Ed.
note:
Please
welcome
Vivia
Chen
back
to
the
pages
of
Above
the
Law.
Subscribe
to
her
Substack,
“The
Ex-Careerist,” here.
NOW
THAT
TAYLOR
SWIFT
is
“dreamin’
’bout
a
driveway
with
a
basketball
hoop,”
is
this
the
death
knell
for
female
ambition?
It
kind
of
seems
that
way.
Not
only
is
the
richest,
most
influential
female
rock
star
in
the
world
hinting
in
her
latest
album
that
she’s
ready
to
hang
it
up
for
life
as
Mrs.
Travis
Kelce
(they’ve
been
spotted house
hunting
in
the
suburbs
of
Ohio,
of
all
places),
but
some
worrisome
data
on
women
in
the
American
workforce
has
come
out.
According
to
the
US
Bureau
of
Labor
Statistics, women
are
dropping
out of
the
job
market
in
notable
numbers.
In
the
last
year,
over
600,000
women
abandoned
ship
(from
a
participation
rate
of
57.7%
in
2024
to
56.9%
this
year).
That’s
a
huge
deal,
reports
the
Economist,
marking
the biggest
rise in
the
male-female
participation
gap
since
the
1950s.
Even
more
concerning:
it’s
women
with
college
or
higher
degrees
and
young
children
who
are
responsible
for
this
decline,
says
a new
study by
KPMG.
Though
these
young
women
had
been
driving
the
record
participation
of
prime-age
women
in
the
US
economy,
those
gains
began
to
erode
in
late
2023,
dropping
by
2.30%
by
August
2025.
During
the
same
period,
college-educated
men
with
young
children
saw
their
participation
rate
in
the
workplace
rise
by
0.31%.
This
is
puzzling.
Because
just
when
we
thought
that
women
were
unstoppable
(remember,
they’re
the majority in
colleges,
law
schools,
and
medical
schools),
they’re
instead
losing
ground.
What
is
going
on?
The
female
stigma
is
back!
“I
think
that
a
big
reason
for
the
exodus
of
women
from
the
workforce
is
the
insistence
by
many
employers,
including
legal
employers,
that
employees
work
in
the
office
rather
than
providing
them
with
the
flexibility
to
work
from
home
and
utilize
hybrid
work
schedules,” Roberta
(“Bobbi”)
Liebenberg,
the
co-author
of
a
2023 American
Bar
Association
study
on
parents,
tells
me.
Though
flexible
working
arrangements
gained
steam
during
Covid,
companies
and
law
firms
now
require
employees
work
in
the
office
four
or
five
days
a
week,
which
“means
we
are
reverting
back
to
where
we
were
before
the
pandemic
started,”
says
Liebenberg.
“Just
as
in
the
past,
women
with
children
who
work
from
home
will
be
stigmatized
and
their
ability
to
advance
and
succeed
will
be
impeded.”
Then
there’s
the childcare
crunch,
worsened
by
the
crackdown
on
immigrants.
“An
estimated
one-fifth
of
childcare
workers
overall
are
immigrants,
including
one-fourth
in
center-based
daycares,”
reports
the
KPMG
study.
To
top
it
off, childcare
costs have
exploded.
KPMG
finds
that
prices
for
daycare
and
preschool
have
increased
roughly
twice
as
fast
as
overall
inflation,
with
parents
often
spending
20–30%
of
their
income
on
childcare
alone. So
all
things
considered,
why
shouldn’t
women
throw
in
the
towel
and
stay
home
with
the
kids?
Fact
is,
this
country
has
never
made
it
easy
for
parents,
especially
moms,
to
work.
The
United
States
stands
alone
among
developed
countries
in
providing
no
federally
guaranteed
paid
leave
for
new
parents.
As
for
state-sponsored
childcare,
forget
about
it.
While
government
subsidized
childcare
is
common
throughout
western
Europe,
here
it’s
regarded
as
a
socialist
fantasy
–
something
that
the
radical
likes
of
Zohran
Mamdani
would propose.
So
is
it
the
lack
of
flexibility
or
the
shortage
of
childcare
that’s
pushing
women
to
the
brink?
For
professional
women,
it’s
the
hostility.
“I
think
for
less
educated
women,
the
cost
of
childcare
is
a
major
factor,” Joni
Hersch,
a
professor
of
law
and
economics
at
Vanderbilt
University,
tells
me.
“But
for
more
educated
women,
it’s
the
hostility.
There’s
now
an
attack
on
professional
women,
and
it’s
become
acceptable
to
say
things
that
denigrate
women.”
Normalizing
that
disrespect,
Hersch
adds,
are
people
in
power,
such
as
Pete
Hegseth,
JD
Vance,
and
Donald
Trump.
The
backlash
against
flexible
work
is
another
sign
of
the
hostility.
“There’s
a
rollback
on
anything
that’s
supportive
of
women,”
says
Hersch.
“What
I’ve
found
in
my
research
is
that
men
have
always
had
more
flexibility
because
the
better
jobs
tend
to
be
more
flexible
anyway.
