The automatic association of all women with babies

is unfair to these women, argues Felice N. Schwartz, an

organizer and advocate for working women. “The secret to

dealing with such women,” she writes, “is to recognize

them early, accept them, and clear artificial barriers from

their path to the top.”

The majority of women, however, fall into the second cat

-

egory. They want to pursue genuine careers while participat

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ing actively in the rearing of their children. Most of them,

Schwartz and others believe, are willing to trade some career

growth and compensation for freedom from the constant

pressure to work long hours and weekends. By forcing these

women to choose between family and career, companies lose

a valuable resource and a competitive advantage. Instead,

firms must plan for and manage maternity, they must provide

the flexibility to help career-and-family women be maximally

productive, and they must take an active role in providing

family support and in making high-quality, affordable child

care available to all women. In other words, companies

should provide women with the option of a comfortable, but

slower “mommy track.”

Although distinguishing between career-primary women

and career-and-family women seems reasonable and humane,

there’s rarely any mention of fathers or of shared parental

responsibility for raising children. The mommy track idea also

takes for granted the existing values, structures, and biases of