The Cost of a Career Break

 https://smartasset.com/career/the-cost-of-a-career-break#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Center%20for,average%20woman's%20total%20lifetime%20earnings.

According to the Center for American Progress, the average American woman who takes a five-year career break to care for a child at age 26 will lose $476,000. That sum covers not just lost income but lost retirement savings and benefits, too. And it works out to 19% of the average woman’s total lifetime earnings.

More on Gender Pay Inequity and Loss of Income for Staying At Home

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/business/gender-wage-gap-widens-43-percent-age-45-ncna772411
But the pay gap also widens when men and women switch jobs: Men get a bigger pay bump when they join a new company, and are somewhat more likely to make the move. Even though women changed jobs almost as frequently as men, the pay bump was especially small for women who were married.
...
Goldin says that the difference for college-educated workers in large part comes down to women choosing flexibility over higher pay, something she calls “choice under constraint.” These women might want to stay in their job but not come in Friday mornings, for example, but because that is not an option for them, they’ll take a lower paying job with more flexibility.

http://www.workingmother.com/this-calculator-tells-you-exactly-how-much-money-you-lose-when-you-stay-home-with-your-kids?src=soc&dom=fb

A 26-year-old woman earning $100,000 stands to lose more than a million over her lifetime if she stays home for five years.
In addition to the wages moms and dads lose when they’re not working, they also lose the chance to receive raises and to sock away retirement savings. And because the effects are cumulative, they add up over time to a whole lot of money.

Companies with Women on Boards Outperform Others

http://www.catalyst.org/media/companies-more-women-board-directors-experience-higher-financial-performance-according-latest
Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women board directors attained significantly higher financial performance, on average, than those with the lowest representation of women board directors, according to Catalyst’s most recent report, The Bottom Line: Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on Boards. In addition, the report points out, on average, notably stronger-than-average performance at companies with three or more women board directors.


https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-03/women-don-t-get-to-run-top-board-committees

Catalyst, an advocacy group, has produced several studies showing thatFortune 500 corporations with high percentages of female board members outperform those with low percentages. Global surveys by Credit Suisse and index provider MSCI found similar evidence that companies with women on their boards did better than those without -- and MSCI also found that "companies lacking board diversity tend to suffer more governance-related controversies than average."

Women at Work doesn't have to be "Versus" Mothers at Home

Need to flesh out this idea, but seems to me that just as a good leader would delegate much of the heavy lifting work while coaching a strong team to success of her vision / goals, mothers would benefit from delegating much of the "grunt work" with respect to raising children while still maintaining a strong family (team) unit.

I have an au pair who just sent me 4 pictures of my 5 year old son on his last day of preschool sitting with two teachers that he has had for 4 years.  He looks happy, they look happy, and I am so pleased that he has these three women (au pair, two great teachers) whom he has learned to trust, count on, learn from, and respect.  He still trusts, counts on, learns from, and respects me!  But I don't have to be the one doing every little thing.  There are things I'm willing to outsource, and things that I am not; it's not about being the one to do everything, it's about being there for a good portion of the time and doing the most important things.  If someone else helps get the clothes on and breakfast on the table, but I'm there for a long hug and kiss and some fun conversation in the morning, everyone is happier and things seem to run more smoothly.

Really need to flesh this one out, but wanted to get it out there before I lost it. :-)

Women into the C-Suite Means Keeping Them in the Talent Pipeline

Dean Sally Blount on supporting women through three “pivot points” in their careers.

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/getting-more-women-into-the-c-suite-means-keeping-them-in-the-talent-pipeline

Research on Flexible Schedules

https://www.bustle.com/p/this-website-highlighting-flexible-jobs-for-women-will-prevent-women-from-getting-edged-out-of-the-workplace-36940

ByLARA RUTHERFORD-MORRISON

Feb 9 2017

"Significant numbers of women leave the workforce when they have children. According to a 2016 study, 30 percent of women with BA’s stop working when they have kids, while 19 percent of women with master’s degrees and 26 percent of women without a BA leave the workforce. Research has shown that flexibility is key for a lot of female workers. A 2013 Pew Research Center poll, for example, found that 70 percent of working moms said that having a flexible work schedule is “extremely important” to them. Only 48 percent of working dads said the same."

same stats: 
http://mentalfloss.com/article/92051/inflexible-schedules-can-keep-women-working-job-site-aims-change

This site looks awesome! $48/year to join and look for flexible jobs
https://www.saywerk.com/

30% of talented women are dropping out of the workforce but 70% of that group say they would still be working if they had flexibility. Employees no longer work standard hours in a single space with one parent at home. Corporate policies need to be updated to reflect these modern realities. We cannot parent like we don’t have jobs and work like we don’t have children.

One more confidence article

Citing the 5 Levels of Leadership by Jim Collins:

https://open.buffer.com/confidence-humility/

Confidence Gap: Women and Men (references)

Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. Here's why, and what to do about it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-gap/359815/

You’ve probably heard the following statistic: Men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them.  The finding comes from a Hewlett Packard internal report, and has been quoted in Lean In, The Confidence Code and dozens of articles. 

https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified


For women, not wanting to face failure was a big reason they didn’t apply. Almost one in four surveyed said their top reason for not going after the job was: “I didn’t think they would hire me since I didn’t meet the qualifications and I didn’t want to put myself out there if I was likely to fail.” Only 13% of men said this.

The other big gender difference Mohr found: In a job hunt, women are more likely than men to play by the rules. While 15% of women said the main reason they didn’t apply was because “I was following the guidelines,” only 8% of men said so.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2014/09/11/are-women-too-timid-when-they-job-search/#35777cd52f83

More on Employee Engagement

http://www.gallup.com/topic/employee_engagement.aspx
Many articles here.

For example:

Engaged Employees Less Likely to Have Health Problems

http://www.gallup.com/poll/187865/engaged-employees-less-likely-health-problems.aspx?g_source=EMPLOYEE_ENGAGEMENT&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles

Female Bosses More Engaging than Male Counterparts

http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/183026/female-bosses-engaging-male-bosses.aspx
"Leaders should also know that female managers themselves tend to be more engaged than male managers."
"Employees who work for a female manager are six percentage points more engaged, on average, than those who work for a male manager -- 33% to 27%, respectively."

 

Great article in NYT about how children of working mothers have advantages later in life

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/upshot/mounting-evidence-of-some-advantages-for-children-of-working-mothers.html?abt=0002&abg=0

The two things that struck me: 1) Daughters of working mothers tend to become more educated, have more supervisory roles, and earn more money than daughters of non-working mothers.  2) Sons of working mothers spend more time on housework and homework than sons of non-working mothers.

Articles again - new moms working and paid time off for new dads

How companies are keeping new moms on the job: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=33785062&nid=

Paid time off for new dads: http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/03/14/392632777/new-dads-in-togo-are-guaranteed-something-that-u-s-dads-arent?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150314

Male Groups Advancing Women's Careers

http://www.wsj.com/articles/men-pitch-in-to-boost-women-at-work-1426029982?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_careerjournal 
"Catalyst, a nonprofit group that tracks and advocates women’s advancement"

Also: White Men As Full Diversity Partners

Forward Thinking Company - Babies at Work!

http://menloinnovations.com/blog/2010/09/babies-in-the-workplace/#comment-7235

This is great!

Difference between Male and Female Brains and Vodaphone's Maternity Leave policy (wish they had this when I was at Intel!)

How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having "Female Brains")

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/03/06/an-unusual-new-policy-for-working-mothers/

Women working in US reduced from 74% in 2000 to 69% in 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/upshot/us-employment-women-not-working.html?abt=0002&abg=0

Flex Jobs website

Would love to know anyone who has used this successfully:
http://www.flexjobs.com/About.aspx

Some new reading

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120939/maternity-leave-policies-america-hurt-working-moms

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/opinion/sunday/sheryl-sandberg-and-adam-grant-on-women-doing-office-housework.html?_r=0

Capital - Funding for Women-Owned-Businesses

http://women2.com/2013/12/04/funding-loans-target-women-owned-businesses/

Quick google search for "seed money for women based business" = this link.

A Few More Resources

Upward - Uniting Professional Women Accelerating Relationships & Development – a community of like-minded professional women.   Founding chapter in San Francisco, new chapters for 2015 starting in India, the UK, Austin, TX, and Portland, OR.

http://upwardwomen.org/

iRelaunch - iRelaunch is the leading and most comprehensive career reentry resource. A strong advocate for the unique value that returning professionals bring to the workforce, and for the employers that hire them, iRelaunch has connected with a national network of over 13,000 people through more than 185 return to work programs and presentations.  iRelaunch works with three major constituencies:  professionals who want to return to work after a career break, employers interested in this talent pool, and university alumni and professional associations looking to provide career reentry programming and resources for their members. 

http://www.irelaunch.com/