Episode 14: When it's too hard to leave

March 18, 2013

Everyone loves Etsy, right? If you live or work in creative circles, you are at the very least aware of this popular online marketplace for hand-made stuff. Danielle Maveal (left) felt really lucky to work there, relishing her role as liaison between Etsy and its many sellers. But eventually she was itching to move on. Except she couldn't bring herself to leave. She's far from the only woman who has wrestled with this. Tune in to hear more about why women stay in jobs longer than men.

And in part two of the show we meet Whitney Johnson, former Wall Street analyst, investment firm founder and current dream-wrangler. We talk about some of the research in her book, Dare, Dream, Do, and how she made the transition from music major to secretary to equity analyst. 16 minutes.

Show notes: Terri Boyer is executive director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. During the interview we began discussing this study from Pew Social Trends. The study found that young women in the US are now likelier than young men to put a high priority on having a career that earns them good money. Terri was arguing that these findings suggest that women may soon lose the tendency to stick in jobs longer than men for all the reasons we discuss during the episode. I'm a bit skeptical, though. I think it's easy to reply to a survey stating your intentions or wishes, harder to actually carry out those intentions. We know women are prey to strong social and cultural influences, from expectations about how they should behave to norms around who does the housework. We need to change more than our intentions to earn good money before we'll be switching jobs as often as men do, and upping our salaries in the process.