During
the
work-from-home
period,
women
were
starting
to
catch
up;
now,
we’re
at
the
margins
again.”
But
are
there
also
larger
cultural
factors
at
play
that
are
driving
women
from
the
workplace?
Men
are
living
like
their
grandfathers.
In
a
new
book, Having
It
All:
What
Data
Tells
Us
About
Women’s
Lives
and
How
to
Get
the
Most
Out
of
Yours,
Wharton
School
professor Corinne
Low argues
that
women
have
been
getting
a
raw
deal
at
work
and
at
home.
Though
they’ve
made
big
strides
in
the
workplace,
women
still
shoulder
most
of
the
childcare
and
home
responsibilities.
Even
for
women
in
high-pressure
jobs,
the
imbalance
is
stark:
according
to
the 2023
ABA
study,
65%
of
mothers
vs.
only
7%
of
fathers
arranged
for
childcare.
“If
you
understand
women
entering
the
labor
force
as
a
gender
revolution
that
came
in
and
changed
our
attitudes
about
women’s
role
in
society,
then
of
course,
men’s
role
would
change,
too,”
Low told The
Guardian.
However,
“there
was
no
force
acting
on
men
requiring
them
to
do
something
different.”
In
other
words,
while
women
have
contorted
themselves
over
the
decades
to
adapt
to
the
male
workplace
while
running
the
home,
men
have
had
lives
more
or
less
the
same
as
their
grandfathers.
Are
our
daughters
feminists?
And
though
this
generation
of
young
women
were
told
by
their
mothers
that
it’s
vital
to
be
independent
(I
always
preach
to
my
daughters,
keep
working
and
depend
on
no
man),
that
message
might
not
be
resonating.
As
Low
puts
the
takeaway:
“Your
moms
are
really
stressed
out.
Wouldn’t
it
be
nice
to
not
be
so
stressed
out?”
Is
that
why
the
tradwife
thing
seems
to
be
gaining
traction?
Because
it’s
easier,
less
fraught,
and
more
fun?
After
all
the
hard
work
we’ve
done
to
pave
the
way
for
our
daughters
–
storming
the
doors
of
male
educational
institutions
and
bro-dominated
professions
–
they
just
want
to
be
June
Cleaver
living
the
suburban
dream?
Where
did
we
go
wrong?
But
perhaps
we’re
overreacting.
For
one
thing,
women’s
progress
hasn’t
been
linear.
Women’s
participation
in
the
workforce
jumped
dramatically
from
the
1960s
to
the
1980s,
peaking
at
60%
in
1999.
But
in
this
century,
it
hit
a
low
in
2015
of
56.7%,
before
reaching
a
post-covid
high
of
57.7%.
Maybe
women
will
return.
The
Economist
offers
some
comfort,
floating
the
theory
that
this
most
recent
dip
is
temporary.
“The
fall
seems
to
reflect
a
rise
in
the
number
of
young
mothers,”
says
the
UK
publication.
With
a
surge
of
pandemic-delayed
weddings
in
2022,
the
resulting
baby
boom
may
simply
mean
many
new
moms
are
taking
time
off.
“In
some
senses,
this
is
good
news:
many
will
return
to
work
after
maternity
leave,”
it
says
cheerfully.
But
will
they,
now
that
we
live
in
a
return-to-the-office
and
tradwife
era?
Hersch
isn’t
convinced
by
the
tradwife
hype
but
is
wary
about
what
comes
next.
“I
think
they
will
come
back,”
Hersch
says
about
the
most
recent
crop
of
women
who’ve
dropped
out.
“But
returning
to
the
labor
force
years
later
is
a
different
experience.
What
we
see
in
European
countries
that
have
long
parental
leaves
is
that
it
doesn’t
help
women’s
careers.
The
hiatus
will
help
get
them
back
to
work
but
it
won’t
help
with
their
earnings.”
Liebenberg
makes
a
similar
point
about
women
who
leave
Biglaw.
“Women
will
continue
to
be
underrepresented
in
equity
partner
ranks
and
positions
of
leadership,”
she
says.
“We
have
seen
this
movie
before,
and
it
is
distressing.”
We’ve
seen
this
movie
like
a
thousand
times.
Because
it
seems
no
matter
how
many
women
fill
the
ranks
of
higher
education
and
the
professions,
we
are
always
playing
catch
up.
But
I
hate
to
leave
on
such
a
dour
note.
So
here’s
my
remix:
Swift
will
get
her
driveway
and
her
hoop
—
and
still
rule
her
billion-dollar
empire.
At
least
in
Taylor’s
version,
everything
works
out
just
fine.
Subscribe
to
read
more
at
The
Ex-Careerist….
Vivia
Chen writes “The
Ex-Careerist” column
on
Substack
where
she
unleashes
her
unvarnished
views
about
the
intersection
of
work,
life,
and
politics.
A
former
lawyer,
she
was
an
opinion
columnist
at
Bloomberg
Law
and
The
American
Lawyer.
Subscribe
to
her
Substack
by
clicking
here:
