I captured the following statistics from a recent Real Simple article currently on news stands. Surely, we know that women don’t all work 9-5 jobs, but I found the following numbers pretty interesting:
- 15% of women work at home
- 32% of women work part time.
- 28% of women age 25 – 64 stay home.
- 46% of organizations allow for job-sharing.
- 91% of women believe they can be flexible with work schedules.
- 15% of women think taking advantage of flexibility will hurt their careers.
- 8%: the average loss of earning power after a woman’s hiatus from work.
- 37%: the average loss of earning power after a 3+ year hiatus from work.
- 33.5%: the percentage of women returning to the work force within 5 years of their first child in the 1960’s.
- 78.6%: the percentage of women returning to the work force within 5 years of their first child in the 1990’s.
I was surprised by the loss of earning power after a 3 year hiatus from work. On average, you assume a 3-5% raise each year. So I would’ve assumed a figure closer to a 15% loss, I was quite surprised by a 37% loss.