Weakonomi¢s » jobs

Pro Bono Before Going Pro

The Weakonomist — Tue, 22 May 2012 15:20:10 +0000

The state of New York is about to start requiring any attorney put in 50 hours of pro bono work before being admitted to the bar. Many in the state are cheering this new rule thinking it will help many of the underprivileged have access to legal expertise. The hope is that young attorneys will at least be humbled by the experience, and at best make pro bono work a part of the rest of their career.

Yeah, that’s just who I want helping me out with my legal problems. A guy who technically isn’t even a lawyer yet and has absolutely no experience. Experts believe there has been a huge disconnect between the learnings in the classroom and what goes on after passing the bar.

Isn’t that what an internship is for? Is the legal profession the only one that doesn’t build internships into their graduation requirements? Both the Sheconomist and myself were saved from careers we would have hated thanks to internships. I personally learned a lot and it was still helpful in my eventual field so the benefits of internships are huge. Have law schools not figured this out yet? I find that truly hard to believe.

New York could really do something better than requiring 50 hours from someone that is not technically a lawyer. How about requiring 50 in their first year, but after they pass the bar? If you really want to ingrain the idea of helping others, require hours every year for the first five years.

But really, does the state actually think that forced labor before taking the bar is the best way to go? Will that make more lawyers want to volunteer time later in their careers? Unlikely. How about instead of forced servitude offering a trade of services? Wave the application or exam fee for anyone that puts in 50 hours of pro bono. It’s hardly worth their time mathematically but a well designed program would make the pro bono work also beneficial to a young attorney’s career.

Lawyers are already having a tough enough time finding work because there just aren’t enough jobs out there. A hungry law school grad might take advantage of the program to get a free shot at being accepted to the NY state bar.

One has to admire the state for trying something new that furthers education and helps the underprivileged get access to some level of legal expertise. But this might be the worst way they could have actually done it.

Read: New York State’s Pro Bono Requirement a Step In the Right Direction

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Why Some People Don’t Respect Stay-At-Home Moms/Dads

The Weakonomist — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:21:52 +0000

Have stay at home parents really never worked a day in their lives? Is it fair to say they’ve never worked a real job? This is not a new conversation topic at all. In fact, as long as women have left the home to go punch in the aisle has been divided about the role of a stay-at-home parent. With the wife of a presidential candidate being a stay-at-home mom herself the conversation once again comes to the top of mind. Many people don’t think being a stay-at-home parent is a job. This author takes no sides in this argument, but he can present why some people don’t respect the role in the household. It is a shame that fewer cannot come forward and share their views, but it’s almost now considered disrespectful to even say such things.

Let’s be a little more open-minded and at least hear them out.

1) It is not a job: It might be hard work, but raising children is not and never will be a job. It’s a duty, but not a career.

No boss – Most stay-at-home parents don’t have to report to anyone. The other spouse can’t even tell them what to do. Parents use their best judgment and if they screw up there’s no one calling them into their office to say how disappointed they are in them.
No performance review – Every 6 months no one is telling you how good or bad you’re doing. There’s no external pressure on the parent to succeed.
No firing – If you do a bad job, the parent is not going to get fired. In fact, it’s quite difficult to tell if a parent is doing a bad job.
Flexibility – Parents might not think they have flexibility, but they do. Ultimately, it is the parent that decides what they and the child will do that day. They could go to the museum and then hit up Starbucks (for a latte with a friend and organic milk) and be home in time for Ellen. It’s not always so pleasant, but the parent is in charge. If you stamp car doors out of aluminum all day you have 20 minutes of breaks and 30-60 minutes for lunch. Beyond that, you’re standing in one place and stamping doors.

2) After age 5 they’re someone else’s problem for much of the day: Once kids reach the age of schooling, they become the problem of the system for much of the day. Sure a stay-at-home parent has to get them up and get them to school, and they even make sure homework gets done and get them to soccer practice. But those in between hours once again provide for flexibility and choice. Chores have to be done but the parent still had choice and time.
3) It’s an 18 year career: If this were a job, it ends after 18 years. More kids add more time but only a Dugger doesn’t get early retirement with parenting.
4) Their moms worked: Many people today grew up in two-income households and therefore assume that since they turned out okay that stay-at-homes just had it good.

Much of the argument comes over an imaginary line drawn in the sand about whether or not a full time parent is a job. In many measurements of such a thing, parenting is not a job. It is many things and in many ways harder than a job, but that doesn’t make it a job. This is a search for equality on some common ground, which is a waste. But simply because a full time parent isn’t a job, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be respected the more than workers. Here’s why:

Economic reliance: The choice to be a stay-at-home parent shows a trust in a spouse that isn’t as common as it once was. Most marriages are stable, but should a divorce occur things can get very difficult for a parent that hasn’t worked in a decade or more. This is a risk in the 21st century and shows a willingness to self-sacrifice.
Can’t quit: You can quit jobs, but can’t quite parenting. And if one parent finds themselves not working, they immediately become the full time parent. You can’t change kids just because they suck either.
They do things for your kids: While you’re out having a “business meeting” at Starbucks yourself, some mom is on the field trip with your kid to the museum. They’re also going to take your kid to soccer practice after school and only at this weekend’s game where you think you’re an awesome parent for showing up will that parent fill you in on the stuff you missed this week.
24/7: Many workers can put an end to their day at 5:00 and come home. If they come home to a stay-at-home parent there’s likely very little they must do. They can play with the kids and connect with them. But there’s less pressure on the working parent to make dinner or run the house. They are a participant in the household instead of manager. The full time parent still has stuff to do.

As I said before, parenting of any kind is not a job. It’s hard work. Harder than the work of many with jobs. But it’s not a job. This obsession over defining what full-time parenting is comes from our societal fixation on defining people based on the answer to the question “so what do you do?“. We’d view this entire situation differently if the question was “so what did you do today?“.

Being a working parent is like being a working student. You can do it, but you are going to miss out on some things. It may be the only way to do it for lots of people. But those that can focus on one thing at a time and choose to should be respected for it. And before we rush to judgment we should ask if we’re really having the right conversation.

Image: Ed Yourdon

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There Are Only Six Kinds Of Employees

The Weakonomist — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:32:35 +0000

Organizations are constantly categorizing and ranking employees. They have surveys, reviews, interviews, and studies to try and understand their people. A better understanding of the people that work at your company can lead to a more well run company that has happier employees and makes everyone better off. Companies often go too far trying to categorize their people. There are really only six kinds of employees. See below which one you are:

The Natural: The cream of the crop. They are really good and can be put anywhere in an organization. But overconfidence can lead to lack of attention to detail. Worse, they are more likely to not stay on top of their game like a hard worker. They expect their talent to do the work and may not value experience as much.

The Glue: Glues are very important to organizations. They are underpaid experts. They become so good at their jobs they can’t get promoted because no one can do it better. This helps with job security but can also backfire. They won’t get promoted and are too scared to move to another company because they’d have to learn a new system they aren’t the masters of. Glues can lead teams, but not businesses.

The Colonel: Everyone needs a leader, and colonels thrust themselves into those roles. They often spend much of their days making decisions and are looked to for their ability to make tough calls and execute. But exercise caution. They can lose sight on the future because they’re always in emergency mode and can’t think beyond the current battle. If they don’t trust you expect to be micromanaged.

The Sire: For those that don’t know, sires are male dogs that are usually ~~bread~~ bred. Sires are certainly capable of following instruction and can manage many tasks with minimal supervision. They have a natural sense to lead but will walk a pack in front of traffic if no one is watching. They don’t take risks, but can lack intelligence which leads to mistakes. They aren’t likely to work well in groups, especially among other Sires. The worst thing is their tendency to leave their mark on everyone’s work without improving it; sometimes leaving it to ~~wreak~~ reek of piss.

The Sandman: These people can’t focus on the task at hand. They are always looking towards the next job. Always thinking about what else they could be doing. Menial tasks seem like a waste of time. When you put them in the right role they thrive, especially under pressure to meet a deadline. They’ll work odd hours to either get the job done, or leave the impression they are working hard. They have dream jobs but aren’t likely to have the ambition to pursue them. Push them hard though and they’ll be top performers.

The Punch Card: They’re only here to get the jobs done. They have no ambition with the company. Expect them to be low to middle performers. The few above average performers can climb up to respectable levels in an organization. But they are never going to give you more than needed to get just above average. This is likely because they have better things to do. Maybe he’s a single dad of triplets, or coaches little league, or has a side business. Or he might not care about they job. They are competent, but don’t expect them to do more than what’s in the job description.

We are all one of these employees at any given time. Perhaps one day you’re a Punch Card and the next a Sire. The key is understanding what type of employee you are so you don’t fall into the traps that make them a bad employee.

Trying to categorize yourself and don’t see a fit? That’s because I made all this up. Posts like this are stupid. Don’t read them. Including mine. Okay, maybe just mine.

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3 Things You Didn’t Know About Employment

The Weakonomist — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:31:17 +0000

The employment report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) each month is one of the most highly anticipated economic indicators. In it we get the headline stealing unemployment rate but dozens of more useful statistics come out of it as well. Most people understand the basics of the unemployment rate and even the number of jobs added in each month, but there’s a lot about these reports that people don’t know. Let’s look at some.

Revisions: When the report first comes out it’s considered an initial estimate. It’s really just a best guess by the BLS based on the results of surveys they conduct each month. The results are not fully compiled by the time the report comes out so what is available runs through a model and spits out a number. It’s a statistically valid number, but it can change. It usually does too, but only if the revised number is significant does it ever creep into the news cycle. The good news is that lately the revisions have been positive. So in the first estimate maybe the economy added 200k jobs, but in a revision it might be 225k jobs. That’s 25,000 more jobs than previously thought! The revisions give a much more accurate view of what is going on in the economy, but they rarely make headlines.

Employment across the pond: While the employment situation in the US has been anemically improving, in other parts of the world it’s getting worse. Take a look at the chart below.

As you can see when the recession hit things went bad for the US pretty quickly. The UK fared slightly better but had a higher rate leading up to the recession. As the US employment situation has steadily improved since then, it’s gotten worse in the UK. What’s going on? The two countries have different economies. The UK is more reliant on its European neighbors. They also enacted spending cuts that the US has not had the political will to pass. This has led to stagnation in the country and an increasing level of unemployment. It remains to be seen if the rate will level off soon. But just because developed countries are all intertwined, doesn’t mean our economies move in the same direction.

Natural unemployment: Did you know that it’s impossible to have a 0% unemployment rate? There is a natural level of unemployment which accounts for movement in the economy. People quit jobs, get fired, enter the workforce for the first time, etc. In the US that natural level is around 4-5%. But it is different in other countries. In Europe it can be much higher. This is in part to a wider safety net for the unemployed. Jobless benefits are more substantial and so workers have less incentive to get back into the labor force as quickly. In the US, shorter terms of benefits gets people back to work and less picky about their options. Labor laws in Europe also make it more of a pain for a company to hire a new employee so they want to be really sure they need the job before setting up interviews. This leads to a natural unemployment level that is higher than the US.

There’s a lot more to employment than the simple numbers of jobs added and whatever the unemployment rate is that month. Hopefully we’re all a little smarter, but don’t stop watching those headlines because it’s still one of the best indicators for the economy we’ve got.

This post was brought to you by Gumtree.com, the largest online provider of local classifieds in the United Kingdom with pages dedicated to 60 cities across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

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Employers Can’t Find Good Workers

The Weakonomist — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:57:34 +0000

CNN Money profiled five business owners that employ less than 100 employees at their companies. They all are struggling to find good workers in this economy.

This is counter-intuitive to what we’ve been told about the economy. We should be seeing record numbers of people applying for jobs and companies should have their pick of the lot right?

Not quite, in an efficient labor market these companies would not have any issue finding the workers they need. But there are a number of assumptions one has to make in order for an efficient labor market to exist, and those may not apply here. Let’s look at two:

First, efficient labor markets assume that quality workers can readily relocate to take a new position. This is not always the case. With so many homeowners underwater it’s only gotten worse. Two of the five companies profiled are located in NYC and so this is less likely to apply to them. To a lesser extent, another is in Miami. The last two are located in towns you haven’t heard of in states that unfortunately most Americans probably couldn’t find on a map. Everyone is reliant on the available population and if that population isn’t top notch, finding great talent can be difficult.

Second, many companies suck, especially at hiring. I know nothing about these companies but many companies simply aren’t very good. They aren’t profitable, manager/owners are tyrants, and they really suck at finding talent. Just because a company makes $7 million a year doesn’t make it a great company.

Finding good talent is an art. And some people aren’t artists. Many small businesses get anchored to a cost for the employee and not the value the employee can provide. So they advertise jobs that should pay $50k and only offer $30k. When this happens you end up $30k talent or less. There are some very simple steps any small business can make to find good talent that won’t waste their money.

Referrals: Have your employees recommend people. Most humans aren’t going to recommend a joke because their reputation depends on that person’s success.
Headhunters: Outsource the search for work. Again, the headhunter will only send you good talent because they want you coming back to them in the future.

Most of the companies in the CNN Money article talk about paying their employees a certain wage and that wage not being enough to attract talent that would rather collect unemployment. It’s easy to blame the government but that won’t solve your problems. A business owner sees the problem this way: If I can hire this person at $40k I know it will increase my business. But I can’t afford to pay them $40k so I’ll post the job at $30k and hope for the best. And the people who make $30k might rather collect unemployment. You get what you pay for.

Well, Weakonomics has two job openings. I want someone to run sales and get me new advertisers and an editor so I can have a sounding board and someone to catch I grammerz &nd splelings. But I can only pay the ad person $5 per ad and the editor $1 per post. What kind of talent am I going to get at that price? If I can’t find people at that price THEN MY BUSINESS ISN’T GOOD. While I’ve got ideas for things I’d like to do with Weakonomics, I don’t have enough time to do it myself and can’t given anyone enough incentive to do a good job for me. So then my business won’t grow.

This is a reality many business owners refuse to acknowledge. If you can’t afford to pay people enough to do the job right then business isn’t as good as you’ve convinced yourself it is.

Government rules and location play a part in a business struggling to find good employees. But if you’ve got it so bad that you feel compelled to tell the world about it; then that speaks more to your inability conduct the fundamental elements of running a business than some weird labor market anomaly.

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A Banker, Executive, & Attorney Walk into a Bar…

The Weakonomist — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:15:04 +0000

The financial crisis left a sour taste in our mouths for bankers. The term “banksters” became popular again. Executives got a bad reputation again thanks to bailouts, bonuses, and boneheadedness. The public is even coming around to the idea that politicians played a part in causing the crisis, but of course we already hated them. Before the financial crisis though, who did everyone hate?

I’ll give you a hint:

Q. What’s the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead lawyer in the road?
A. There are skid marks in front of the dog.
A client who felt his legal bill was too high asked his lawyer to itemize costs. The statement included this item:
“Was walking down the street and saw you on the other side. Walked to the corner to cross at the light, crossed the street and walked quickly to catch up with you. Got close and saw it wasn’t you. — $50.00.”
Q. What do you have when a lawyer is buried up to his neck in sand?
A. Not enough sand.
Q. What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vulture?
A. Lawyers accumulate frequent flyer points.

Those times are gone though. Lawyers are looked upon more favorably, at least in comparison to banksters. But wait, there are all kinds of lawyers out there. And the financial industry employs some of them. Did they play a role in the crisis? I’m glad you asked.

Attorneys in the financial industry take on all kinds of roles, but one of the more important ones is in deal making. If one company wants to buy another company, they hire bankers to broker the transaction. But they also hire lawyers to handle all the legal work going into the buyout.

Notable financial writer Andrew Ross Sorkin summed it up perfectly:
“Chief executives and bankers may make easy punching bags these days, but for every bad decision they make, there is often a lawyer who approves it — and most likely charges over $1,000 an hour for that brilliant advice.”

Corporate attorneys are no more darlings than any other player in banking. In the deal making world almost everyone has a vested interest in making sure the deal gets done. The bankers usually charge a fee that’s a percentage of the transaction. The sellers want to cash out. The buyers want their business. And the lawyers want to charge a bunch of fees to handle the paperwork.

But all sorts of conflicts of interest can arise that could screw one party or another. The legal team should play a role in identifying those interests. According to Sorkin’s article (linked below), they aren’t.

But maybe that doesn’t mean lawyers aren’t hated. The general public likely considers them a “banker”. “Banker” being a generic term in this sense. But I doubt lawyers are noticing. And no one is occupying Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz to remind them either. No one has heard of any of these firms, and likely never will.

The new financial regulation might have some new rules for attorneys in this business. But even if there is no one is talking about their role in the crisis. Maybe they will now.

Read: Conflicted, and Often Getting a Pass via @EveryayFinance

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Stuff Priced In Gold: Fun But Pointless

The Weakonomist — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:43:54 +0000

Since the government started printing money like Bounty does paper towels this country has had a renewed obsession with gold. I’ve tried to tackle the subject many times before but so far the price of gold just continues to find new highs. Proponents of gold have many arguments in support of their precious metal, and detractors have theirs as well. That is not the point of this post.

But one such argument for gold is its relative price stability when converted into other goods. For example, the cost of tuition at Yale has most certainly gone up since 1900. That is, in dollars. But in grams of gold the cost has been flat all this time. Coffee has gotten cheaper in the last few decades and so has gas. Fun charts pop up regularly that show various products priced in gold, but they always exclude or play down one thing: wages priced in gold. Wages priced in gold have gone down. In other words while the cost of tuition at Yale in gold is the same today, you would get paid less gold for an hour of work.

In 1970, an hour of work yielded you 3 grams of gold. Today, it would give you less than half. So sorry, tuition at Yale is still more expensive today, no matter how you price it.

The only way to really price something is to take all the money out of it. How much does an hour of work get you in various things? I don’t have the time to price labor into Yale tuition, but I did put together a few charts*:

The chart above shows how much of the S&P 500 index you could buy with an hour of work. As the value of the index increases, your work buys less and less of it. Or, if the value of your labor decreases, you can’t afford as much index.

Above now you’ll see how much house an hour of work gets you. Thanks to the popped housing bubble an hour of work buys a lot more house than it used to.

This chart is showing how much healthcare an hour of work gets you. We probably don’t need to say much more.

Finally, this last chart above probably provides the best view of something priced in wages. In the late 1990s an hour of work would buy you a full tank of gas in a small car. Today, an hour of work only buys about 6 gallons of gas.

I would argue that these charts are much more relevant. The only way the priced in gold chart work is if you owned the gold back then, implying you had money “back in the day”. Most people didn’t, but they had a strong back and a sharp mind. That’s why priced in labor is the only thing that matters.

*Note: the first three charts are priced against an index. Those are not percentages.

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Oops, We Accidently Created 500k Jobs

The Weakonomist — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:41:40 +0000

Steve Jobs was never much interest in making money through software. Apple was always a hardware business and one of the few in their industry able to build a decent margin into the business.

You may not remember, but when the first iPhone came out there was no app store. The original vision was for companies to make mobile versions of their websites and products and you would launch them in the phone’s browser.

But fans wanted to access the hardware and install software on the phone, so Apple made it happen and took a cut. No one, not even Apple, realized that an entire new world would emerge with apps.

Apple didn’t invent the app, but they didn’t invent the MP3 player, touchscreen, or tablet either. Since Apple’s app store came online every smartphone and tablet operating system has embraced the model. Desktop operating systems and even online platforms like Facebook now have apps too. And they’ve made a lot of people rich.

Another thing they’ve done is create jobs, lots of them. Since the financial crisis thousands of developers have flocked to a new industry created around the building of apps. Everything from Farmville, to weather, to turn-by-turn GPS, and to taking photos has turned into an app. There are even apps of apps, meta-apps if you will. The the Facebook app on the iPhone one can launch the Scrabble app and play the same Scrabble match you were playing in the Scrabble app within Facebook through a browser. It’s almost impossible to follow.

A new report says the “App Economy” has created 500,000 jobs and last year raked in $20 billion in revenue. A very impressive number that’s likely kept a lot of IT workers out of the unemployment line. It’s an industry that doesn’t get any attention in Washington, and no tax policy or stimulus was going to help it or get in its way. This economy grew out of innovation.

It’s a perfect example of supply and demand. But it can’t be replicated in other parts of the economy. New industries pop up all the time and they’re very difficult to predict. Everyone knew that someday the future would be in mobile devices, but not many were focused on the software operating those devices. The only thing the US can do is continue to encourage innovation and no neither the right nor left really even understands what that means.

Whether that 500k jobs number is accurate or not is almost irrelevant. Apps have helped make a few billionaires, a lot of millionaires, and created tons of jobs and new companies in the last few years. That’s pretty impressive considering the late Steve Jobs was opposed to apps at first.

Via Mike Mandel via Alphaville

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Mitt Romney: The Job Creator

The Weakonomist — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:02:58 +0000

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a second and acknowledge that for all intents and purposes, Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee. As a passive observer of campaigns so far, he seems to spend more time attacking Obama than defending himself against his GOP rivals. But that hasn’t stopped them from continuing to attack him.

Unfortunately for folks like Newt Gingrich, Mitt doesn’t have many real legitimate points at which he can be attacked. Much of the focus has been on his past at Bain Capital. By now we should all be familiar with the story. He ran a company called Bain Capital that bought other companies and then later sold them for (hopefully) a huge profit. Mitt made hundreds of millions running Bain and continues to collect income from it even today. What actually happened to the companies Bain bought under Mitt’s leadership is a point of contention between Romney and his rivals.

The media have not been helping the matter as it’s pretty clear they don’t understand how all this works. Here’s what people like Newt or Perry would say: Mitt raided down-home good American companies, laid off down-home good American people, sent jobs overseas, and then sold the companies for a huge profit. He got rich at the expense of others (Not to digress but it’s freaking hilarious that Republicans are bashing Romney for being a better capitalist than they are).

So the story goes. Romney would tell it differently, his claim is that he created 100k jobs. It’s an impossible number to verify, but it really doesn’t matter. I actually don’t care at all if he created jobs or removed them, because whatever number you come up with can be contested. What matters is the bad rep private equity has been getting.

Here’s the thing about what Romney and Bain Capital did. They came in and bought companies no one else really wanted. Companies owned by people who didn’t want to own them anymore or perhaps didn’t even have the money to stay up and running. Bain bought Domino’s when the founder wanted to retire. He wasn’t forced to sell to them, he chose to.

Bain Capital got into this business because the Bain consulting company had been very successful at consulting. They thought, “if we’re so good at helping other companies fix problems, why don’t we just buy some companies and fix them ourselves?” That’s what Mitt did. Yes he likely was responsible for a number of layoffs he did what every other executive does. They run the company the way they best see fit. Sometimes layoffs are necessary for survival. And if 500 jobs need to be outsourced or eliminated so that 7000 can survive, so be it.

The key here is that Romney wasn’t a job creator, he was perhaps a job preserver. He helped keep companies moving. If someone wanted to sell their company he bought it. He would do what he thought was best to improve it, just as any owner would. In some cases he, along with Bain, saved companies and jobs. In others, they eliminated jobs.

That is the world of private equity. I no more endorse Mitt than any other candidate, but it’s a flat out joke for Romney to be attacked for his past, especially by Republicans. He’s a capitalist through and through. And if you own mutual funds of any kind it is very likely you own companies that do the same thing. You likely own companies that employ thousands of people that wouldn’t exist without Bain too.

Romney enriched himself by making smart investments and employing his knowledge to run companies. Jobs are a byproduct of business, and they come and go like tides. They are never the point, in any way.

Read more: Private Equity, Venture Capital, and the difference.

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This Is What Women Burned Bras For

The Weakonomist — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:55:30 +0000

Less than 100 years ago, an American woman might not have had the right to vote depending on where she lived. Various states had granted some rights but it wasn’t consistent by a long shot. The 19th Amendment fixed that, but the right to vote was really just one milestone towards equality. The journey continued, and bras burned.

It’s pretty clear that women today have achieved equality. They have the same opportunities as men and were very close to getting their first president a few years ago (I’m sure it’s coming soon ladies). They can make as much money as men (despite one of my favorite shows joking that the proper way to treat a lady is to pay her 74% of what men make). Women do still make less than men, but this is partially due to women working in lower income jobs and more often than not, sacrificing career for family.

Women do have the same opportunities as men today though. They’re leading Fortune 500 companies, ruling nations, and wearing pants. But equality wasn’t really what women were fighting for. No, they wanted something better. And with our 21st century society and a little help from the Great Recession they finally got what they wanted:

Stay-at-home dads

That’s right. Women have accelerated a trend of becoming the primary breadwinners. The recession laid off 3 times as many men than women. Women now make up 23% of all wives and in women under 30 are out-earning men in most of the major cities. This is the real victory. It’s not enough to have the right to vote, or for the laws to state you can’t discriminate. Having the men stay at home with their children represents two victories that were earned.

The first one is that women are getting to the tops of organizations. They are leading teams and getting into positions that can only be earned by merit and performance. They are making more than men and it’s because of hard work; equal rights laws have nothing to do with it. As I said before, it’s not enough to have laws say you are equal. The only way to truly be equal is to show that at least sometimes you’re better.

The second victory is over the spouse. Not only are women earning more and some instances, they’re convincing a growing number of men to stay home and raise the children. That’s a massive cultural shift that’s barely a generation old, if that. Of course many men these days are fine with this, but that still represents a win for women.

This is a progression we all expected in due time. That time has now come. The numbers still show men being most of the breadwinners, but the number is slowly changing. Due to gender differences I can’t expect women to become the dominate earner of most households in my lifetime. But the victory has already occurred. Women truly do have the option to do what they want, and it’s in their control.

Read: Behind Every Great Woman (BusinessWeek)

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